Week 28

It has been an exciting week for us!  The baby has been extremely active ever since I started feeling her move and kick and this was the first week to start really paying attention to and recording the kick counts and the first few days I was counting 10 kicks in just a few minutes, but on Wedneday she seemed to be much less active.  The kick count register from the doctor says to call the doctor right away if you can't feel 10 kicks in an hour when she's awake and I was only up to about 5 whenever I tried on Wednesday.  Thursday morning she continued to be less active so I called the doctor to inquire what to do and whether or not to be concerned.  The nurse said I could come in and listen to her heartbeat to be sure she was ok, but I was so busy at work I decided to wait until later in the day to reassess.  When I called back in the afternoon the nurse told me to come in, then called back a few minutes later and said that I actually needed to go to Labor & Delivery at hospital to get checked out.  I was not expecting that reaction at all and was really hoping everything was ok!  I headed over to the hospital and got hooked up to a fetal heart monitor and a contraction monitor and the nurse said they needed to monitor the baby's hearbeat for awhile.  Well long story short, they think the heart monitor I was hooked up to was faulty because it kept jumping to a higher heart rate which they said could be a sign of the baby having a heart arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat) so they sent my doctor in to do an ultrasound.  Thankfully the baby was doing just fine and she looks perfect!  The doctor checked her heart, brain, movement, amniotic fluid level, lungs/practice breathing and she looks great!  Afterward they hooked me up to another heart monitor just to be sure and everything was fine.  And, I'm happy to report that the baby is back to being crazy and kicking and moving all over again.  : )

I also had to do my glucose screening test to screen for gestational diabetes (which entails drinking a really sweet yucky liquid then waiting an hour and having your blood taken)  and I have an appointment on Wednesday to go over the results with the doctor.  I hope the results are good, meaning no gestational diabetes and not having to go back for the glucose tolerance test which means drinking twice as much yucky liquid and having my blood taken every hour for 3 hours!

Joel and I took a trip to Palm Springs this weekend with his parents for a little getaway!  It's such a nice trip because it's only two hours away but you really feel like you're on vacation and can disconnect and relax.  We played golf on Saturday and went to dinner and then brunch on Sunday follwed by a little shopping before heading home.  I wasn't sure how the golf would go for me with the baby belly, but it was actually fine and we had a great time.  I hope we can sneek in one more Palm Springs weekend before the baby arrives! 

Time to catch up on Surivior from last week before heading to bed, so I'll leave you with the Week 28 update from What to Expect.com:

Your Baby in Week 28 of Pregnancy:  Your baby is settling into the proper position for birth, with his head facing downward (toward your body's nearest exit!). Your little work in progress is now about 2.5 pounds and almost 16 inches long. He's busy adding new skills such as blinking to an already impressive repertoire of tricks like coughing, sucking, hiccuping, and taking practice breaths. Your baby's sleep now includes the REM (rapid eye movement) phase — and that means he could be dreaming already (what do you suppose he's dreaming about?). Though his lungs are nearly fully mature (so both of you might breathe a little easier if he were born now), your baby still has plenty of growing to do.