33 Weeks

• I'm Freakin' hot all the time! I've even been wearing shorts to work; I don't wear shorts in public. 
• Supposed to have my 1st doula meeting today and that got pushed back to monday; she had a client being induced on the day of our meeting. She seemed to feel bad about it, but I was just glad I had a least a days notice. I understand that stuff comes up, but I feel better about the level of professionalism she has showed.
• Sleeping is getting so much worse. *fingers-crossed* I haven't had a leg cramp in a while, but my hip joints are really getting sore. I toss and turn a lot, but with the weight in the middle that's getting really difficult. 
• Best of my knowledge, baby moved into my pelvis yesterday  - still trying to figure out which end though.
• My nipples are starting to become sore again, like they were in the 1st trimester.
• I happen to catch a glimpse of my belly button the other day. Looks like my innie is about to become an outie!
• I don't seem to be getting the linea nigra this time around. I did with Sean and I remember it stayed around a while. But not seeing anything yet.

32 weeks

The pregnancy symptoms are back in full-effect!

• Dry Mouth
• Insomnia
• Pimples
• Nasal Congestion
• New one: My eyelashes are falling out! Which is really easy to tell since I have last extensions.

As of today, baby is still transverse.... the midwife nurse is concerned, but she's trying not to show it...and also trying not to tell me the thing I don't want to hear (c-section). She's dancing around the subject. But already talking about doing an external transversion around 36 weeks. No way. Don't want that. I literally left the appointment crying I'm so upset by this possibility.

I've also started having some very strange, new feelings by the baby. I've been trying to think of how to describe them, and the best I came up with was it was like the baby was passing a lot of gas really fast - but that doesn't make sense. Just the other day I saw a post in one of my pregnancy groups that mentioned something similar (but didn't describe it that way)! I was glad to see someone else was feeling that too. My gut said it wasn't a bad feeling, but I wasn't sure b/c it was so strange.
Someone commented that they are "spasmodic sensations" and it's an early start to the baby's nervous system. After reading that, it totally explains what I'm feeling. However, I'm not sure that's the correct term b/c I wasn't able to successfully google it.

Weeks 30 - 31

It's been a very busy 2 weeks, but most of it has happened in the last week!

The most exciting thing is that I had my baby shower. We only had one last minute cancellation and I think there were about 8 of us total. It was short and sweet and really nice. I think people had a good time - they stayed about an hour past the end time and we went through about 2 bottles of champagne. Everyone brought gifts, which was surprising. Mostly diapers and a few cute onsies.
My hosteses both though the shower was a huge success. I didn't fell that way, but I'm glad they did :)

I got some sweet texts too from 2 of my sister-in-laws, mom, MIL, and one of my friends that couldn't make it. Those were all very sweet.

Since we are not setting up a nursery before the baby gets here, we are putting effort into making space in the house and getting our bedroom set up (where fire baby will sleep for a while). The biggest change we did was add custom, wall-mounted nightstands. 1) to make the room look nicer 2) to make more room next to the bed for the bassinet. So, those just got installed a few days ago and I love them. The varnish smell is still in the room, but is finally fading.

I had a facial in the last week too - I paid for it with my birthday gift card from TL. It wasn't special to prenatal, but it was pregnancy-safe. Overall, not that great. I won't be going back. One strange thing that happened was as I was laying down, fire baby was pushing on my lungs so hard I couldn't breath - to the point that I started coughing and could hardly talk! The tech propped me up a little bit more and then things got better.

Another room prep thing we are doing is taking Sean's current dresser and moving it into our room for the baby dresser/changing table. So, we had to buy him a new dresser. We were hoping to buy used, but couldn't find something that we all liked. I found a really great one new, but it was about $700 before tax. At the last min, we found something on Facebook marketplace and now we are all set up. Which means I can start washing and putting away baby items. Yikes

The last new thing that happened recently was that I went to a chiropractor that specialized in pregnancy. The apt was an hour long and I was told she works really hard on you - well, she does. She beat the shit out of me for 30min! I couldn't talk I was in so much pain / lungs being squished I had a bad headache for the next day, exhausted, and I broke out in a full body sweat while on the table. I only went to see her per multiple recommendations from my midwife team, but overall still not interested. I was hoping to see what she thought about being able to help turn a breech baby if that scenario presented itself, but even she said there isn't much evidence for it - it it worked it could have also been a coincidence. So... not likely I'll be back. Oh! She did find that I had a few ribs popped out of place on both sides. She put those back...but from what I know, they will pop back out eventually.

29 Weeks

I'm writing this blog from my midwifes labor room - I'm in the final hour of my 3-hour glucose test. Hoping so much I don't have GD. I had to drink 100mg of sugar water on a full fast. This time the flavor was lime and it was so much better than the fruit punch flavor I had last week. This one tastes like a warm Sprite - which is a tastes I'm familiar with.

This afternoon, I'm meeting a new doula as last week I finally fired Margie.
It did not go as smoothly as I had planned. She understood our reasoning for wanting to find someone new, but she didn't agree on refunding me any money. She starting spouting off prenatal apt dates that never happened and labs that were never drawn and that she also charges for her referrals. Just a bunch of BS, so I just stopped responding to her and un-friended her on Facebook and stopped following her birth center too. Now we are out $1k, but we can move on..

I had a phone call the other day with my friends to start getting more detailed planning on my shower. It went well, but I wasn't in a great mood from the week I've had and of course I was very tired. The good news is that like 99% of my guest list hadn't rsvp'd yet and within a few hours I think I had 4/5 Yes, rsvps! So, that's looking good.
I'm getting more requests for a registry, so I made my Amazon list public and sent it out to a few people.

I think Braxton Hicks contractions may have started. I occasionally feel mild cramping across my belly, horizontally near the lower to middle parts. I hardly notice them though, but I think that's what it might be.

The Routine

I'm a part of a few infertility groups on facebook and I was thinking that if anyone ever asked me "what did you do" I should have a place to reference what I did before I forget. So below, in mostly chronological order, is the regimen I did to conceive this baby.

• Track ovulation
• Measuring BBT
• Ovulation test strips
• Took Fertilitea
• Took Ovaboost
• Morning fertility yoga
• Changed my workout routine to be less strenuous

With the above routine I conceived and miscarried 2 times and then I added on the following:

• Meditation
• Acupuncture
• Stopped Fetilitea and Ovaboost
• Started Chinese herbs, Vit: D, B complex, Prenatal, eating daily seaweed snacks
• Stopped TTC for 6 months

At this point I had another miscarried at about 5 months post my last one, but was a chemical pregnancy. Then I started seeing a few doctors and ended up with an OB that added on the following:

• Recurrent miscarriage panel and diagnosed me with Factor V and MTHFR (diagnosed by a hematologist)
• Add in daily baby aspirin
• Started oral progesterone after ovulation

At this point I conceived on the next cycle and stopped the Chinese herbs and seaweed (but only stopped the seaweed due to nausea/aversion). At this point:

• I stopped the fertility yoga
• Started daily Lovenox shots
• Continued the oral progesterone until about 12 weeks along then took about 2 weeks or so to wean off.

These details are already pretty fuzzy, so this is fairly accurate, but maybe not 100%.

28 Weeks

Last week was both my birthday and mother's day. Dan surprised me by flying my friend out from Arizona and we all spend the weekend together. Pretty low-key, one afternoon of mani/pedis, out to dinner the next night, and just chilling around the house.

Yesterday I had my midwife appointment:

• I took my GD test. Waiting on the results, but overall it seemed to go well. I was dreading it b/c I had to do it the normal way and drink the GD drink (fruit punch) and I've read so many terrible descriptions of the flavor and how it made people feel. I told this to my midwife before and she said I should bring a snack with me and that should help with most of it. 
• Well, I started crashing pretty good w/in an hour of taking it. Though, the taste of the drink wasn't really that bad. But the rest of day I just felt "blah", wanted to pass out, and couldn't think clearly at all!
• I made sure I could get to bed ontime and had full caf coffee this morning, so far so good.
• My midwifes encouraged me to break it off with Marggie and they gave me a few new doulas to contact. I think this is the best direction, but I haven't contacted Marggie yet. I'm ready to do it now, but Dan wants me to wait until both new doulas confirm that they are available for my due date.

27 Weeks

Today starts the 3rd trimester.

As a mother's day promo, we bought the Owlet foot monitor. We plan to only use this for our trip this Christmas to CO, to watch the baby in the high altitudes. Though, we still have to verify/talk with a pediatrician once Fire Baby is born.

We actually had our meeting with my doula. Down to the last min, it looked like it wasn't going to happen..and she was about 3 hours later or so than originally planned, but we met. It was brief, but was the most professional I've seen her in a while. She wants to touch-base every 2 weeks and come to one of my midwife appointments, but we'll see how that goes/if that happens.

Shower invites went out this past week too. Just got mine the other day. Mom RSVPd No (:() and Laura said Yes. That's all I know for now.

I bought a laboring gown too from Amazon. Just something that looked comfy and allows for nursing. If it fits well, I plan to buy a 2nd one then throw them as the 1st things in my hospital bag.