More pregnancy information than you can shake a stick at

Pregnancy information about me, that is. I want to start off with a few of my favorite recent interactions with people...

Interaction #1
Random lady at WalMart: *grins at my belly* "When are you due, hon?"
Me: "Oh, not 'til July."
Random lady at WalMart: "JULY???" (Please read as much exaggeration in her tone as you can imagine, and you wouldn't be far off.)

Interaction #2
Dude at church handing me the bulletin: *grins at my belly* "How are you this morning?"
Me: "Oh, pretty good."
Dude at church: "Are you sure you're going to make it through the service?" (Strong implication that he fears imminent labor. I was 25 weeks at the time.)

Interaction #3
Lady I know from church but encountered at Kroger: *grins at my belly* "Wow, you're really coming along there!"
Me: "Yeah, I know, I just really popped out!"
Lady I know from church: "Are you sure you're not having twins???"

I promise you, I invented none of this. In fact, wherever Marty and I go about town, whether we know the people or not, we get comments. All. The. Time. Another example...this past weekend we decided to start stocking up on diapers. We stood in the diaper aisle for quite some time, debating this brand and that brand..."honey, does that one have a slot for the cord?"..."but honey, this one's cheaper"...you can imagine. Anyway, we were actually enjoying getting our feet wet in this tiny area of new parenthood when a lady (who'd been debating paper towels and obviously listening) couldn't help but say aloud, "Gee, you can really tell first-timers!" Her tone was humorous but because from the time I started showing, and I became the target of well-intentioned but rather lame comments, my outward response has always been a smile and a little nod of the head, but inside I can't help but be slightly irritated. Marty always wants me to take it positively, because he sees people who generally just smile at my belly and look at us with an "oh how cute" expression. And I suppose I'd miss some of the comments (ie, attention), but the comments concerning my size...well, I'm just about OVER those.

Anyway, moving on to our Week 26 visit with the good doctors at JC OB/GYN. This time we saw Dr. Pickler, who tends to be my least favorite, but we had a really great visit with her featuring a pretty long Q&A session about labor and delivery. The answers from our session revealed I might need to have a C-section (I need surgical records from a hospital stay from about 5 years ago so they can make that decision). I'm not thrilled with that prospect at all, but from what we were told, a scheduled C-section would be so much preferable and safer, just in case my uterus has been "compromised" by previous finaglings in there (for lack of a better expression!). I would very much like to deliver vaginally, and I was given so much reassurance from Dr. Pickler regarding the practice's general rules for administering episiotomies (only in case baby is in danger, otherwise, patience is the rule!). Big sigh of relief there.

In other news, my BP is excellent at 105/65 and perhaps the greatest news of all, I've only gained 13 pounds my entire pregnancy thus far!!! The average is 16-22 pounds by this point in pregnancy, and I love that I'm staying under the curve. Not that there's anything wrong with gaining the average (or more), but kids, I'm five-foot-two. There's nowhere to hide any extraneous poundage. And who knows, the pounds might pack on yet, so for right now, I'm just going to be very grateful. The shortness of breath is bad enough with the weight I'm already carrying!

My under-the-curve weight has not affected my sweet William, though. The fundus measurement of my belly was 29 cms at 26.5 weeks, which means, good-sized baby who's right on track. There for a minute I got excited, because I know that your gestational weeks and fundus measurement in centimeters should roughly match up, but Dr. Pickler gently burst my bubble by telling me that yes, they generally match up, but with a rule of plus or minus 3 cms either way. Pooh. Will's heartbeat was his usual 148 bpm; I had to giggle because he is so incredibly consistent with his little heartbeat. In fact, I could have guessed 148, because he never wavers out of a range of about 3 bpms!

I also did the glucose test; I had to drink "Hawaiian punch"-flavored glucose, and honestly, it tasted like Hawaiian punch found in a A-bomb shelter from 1962. Nasty, nasty stuff. I had to brush my teeth immediately afterwards to get the taste out of my mouth, but even then, my stomach rebelled and wanted to reject, but I fought it hard. Because if it comes back up, you just have to repeat the darn thing!

Other than these little tidbits from the doctor, not much else is new with me and Will. Except I'm going through a new stage of fatigue, almost reminiscent of early pregnancy. I fall asleep at random times (with a TV blaring and people talking around me!) and tend to need naps in the early afternoon. This might also be due to the fact that my little boy seems to think midnight is the perfect time to wake up and play with Mama. Several nights lately, I've laid in bed begging my son to go night-night so Mommy can get some sleep. It's really hard to be irritated about it, though, because his movements are just so cute -- very intense and purposeful. He's just very wiggly and tumbly -- I think he's bored in there, poor little guy!

Well, I think that's it for now (whew, right?). We're off to Mississippi for a long-ish weekend to see Marty's family. I'm not exactly up for a roadtrip but Marty's made some plans to break up the trip a bit and he's even thrown in something really fun for Monday! I'll share pix of that when we return. Happy Easter, everyone!