Sweet little feet...

My anatomy scan today went well.  Baby GIRL is looking good and all the anatomy markers were checked off with flying colors.  I enjoyed hearing the heartbeat and watching her bounce around in there.  It is amazing how much she can move and kick and how little I can feel!

My placenta is anterior but far away from my cervix so that is good.  They measured my cervical length and it looks good, long and closed and I am very happy about that.  Doctors appointment after the scan was short and sweet.  Doc is very happy with my progress, my weight gain is great (about 6 lbs at this point), my blood pressure is nice and low and my blood sugars are within normal range as well.

 

Nursing school in a nutshell...

This just cracks me up every time I see it!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/modernartemis/36-things-you-are-guaranteed-to-experience-while-i-i1eu

18 weeks today...

I can't believe it but I am 18 weeks along today and I am feeling both a bit nervous and super excited for my ultrasound this afternoon. 

I am not feeling baby move a whole lot yet which is strange for me especially as I felt the twins really early.  Part of that is that my placenta is laying on the anterior side this time which cushions me from feeling a lot of movement when baby is so small.  The placental location is one of the things they will be looking at in detail today.  At the nuchal fold scanning they could see that it is anterior but the exact location was hard to see at that time as everything is still so small.  There is a chance that it is right on top of my c-section incision which is not ideal so I am hoping that perhaps it is off to the side some.

On pins and needles looking forward to knowing the gender.  The boys are saying it is a boy and they have named him Elliot!  Olivia wants a girl I think .. she always wanted a sister although she would prefer if the sister could come out her age!  So soon we will know :-)

Blood sugar overload...

I have been working on this post for a while ... somehow it is just difficult.  Anyway this pregnancy is different in many ways ... for one it started different.  My own pregnancies have always been very planned and this was so the complete opposite of planning.  With Magnus we got pregnant right away when we wanted to start our family and with Olivia we pretty much found ourselves pregnant as soon as we stopped preventing pregnancy.  Sebastian took a little while longer but he was hoped and wished for and came along with perfect timing.  For both my surrogate pregnancies, planning is mapped out in the knitty gritty details and very little was left unmanaged in achieving pregnancy. 

This time ... well ... life happens and pregnancy was not planned.  Yet I find myself blessed and happy and totally overwhelmed with all the emotions that continually wash over me as I find myself daydreaming about baby and all the sweetness to come.

Another thing that is very different is my age!  I have rounded the magic number where I am now considered of Advanced Maternal Age......GASP!!!!!  I like "mature" better but I digress .... bring on the geriatric pregnancy comments ... however please note that the senior discount does NOT apply!!!

With maturity comes a bit more testing and for me that included a hemoglobin A1c test which looks at blood sugar levels in the previous 3 months.  Normal levels is anything below 5.6 .. mine was 5.7 :-(  Enough to earn the diagnosis of gestational diabetes and the luck of poking my finger 4 times per day to do daily blood glucose testing.  I was not so happy!  The good news however is that my daily levels are all in the normal parameters and I am down to testing my blood glucose in the last 3 days leading up to each prenatal appointment.  Hopefully my numbers will continue to look good and no interventions is needed.

I personally feel that other factors has contributed to my high blood glucose levels.  At the time of the test, the 3 months look back period would go back to second week of November.  So not only did that period include both Thanksgiving and Christmas goodies, it was also a period with some extreme personal stress going on and that impact blood glucose levels as well.  Anyway now that I have a glucometer, there are days that I track my blood sugar to see how I respond to various foods in response to my natural curiosity on who the human body works!

Yeah ~ I got my clinical placement for my final term...

I am so excited!  I received my placement for my final clinical rotation in nursing school .. the NICU!!!  It is my first choice placement and it makes me incredible grateful and happy that I will be able to be somewhere I feel so very passionate about.

Delivering N&J early did not inspire my first thoughts about going to nursing school, but they sure where the catalyst to finally pursue something that I felt calling my name for a long time.  Ever since I spent time in the NICU after they were born, I was so amazed at watching the nursing care for these sweet little innocent babies who sadly arrived into their parent's arms too soon.

I just got on to order a few of the textbooks I really want for my library so that I can start to prepare for this upcoming rotation.  I know that being back in that environment will bring back many memories but also strength from having the knowledge I do.  I truly am so excited to be able to go in this direction with my clinical experience.