Creative Kimpire: Baby E: Weeks 28, 29, & 30

29 Weeks. Photo credit to my lovely friend Christina Maria Glover-Davis-Sanchez 😉

Hey! It’s been awhile. I was due to post last weekend but didn’t because I was sick and couldn’t bring myself to be funny 😉. I made it 29 weeks without catching anything but I got a horrible stomach virus last weekend. It was exhausting and I’m thankful it didn’t last long. Last Sunday was also Mother’s Day and that’s my least favorite holiday. That in itself is exhausting, mentally. This is my last childless Mother’s Day so maybe next year the sting of missing my own mother and grandmas will lessen. Anyway, it’s been an eventful couple of weeks filled with an ultrasound, glucose test, retyping my blood, and a RhoGAM shot. All were super fun, of course. Let’s start with the ultrasound. I had a different tech this time and she wasn’t nearly as personable as the previous one. I asked if she could tell me if my placenta had moved up (which was the purpose of having the ultrasound) and she told me she couldn’t. This was fine because I know they’re not supposed to tell you anything but I know the previous tech I had would’ve told me. She said I had to wait until I saw my doctor (this was on a Wednesday and I wasn’t seeing Dr. Carlson until the following Tuesday) but the results went into my online chart that Sunday. Everything is fine with it which means I won’t have to necessarily have a C-Section, unless something else comes up. During the ultrasound I got nauseous again from lying on my back and I told her this time and she said, “That’s normal. Turn onto your side if you start to feel really sick.” I’m thinking waiting until I’m ready to vomit is bad advice so I turned over then anyway. We only got a picture of his feet because of the way he was laying, which was sideways and his face was turned in. We got to see his brain and spinal cord and ribs, which was pretty cool. Check out his foot below, it looks gigantic. He definitely has his dad’s toenails. Speaking of feet, mine have been swelling quite a bit lately and I’m not sure that Grandma would be pleased with me saying this but they remind me of her feet 😆. The swelling makes yoga a little more difficult but I’m hanging in there. However, running is definitely not an option anymore and if I find myself in a fight or flight situation in the next 10 weeks, fight it is because escaping ain’t happening. I took a self-defense class last year with my work friends and my friend Holly was invited to go but she declined saying her tactic is to just pee on any attacker. I told her that was ridiculous but since I experienced my first sneeze/pee combo a few weeks ago I’m now thinking that might be a good mode of defense 🤷🏻‍♀️. Calf cramps are also a nightly occurrence but I read that if you dorsal flex (bring your toes up toward your shin) your feet, the cramps stop. That is the best piece of information I have received so far.

The glucose test was horrible because it made me super dizzy and nauseous. We had to sit at the lab for one hour after drinking the super sweet orange solution and then I had 4 vials of blood drawn. During that hour there was a fire alarm and we heard “Code Red on 3rd floor” over the loudspeaker. We didn’t know what that meant until later and the lab staff shut the door to where they draw the blood and then went into their office space and closed that door, leaving us in the waiting room and saying nothing. Luckily it didn’t amount to anything since we were given no instructions. I later read the Code Red procedure on the wall that instructed the staff to rescue those in immediate area, pull fire alarm, close doors, and evacuate. They followed protocol but their communication skills are a bit lacking.

Those four vials of blood ended up uncovering a rarity with my blood type, meaning I had to get retyped and screened. The doctor told me at my appointment that when I had my initial blood work done in December I was typed as a B positive but this last round typed me at a B negative. She said I’m a “slightly positive negative blood type” and she’s only seen this happen twice in 15 years. She said if I wanted to go get my labs redrawn and could wait for about an hour, they could give me my RhoGAM shot (necessary if I am in fact negative and the baby turns out to be positive and I get exposed to his blood during pregnancy or delivery). I had a meeting to go to at 10 am in Benwood but this was 8:15 am so we were confident that I would be done in time. Philip and I headed to registration and then to the lab and my blood was drawn at 8:37 am. They told me I could go up to Labor and Delivery to wait for the results and they would do my shot. I’m not sure if hospitals run on Jamaica time or go by football minutes but two hours later they came to tell me that since my blood needed a special type of screening the lab tech was going to need to take it Wheeling Hospital and that she would be leaving to do that in 20 minutes 🤬🤬🤬. I told her I would be in Benwood until 3pm and back up that way on Wednesday for a meeting in Wheeling and I would just stop back. She told me it should be done by 3pm that day but to call before I stopped. I ended up getting out of my meeting early so I didn’t bother calling as I had little faith that it would be done. I got the results in my online chart at 7pm that evening. I called the next morning to let them know I would be stopping after my meeting and to see if I needed to register before going to L&D. She told me no, I was still in the computer from yesterday. Great. I went and waited there for about 20 minutes before they told me I needed to go register 🤦🏻‍♀️. I went and registered and came back up and they told me they were getting my shot ready and it would just be a few minutes. Few must equal forty-five. Noted. While I was waiting I happened to see Dr. Carlson and she said the computer wasn’t letting them fill out the forms they needed to do but they were going to just give me the shot and let me go and figure it would after I left. She also told me my blood ended up going to Morgantown to be tested, which was why it didn’t get done until late. The only positive (?) thing to come of all of that is that I am indeed a B negative and didn’t go through it all for nothing 🤷🏻‍♀️. The nurse who finally administered my shot apologized several times and said it is not normally like that there. I hope she’s right.

Practicing in L&D. That bed was super comfy!

My tolerance for coffee is back, which I’m super thankful for because the third trimester is exhausting and caffeine helps. I just talked in my presentation at our community baby shower for work about the recommended limit for caffeine during pregnancy being 200mg a day, the equivalent to a 12 oz. cup of coffee. That’s all I drink so it is fine to do so. However, I stopped at a coffee shop in Wheeling before my meeting on Wednesday and was caffeine shamed by the clerk. When I ordered a medium latte (no sugar, just coffee and steamed milk) she asked me regular or decaf? You can tell me I’m being sensitive and it was an innocent question but I can guarantee she doesn’t ask her non-pregnant customers that; 100%. She assumes they want regular unless otherwise stated, which is what I got. Witch🧙🏻‍♀️. At least she didn’t lecture me. But that could’ve been fun, too, so maybe next time.

I honestly have so much to share about my garden and decluttering/repurposing but I’m super tired and just not going there tonight. Sorry to disappoint. But I will tell you about my crazy pups before I finish. I think they finally have some inkling that something is different about my body because Sophie keeps smelling my belly button. It’s weird but amusing. Sansa came and cuddled up onto my belly the other day. I was so disgusted with them the day of my ultrasound because they each brought a “surprise” into the house that day 😩. Right when we were getting ready to leave for my appointment, I went to the bathroom and when I came back out, ready to walk out the door, I saw that Sansa had a DEAD BIRD on the ottoman 😡🤮. I had to snatch it up quickly and toss it into the trash outside and leave. When we got back, we let them outside and Soph was laying suspiciously at the bottom of the yard by the fence, not at all a normal place for her to be. I yelled for her and before she even made it to the deck I knew she had a bird in her mouth. I told her to “drop!” and I went to get my shoes on so I could take it to the trash and when I came back out, Sansa had it in her mouth, the bird’s head hanging out the side, and Sophie went to try to take it from her, reaching for the head. I yelled I don’t even know what but Sansa dropped it and they both ran inside, thinking they were in trouble. Sophie hid under the kitchen table and Sansa went to the couch, which is her safe space. I had to go make up with them because they weren’t in trouble but I didn’t want to risk Soph tearing that bird’s head off 😱. She tried to give me kisses when she finally came out from under the table but I told her no because she had murder in her mouth. Unfortunately that wasn’t even the last one of the day. I was taking a nap later and Philip went to check on them and Soph brought him a present too. She’s really kind like that, not wanting either of us to feel left out 🥰🤪. Because I don’t think everything needs photographic proof, I spared you from seeing a pic. I wish some people on the internet would do the same. Like the video of the baby sitting up and a poop volcano erupting from it’s diaper. I have no doubt I will experience that at some point but I’m 100% sure that a video was not necessary.

She has started creeping on the neighbors. One told us the other day that they thought she was getting on the hot tub because they could see her entire body from the yard. I thought he was mistaken until I caught her on it a couple of days ago 🤬. We just got a new cover so she had better stay off!

Again 🙄.

I’m pretty thankful for our Roomba, even though it’s much dumber than I thought it would be because “he” (Alfred) takes entirely too long to make it back to his base, which he’s supposed to learn where it is. Anyway, without him, keeping up with the the hair of these two is impossible. Sansa is not Alfred’s biggest fan and I caught her having a stare down with him 🤣. She wanted to make sure he wasn’t coming back out!