Aww…. 25 weeks! Hi, us! And bonus – hi, Lewis!

Baby

My mom felt the baby kick for the first time this week. It was right around this time in my last pregnancy that she felt Lewis, so we’re seeing a pattern there!

Baby is about 1.5 lbs – what a porker!

Mama (and a little bonus baby)

I get the longest update this week! Lucky me!

I experienced first 80 degree day during this pregnancy this week! I wrote about the energy the sunshine gave me, but I didn’t write about the physical unpleasantness. I felt dizzy, my arms and legs were heavy like when you’re drunk, I was short of breath, and my heart raced. While it was happening, I first thought, “is this what summer will be like?”

But then I realized that something might actually be wrong. It kept getting worse, and I was quite alarmed. So on Thursday afternoon, I called my doctor. The initial idea was that I was dehydrated – that the amount of water I drank had been working for the cool days we’d been having, but wasn’t even close for hot days. And not technically enough on any day, regardless of temperature. I needed to drink twice as much as I had been! Oops!

So I tried that, and it didn’t solve the problem. Although I’m sure it was good for me, so I’ve been keeping up on my hydration to the best of my ability. And peeing every 20 minutes as a result. Yipee. 

Like I said, hydrating didn’t work. So on Friday when I got hit with another round of dizziness, I called the doctor again and they wanted me to come in for an urgent appointment. I was freaked out and started crying, and Kyle rushed home from work to watch Lewis so I could go get checked out.

They took my vitals, drew blood, and analyzed my urine while I was there – all of that came back normal. Given that, the doctor suggests that the diagnosis is most likely that my uterus and the baby are compressing my inferior vena cava vein, which causes poor blood return to the heart and therefore could explain all the strange sensations I have been having, but she wants to put me on a heart rate monitor for a few days just to be 100% sure there isn’t something else.

If doc is correct, the compression of the vena cava vein is not a serious threat to my health or the baby, which is great news! It just causes some inconvenience (for example, I can’t drive when I’m feeling dizzy) and discomfort. The good thing is, it is not always acute, so I do not feel bad at all times. If I have an “episode”, so far I am able to wait it out. When I am better rested, the “episodes” are not as long, so the doctor told me to take it easy as much as I can.

I DID end up in labor and delivery For fetal monitoring after the advice nurse called to follow up on how I’m doing and got freaked out over some of my answers. But the monitoring showed that baby is “textbook perfect”, and we quickly got sent home.

So for now I am learning to work around the issue with my dizziness, and I am grateful that baby and I are safe. I’ll try to update about the heart monitor when I get it on Wednesday. Hopefully that will be the last hoop I have to jump through with all this craziness. Phew!

I have been tempted to make myself feel better by going to get my hair dyed. Just some highlights or something, to distract from my icky double chin that I’ve suddenly sprouted, and to lift my spirits. But alas! It is too expensive. Oh well. I will just try to soak up some sunshine to lift the spirits instead!

I did get my toes done over the weekend, since that’s a pregnancy expense Kyle and I have agreed to take on so he and I don’t have to figure out how to cut my toenails. I got sky blue polish in honor of the beautiful weather we’ve been having, and that has gone a long way towards making me feel more put together and good about myself.

My buddy Shalyce and I got together to make more freezer meals this weekend, too. We made 2 batches each of 3 different meals. My freezer is so full now that one of the bags decided to jump out before it was frozen… so now I’m down one bag of crockpot curry. But I’m still up 5 meals overall!

Lewis

Kiddo’s first week at the new daycare is done. I am feeling very, very positive about it. Lewis is excited to go, and asks about his friends and teachers by name, and talks about all the things he does while he is there. He is always very excited to tell me about what they did outside, especially.

At home, we have been working on rule following and listening to mommy and daddy the first time we tell him something. Because he is a little parrot, this has resulted in Lewis’ new favorite phrase being, “I said NO!” Pretty funny, because now everyone knows that this is what we say to him at home all the time – only slightly embarrassing!

The big boy bed still going better than we expected. He doesn’t get up in the morning and jiggle the doorknob anymore – he just chills in bed until we come in. On occasion, he will fall asleep on his own after several back-and-forth “GET IN YOUR BED” conversations, but we still don’t have a solid bedtime or naptime routine figured out. Sometimes he needs to be rocked and put in bed after falling asleep in our arms, sometimes we lay in bed with him, and sometimes he asks us to leave and he falls asleep on his own. We’ve even had one occasion where he asked Kyle to leave and then we found him sleeping on the floor when we went to tuck him in later. But he is sleeping through the night and loves his bed. So I don’t think we can really complain!

With eating it seems like we’re in a very normal toddler pattern now. There are still some drier spells, but overall the change is sticking and I’m optimistic we’re heading towards some good weight gain. My favorite thing is that Lewis is willing to try a bite of everything before deciding not to like it. My mom always made us try everything growing up – We didn’t have to like it, but we had to try it. Implementation of the same rule at our house is going very well! I think it is fair to let Lewis decide whether he likes something or not, since everyone has their own taste/texture preferences, but you can’t decide if you like something just by looking at it!

Overall, lots of ups this week even though it has been a little bit scary here and there too. We are feeling hopeful for an easier week to come.