31 weeks & updates

It's been an interesting few weeks as this pregnancy progesses from "I'm absolutely loving it" to becoming uncomfortable. But first, the survey:

How Far Along: 31 weeks 1 day
Size of baby: Head of lettuce ~ 16 inches, 3.5 pounds
Total Weight Gain/Loss: +16 lbs - ugh
Maternity Clothes: Definitely! Thankfully they are comfy. The pants are starting to fit better but still use the beband just to feel more secure. I also recieved some cute tops from Lauren since she's not having any more babies.
Movement: He's actually starting to hurt me at times. He's still punching and kicking though those movements seem less than before and more rolling and moving in general now. It's weird to feel a foot move across the top of my belly.
Sleep: If I could sleep all day long, I would! I sleep 10 or so hours, up for a couple, and then feel like I hit a brick wall. I do well at staying up some days, other days I nap, but then when I'm ready to go to bed it still takes me awhile to fall asleep. Kinda frustrating.
Symptoms: Exhaustion, getting uncomfortable moving around, Sarah told me I was waddling the other day, itching, and heartburn (even for a girl who already takes protonix everyday)
What I miss: feeling normal, being able to roll over at night without it being a production, and I'm sure there's more. I promise I'm trying not to complain too much because I know that he's totally worth all of it. And all in all, aside from the very beginning and my body adjusting to pregnancy til now, it has really been easy and pleasant.
Cravings: cereal
Best Moment this week: working on more nursery things, hearing his heartbeat again, feeling him move

As I said, the last few weeks have brought us some changes....we've had another NST and cervical length check due to some cramping. Goober did not want to stay on the monitor during the NST but they were okay with that. It was a little early still and he was doing fine. I wasn't contracting then. My cervix also measured 5.5 - this is great. I asked the doctor if this meant that I was going to have a long, hard labor though. Of course, he has no way of predicting that. I just kept saying that it means that he's going to stay in there until we force him out (not that I want to be dilating or effacing yet but they didn't expect my measurements to actually be greater than it was at 16 weeks).

We were relieved to know that everything was okay there. Then a few nights later, I started waking up in the middle of the night itching. It took me a few nights to realize it was happening and becoming a pattern. I would wake myself up scratching without even realizing I was doing it. Monday morning some blood work (CMP and bile acids) was ordered to test me for cholestasis. The bile acid results have yet to come back though. Hoping I'm just crazy and itching for no reason and it's not that. We will find out.

Today was my normal appointment. When we got there, I felt horrible! I didn't know what was wrong...heart racing, flushed, faint feeling, actually felt like I was having an anxiety attack but wasn't anxious about anything. Just overall ugh. It was discovered that my blood pressure was a little high (148/80 first read, 138/88 second read) and a fast heart rate. Thanks to these lovely things (though not major...no protein in urine, no dehydration, etc) she decided to have me back in two days along with ordering more blood tests (thyroid and CBC). They are also hoping to have the bile acid results back by Friday as well. So, that'll make three trips to the Dr's office in one week. Yikes!

Aside from that, we noticed that little guy is starting to do freaky alien like movements. We've seen jabs and pokes before but the rolling that he's doing now is honestly just odd looking to me. We were able to catch a brief clip of it the other night when going to bed. (Movement starts around :55 mark. I also swear that I'm not talking to myself - Matt is laying there beside me, he's just quiet). Also, please ignore the ugly surgery scar.