Update at 27 Weeks

Nat and I have just returned from another awesome ultrasound and first news first, Katie is still a girl; I admit I was a little worried about that one. I know it doesn't happen to often but sometimes those little buggers change sexes on you and the good Lord only knows that we have enough pink stuff in this house already, we would have been in trouble!!

On with the good news. Katie's approximate weight is 2.8 lbs. which the doctor said puts her on course to be a "medium" sized baby, about 8 lbs. at birth. I'll be very, very happy with those results but we seem to make bigger sized babies than that in our family so I'm going to stay cautiously optimistic. Also after further review Katie's cord situation doesn't seem to require a label anymore, her cord was being called "velementous" or attached at the side, but now it appears to be only slightly off centered so they are stripping her of her label. (this is a very good thing!!) They are still going to require us to have weekly stress tests at 34 weeks, but the chances of her having any problems with the test just dropped consiterably, also lessening the chances of me needing a c-section. YAY!!!

In stupid news it looks like I have gestational diabetes, boo!! I had my glucose tolerance test on Saturday and my results came in this morning, to be considered diabetic you have to be above 140 mg/dl and I was at 183 mg/dl. I won't be offically diabetic until after my next test, which I'm waiting to schedule, which is another fasting test but instead of drinking the Sunkist tasting drink and waiting an hour for a blood test I now have to get a blood test done every hour for three hours. To be honest I could care less how much blood they take from me, it's the not eating after midnight and then not being able to eat for three hours that scares me, I don't know if I can make it that long?!

Ok well that's it from our camp. Mama and baby are looking good, feeling good, and excited about all of our great news. I posted some pictures below from our ultrasound today and yes she has her mother's giant feet, no need to pass that one back to me!

Have a Good Week!!! 

Katie at 27 Weeks

 

She Has A Middle Name, Finally!!

So we have finally decided on a middle name for our daughter and I'm pretty sure none of you would have guessed it?! Her full and proper name will be:

Katherine Elaine Burt

Katherine is Nat's great-aunt's name and Elaine is my mother's middle name; we went back and forth with the middle name so much because Nat really liked Elaine as a first name and wasn't sure he wanted to give up on that possibility, chances are in our favor for another girl. In the end we both liked the way it sounds when the first words are, "Introducing the next President of these United States" or " Introducing the Shuttle Captain for this mission", you get the drift. Feel free to substitute your own aspirations for my child in there, gold medal winner, Nobel Peace prize recipient, yada, yada, yada.......

In other news we had a doctors visit yesterday, the last one of my second trimester. Katie's heartbeat sounded great and my blood pressure is looking normal at 124/70. The nurse told me there was a "fair" amount of sugar in my urine, sorry if that's TMI, but I am scheduled for my glucose resistance test on Friday or Saturday so we will soon be finding out if I'm turning diabetic, why not?!

Also I was told that beginning at 34 weeks I will be given weekly stress tests, the baby would actually be taking the test, to see how well she will potentially handle labor. In the last ultrasound they discovered that she has a condition that is called, velementous cord attachment, which means that her umbilical cord isn't attached to the center of the placenta but off to the side somewhat. It isn't that uncommon and would only be detrimental to the baby if I were to go into active labor and she wouldn't do well, the most likely outcome would be an emergency c-section. By running the fetal stress tests they will be able to tell me if I should just go ahead and plan a scheduled Cesarean or if she does well than we proceed with the normal birthing process. I guess just another one of those wait and see situations?

We do have our next ultrasound on Monday, hopefully we will learn more about this cord situation then. Overall I'm not to worried about it, my doctor reassured me that she has seen this all before and if I have to get a c-section then oh well. So I'm just going to go with the flow on this one, plus I'm definatly more excited to see how big she's gotten and to find out that she's just as healthy as she was at our last ultrasound. Can't wait!!!

Ok well that's it for me. Oh, except my doctor was proud of me for finally hitting my pre-pregnancy weight, I'm back to normal, and my measurement from pubic bone to the top of my uterus was 27.5 cm, I'm 26.5 weeks, so she was happy to see that too. Ok now I'm really done, I'll catch you all up after the ultrasound on Monday!!!!

Have a good week!!!

Baby Shower Invitation

Here is a copy of the invitation to my baby shower, please let me know if you haven't gotten one. I know there are a few missing out there so let me know if you need me to send one your way. Also to the right of the picture are links to my registries and to a map of the location of the shower, you can plug in your address and get door to door directions. 

Losing a Role Model

Today I lost one of my role models and boy was she a big one for me. I almost couldn't believe the news when I saw it; former Texas governor Ann Richards had passed away yesterday after a bout with esophageal cancer. Many of you know that I am a Democrat, and very interested in politics, and as a woman there was and is no greater woman to represent that party than Ms. Richards.

Many people outside of Texas might not know much about her; she was a one term Texas governor who was defeated by now president George W. Bush in 1994. She never did run for anything again, but her silver tongue and quick whit made her a favorite guest commentator at conventions and on TV political shows. I had the privilege of seeing her as a guest speaker at my community college in Fort Worth in 2000, I really didn't see her as much as I heard her, even though she had not been re-elected as governor in Texas her popularity rating never dipped below 60% and people would come from miles around just to see her.

She is from a dying generation of women that could be feminist without shoveling it down your throat, classy and brassy at the same time. She always said she got in to politics and out of being a housewife so her tombstone wouldn't read, "She kept a really clean house". She spoke her mind and there isn't anyone out there that could disagree with someone with more sass than Ms. Richards, it was always fun to watch her get someone going.

In the end her I know her legacy and spirit live on. Texas women have something inherently special about them that this Yankee girl can't get enough of, Ms. Richards had it and so do many women I have known from Texas. They aren't afraid to be women, they speak their mind, have opinions, disagree with people and aren't the least apologetic about it; all this while looking like they just walked out of a beauty salon, hair all in place and perfectly dressed. What's even more remarkable is that I rarely hear or heard swearing, they don't use it because it's not effective as a woman, a trap that I often fall in to.

Now that's a legacy, leaving behind a generation of women, on both sides of the political isle, that can serve it up and take it all while wearing high heels and manicured nails. Thank you Ms. Richards for always being yourself and not fading in to the sunset. The stars tonight will be a little less bright.........

Atlantic City

We are back from our short, but needed, vacation to Atlantic City. All in all it was a fun trip, the weather could have been a bit more cooperative, but it really didn't matter too much to us in the end.

We had two good beach days, the day we arrived and the day we left. The water was freezing, like in the low 60's cold, but we chalked that up to Ernesto plowing through the previous week. Nat did get in to ride the waves but the undertow was really bad so I didn't even bother, to get in not to ride the waves?! Instead, I stood at the waters edge and watched my 30 year-old husband body surf with a bunch of kids and get clobbered by some really choppy water, which in the end was much more amusing than immersing myself in freezing water.

On the rainy days Nat and I visited casinos and went to all of the stores and shops around town. The Borgata was the only casino we spent actual gambling time in. I'm no good at table games so I, being both frugal and lazy, parked in front of the nickel slots and got down to work.

First thing you need to know about Atlantic City, in case you have never been there, is that by day it is filled with the over 65 crowd who take bus trips from surounding areas, more women than men and all of them loving the slots!! They will sit at one machine for hours with their casino cards on lanyards attached to their necks and machine at the same time, oxygen machine by their side (while smoking a ciggy in their other), completely transfixed by the sound of their machine beeping and dinging. Every once in a while a friend of theirs will come sit next to them for a quick chat, but mostly they are alone and at one with the machine, focused on hitting that button, waiting for the triple bars to appear. Nat and I laugh, knowing full well that this will be us in forty years, holding on to each others arm, wearing our nametags and hiking our pants up a little to high, excited to hit the buffet for lunch but also excited to smell the acrid, smoky odor that is Atlantic City success.

I started at my "Lucky" machine with five bucks and took it up to $20 before giving it all right back to the casino by my inability to know when to walk away. Meanwhile Nat lost ten dollars in the same amount of time, on slots as well, but he just kept laughing because he couldn't win to save his life. We have no luck with gambling. After about one hour of paying the casino to enjoy it's lovely decor, we left and went back to the hotel. The only other "action" we had while in the casino was at Caesar's when I had to make a bathroom break and Nat felt the call of the slots and lost 50 cents at the machine adjacent to the ladies room. We are hopeless.

We didn't do much better in the shopping arena either. The city is about halfway through a new upscale shopping pier right outside of Caesar's, which was awesome, but mostly out of our league. We went in to Tiffany's, Burberry and glanced at Louis Vuitton. I couldn't seem to convince Nat that Katie's mother should have a $500 diaper bag from Burberry or that Katie's should have a baby cashmere blanket, didn't bother looking at that price tag. (Shannon, you and I can never go to this mall with credit cards!!)

It was a fun little trip though, bad gambling and shopping aside, we ate well and laughed a lot and knowing that was our last trip alone was something special all in itself. We said goodbye to couples vacations, lazy afternoon naps, and quiet dinners and to be honest, right now, I couldn't be happier to see them go.

Family Reunion

Can you guess which one is me?? I'll give you two hints, at 5'5" I'm probably the tallest female and at a whopping weight (not going to say it out loud) I'm most likely the heaviest in the whole crowd!