Butternut Squash!

29 weeks! That's equal to the size of a butternut squash. She feels like a full-grown soccer player in there, though. I'm officially done with all my prenatal tests. My bp was 108/72 last Tuesday (my 28 week appt). At this time with Amelia, my bp was already elevated so we're totally excited that it's nice and normal this time. My glucose test came back in the middle of the normal range, and I'm not even anemic. So really, aside from the fact that I feel gigantic, everything is perfectly boringly normal! We scheduled the c-section for March 30th at 10:30am. If I go into labor before then, I'm just gonna go for it but the March 30th date is just to say that's the latest she'll be born. However she wants to be born, it's cool with me.
Amelia is concerned with how Nora will get out of my tummy. She wants to know how Nora will fit through my "belly butt" (belly button). I told her it won't hurt, the doctor will take care of everything, and I'll have to wear a band-aid afterward. When I said she'd be coming to the hospital after Nora is born, she thought I meant that she'd have to also see the doctor and have something done. The look of panic on her face made me want to give her big hugs and kisses. We talked it over though, and she understands she'd just be visiting.
She bought Nora her first teddy bear at Babies R Us. It's a little light tan bear with a heart and she named it "Nora's Bear". She also wants to buy Nora a pair of snuggly pajamas. We're going to buy those a little later so we can kind of drag out the anticipation for her.
Amelia loves swimming so much. She's getting very good at it. We went to the pool the other night and we did lap after lap. She can climb onto the side by herself, put her face in and blow bubbles, float on her back the entire length of the pool, kick and stroke her arms at the same time, go under water without hesitation. I remember when she couldn't even touch the net above the lilypads and now her head grazes that net and she uses it to walk across the pads.
She loves her dance class, too. She's learning a Motown-themed dance for her recital in May. The song is "Can't Get Next to You", and her teacher is Ms. Shannon. She calls her classmates her "students" and is very proud of the steps she's learned so far.
Last weekend, I made a Korean lettuce wrap dish with ground beef. All of a sudden, I couldn't stomach the smell of it cooking any longer. We had to scrap the whole dish and had Thai food instead. Ever since then, I haven't been able to tolerate ground beef at all. We've made spaghetti, sloppy joes since then and both dishes were not enjoyable. There's this weird aftertaste that just gets to me. I guess that means where I only ate beef and couldn't stand chicken in the first trimester, in the third I can't stand beef and only want chicken. Weird!
I also have become addicted to orange juice, oranges and citrus in general. I even drank pink grapefruit juice today. I normally can't stand citrus juices. Now I drink it more than twice a day on top of eating as many oranges as my mouth will tolerate (no cankers yet!)
My daily food addictions are also chocolate Fiber One poptarts with skim milk or oj, Yoplait yogurt, 94% fat free popcorn, peanut butter granola bars, oranges, slightly-green bananas, spicy spicy spicy food, kool-aid made with 1/2 sugar, TONS of ice water, decaf coffee.
Aches and pains are pretty common lately. My hips/pelvic bones have been shifting or something, and that's not fun. My lower back has been bothering me. My energy level dwindles down around 2pm. Being in the pool really helps a lot of that, so I'm going to try to get to the pool with Amelia as much as we can.
I stopped in at WW this past weekend and said hi to all those guys. It'll be great to get back into WW. I'm figuring I'll be at the meeting on April 3rd since we should be home from the hospital and settled by then.
I wake up about 2-3 times per night to go to the bathroom or change position. Sometimes I wake up a lot more than that, and sometimes I lay awake for hours for no reason. I guess that's the sleep issues that come with the territory.
Nora kicks non-stop it seems. I sit at my desk, or on the couch, and I can see my stomach bounce and jump. It's crazy! She seems so much bigger than I'm sure she is. And she's a strong girl already! All of us can't wait to meet her. We're all curious what she'll look like, what her personality will be like, if she'll be similar or opposite to Amelia. I can tell already she'll be so very special in her own way, just like Amelia is. Will she have red hair? Cutesy cheeks? Fair skin? Or will she have black hair like me? Brown eyes?
Rob and I keep saying how crazy it'll be to have two little girls. We'll have a family of four!
Only 69 days (at the most) to go!
I'm on two-week appts now, and my next is a week from today.