News from the Gestator

I realize that an important announcement has not yet been made here for all you (ok, three) blogevillians. As sweet and endearing as the name “Bean” is, we’ve decided to go with something less Love-Cobain-esque. From here on, please refer to Bean as….

(drumroll please…)


(cue the trumpets…)


(ok, now a little more drum and a little less trumpet…)


(now pet the kitty and reflect on your day…)


(now wonder what that annoying trumpet and drum music is all about…)


(oh, right…)




AVA JUNE !!!!!



You may remember the name Ava as being our favorite girl name in the last pregnancy. We had it on hold in case Alexander turned out to be less boy and more conveniently-placed-umbilical-cord. Well, we still love the name, so we are sticking with it. The “June” part is after Tim’s mother, L’Shaneequa. (Although the name “June” seemed more appropriate to honor his mother since that was the name she preferred to go by, and it was her actual name.)

Ava’s been doing pretty good, as far as I can tell. She seems to enjoy a similar flair for fetal drama that her brother did. I had a biophysical profile test last week, which is a timed ultrasound test. She had 30 minutes to do what she needed to do (which is mostly move and flex like a miniature body builder) or else we would fail the test and have to go to labor and delivery for more monitoring. Twenty minutes into the test and she wasn’t budging. The nurses put loud buzzers on my belly, they had me move, they had me drink sweet stuff, NOTHING was getting her to budge. Then, with the tech getting visibly sweaty and literally one minute to spare, Ava finally moves. (FYI: she’s been much more active lately… she just hit a lull there for a few days when I was sick.) So at this point I am speculating that Alexander left some notes behind in the womb on how to make doctors and nurses freak out.

While her love of drama is just as big as Alexander’s, she is physically much smaller. She is actually measuring about a week behind at this point. At the ultrasound last week, when I was 28 1/2 weeks, they estimated she was 2 lbs 9 oz. Not bad, right? Well, at 29 1/2 weeks Alexander was estimated to weigh FOUR pounds. So, by comparison, she is a petite flower.

After that biophysical profile, the doctor noted my (er...her?) amniotic fluid was a bit high. (To which I defensively said “YOU’RE a bit high!” I need to stop those knee-jerk reactions to negative news.) I have no idea what this news really means. Doctors like to say things but not give you much context because they can’t explain semi-complex medical issues adequately in a three-minute timeframe and they trust patients will google it later anyway.

Of course, where the real doctors give too little real information, Dr. Google gives too much unreal information. If you consult Dr. G, you have to be willing to filter out the vast majority of useless crap you come across. The Internet is, like, 99.999% worst-case-scenarios because no one writes about boring outcomes. You’re left with maybe 0.001% of your 2 MILLION Google hits containing actual, realistic, useful information. So consulting Dr. Google is not for the faint-of-heart or the gull-of-able. After weeding through some tales of terror, I’ve come to the conclusion that high amniotic fluid is just another one of those things that doctors can find “wrong” with you if they look hard enough. The odds are, it doesn’t mean squat. (If it does mean squat, I’ll worry about that later… but for now, I’m sticking with my squatless theory.)

Oh, another thing a doctor quickly mumbled at me recently is that I’m anemic. Not a big shocker there, or really a big deal. Just more pills to pop. You should see this old-lady-style pill caddy I have. It’s massive. There are places for morning, afternoon, and evening pills for each day of the week…it's huge. It’s like a tacklebox for the geriatric non-fishing crowd.

I’m sure my wise doctors will be springing a pee jug on me at some point here to make sure I’m not developing pre-eclampsia… I'm right around 30 weeks right now, which was when I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia last time. Right now, though, I’m pretty optimistic. I have swelling in my hands and legs, but it isn’t anywhere near the level of swelling I had when I was pregnant with Alexander. I can still actually recognize my appendages and they still appear to be in human form. My blood pressure has been high – but usually well controlled with the “take it easy” lifestyle and prescribed dope. So I think things are looking pretty good right now.

So…yep. That’s the pregnancy update. Still just puffy and gestating. More news as it happens.