9 Weeks and Counting

I am now 31 weeks pregnant, with just 9 weeks to go. It's pretty crazy that that's all we're down to. Crazy and a little scary! I had Mike take this picture last week when I was 30 weeks along.

I'm feeling like I've got a pretty good-sized belly on me these days, especially when I look back 10 weeks to my 20 week picture. For the most part things are still going pretty smoothly. My varicose veins are a bit worse, though. I finally gave in and decided that since I am wearing jeans more now, I could try out a compression stocking on my right leg. The doctor suggested I try a knee-high stocking to begin with even though the veins go up the back of my leg. The first couple of days of wearing the stocking I felt fine. On about the fourth day, I started having serious pain behind my right knee. I could not even bend my knee because it hurt so badly. After about 10 hours of wearing the stocking and suffering, I decided to take the darn thing off. Unfortunately, the pain continued even though I had taken the stocking off. Thankfully I had a doctor's appointment the next day. At the end of my regular appointment, the doctor had a nurse call to schedule a venous duplex, which is an ultrasound to check the blood flow through the veins. One of the other nurses at the office mentioned something about this being an emergency procedure that needed to happen very soon. The ultrasound office had two appointments- one at 12:30 and one at 3:00. It was 12:10 at the time, I had waited to see my doctor for over40 minutes (my appointment was scheduled for 11:05), and I had a hair appointment (cut AND highlight) scheduled at 12:30. If you're female, you know how important those hair appointments are and how hard they can be to reschedule, so I promptly said I'd take the 3:00 appointment to check out my possible blood clots. I had to make sure my hair looked decent, right? So I basically rushed from one appointment to the next all day. Ob/Gyn appointment to hair appointment to vein appointment. I speed-walked into the ultrasound place, told them what I was there for, and the front-desk lady informed me that I had to be in a wheelchair. So there I sat, feeling like a moron for having to sit and be wheeled around in a wheelchair. Anyway, the ultrasound showed that while I do not have deep vein thrombosis (the really bad kind of blood clot), I do have some smaller, superficial blood clots. After talking to a nurse from my Ob/Gyn's office, I had orders to take one baby Aspirin a day, use a warm compress on my leg a 2-3 times a day, keep exercising (the good news), and no long car rides (the bad news since I was planning on driving to my sister's place in Minneapolis the next day). We worked out a plan for the long car ride (I would get out and walk around 3 times in the 4 hour drive), and I found out that the plan I had to get a massage over the weekend was not meant to be. Bummer, but something I could deal with if it was what the doctor thought was best.

So, aside from the varicose veins and the blood clots, things are going ok. I'm still able to do kickboxing, though I expect that may not last a whole lot longer. I still have some pain behind my right knee where the clots are, but it's very mild compared to what it was last week. I have to go back to the doctor this week to check on the clots again, so I'm hopeful that I'll get good news that they have gone away.

So that's pretty much it. The boys are getting more excited about the baby. Zach was laying with his head on my belly the other day and got a little jolt. He looked at me with huge eyes as I told him that what he felt was the baby having the hiccups. He thought that was very cool. Drew likes to talk to the baby now and then, and Zach wants to make sure that we don't celebrate his half-birthday (on Dec. 8) at school until after the baby is born (due date Dec. 5), because he wants to be able to show the baby at school. I hope the boys love the baby as much after s/he is here as they do now.