28 weeks

It’s hard to get motivated to post knowing that most of you see pictures on Facebook, and it’s so much easier to post them there. I just wanted to update anyone interested on my pregnancy.

I saw the midwife for the second time this week (for those who don’t already know, I am planning a homebirth so I transfered care to the homebirth midwife at 20 weeks.) It’s like a party. I see the midwife and two apprentices. But the time I left around 10:30 there were 6 kids in the house where the appointments are held plus three moms and the midwives. Everyone was laughing and telling stories and the kids were playing. My appointment was actually at 8:30, but Reese had so much fun playing I just sat and let her play and visited. After we even walked out, we went to visit the family’s chickens, horses, and dogs. We even bought eggs from the little boy (he sells eggs to pay for his video games. How hilarious is that??!!)

Anyway, my health. I’m doing fine - they checked my blood sugar, hemoglobin, weight, pee, and checked the baby. All are fine. Robin is head down - yay!!! No breech baby for me! I talked to the midwife a lot about my supplements. She puts her ladies on a green supplement (alfalfa or barley in drink or pill form) around now. It helps iron, vitamin K, and “regularity.” I’ve been on it for 2 days, and even though the 8 pills a day are a hassle, I’ve noticed a difference. I also noticed a few weeks ago that I’m actually supposed to take 2 prenatal vitamins a day, not one, so I talked about that with my midwife. She said I should (I didn’t want to), but I could take as much flax seed oil as I wanted to balance the effects. I also asked about vitamin C and echinacea. She said both were fine, but that if I was taking a lot of vitamin C I’d have to scale back before the baby was born so she doesn’t go into withdrawal and it doesn’t thin my blood.

Obviously I expect her to be knowledgeable, but I can’t believe how much she knows, especially about supplements. I ask doctors and nurses and they don’t really know about them(or won’t say since there are no “studies”). She also explains so much that I’ve never known. For instance, she doesn’t do a glucose overload to test glucose. She just tests, and if it seems odd, she does the whole procedure. She also explained to me what my hemoglobin meant. They take it to see if my blood volume has increased, as it should (50% more!). I love how a part of the care I am (I dip the litmus paper in my own pee). As a Bradley teacher, I just drink it all up. I love learning so much. I hope I can maintain a relationship with them after Robin comes so I can ask all my questions. I also wonder if there’s a class I can take about more things (obviously there is somewhere), because I’m starting to learn how little I know!

I’ll post some pictures to pacify all of you (though they’re already on facebook). Enjoy!

Getting ready for movie night

in a sweet dress from Nana.

Trying to push me away.