Just an Update

I guess I haven't been writing in here as much because there's so little to talk about these days. I get to see and/or hear the baby once a month, and aside from the anatomy scan all of my "is this baby normal" tests are done as of today. For the record, my AFP blood work came back negative. This is, again, a screening test, but it just means it's not likely my baby has an open neural tube defect. THANK YOU JESUS. They didn't call me with the results, and I'm starting to think they just don't call unless they have bad news for you. So for now I'm just... counting down the days until the anatomy scan (16 if you're curious).

It's sort of starting to freak me out just how quickly this pregnancy is going. I can't even feel the baby yet but I remember so vividly being 5 weeks, having our first ultrasound... and now here I am with this baby that looks like a baby and moves around on ultrasound like it's having a dance party. I know I'll be feeling it soon and you can sure as heck see it at this point. I feel like I'm going to wake up and it's going to be March 1st and I won't have anything done. I know our lives SHOULD be settling down come November, but things always come up and I really have to start working on getting the house in order. I'm glad to be 16 and a half weeks at this point and I'm also just waiting patiently for 24. To be honest, so far things look pretty good. My swelling has been minimal, and my BP is a little high but it hasn't been rising, and I haven't gained much weight. I did call the doctor today to ask about my BP. The last two times I've been to the OB it has been about 154/84. This is not ridiculous for me since I have kidney problems, but I also don't want to hit 20 weeks and see it climbing into the 160s over 90s and get stuck on strict bed rest. I'm thinking if we can start taking care of it now we might be able to avoid that. I'm currently on Aldomet, which is a "lesser" BP med, but is also category B. I'm on a tiny dose of it, so we have tons of room to up it if we need to. And we could also switch to labetolol if we had to, though I'd like to avoid that if possible. The doctor doesn't seemed concerned since my BP is consistent (and it's always lower when I'm leaving or not at the doctors - I think it's a little white coat syndrome) but it makes me feel better to ask.

For now I'm hoping and praying for a good anatomy scan, and to get to 38 weeks. There's nothing right now to indicate that I'll have any issues but I know my kidney problem and my weight make me high risk, so I feel like I can rest at least a little easier once I hit 24 weeks, and it can't come soon enough. The good news is that things should be getting a little less stressful now. Andy and I are going away for the weekend this weekend which we haven't done... well.. ever. So that should be a nice change of pace for us. Andy could use a 3 day weekend where he doesn't have to get stressed over a wedding, too, so I'm pretty excited.

Everything is moving along for the time being, and I'm just trying to take it easy and not gain a ton of weight. So far, so good. I get to see little one again in a few weeks and Andy finally gets to see it too! He's going to love it. The holidays are coming up and it's my favorite time of year, so I'm pretty happy. Praying things continue to go well for us.