iamhealthiernow

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my path to single motherhood. It's so strange because it feels so natural and normal to me -- that I sometimes forget how unconventional my path has been. Plan A Every since I was a little girl, I had always wanted to have children. I had big dreams about having birth children and adopting. My " Plan A " approach was always in this order: fall in love, get married, have birth children, provide foster care, and adopt. When I turned 28, I started seriously considering the "what if's" about Plan A not working out. I had just moved to a new state, was away from all my friends/family, and I was finding it difficult to meet any new quality men. I tried a bunch of stuff: online dating, volunteering, getting involved in the community, speed dating, singles events, etc. But it just wasn't happening for me. Starting to think about Plan B When I was 28, I wasn't ready to give up on Plan A . But I also didn't wa...

Oh my... You'd think since I've been a foster parent and I've been through the entire "baby carrier" dilemma multiple times already, that I would not have an issue choosing a baby carrier. That would be   WRONG . I know how overwhelming choosing baby items can be. Luckily, since I've had so much experience with babies I haven't had a big issue choosing what I want / need for my baby boy. The only exception is in baby carriers. I'll give you a brief background of my baby wearing experience. 2011 : Very novice at baby wearing. I used a sling for my first foster baby. It was extremely uncomfortable, but I had no clue what I was doing. I just got the first sling I saw at Target. 2013 : My first foster son had high medical needs and was very clingy, loved being held. It was hard holding him because he had little control over his head / body -- making it hard to multi-task when home and tiring exclusively holding him when out. So, I tried the Bjorn. I was at...

I had my MFM diabetes follow-up today. It ended up being kind of a whirlwind of an appointment because I had to bring my son with me. He has strep throat -- AGAIN! Ugh. This is the first time I've brought him to any of my pregnancy appointments. I didn't really have a choice, since he can't go to daycare/preschool while sick. But with him being miserable, he was a little stinker during my visit! Stats: Weight : +7 lbs  Blood Pressure: 118/75  Fetal Heart Tones: 154 bpm  My blood pressure has gone down quite a bit! I think it's because my anxiety / worry levels have started to go down the closer I get to delivery. I think it's gotten much better since I've reached viability and every week I've made since. It also helps that I can feel baby boy pretty consistently and often.  My glucose numbers weren't horrible, but they weren't great either. We are making some increases (which will probably keep happening until I deliver):  Morning : Humulin N increa...

I was so excited about my elective 3d/4d ultrasound, but it didn't go quite as planned! I had the ultrasound yesterday. I invited a few close friends to come to the ultrasound, thought it would be fun to have them see the baby. Plus, it was going to be my son's first time "seeing" baby brother -- I haven't brought him to any of my ultrasounds since they last so long and there's no way he'd be able to sit through an entire appointment. Baby boy was extremely active an hour before the elective u/s. His 10 kick counts were done within 6 minutes, which I counted right after breakfast. I was a little worried that he wouldn't be as active during the u/s and... he wasn't! I tried eating candy and drinking juice -- but it didn't work, he was comfy and didn't want to move. We got to see a few things: his ear, his chubby cheek, his arm, his leg, his spine, his heart. But he wouldn't get into position to get a good picture of his face. He's st...

How far along : 29 weeks. 9 weeks (63 days) to go for possible delivery at 38 weeks. Can't believe I'm only a week away from 30 weeks. For some reason THIRTY weeks feels like a big milestone.  How big is baby : Acorn Squash. Ovia app:  Weight Gain : +6 lbs.  Stretch Marks : Getting a little more pronounced stretch marks now. My son even asked about them.  Symptoms : Nothing new. Same old stuff: fatigue, aches/pains, tired, pregnancy brain, etc.  Sleeping : Is it possible to get up even MORE at night time? Argh. It seems that 12am / 2am / 4am are my peeing hours. Hard to make it more than 2 hours without getting up. With having to get up so much, my sleep is suffering big time. Insomnia and just a hard time winding down and going to sleep in the first place.  Food cravings : The never ending chocolate craze...!!! Argh.  Food aversions : No.  Maternity Clothes : Nothing new.  Movement : Baby boy has had very strong movements this week, whe...

Had my monthly OB visit today. Stats: Weight : +6 lbs  Blood Pressure : 124/82 Fetal Heart Tones : 148 bpm  I received my "Third Trimester Instructions" document that includes:  Warnings : information on pre-term labor, pre-eclampsia, fetal movement, and doing labs.  Things to get done:  Sign up for childbirth classes -- DONE Sign up for breastfeeding class -- DONE Infant CPR -- already have my CPR license  Install baby's carseat -- going to wait until May to do this.  Research cord blood banking -- already decided against this.  Choose a pediatrician -- already done, going to use my son's pediatrician  FMLA -- need to bring paperwork to the OB. Not sure when to do this? My HR department told me I don't need to file paperwork with them until I'm a few weeks before my due date. Wonder if I can get the paperwork ahead of time or something?  Labor Instructions : yikes.  Vitamin K in Newborns : never heard of this, so interesting t...

Sometimes I'm surprised when I can write one of these weekly blog entries saying that I've made it ONE MORE WEEK! The pregnancy still feels so surreal to me. Like I know in my mind it's happening, but at times it still doesn't feel like it's happening.  I came across this and thought it was interesting:  Now, here's your body pre-pregnancy. Crazy how bunched up your organs get. Amazing what the female body can do.  How far along : 28 Weeks. 10 more weeks (70 days) until possible induction at 38 weeks.  How big is baby : Eggplant. Ovia app:  Weight Gain : +7 lbs  Stretch Marks : Nothing new.  Symptoms : Nothing terribly new. Still aches and pains. Sometimes feels like my tummy is very heavy. I have been getting some weird twitches in my legs.  Sleeping : Nothing new. Still insomnia. Still getting up 1-2x's a night. Still getting weird pains if I move too fast.  Food cravings : The never ending ice cream and chocolate cravings...  Fo...

I had my MFM diabetes follow-up and growth ultrasound yesterday. What's funny is, my appointment was actually scheduled for TODAY and not yesterday! So I must've put it in my phone wrong or something. Luckily they had an opening and were able to see me, but then I ended up being there for over 2 hours... but I suppose that was my fault for showing up a day early to my appointment. Stats : Weight: +7 lbs  Blood Pressure: 132/72 Getting a little worried about my blood pressure. I've always had really good blood pressure levels, until the last few appointments. They're not too worried about it, but they are keeping an eye on it. They want to make sure it doesn't get to 140/90. The concern is preeclampsia. I'm at higher risk of developing that because of my diabetes.  Growth Ultrasound  This ultrasound I wasn't too concerned about. I can consistently feel baby boy move, so I know he's doing OK in there. The focus of the ultrasound was to see how big he'...

I had my intake with the therapist this morning regarding the antenatal depression. I'm not sure if I'm going to like the therapist or not, hard to tell with just the intake. First impressions of the therapy practice: they're really busy! Had a bunch of people in there first thing this morning. I had to wait a little past my appointment time before I got to go in. Therapist kept an eye on the clock the entire time. The office location is also pretty far from my house, I'd prefer something closer. The intake questions were weird to answer because it's hard to say what is pregnancy-related vs. life-related. Will see how this goes. I scheduled my first therapy appointment. I'm willing to give this a try at least through postpartum. The issue I have is the time commitment. I already have so many appointments, which are just going to start increasing the further along I get. The other issue I have is, I don't know if therapy is really going to help me. I guess I ...

It feels kind of surreal that I'm entering the "final" trimester of pregnancy. I'm entering my 7th month and the 3rd trimester. Many times I wondered if I would ever get past the 1st trimester... then I worried if I'd ever make it out of the 2nd trimester... now, here I am -- almost in the final stretch of things. It still doesn't feel real in a way, like this is really not happening.  How far along : 27 Weeks. 11 weeks (77 days) to possible induction at 38 weeks. It's funny, I've been getting a lot of questions on why my MFM wants to induce me at 38 weeks. I'll save this for another entry, but there are many complications with a diabetic pregnancy -- and it's better to not go past 38/39 weeks. Although I'd love to have a "normal" L&D experience, my entire journey to get here hasn't been normal! So... if my MFM says we need to induce -- I'm not going to fight it at all. She knows best.  How big is baby : Lettuce. Ovia ...

One wonderful thing that has happened since I have gotten pregnant is that I have reconnected with my mom and my little brother. I posted about it in December ( click here ). I haven't had much time to write about it because of all the other "life" stuff going on. But long story short, I hadn't been in contact with my mom and my little brother for nearly 8 years. Very long and complicated family drama story. I didn't grow up with my mom, my dad raised my older brother and me and my parents divorced when I was 5 years old. My little brother is my half-brother (we have different dads), so we didn't really grow up together. I always had a rocky relationship with my mom. We were just so different. I think we both tried in our own ways, but cultural differences and just not really knowing one another -- we were never able to get a long for long periods of time and were never able to bridge the gaps between us. My mom has always wanted to be a grandma and had been m...

How far along : 26 Weeks. One more week until the 3rd Trimester!  How big is baby : Kale. Ovia app:  Weight Gain : +2 lb (with sneakers and clothes on).  Stretch Marks : Nothing new.  Symptoms : Having pretty bad hot flashes. Also, still feeling completely drained. I think I also might have experienced some Braxton Hicks (BH) contractions, but nothing for sure. A few lightning crotch episodes as well.  Sleeping : Nothing "new," meaning I'm still not sleeping the best.  Food cravings : Ice cream and chicken wings!  Food aversions : None.  Maternity Clothes : Nothing new.  Movement : Feeling movement pretty consistently. Sometimes I can feel it on the outside, but not all the time. There was one day that I freaked a bit because I couldn't really feel baby boy moving as much as normal. I think he was higher up than he normally is and was maybe hiding under my anterior placenta.  What I did / Got for Baby : The baby's co-sleeper arrived! But...

100 more days until "40 weeks." I've been watching the days tick by on the BabyBump app since I first got my positive pregnancy test. I'll be "officially" hitting double digits tomorrow on the countdown.  I know technically I am already at less than 100 days, but it's kind of exciting to finally see the tracker's numbers get lower.  If you've been reading along my blog, you know that I've been struggling throughout my pregnancy with so many things that were out of my control. Due to this, I've been struggling with anxiety and antenatal depression. It's not really how I imagined pregnancy to be like and not how people expect you to feel like when pregnant. But I've struggled nonetheless.  With so many struggles throughout the pregnancy, it was so hard to let myself imagine this beautiful "beginning" to the end of my pregnancy because I was just focused on staying pregnant and ensuring my baby boy was healthy.  The last fe...