Showing all posts in Pregnancy

January 15, 2021

Woke up at 4 am today and couldn’t fall back to sleep until 6 which was when I wanted to get up, but I got up at 7:30 instead, took a quick shower, got ready and then went to the clinic that I was at on Tuesday. I didn’t need an appointment for this test, I just walked in. 
Before this test you have to fast for 8 hours. I ate some oatmeal at 8pm and had a sip of water around 9 last night. You can also not leave the waiting room or eat or drink anything while you’re there. And if you were to vomit during your time there you have to reschedule your test. 

Directly when I came in, she took a blood test in my left arm. Then I was given the same drink as Tuesday but with 100 g sugar instead of 50g. Wow, that was sweet and I don’t usually even drink sodas cause I think that’s too sweet. Then I had to go sit in the waiting room. This lab area had a smaller waiting room away from the big one so I didn’t have to be near many people, the ones that came in only sat down for less than a minute each (and a lot of people didn’t want to sit down since I was there, I appreciated that). Like I mentioned in the last post, they have absolute no service here, so I came prepared with entertainment. For my first hour I read in a baby book. Baby started kicking almost directly after I sat down, must have been a sugar high. She/he kept kicking all over for like 40 minutes, so at least I felt like I had company while I waited
Time for blood draw number 2 in my right arm. Then back to waiting area. I read a little, edited a photo, watched the tv there (HGTV was on), tried to meditate and played some sudoku on my phone. One hour passed by somewhat quickly. I started to feel tired by now though.
Blood draw number 3 in my left arm again. The alcohol wipe and the second needle stick hurt a lot more than I expected (and I’m usually not at all sensitive to stuff like this). The waiting area again. I was now too tired to read so for my last hour I listened to a podcast that I had downloaded beforehand and sometimes picked up my phone to play my sudoku, but mostly I just closed my eyes, barely even listed to the podcast, I was sooo tired now.
At 11:30 I went in for my forth and last blood draw, now in my right arm again. And then done! Now I just hope the results will come back good.
I couldn’t message Jim until I was outside the building and even that barely worked haha. J and Thor came to pick me up around 11:50. 

I felt mostly fine during this test, just tired from not sleeping that much. A lot of women feel like crap during this, like my friend, she messaged me that during her test she felt so sick. But I didn’t feel hungry (cause I drank 100 g sugar that filled me up) and I’m so used to give a lot of blood (hello 18 months of tests for PMP) so this wasn’t that hard to deal with plus I came prepared with entertainments. However, 3 hours of wearing a face mask in a hot waiting room was a bit tough. My face got so warm from my own breath. I unzipped my sweater and tried to not think about how warm I was.
Directly when I came outside, I took my mask off and drank water. I brought both a bottle of water and a snack bar to have after. Didn’t eat the bar since we were going to order food when coming home. 

Baby started to roll around and kick like 5 minutes before each blood draw which was kinda weird but cute. It’s like the baby knew it was time get me ready to get up haha. 

Food arrived at 1 pm. After 17 hours (!!) of no food, I was happy to get delivery pizza and salad! 

January 13, 2021

I love these overalls! I have maternity ones that has just started to fit me

Yesterday I had a doctors appointment at a clinic I haven’t been to before. Normally I go to a place in New York but one of my obgyn’s started to work twice a week here in Stamford only a 5 minute drive from our home so I felt it was a good idea to check it out. Very big waiting area with spread out seats which was nice…as long as I was the only one there, but this large hospital facility was crawling (or rather wheelchair rolling) with really old people that I had to try to avoid on my way in and out.

Directly when I came in I peed in a cup like always and then I was given the drink for my glucose test. Normally you are given this in the previous appointment but my last one was a zoom call so I had to drink it when I got there and then after my meeting with the doctor I had to just sit there in the room for an hour and wait for the blood test. I had read before that this drink doesn’t taste very good but I thought it was fine. I got the orange flavor. It’s kinda weird to know that you are drinking 50 g sugar though. 

Bump measured ok and baby’s heartbeat was strong ♥

I’ve never had problems with my thyroid but lately I have had tightness in my throat and even lost my voice at times so I asked my doctor to check this yesterday. She felt my throat and neck and said I don’t need a blood test, so my guess is that it’s probably caused by the super dry air in our apartment.
Then I had a few questions of course like always. One thing I asked was if Jim will be allowed during the whole labor and she looked at me with a big question mark in her face. I guess she didn’t know that in Europe the partners are not allowed inside the hospital until the very last push, but apparently it’s different here thank goodness, he just can’t leave the private room once he’s in. And then I asked if I can film the birth and she said no. My hospital has strict rules, I’m not allowed to film ultrasounds either to show J when I come home which is sad. The no filming of the birth of my own child is a bummer, ever since I saw a birth video of someone I know when I was a teenager, I’ve been thinking that if I ever have a baby I want to film it cause that’s like the coolest thing ever. I’m quite sad about this but hospitals doesn’t want you to have evidence in case they screw up and we would sue them. 

I could luckily stay in the room during my one hour wait. This hospital has absolute no service, it even dies whenever we drive past this neighborhood haha. But in the room there was enough for me to at least be able to text to let J know when to come pick me up. 

I got my results this morning. I’m slightly anemic which is weird since my prenatal vitamin that I take every day has the daily amount of iron in it plus since I got pregnant I have been eating more animal products and such that has iron. But oh well, my doctor doesn’t want me to take any extra supplements so that’s good. 
And my glucose test was slightly too high so I have to go back in and do the 3 hour test to see if I have gestational diabetes. Many women end up with normal results and my level wasn’t too high so I’m not too worried about it, and if I do have it then I’m not too worried about that either, plenty of women get pregnancy diabetes and it usually disappears once you give birth. 
I had never heard of this test before, I don’t think they really do this test in Sweden. I asked my sister, who you know had a baby 12 months ago, awhile ago if that drink really tastes as bad as I had read and she had no idea what I was talking about. She has no idea if they even checked her glucose. I did a quick google search earlier and it doesn’t seem like this is a standard thing to check in Sweden, they only do this test on women who have other factors that indicates they might have diabetes. I appreciate all the tests though, I want my baby and myself to be ok.
I will try to go in on Monday morning next week. We’ll see what the results show, hopefully baby and I are ok. 

December 22, 2020

Yesterday I woke up, looked in the mirror and woah, did I swallow another baby in my sleep?! Bumpie looked somehow twice as big as the day before. And not just the belly, everything on my body seemed to have grown in double size overnight
I do love my growing body, but holy moly, can it slow down just a little bit, I’m still just in second trimester:) 

December 17, 2020

21 weeks today. The baby is 19 weeks old and we have 19 weeks (-ish) left to go for this pregnancy. My doctor told me yesterday that it will go very fast from now on. I feel like I have been pregnant for a year already but also like this journey just started haha. From week 5 and forward I was so bloated every day (just like the last pregnancy) and I looked like I was several months pregnant already then, so when the belly changed from a bloated one to a an actual pregnant one, it didn’t change in size hahah. It wasn’t until like two weeks ago that I started to actually see any difference since beginning of September. 

How do I feel now? Let me tell you, mood swings are on a high (poor husband). I also go from laughing to bawling within minutes. It is very strange (and this pandemic isn’t exactly helping emotions either). 
Do I have any cravings? I have had a massive sweet tooth (fruit, candy, cookies, you name it) since the start of this pregnancy, and if I could I would have pasta with every meal. Still not much for salty stuff, but spicy is nice, like the spicy peppers we get, yum. Of course I have to be careful with the sweet stuff and I try to eat healthy as much as I can. And I try to stay active. Not working out as much as I’d like to cause I come up with all these other things to do during the day and at night my body is too tired, but overall I still move around a lot which my body loves and it keeps my energy up during the day.
Bumpie is definitely growing fast now. I keep going up and down in weight though, but I don’t care so much about a pound here and there, as long as my body feels good and baby’s measures are ok then everything is fine.
Still congested but as long as the humidifier is on throughout the night it’s usually fine. My skin is really itchy and has been during the whole trimester. Coconut oil and this mama butter lotion I have is definitely helping, I apply at least twice a day especially on the belly, lower back and chest. I also drink tons of water every day which my skin seems to love.
Overall I feel great. Starting to get a little stressed about all the things that needs to be done before lilliput comes but mostly feel I calm and I still sometimes forget that I’m pregnant:)

December 16, 2020

This morning I logged into the patients app and waited for my zoom call with one of my obgyns. She was almost 30 min late for my appointment, but that’s ok. We talked about what they had found on the baby during the screening and once again I was told I shouldn’t worry, it will hopefully be fine by the end. I also mentioned that I absolutely do not want a c-section (everyone in the US seems to get one), so we talked about that. We talked about future visits and things in general. I feel pretty great so not much to discuss really. It was quite hard to hear everything she said cause the sound kept going in and out, but I read her lips enough to know the important things:)
After my appointment ended I called the clinic to schedule my next in-person visit in four weeks and then I called the hospital to re-schedule the ultrasound appointment I have to a week earlier. Part the reason is that last night we booked ourselves a babymoon a la pandemic version:) I have to quarantine for two weeks once I’m back before the following appointment (it’s required if you leave CT or NY states) so trip and appointments have to line up with that counted in. The trip will not be what I had imagined (but nothing with this pregnancy is thanks to covid) but I’m excited and it will be a relaxing time for us and Thor (cause J insisted that we’ll bring him) before baby comes

Baby kicked last night again btw. It’s very possible that I feel baby all the time but it’s usually so tiny that it could easily also just be muscle twitches, tummy gurgles or simply gas bubbles. But last night as I was falling asleep baby was very active. I didn’t know if J was asleep yet but I said out loud anyway “baby is kicking”. He turned around and I grabbed his hand to put it on the belly and almost immediately there was a big kick. I asked if he felt it and he said he did:) 

I have like two million things on my to-do list and even if I still have tons of energy these days I somehow seem to be very slow in actually getting it done haha. I get distracted and start doing something that isn’t a priority on the list. And I have started to wonder if I have the so called pregnancy brain at times cause I’ve noticed that sometimes when I’m in the middle of doing something, I suddenly don’t remember what I’m doing and I go on to do something else. Very strange haha. But oh well. I take every day as it comes. 

Today we are supposed to have a massive snowstorm. The mayor called last night (automatic phone message) and said it can be up to 6 inches of snow or as much as 12 inches (unclear what they think really haha). We’ll see. Supposed to start around 4pm today. 

Hope you’ll have an awesome day!