I am a dromedary camel

I really believe that I am turning into a dromedary (one-hump) camel. Granted, my hump is growing over my belly and not my back, but I am still generating a hump all the same.

The other piece of evidence that suggests that I am slowly turning into a camel is that I cannot get enough water. This is really abnormal for me. I have never had good water habits. I avoided public restrooms like the plague until college, at which point I realized that it was very counterproductive to leave my study hovel and go all the way back to my dorm to use the bathroom rather than using the very clean public restrooms by the coffee shop (and based on the amount of coffee that I drank throughout college, I learned this lesson quickly). This often meant restricting fluids in order to not have to pee. When I was growing up, our favorite vacation spot was Panama City Beach, Florida. No, my family wasn't perpetually trying to pretend to be spring breakers. It just so happens that my dad's side of the family has been slowly migrating down to PCB over the past 25 years to retire. Somehow, I was able to make the entire trip from Ohio to PCB without once using a public restroom (a 15 hour trip that my dad magically transformed into a 12.5 hour trip). This dismayed my mom who would always say, "You're going to give yourself a bladder infection." The one time I gave in and decided to use a public restroom, we chose a gas station bathroom that had a giant dead bug on the floor with a trail of ants taking the bug piece by piece back to their ant hill, which, needless to say, made it so I never gave in to using a bathroom again on those road trips. When I became pregnant I decided that it was important to drink more water. Other than black coffee, I didn't really drink any other beverages (and the coffee mostly had to go). Shortly after discovering I was pregnant I added milk and extra glasses of water to my usual intake, with a goal of drinking 8 glasses a day. Meeting my goal, however, was short lived. Just before I was 5 weeks pregnant I started feeling super nauseated all the time. By 7 weeks pregnant I certainly couldn't drink milk anymore and I was having trouble drinking water. I finally called the OB office and asked for a prescription for Zofran, an anti-nausea medication. When taking Zofran, I was able to more easily drink water, but it was still a struggle to get in more than about 4 cups each day. By 8 and 9 weeks pregnant I would get sick every time I drank water because I was producing excessive saliva (ptyalism - an unfortunate side effect of pregnancy), and whenever I drank water I felt like I was drinking a big cup of saliva (nice mental image, huh?). This launched me into a week in which all I drank was fruit punch gatorade. I regained my ability to drink water, but still knew that I was not drinking enough, only getting in about 5-6 cups each day. Finally, a few days ago, I became desperately thirsty all the time. I know that my body is generating more blood (blood volume increases by 50% during pregnancy) and amniotic fluid, but I didn't expect that drastic a change in thirst all at once. Yesterday I drank 13 cups of water; that is just 3 cups shy of a gallon. Furthermore, I think all of the extra water is going to my belly because my feet and ankles certainly aren't swelling. Anyone who saw me 1-2 weeks ago can attest that I just began showing at around 24 weeks (I am now 26 weeks pregnant). And I feel like my belly has gone through a big growth spurt this week (see above photographic evidence). When I gave Keith a hug before he went to work this morning, he said, "I love you, even when you hug me and are still a foot away," my belly having made a barrier between us. So there you go! I am a dromedary camel. And I am very proud of my hump.

Nurse OB

Time to vent: I don't try to act like a doctor or a nurse because I have no medical training in those areas. So please, nurse from my OB practice, stop trying to act like a dietitian. Or at least glance at my chart and be aware, before trying to talk to me about nutrition, that my "occupation" is "graduate student in dietetics." That nutrition encounter is what pushed me over the edge; it was the "final straw" so to speak. Normally it wouldn't have bothered me, but Nurse OB already had a couple of strikes against her. Strike 1: I have had this nurse once before. She is apparently the nurse that you get if you have an urgent concern. The last time I saw her I had intractable nausea, and was on the verge of tears because I hadn't eaten in a couple of days and I hadn't had anything to drink that day. She is not a very warm person and I did not appreciate that she was short with me throughout my entire appointment. Today I hadn't felt the baby kick for a few days (after kicking incessantly for several weeks), so I called the doctor to see if I should be concerned. They scheduled me for an appointment within the hour. I arrived at the OB office, and sat in the waiting room until Nurse OB called me back. She put me in a chair, squirted some goop onto my belly, and then moved the fetal monitor around trying to find the heartbeat. After about 5 minutes of moving the fetal monitor to different locations, she went and got the doppler. Apparently the baby is positioned behind my pelvis right now, because after a couple of minutes with the doppler she was able to find the heartbeat if she pushed really hard just above my pelvis. Because the baby was positioned so low she said that she couldn't use the fetal monitor. I was no longer concerned because the heart rate sounded normal on the doppler, so I was okay with not being hooked up to the monitor. Nurse OB had been spreading more and more goop over my belly during the 10 or so minutes she was trying to get the fetal monitor to work. Then strike 2 came: She grabbed the paper towel from my lap (that I assumed was for me to wipe my belly off with after she was done examining me), wiped a little bit of the goop off of her hands, wiped down the monitor and the doppler and left the room. She didn't give me anything to wipe the goop off with. After getting goop all over my pants and shirt I was finally able to find a box of tissues in the room and wipe off what had not already soaked into my clothes. Strike 3: She came back 30 minutes later. I wouldn't have minded a 30 minute wait, but she hadn't told me where she was going or what she was doing, so I was sitting in the room, by myself, without any idea if they thought the baby was okay or not. When she came back she informed me that my doctor was busy with another patient and that she wanted to ask him some questions. I wish she would have told me that before she took off the first time, but at least she let me know now. Then she said, "Have you eaten yet today?" I said yes. She asked when. I said "I ate at 10:15 and then had a latte at 11:00." (My appointment was at 1:30, so she was asking me these questions at about 2:10). She said, in a haughty voice, "A latte isn't food." Thank you for stating the obvious, Nurse OB. I realize that a latte is technically considered a "drink" and not "food." Also, I don't usually drink lattes. I have had 2 in the past year. I drank one today because I thought the caffeine might get the baby to kick and I thought that was an appropriate course of action to take before calling the doctor. Then she said, "You need to be eating every few hours." Thank you for another obvious statement. I wondered if she had looked at the clock recently since I ate less than 4 hours before. Just because I didn't eat lunch at "lunchtime" didn't mean that I was starving. Furthermore, I probably would have been eating at that moment had I been at home, but Nurse OB had left me sitting in the exam room for 30 minutes with no word of what was going on. Additionally, she did not ask me what I ate earlier in the day. For reference, it was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. My stomach has been upset lately and it is settling to eat something that is bland and room temperature like a PB&J. But, for all she knew I could have eaten the Hungry Farmer's Breakfast from Cracker Barrel, consuming greater than 1000 calories, in which case it would have been inappropriate to be eating again so soon. So the advice she gave was not necessarily correct. Also, while a latte isn't "food" per se, it did provide about 250 calories and 8 g protein, so it does count. In fact, if I had a patient who couldn't eat food, I would advise them to drink their calories. And drinking something containing milk is great because it provides protein, vitamins and calories. She told me that I should be eating protein bars (you know, those candy bars masquerading as being healthy because they are chocked full o' protein). I would never tell someone to eat a highly processed protein bar in place of natural, whole foods. So, Nurse OB, please check your attitude at the door the next time I have to see you. I was polite this time, but I can assure you that the further into pregnancy I get the more fired up I get about lesser offenses. If you, with no nutritional training and about 70 pounds of extra body weight, try to tell me to eat a protein candy bar again, I will step up onto my soapbox and tell you exactly what I think. The most important thing is baby is okay. Baby is just positioned so low that it is more difficult to feel movement, and probably hasn't been moving around as much because I haven't been feeling very good for the past few days.

Week 25 Update

Today I am 25 weeks pregnant! That means I am 5/8, or 62.5%, done. Baby weighs about 1.5 pounds and is over a foot long. While baby has gained 1.5 pounds, I unfortunately have lost 20 pounds. But baby is measuring correctly (at my OB appointment on Wednesday, baby was measuring between 24 and 25 week) and is kicking constantly, so I am okay with the weight loss. In the past couple of weeks I have become very fixated on my belly. Not because of my expanding waistline, but rather looking at the little jolts that sometimes occur. While I was excited to be able to feel the baby kick with my hand on the outside of my belly after weeks of feeling the internal movements, there is something more entertaining and comical about WATCHING it kick. You see these little jabs punching up at different places of your belly, depending on where the baby has repositioned, and then the baby decides to "roll over" and you can see a big sustained movement. I have told Keith several times to stare at my belly, but inevitably baby decides to stop kicking. It's okay - baby is just a little bit shy. I have become obsessed with fetal development updates on the internet. Every week I type "XX weeks pregnant" into google and am greeted with several websites that compare the size of my baby to fruit, tell me what new anatomical and physiological developments are taking place in baby, tell me how much weight I should have gained by now, and then tell me all of the symptoms that I may not have known that I had until I read them online. Some symptoms, like nausea, are pretty obvious and are suffered by many pregnant women. Other symptoms, like red palms and heels, are less common. I keep on looking to see if my hands have adopted a rosy glow however. I am very thankful that, while I have suffered from several yucky symptoms, I have been very fortunate to avoid others thus far. Apparently this is the point in pregnancy where edema tends to ramp up. Unless it is a super hot day (which I think those may be coming to an end quite soon) and I spend a lot of time outside with my feet down I don't tend to get swelling (about a month ago, after getting back from our Niagara falls vacation - several hot days and lots of walking and sitting without being able to put my feet up - I had "gained" 4-5 pounds, which I subsequently lost in 1 day of keeping my feet propped and becoming hydrated). I have also been able to avoid restless leg syndrome, itchiness, leg cramps, sciatica, stretch marks and the linea nigra (that dark line that appears running below the belly button on pregnant women; 90% of pregnant women get it, but it is less likely if you are fair-skinned). Most of all, above avoiding all of the untoward pregnancy symptoms, our baby seems to be healthy from the ultrasounds and measurements that have been done thus far. We are very thankful for this and are looking forward to meeting baby in just over 3 months. :-)