30 Weeks! Nine Weeks To Go!!!!!

And the countdown has begun!  I sit here and feel you kicking (sometimes pounding) in my stomach and I look at my belly and feel like you are so close to me yet so far away!  Like, you are literally RIGHT HERE (as I look at my belly shake from your twisting), so why can't you be RIGHT HERE (as I look at my empty arms)?  I know why....but still it is very surreal and frustrating all at the same time that you are RIGHT HERE and not RIGHT HERE yet!  Make sense?  Hope so!  I thought I would start this countdown to YOU off right with the NINE reasons I can't wait to have your RIGHT HERE (the "in my arms" one!).



9.  Baby smell - don't have to say more, do I?
8.  I want to see those fat rolls on your legs that I have heard so much about!
7.  I want to see your cute face and if you really have my nose and your Daddy's green eyes!
6.  I want your Sisters to hold you and and fall in love with you!
5.  I can't wait for that binding piece (YOU!) of our family to officially bind those last bits of us together!
4.  I want to dress you up in all the cute clothes we have for you!
3.  I want to see your Daddy hold you and be amazed by you!
2.  I want to somehow fall more in love with you with every gurgle and diaper change
1.  You already have such a special spot with us here that it just doesn't feel right without you anymore!

Okay, listing all of those out isn't good for your Mommy - thinking about all that stuff just makes it tougher not to have you here!  But, I'll wait...and be patient......=)

You are up to a lot in my belly lately.  I think this last week you have been the most active yet.  So active that I don't just feel you move anymore, I see it.  One day last week I was feeling you move and right as I looked down, my tummy was moving side to side, almost like you were playing the bongo drums on the inside of my belly - right, left, right, left, right, left - and my belly moved accordingly.  It was crazy!  When I am resting and on my laptop I usually have my shirt pulled up nowadays so my belly shows because you are banging around in there so much I don't want to miss any appearances through my belly!  I am wondering if I am eventually going to be one of those pregnant mamas that can make out body parts of their baby through their stomach.  I have a hunch that I will be doing this in the end.

Oh...and you are 30 weeks today!  Do you remember my little goal-setting for us about two months ago?  Well, this was the biggie "short goal" because at 30 weeks, you not only have a greater than 95% chance of survival if born early, but you also have a pretty darn good chance of surviving with no motor or physical disabilities now!  That is something to celebrate little girl!  This was a big week for me to get to (in my own mind at least)....and it's crazy....we are here!

Here's a bit more about you too:

The big news is your brain gain. Until now, the surface of your brain was smooth. Now, your brain is taking on those characteristic grooves and indentations. The reason for this change in appearance? Those wrinkles allow for an increased amount of brain tissue  — a necessary change as you prepare for life outside your womb, and the street smarts you will need.

Another big change at 30 weeks: Your bone marrow has taken over production of red blood cells (before, tissue groups and then the spleen took care of producing the blood cells). This is an important step for you, because it means you are better able to thrive on your own once born (with a little TLC from all of us out here, of course).

So it's in with the new (brain cells, red blood cells) and out with the old (lanugo). Much of the lanugo — the soft, downy hair covering your body — is beginning to disappear now because both fat and the brain are regulating your body temperature (so no need for that furry coat anymore).  But we may see a few leftover strands of fur on your back and shoulders when you are born.

You are probably over three pounds now and about 16 inches!  You are at the cusp of "normal" baby size for being born.  Just a few more pounds (or so) and a few more inches to go!

I have a doctor's appointment this Thursday - and I don't get to see you (boo!).  But, after this Thursday, I will go back in two weeks and then see you (I think) every week after that.  I will start the non-stress tests.  They are also called biophysical profiles, which are designed to test your heart rate, movement, my amniotic fluid levels, everything about you in there (and my health) for the last 5-6 weeks to know that you are healthy.  I am thankful for these because as we are nearing the end, I will know each week that you are healthy.  And, if you for some reason aren't, I am so grateful to have the proactive weekly tests to know to get you out as soon as possible so that you can be healthy.  What I am not so much looking forward to - the doctor's bills - but your Daddy and I will figure that one out.  =)  We figure that with as much as it has cost me to be pregnant (ultrasounds, blood work, doctor's visits, eye appointments, higher-level ultrasounds, and now these weekly biophysical profiles) our budget is already prepared for you and the extra costs of a third child!

Your Mommy's feet are still swollen a bit (soooo much better if I get my exercise in though!) and am having a tougher time being comfortable sleeping.  My hips hurt, depending on which side I sleep on, so then I flip and repeat the pattern through out the night.  Hopefully with all the tossing and turning, your Daddy is getting his sleep!  Good news - my blood sugars have been STELLAR this last week.  So much so, that I almost worry that my placenta isn't healthy - since this is what causes my insulin resistance to keep going up.  It feels like I have been on a blood sugar management vacation!  I will talk to the doc's about this, but I'm sure it's just what it feels like when Val and I have finally figured out the right combination for my pump settings.  And, I'm sure I will be back next week complaining how tough it is to control again!

Baby girl, God is so good to us!  He has blessed me with two amazing daughters already and a third on the way.  And the most important part is that I have been blessed with an amazing husband that is going to love you to pieces.  These things have just been on my heart this week - that I am so blessed - I almost feel bad for all that I have because I know that I don't deserve it, yet God's grace is there to supply it still.  There are so many little moments where frustrations try to get me down, or that I feel like all the daily "little" stuff I do doesn't matter and what's my purpose really anyway?  And then God finds a way to speak to my heart and let me know that frustrations are small and petty - I have SOOOO much to be thankful for - and I have learned to truly praise Him for these things and let the stupid stuff fall away.  And all the dailiness of my life?  Hello?!  I'm standing in the midst of God's purpose for me RIGHT NOW and if I don't acknowledge these small things as that, they will be gone before I know it.  I am enjoying the little stuff I do because it gives glory to God - and all I have wanted to do was to listen to Him and do what He wants me to do - so it looks like I am in the right place!  And you, as our little miracle from God, just top that off and make it all just that much sweeter.   

Love you baby girl!  

Week 7 Little One, Week 7!!!!

So, little one, we are almost to two months!  Yay!  And you have been treating me the absolute best so far (keep it up!)...I don't feel sick at all.  I maybe feel a little hungrier and tired, but that's it!  I think God knows that I have a lot on my hands with managing these blood sugars, so He's being extra nice to me with all the other stuff.  =)  I'd like to think so anyway! 

So, I thought I'd share a little about you at Week 7:

The big news this week: your hands and feet are emerging from developing arms and legs — although they look more like paddles at this point than the tiny, pudgy extremities I've been daydreaming about holding and tickling. Technically, you are still considered an embryo and you even have something of a small tail, which is an extension of your tailbone. Luckily, this tail of yours will disappear within a few weeks, but that's the only thing getting smaller. You have doubled in size since last week and now measures half an inch long, about the size of a blueberry!


If I could see inside my womb, I'd spot eyelid folds partially covering your peepers, which already have some color, as well as the tip of your nose and tiny veins beneath parchment-thin skin. Both hemispheres of your brain are growing, and your liver is churning out red blood cells until your bone marrow forms and takes over this role. You also have an appendix and a pancreas, which will eventually produce the hormone insulin to aid in digestion (So...ironically, you will have insulin being made and your mommy won't!). A loop in your growing intestines is bulging into your umbilical cord, which now has distinct blood vessels to carry oxygen and nutrients to and from your tiny body.

First of all, you have a tail?!  Nobody ever told me this one before!  Luckily, it's shrinking as I speak!  But, we'd love you even if it stayed! And WOW!  Can you believe it...already you have eye color at the size of a blueberry!  How does anyone get rid of a pregnancy knowing all of this?  Oh, and speaking of eye color, your Daddy and I found a website to do a genetic analysis for your eye color, using our eye colors and our parents' and siblings' eye colors.  I have blue eyes and your Daddy has green, so if this science is perfect, you have a 30% chance of having blue eyes and a 70% chance of having green!  We're hoping for green like your Daddy's...looks like the odds are in our favor too!

I go to see the Certified Diabetes Nurse Educator (CDE) tomorrow at my Ob-gyn's office (and you're coming with me!).  Kind of looking forward to it - hopefully she knows her stuff like I was used to my old CDE in Peoria knowing her stuff.  She'll take a look over my blood sugars and food intake and tweak any of my basals, insulin-carb ratios or sensitivity factor that I have.  Which is good...I get worried sometimes that I am taking care of you - such precious cargo, like never before - and I'll get a reading in the 200's out of the blue, even doing everything "right" technically.  What is that doing to you?  Especially until after Week 10, since that's when all of your organs are forming.  I tend to worry about this a lot, and I am usually not much of a worrier at all - much more of a go-with-the-flow-er...so this is new territory for me.  I know God's got you...felt that from the beginning...so He's covering me with grace when I need it.  And thank goodness for that!  But, it will be nice to talk to the CDE tomorrow and give her my concerns and see what she says.  The nice doctor last week at our first appointment basically said I was an over-achiever so far with my blood sugar levels (that felt good!)...so that's making me feel better, because the numbers he saw weren't all perfect.  I'm doing my best...that's all I know...but just the same as why it's frustrating when I try so hard and then a weird number comes from nowhere.  I just don't want to hurt you....and I have so much power over that, it's scary sometimes.  I know, I know, God's got you.  I'll just think of you as His little blueberry that He's holding safely in His hands.  =)

No ultrasound this week...so I won't get to see you again until next week.  Kind of sad!  I have no idea how all of this non-high risk prego mommies do it with only a couple ultrasounds/sonograms during their pregnancy!  I get to see you for the second time next week and you will only be eight weeks along!  That's my silver lining to having diabetes and putting so much effort (worry!) into you...at least I get to see you all the time.  =)