Doctor Appointment

I had a doctor appointment today, the one I should have had last week but was rescheduled. When we got to the office, they had me do the usual routine, then said I had to do a NST. An "NST" is a non stress test. It's a test where they put a monitor around my belly and I push a button when I feel the baby move. Pushing the button creates a "tick" on the paper that comes out showing when the baby moved and what it did to her heart rate. What they are testing is how the baby is reacting to the movements. Ideally, her heart rate should go up when she moves...like when we exercise our heart rate goes up. They had me on the monitor for almost an hour and her heart rate only went up two times or so in that time period. Most of the time it went down. Apparently she was sleepy. They had me turn to my left side (because she hangs out on my right side 99% of the time) and drink some really cold water to try to wake her up. She just wasn't being helpful. But the two times her heart rate went up was just barley enough to get me off the monitor. 
Matt and I were not aware that I was going to have to do this test during this appointment. Poor Matt had to sit in a tiny room with me for almost an hour while I was hooked up to this machine. The room had a TV in it, but I couldn't watch. I had to concentrate on the movements of the baby so I could push that button to get that tick mark on the paper.
A NST is something that most every pregnant woman has to do, but especially with the gestational diabetes. Also because of the diabetes, today started my weekly appointments. They totally skipped me going every two weeks because of the gestational diabetes. So I now have a standing appointment every Monday afternoon at 2:40 from now until Jan 17th (hopefully it won't be that long!). My NST will be at 2:40 and my actual OB appointment will be at 3:40 (or about, depending on how well the baby is reacting). 
My nurse practitioner said that my blood glucose is doing well, but not to get discouraged if my blood glucose numbers get out of control in the next few weeks. Later on in pregnancy it may become impossible to control my blood glucose with just diet alone. She said not to freak out if they do end up putting me on a medication. I really hope it doesn't come to that, but if it does, it does. This is the second time she has told me this, so I know it's a real possibility. I also learned today that because of the gestational diabetes, I have an even greater chance of being induced into labor instead of it naturally happening. Not just because of the babies size, but because labor might not go as it should with this complication. I really don't want that to happen either, mostly because being induced sometimes prolongs labor and makes it more difficult. If I'm going to try and do this without an epidural, it would work better if I didn't have medical intervention hindering labor. But, if I have to be induced, we will just have to make do and change our birth plan a bit. Luckily we are pretty open minded about everything having to do with labor and delivery. As long as we are kept in the loop and told what is going on we can make the right decisions for us pretty quickly.


So, that is what's going on with all that. I hope baby Schneid's cooperates next Monday so I'm not attached to that monitor too long! Until next week, hope everyone has a good one :)

33 weeks: Baby weighs as much as a pineapple

Your baby is proportioned like a pineapple when it comes to weight -- a little over 4 pounds. (Length: more than 17 inches, head to heel.)

What We Did On Black Friday

While everyone was out and about today shopping like crazy, we stayed home and finished the nursery. We have been trying to gather the materials we needed to test the decals we had that were not sticking. In the end, the decals that were still attached to the backing, I cut out very close to the design edge and we used that Tac-Stick stuff to stick them to the walls. It worked pretty well, and we aren't having issues with them falling off at all. The decals that we had already stuck to the wall that had already started falling off, my mom gave us the suggestion to use wallpaper glue that she had laying around. It totally worked! We just outlined the decals on the sticky side with the glue, and again, we aren't having any fall off. We were so relieved that we could still use all the decals and my mom and our friend Robins' money didn't go to waste buying these decals.


Matt's family contributed to the room decor also. The pink daisy lights Matt's sister Liz got us are SO cute in the room. They are "wall flowers" and when the big light is turned off and just the daisy lights are on, they create such a soft pink glow over the room. Almost like giant night lights. Liz, you did good picking those out!! Matt and I added some leaf decals to them to add to the "stem"...just a finishing touch. Matt's father, John, painted two paintings for the room that we brought up with us from Oregon. They go so well with the room too, and we already had one frame and found another frame that matches pretty well. You can't even tell that they are two different frames. He is working on a couple more paintings for the room for Christmas. Matt's mother, Susan made the quilt that is on the chair in the room, one wall hanging, and she is currently working on another wall hanging for the room as well. We are so lucky to have such crafty people in the family!!


We have started packing the diaper bag to bring to the hospital for the baby. So far we just have her going home outfit, a hat and a blanket. I have been told that the hospital provides pretty much everything needed for the baby so we don't have to bring much for her other than her clothes and the car seat. When we go to take the hospital tour (as soon as one of us calls to schedule it) we will find out for sure what we need for her. We are trying to figure out what to bring for ourselves also. I need to start packing my bag ASAP just in case. We are getting a little too close now to not be prepared. My thinking is to just buy some travel size bathroom stuff and that will take care of that part. I am also going to need to make a list soon of last minute things that we will have to pack just before going to the hospital, which with the look of things, might be just about everything.


In case some of you remember, we had a doctor appointment scheduled for this past Tuesday the 23rd. That appointment ended up getting rescheduled because of the awful weather we had earlier this week. For those of you who are not in Alaska, we had crazy warm weather that caused rain, turning the roads into ice rinks. Schools closed, a lot of businesses closed too...including my doctor's office. The appointment has been rescheduled for Monday Nov, 29th. I'm supposed to be having an appointment once every two weeks, and by the time of my next appointment it will have been almost a month since my last appointment. I haven't been having many problems so I'm not very worried about the amount of time that had passed. I'm sure things are fine, I just have regular aches and pains. Occasionally I feel a little light headed and sometimes fainty, but that is normal stuff. 
The gestational diabetes is going well. I'm still able to control it with diet. I'm so happy that I'm doing well with it, because I really didn't want to be put on any medication for it. So far, so good! I wouldn't be able to do it as well without Matt though. He helps me figure out all the math of the carb servings, and he makes sure I eat my snacks and my meals the way I should. I'm really lucky to have him! I did very well on Thanksgiving. We went to my parents' house for Thanksgiving, braving the roads. Even with only being able to have two carb servings for lunch (when we ate the Thanksgiving meal). I just had small amounts of potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing and fruit salad. I had more turkey than I normally would have (because I wasn't stuffing myself with carbs) and I didn't have a roll at all. I was well under 120 (my max) when I checked my blood glucose two hours later. I even had pumpkin pie after for my mandatory snack after the two hour wait after the meal and I still did good.


Here is the link for the nursery pictures before I forget: http://picasaweb.google.com/Smile161/BabySchneidSRoom?authkey=Gv1sRgCM2trJKNo4uqtAE&feat=directlink 


I will blog again after my doctor's appointment on Tuesday. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving! 

Nursery...We Have A Problem/Baby Shower Pictures

Yesterday Matt and I started working on decorating the nursery. Now that we have decorations for the walls, we thought we should use them. So we put up some decals on the walls, feeling pretty apprehensive about it because we have textured walls. None of the instructions said anything about working on textured walls. They all say "A clean smooth surface". BAH, we tried it anyway. This morning we woke up to "leaves" on the floor from one decal set, and the other is peeling away from the wall. I thought for sure the decal set that was not on an outside wall would be ok, but it's the one peeling away from the wall. The set with leaves falling is on an outside wall, meaning it's pretty cold so I had doubts that things would stick for long. *sigh* We had big plans for wall decorations, and I'm sure people spent a bit of money on these decals, and for that I'm sorry. I doubt they can be returned now. We might try another trick to see if they stick, but we can't chance them falling off into the babies crib or even on the floor because Chloe will eat them. Matt did, however, hang up some paintings that his dad made for us. Also, a "Baby" plaque that was given to us as a shower gift. We still have flower lights that will get hung up on the walls, along with a few other things. So the nursery won't be super bare, it just won't be what we wanted.

Also, I added on to the Baby Shower album a couple of days ago. I just finished the captions for them. Here is the link:

BABY SHOWER PHOTOS 

Matt and I will be taking pictures of the nursery soon...once we figure out what we are going to do about the walls. Until then, hope everyone has a great day!

Baby Shower

First of all I want to thank everyone who came to share the occasion with Matt and I. We had a lot of fun, and it was nice to see everyone. We really appreciated everything we were given for little baby Schneider. Since we don't have much, everything was welcomed with great big open arms :) I hope everyone had fun!!

I went through our registry lists and removed things we received, but I'm keeping things on that we still really need just in case people want to refer to the lists for Christmas gifts. We are planning to save any gift cards we receive for either after the baby is born ( to buy last minute things we didn't think we would need) or until my due date is closer and we are still missing things, we can purchase them with gift cards.
Pictures were taken at the shower, but I haven't been sent them just yet. I'm sure Jody and Teresa (who hosted my shower) were pretty beat once they got home today. So I'll be posting another blog later on with a link to a Picasa album of baby shower pictures. Tonight, Matt and I went through ALL the gifts we got and took pictures of some things for the blog. I did not take any pictures of onesies, sleepers, sleep n' plays, socks and other clothing items that we have a bunch of. I did, however, take a couple pictures of a few sleep sacks we got, just because they were cute and....sleep sacky :) Click on the picture below to view the album of just gifts.

Baby Shower Gifts

Anyway, as I said I'll be posting more pictures later on once I get them. I hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Doctors Appointments

Today Matt and I went to my doctor appointment and my follow up eye appointment. The doctor appointment was just a routine appointment, nothing out of the ordinary. I have gained around 20 pounds though (YIKES!!). I had lost almost 40 before getting pregnant and I was a little disappointed that I'm gaining so much, but I'm sure I'll be able to take it off...I hope. Apparently they don't seem concerned about my weight gain because no one at the office has said anything to me about it. They just weigh me and write it down. Matt and I had written a little bit of our birth plan and showed it to my midwife to see if she had anything for us to think about adding. She wasn't much help in that area, so we will continue to research and try to think of things that should be added. In case you don't know what a birth plan is, it's a form that you fill out explaining what you want and don't want to happen during labor and delivery. Some people want to do things completely natural and don't even want to be asked if they want drugs, so they put that on the birth plan. Some people want to only have certain drugs, or want to be able to move around the room freely (assuming you have no medical reason not to) that goes on the birth plan. Also, who you want in the room, if you want to be allowed to bring things from home to "decorate" the room with to help you feel more relaxed. These things that go on the birth plan help the doctors and nurses figure out what you want and don't want so they aren't bothering you with things in the middle of labor. Obviously, if medical intervention is needed, most of this stuff doesn't matter. They will have to do what they need to. Matt and I are pretty open minded about most everything, so we are easy to work with. We aren't opposed to anything, especially since this is our first baby and we have NO idea how things are going to progress.
We did talk to the midwife a bit about early labor, when to come in, that kind of thing. She took a quick look at my blood sugar numbers, and didn't seem to concerned with them. I explained that I'm still trying to get the hang of how much carbs I can have. Plus, the snacks are really messing me up during the day. Sometimes we don't eat dinner until 7:00p or later because I don't want my after lunch snack to be too close to a meal. It's really hard, I spent over a year training myself to not snack during the day anymore, and now I'm being forced to snack.
My midwife also did another heartbeat ultrasound, and it sounded good. I asked why the baby seems to always hang out on the right side (it's hard on that side about 80% of the time) and she said that babies sometimes favor one side over another....awesome. Makes it hard to lay on my left side when the baby is on my right side and not moving to the left. Silly baby!! So now starts my "every two week" appointments for awhile, then it will be every week. My next appointment is on 11/23 with my regular midwife. They are still trying to get me to meet one more practitioner in the office but she isn't available during that week. They want us to have met everyone that could deliver the baby just in case.

My eye appointment was a follow up from July when I first went in. Some of you may remember, suddenly one day I noticed a blind spot in my right eye. It's only visible when I close my left eye and rapidly blink my right eye. It sounds stupid, but it's there. It hasn't changed, and the eye doctor still couldn't find anything wrong with my eyes. I did tell her that I was recently diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and that might be a factor. She agreed that it could be, but we won't know for sure until after the baby is born. I just have to keep an eye on it (HA! Get it, and EYE), and let her know if the shape changes or if it moves or anything.

Well, Matt and I haven't really looked at baby names in weeks. Just suggestions we have gotten from various people. I think we are pretty dried up with names. Here are the results of last weeks name poll:

Penny: 1
Rebecca: 5
Bethany: 1

Before I post the final name poll (with all winning results) I'm going to look once more around websites, baby name books, etc and see if I can come up with any more names we might consider. Please, if you think of a name let one of us know, we don't turn away names, we think about all of them. I hope the poor baby gets a decent name, if we leave it 'till the last minute she might be named Skeletor or something equally as crazy.
To close I thought I would post another gem from Matt and Chloe. Matt was trying to figure out the baby carrier the other day and thought it would be a hoot to put Chloe in it just to see. Surprisingly, she didn't seem to mind.