27 Weeks

(All photos are clickable) (Above photos courtesy of http://www.babycenter.com/)

Baby:

- This week, baby weighs almost 2 pounds (like a head of cauliflower) and is about 14 1/2 inches long with his legs extended.
- He's sleeping and waking at regular intervals, opening and closing his eyes, and perhaps even sucking his fingers.
- With more brain tissue developing, baby's brain is very active now.
- While his lungs are still immature, they would be capable of functioning — with a lot of medical help — if he were to be born now.
- Chalk up any tiny rhythmic movements you may be feeling to a case of baby hiccups, which may be common from now on. Each episode usually lasts only a few moments, and they don't bother him.

Mom:

- I’ve been having some back pain, mostly with the more walking/standing I do.
- I have also been getting this nerve pinching pain in my back which is different than the regular back pain. It happens if I move wrong or step wrong or something like that. Not that I’m necessarily moving/stepping wrong I guess the normal movements just push things around and cause this little pain. It goes away right away usually and isn’t consistent with any 1 activity or movement.
- The swelling is still there, it seems to be worse in my left leg/ankle/foot but nothing major.
- My weight: 144 lbs at my last appointment.
- Blood pressure: 117/72
- Baby’s heart rate: 159 - 161 bpm

Other News:

I had my 27 week doctor’s visit on Thursday 6/17 along with the 1 hour glucose test. The appointment started out with me having to drink that nasty orange flavored ick of a thing they call a glucose drink.

The instructions were to drink the whole (small water bottle size) thing as quick as I could. Now, I don’t require much liquid intake under normal conditions as it is, I can go all day without a drop of liquid to drink and be perfectly fine. (I, of course, have been forcing myself to drink more since being pregnant.) But anyway, back to the drink, I did manage to drink the whole thing in a very short period of time which surprised me! It was, in my opinion, NOT like drinking orange soda at all (which I don’t like either) and it burned my throat! I was worried that I was going to throw it all back up after finally getting it all down! The lady said that it has happened but not very often. I didn’t want that to happen because then I would have to start all over on a different day and I did NOT want to have to do that. After that ordeal I went back to the weighting room and a few minutes later I was called back for my regular check up. They said I’m “measuring big”, I was not impressed. Big = not good well I mean it IS good but not good if you know what I mean. Everything checked out fine. I asked about the rhogam shot, apparently they had forgotten I would need it and that’s when I learned I would have to have my blood drawn TWICE in the same day. *cringe* ~ I hate having my blood drawn ~ Well I didn’t have to have the 2nd one done the same day but I was already there so why not just get it over with. So after my check up I still had some waiting to do before I could get my glucose blood draw done so we waited…and waited then the dreaded blood draw time came. And I thought the worst part of the day was the orange drink (lol). I normally don’t look during this procedure and today was no different except I didn’t need to look to know what she was doing, she wasn’t very smooth about the process and I could feel everything move and shift each time she switched tubes…I did manage to survive in the end. After all that we went next door for the 2nd blood draw. I’m still not clear on why I had to go next door to have more blood drawn for an antibody test before I could get the rhogam shot. Couldn’t they just get the information they needed from the first 3 gallons tubes of blood they took??? Anyway, this lady was much smoother with her technique and also 2 other ladies were talking to me while the 1st lady was collecting the blood so that took my mind off of what was happening a little bit. I’m also not exactly sure on what they are looking for in this antibody test because they told me to come in Monday morning for the injection (they didn’t even have the results back, why did I need the test if I was getting the injection anyway?? Another mystery.) So that was our eventful doctors appointment for this month, as usual, we did manage to keep ourselves entertained with outlandish shenanigans during all the waiting. Also, my appointments are every 2 weeks now instead of once a month so I will go back on 7/2 for more fun and games!!