26 week check-up - Captain Peanut is the length of an English cucumber! June 13, 2008
Well, Brian and I went in today to get a belly check and have my blood drawn for a gestational diabetes test. We won’t find out the results of that until tomorrow at the earliest, but I’m doubting it’ll be anything but normal since everything has been fine up until this point. I now weigh 170 lbs., which is a gain of 24 lbs. since I had my first exam. Not bad. By this point the books say a 16-22 lb. weight gain is normal, so hooray for me! We had the doctor we saw on our first three visits and she was nice and calm today, so I will assume that we had issues before simply because she was too stressed out from being on call.
As for the Captain, he is doing just fine. We got to have another ultrasound today; I think that brings our total scans up to about 7. We’ve sure got a lot of pics of the baby’s development!!! He is in the breech presentation (head up and butt down), which is normal for this stage of the game. It’ll just be an issue if he doesn’t flip around before the actual birth. His heart rate was 140 bpm, which is right in the middle of the appropriate range. The doc’ said based on his femur length that he weighs 1 lb. 15 oz., which is almost 2 lbs. for those who don’t know their weight conversions. That’s about what he would weigh at 27 weeks, so maybe he’ll grace us with his presence a wee bit early? I hope so! I’ve never been so excited to meet someone! We also got to see his “goods” again, and there is no doubt that we’re having a well-endowed little boy! He’s been kicking up a storm over the last few weeks and I realized that I’ve been having Braxton-Hicks contractions since the evening after our shower. They are getting stronger and more frequent, but are nothing to worry about, so sayeth the doctor.
An amusing anecdote: Our 13-year-old kitty, Selena, has always loved to perch on my belly, probably because it’s warm and squishy. Now that I’m getting more rotund, I’m not comfortable letting her get on me as much, but the other night I didn’t stop her from ascending my baby mountain. Well, she stepped right about where Captain Peanut’s head is, and he punched her foot in retaliation! It really made me laugh out loud and scared Selena a bit. She hasn’t tried to get back on me since!
From now on it’ll be doctor’s visits every 2 weeks. I will have a male doctor next time in an effort to meet everyone in the practice prior to the birth so there are no surprises on the big day. Look for another update at the end of June!