Third Trimester Fun

As of Saturday, I am 30 weeks pregnant; only 10 weeks to go!

Doctor and I survived the blood glucose test a few weeks ago, and we passed!  I was most worried about drinking several ounces what everyone describes as "nasty sugary orange stuff."  I don't have an excellent track record with drinking yucky-tasting medical liquids.  When I had to drink barium for some testing several years ago, I couldn't keep it down, and they eventually had to mix it with Kool-aid for me, like they do for little kids.  So I was a little stressed out when the lab tech set a timer and told me that I had to drink the orange stuff in under 5 minutes, but I ended up having no problem.  No, the worst part ended up being the 4 needle pokes.  (*If you're squeamish, you should probably skip this part.*)  Whenever I get blood drawn, I always make sure to tell the lab tech that my veins can be hard to find so that they give me a minute to squeeze my fist, etc.  Well, I don't know if I psyched this lady out or what, but it took her a full minute to find my vein.  She was twisting the needle ALL over the place in my arm.  I finally had to look away when she had turned it a good 90 degrees.  They had to take blood 3 different times over the course of 2 hours, and THEN I had to get the shot for being RH-negative.  I went in and pulled up my sleeve, but the nurse was like, "oh, no, honey, we do this one in your hip."  For future reference, a shot "in your hip" doesn't really go in what *I* would call my hip.  And it DOES involve pulling your pants down and bending over the exam table.  Consider yourself warned. 

Jeromy and I have now attended our first of three Childbirth classes, which we are doing through our doula collective. It's pretty small and casual; there are only 3 other couples besides us.  We watched the obligatory birth video, so Jeromy is now suitably traumatized.  The highlight of the evening, though was listening to 911 call from when the instructor had to have an unplanned home birth with her second child.  It was actually pretty funny; you would hear the 911 person give the husband directions (clearly reading from a manual), and the husband repeating them to the doula, who is isn't really responding other than moaning and swearing in the background.  The whole tape is 12 minutes long, and she ended up having the baby before the paramedics arrived.  It pretty much made me want to go rent an apartment RIGHT next to the hospital.  

I can definitely tell that Doctor is getting big and strong.  In the fight for space in my abdomen, Doctor is without a doubt winning against my internal organs.  He especially likes to remind them who's boss every night when I'm trying to go to sleep, so my second trimester run of long, easy nights of sleep seems to be at an end.  The little cute little kicks and bubble-like pops that I used to get so excited about feeling have been replaced by aggressive squirming and gut-punches that kind of hurt.  It feels, oddly enough, like there is a smallish person kicking and pushing me from the inside.  When I mentioned all of this to my OB-GYN, she said, "yeah, very few women are ever really comfortable after 28 weeks."  Nice.  

Just in time for me to go to JURY DUTY tomorrow.  Oh yes.  In general I disapprove of trying to get out of jury duty, and always swore that I would always do my civic duty when I had to, but right now I'm just grumpy about it.  If I have to sit in an uncomfortable chair for 8 hours, I will probably start loudly declaring every single person in the room "guilty."  So here's hoping I look super-pregnant and pitiful tomorrow so they'll send me home.
 
Now for those of you who made it this far through all of my pregnancy drama, here are some 30 week belly pictures!

***GEMS FROM JEROMY***

After helping me get up out of my armchair last night: "I'm going to have to start helping you up with the other arm, too, so I don't end up with just one really strong pregnant lady lifting arm."