A Little Worried

so, i went to the baby doctor for my regular monthly appointment today. mostly, everything is on track. she measured my belly (this was the first time - she'll do that at every visit from now on), and i'm apparently the size i'm supposed to be. i've gained 5 lbs. since my last visit, which is also good (that makes 12 lbs. total weight gain so far). the baby's heartbeat sounds good. the thing that has me a bit concerned is that my blood pressure was a little high. the doc said it wouldn't really be classified as 'high blood pressure' but it's higher than is normal for me. she said it's probably just because i had a really active day (cleaning tanks and taking apart the flow-through system i used for my lab experiments, going up and down the stairs a lot), but i should go in and let the nurse check my bp again next week just in case. if it's still a little high, i'll have to see the doc again before my next regularly scheduled visit near the end of october. let's hope it's normal then. in the meantime, maybe i should lay off the salt and vinegar chips. and the super easy but sodium-laden ramen in a cup. and even the chinese food. :( i really like chinese food. but it has so much blood pressure-raising sodium. boo.

i also made the appointment for my next regular visit, when i have to take the glucose tolerance test to test for gestational diabetes. blah. an hour before my appointment, i have to drink half a bottle of this crazy orange drink that i hope won't taste awful, and i'm not allowed to eat or drink anything except water (and that crazy orange thing) after midnight the day before my appointment. as a definite 'grazer', i am not looking forward to that. my appointment is for 10:15 (the earliest time they had available), so i won't be able to eat anything until after that. that's gonna be hard, considering i'll be awake for about 3 or 4 hours before then. i'd normally have breakfast around 7:00 before heading for the lab and then have a snack around 9:30 or 10:00, so i'm not sure how i'll handle waking up at my regular time (6:00 or 6:30, depending on what i have to do that day) and not eating until at least 10:30 (i am SO taking a snack to the dr.'s office with me - and i plan to eat it as soon as they draw the blood they need).

slightly more exciting, i also received a packet of useful information from the nurse about childbirth education, newborn care, breastfeeding, and infant cpr classes. most of them are just two-hour classes, but the childbirth one can either be two hours one night a week for four weeks or one saturday. i'm leaning toward the saturday one. next to that one on the info sheet it says that the saturday class isn't made for couples who want a completely natural birth, but i plan to have an epidural (umm, i don't really deal with pain so well, and i'd like to be aware of something more than the pain when the baby is actually born. you know, like the baby himself.), so that's not a big deal. i don't know anyone who has had a problem with an epidural, and everyone i know who had one was completely fine (and so were their babies).

and that was pretty much my day - taking apart and cleaning the flow-through tank system from my lab experiments, setting up an assay to run tomorrow (thus all the running up and down stairs), and going to the doctor. i'll try to post another pregnancy photo soon for all you guys who don't get to see me every week. i'll post at least a photo a month to document the rest of my pregnancy (and how ginormous i'm getting - i have never weighed this much in my life), so you guys have that to look forward to for about the next 18 weeks. after that, you can look forward to baby pictures! and pictures of me being not huge again!