30 week appointment

I went in for my regular prenatal appointment today and everything is fine. There are four midwives that we rotate through for our appointments and today I finally saw the one that I haven't seen so far (this pregnancy), so that was nice to get a little more connected with her. I don't remember all the stats, but the baby's heart rate and my blood pressure were fine. My urine test came back negative for everything, so no worries about the glucose this time. My weight gain is a lot less than my pregnancy with Anya, but she said this is totally normal because I am chasing around a two year old this time. So, I don't need to try extra hard or anything to gain weight, she was just making an observation. I have only gained 12 pounds so far and that is pretty low, but not unhealthy, especially since you typically should gain a pound a week for the rest of your pregnancy. If I did that, I would be at a total gain of 22 pounds. And, even though I am not gaining much weight, the baby is growing. I was up to 31 cm, so that is measuring a little big for my 30 weeks, but not TOO big. Plus, she said the baby was in a funny jack-knife position, so its extended leg could have been making that measurement go up. The baby is head down for right now, which is where it needs to end up, so that is good.

The best part of the appointment was that I had it at 8am, so Steve just stayed home with Anya until I got back at 8:30, which meant I didn't have to feed Anya breakfast! She has established a routine of eating a bowl of cereal every morning, but it is a very long process, beginning with her picking out a bowl and what kind of cereal she wants. She often changes her mind about both decisions. She does not like the cereal to get soggy, but she likes to have lots of cereal in the bowl. These two things obviously do not go together, so we have finally evolved into a routine where we put a little pile of cereal on the table next to the bowl and she puts in a couple pieces and eats those before putting more in. This doesn't sound very tedious writing it, but trust me, it can take over an hour sometimes. But it has vastly improved. She doesn't spit out soggy cereal anymore and she doesn't whine for lots, lots, lots in the bowl. And I don't have to fake excitement and try to convince her that two pieces of cereal in the bowl IS lots, lots, lots. And she finally doesn't ask for help on every bite, except when she can't get a piece out of the bowl and into the spoon. Let's see...what else makes this drag on forever. She can't stand getting milk on anything - not her fingers, not the handle of the spoon, not on the edges of the bowl, not on the table, not on her bib. So, she gets a napkin that she can use to wipe up the offending milk on her own. This has occasionally resulted in her spilling the whole bowl of milk as she attempts to wipe off a tiny drop from the rim. Seriously, if you can't see why this whole process is exhausting, please volunteer to stop by some morning and participate. Although unless you come tomorrow, the whole routine may have changed and she'll be on to some new obsessive time-consuming power struggle again. Anyhow, this was all a side note to say that I really appreciated getting to skip the morning cereal routine today. Thanks, Steve.