one last thing

I forgot to mention that I think my belly has grown about 5 inches outward this week, no joke. I cannot believe how big it has grown this week, I will post a new photo on Saturday or Sunday. Let's hope that birth weights are in no way shape or form hereditary, otherwise I'll be popping out a 10lb baby.

Lopsided

My left ankle is the size of a grapefruit and my right one is regular sized. In addition to only one leg/ankle being swollen I feel like a drumstick ready to be fried. I just finished my nightly slathering of oil and lotion in a quest to prevent stretch-marks, this always leaves me feeling like something that needs to be put into frying pan and then eaten. This leads me to another thing, I have trees of veins that were nicely hidden pre-pregnancy that are now appearing and they kinda gross me out. I remind myself of one of the bodies in the bodies exhibit where it was all veins in blue. Seeing veins reminds me of blood, which reminds me of needles, and reminds me that at 28 weeks I have to drink the nasty syrup stuff, wait an hour and then get stabbed by a HUGE needle and blood sucked out for a stupid test. Women have been getting pregnant and delivering healthy babies for centuries, and never had to give blood 3 different times while being pregnant. One last gripe, when the baby kicks it has a very similar feel to gas in my tummy. I feel like an 85 year old lady : (

One of the foods I miss...

Sushi. I saw this TV show tonight and it was talking about different types of sushi that celebs ordered at this new restaurant in New York. The 2 rolls they mentioned, which happened to be my favorite rolls are: spicy tuna roll and shrimp tempura roll. I am serious when I say that the first thing I want to eat after giving birth is a big honkin spicy tuna roll from Sansu.

Other than my massive desire for sushi, I don't really have set cravings. When I watch TV and see all of the food commercials I start drooling and am ready to order take out from all of the places they show, which have mainly been Olive Garden and Pizza Places. Thankfully they have the commercials rolling so that a nasty Arby's commercial airs right after Olive Garden and they show 5 of their roast nastys and it makes me lose my appetite. This is good news for Derek because it means he doesn't have me asking him at random hours of the night to go get a certain food!

Belly Picture 21/22 Weeks

Here is a belly picture taken yesterday, full 21 weeks pregnant on the verge of 22 weeks (5 1/2 months for non pregnant friends :) )

Videos of the Baby

I finally have most of the videos from my ultrasound uploaded, you can view all of them from this link: http://www.screencast.com/t/yJva71iQz . Each video is 3 seconds long, enjoy!

I win again!

Here's a quick summary of my fight with Alliance. Friday morning I did not go into the office with my appointment paper, because I slept in. I was really sick last week, and I think that worked in my favor with the doctor's office. Normal Arwen would have gone off on the lady at the office on Thursday about my appointment...sick Arwen just wanted it to be over and wanted to go to bed. I did call the office on Friday and spoke to the office manager and shared with her my frustrations and concerns about continuing as a patient, and I did make sure to tell her about Emily's bad attitude. She had me fax her the sheet so she could address the problem with the appropriate person (EMILY), and she apologized profusely and told me that she would speak with the people involved, because this behavior was not acceptable. I felt satisfied with that response.

Yesterday was my rescheduled complete ultrasound, and my mom went with me. I think that my son is going to come running out when he is born. All he does is move, kick, turn, flip, etc all the time. I start to wonder if he ever sleeps !! During the ultrasound, he didn't seem to be too happy that the technician was pushing down on his space, so he decided he would move the entire time!! The benefit of him moving around so much is that the ultrasound tech was able to see all of his parts and make sure that he was healthy and growing. The one surprising thing we learned yesterday is that our little pee wee has huge feet in comparison to the rest of his body. It seems to me that we are going to have a very tall little boy on our hands very soon! Here are some pictures from the ultrasound.

And here is a cool video (3 seconds long) that shows him moving around. If you can figure out what you're looking at on the right-hand side is his head, and the thing that's moving up and down is his hand...he keeps moving it towards his mouth, but didn't seem to get it in!

Latest Doctor Nightmare

I know I should switch practices, but I am honestly torn right now because I really like the doctors at Alliance and they will be delivering my baby - not the nurses, receptionists, schedulers, and every other mean person there. That being said, today was supossed to be my "big" 20 week ultrasound where they measure my little candy corn to make sure he is growing properly and all that fun stuff. Since Derek couldn't go with me, I asked my mother-in-law if she would like to go (they give me weird looks when I go alone), so she made the hour long drive up to join in. I get to the office around 10:15 (my appt was for 10:30), and about 5 minutes after signing in they call me up to the front desk. I was in a good mood and excited to see how our baby was growing so I had a smile on my face. The receptionist looks at me and rudely says, "you're sure in a good mood today", and then proceeds to tell me that my appointment was yesterday. I respond by telling her that all of my paperwork says today, and she asks me if I have any of it on me. Of course I don't - I don't just walk around with all of my appointment cards in my purse on hand at all times. It was on my fridge at home, right where it should be! She then goes off on me about how people NEVER miss their complete ultrasound. I asked her why I was never called, and why they don't leave voicemails with their appointment reminder phone calls. She didn't have an answer and asked me to go sit down and wait so they could "figure out what to do with me". I go sit down and am pretty frustrated, because I know my appointment was scheduled for today and not yesterday!! I may have pregnancy brain, but I don't miss my appointments. She finally calls me back up and says that they can't fit me in for 1.5 weeks, and that this is a huge inconvenience for them, and I will need to bring proof with me next time I come in that shows my appointment card being written for June 4, 2009. Thank you Emily the evil scheduler who gave me the wrong appointment. I think she has a personal vendetta against me. Since I have an appointment scheduled in 2 weeks, I ask her if I can just have that one be changed to be my complete one. She huffs and puffs and tells me that I cannot go 4 weeks without having an ultrasound, because I'm supossed to be getting them every 2 weeks, and this is very bad for my baby (I'm sure he's fine), for me not to have my bi-weekly one performed. If I wasn't sick and feeling so crummy, I know that the usual me would have chewed her out to the bone and demanded to speak to the doctor. However at that point it was all I could do to not cry out of frustration and hatred for every person in that office.

The good news, I WAS RIGHT! Derek got home from work and checked my appointment cards, and guess what date they say: June 4. So what am I going to do tomorrow? I'm going to get up early (this is a big deal), and walk myself into that office and show them the appointment cards I have showing June 4, 2009, and then I'm going to ask to speak to a doctor. I'm going to share with the doctor just what I feel about their practice and let them know that I am seriously considering changes practices if this continues. I know I have given them too many chances, but I do not meet with a doctor each time, I have only met with a doctor 2 times so far, today would have been the third, so I have not had the opportunity to share how terrible their staff make me feel. Stress is the last thing I need right now, and going to see this office every 2 weeks puts me on edge. I could scream right now, but I'll refrain.