Rounding third, heading for home

So last week saw the start of the third trimester for the girl and I. And what a week it was!

When I woke up Wednesday morning, I realized I had not felt la principessa move since before dinner Tuesday. One call to the OB's office later and I'm on my way in immediately (note: if you ever want to be seen stat at your ob's office, just say "decreased fetal movement" and you're in like Flynn, no lie). My BP was through the roof (um, you think?). Fortunately, they got her heartbeat right away and then hooked me up to the non-stress test machine, where I sat, talking myself down from the ledge, and where the baby decided to once again make her presence known. Oh, yes, she put on a veritable acrobatic show in there then--bumping and jostling my belly nicely. Made me look like I didn't know what I was talking about in saying she hadn't moved in 16 hours. The doc came back in after 20 minutes to check the tape reading and declared things good and the baby 'reactive.' But the best part of all? La pricipessa got her first case of hiccups while I was hooked up to the NST. Talk about neat.... And almost as good was the fact that after the NST, my BP was 120/73. Completely normal.

And it's now official, I love Dr. Crunchy best of all the five partners. Not only was she so fantastic with the whole NST thing, but she even called me at home the next day to see how I was doing. She made me feel like she cared and that's rare in today's world of managed care. I really hope she's the doc on call when I go into labor (or am induced or whatever--knock on wood).

The fact that I may be having baby in the next 11 or so weeks is becoming more real to me. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared and nervous and about 9 million other emotions--all on a minute-by-minute basis, it seems. I'm grateful that all my tests last week came back normal (it's not often one of your doctors--who wasn't Dr. Crunchy--tells you "man, you peed like a racehorse!" when going over your 24-hour urine test result with you--guess I impressed him with my pee capcity) and things are going well. We're about to start working on the nursery (the flooring arrived on Friday) and our childbirth classes start next week.

The wee precious girl seems to know now that mommy needs to regularly know that she's in there and thriving so she's stepped up her movement in the past two or three days, which relieves me to no end. The belly moves around like there's an alien in there at times. And there's no denying the fact that this belly is baby now--I've gone from the possibly fat belly stage into the definitely expecting stage. Sometimes I look down at it in wonder, and then I wonder just how much larger it can get--plenty more, I know! Somehow I've managed to elude stretch marks (maybe that's one of the only good things about my inherited genetics) but I'm starting to feel "bulky" and my gravity has definitely shifted. Despite these things, A says I'm beautiful and, even more importantly, makes me feel that way. Oy, I love that man.