31 weeks

STATS:
31 weeks 2 days
Starting weight: 128
Weight: 150
Waist @ bellybutton: 39.5''
Issues: I can't really cross my legs anymore.
How Big Is The Baby This Week? he weighs as much as 4 naval oranges

Over the weekend I attended a breastfeeding class that I had signed up for through the hospital, since I've heard and read that it is not as easy as you'd think. I'm glad I went, I learned a lot of stuff about how mine and the baby's bodies work. And apparently the hospital I'm delivering at has the best lactation center in the whole nation; with consultations, a 24 help line, a feeding assistance room, and all sorts of other things. So that's nice to know. However, all the other women there were due in early July, and guess who had the biggest stomach... ME!

On Monday I was having some slight cramping really low in my abdomen, it wasn't super painful, but after about an hour it hadn't gone away and was starting to get kind of annoying. So I called my doctor's office just to see if there was anything I could do to ease the pain, and they made me go to the hospital to give a urine sample to check for a UTI and do a non-stress test. They hooked some monitors up to my stomach, one to measure the baby's heartbeat and one to measure my uterine contractions, and I had to just sit there for an hour. My urine was clean, and I only had one contraction while I was there (which I didn't feel), which isn't unusual at this stage of the pregnancy, so I went home. I guess they just wanted to be safe instead of sorry, some women call in with symptoms like that and are in pre-term labor, but not me. And I think Kash is a little show off; the whole hour that he was hooked up to the monitor he would not stop moving, and as soon as they unhooked him, he stopped.

The next day I had my normal 2 week check up with my doctor. She said everything looks good and that the cramping I'm having is probably just the ligaments stretching, baby must be having a growth spurt. She suggested I get a belly belt again to help with that, I guess I should really go get one huh? And she assured me that my stomach is not too big, if it was she would let me know. My fundal height actually measured at 32 weeks, which is only a few days ahead of what I am, so pretty much right on track. I'm really thinking about getting a shirt that says "I'm due in August, no I'm not having twins, and my doctor says this is how big my belly should be!" Maybe then people will back off. Oooh and I almost forgot to tell you the funny part about my appointment. Every time I go in it's standard procedure for me to pee in a cup; so I head to the bathroom, pick up my cup, write my name on it, place it next to the toilet, go to the bathroom, pull up my pants, wash my hands. I go to grab my "sample" on the way out, guess what I forgot to do, pee in the damn cup! The nurse said it happens all the time, good thing I had just left the hospital a sample the day before.

And I think I mentioned a few months ago that I started having calf cramps at night. Well I've only had a few and they were very mild, until the other night. I woke up screaming and crying in the middle of night with a cramp in my leg that hurt so bad for so long that I truly thought it wasn't ever going to stop and I would have to get my leg amputated or something. The pain was so bad that it really doesn't even deserve to be called a cramp. It was more like someone had reached through my skin, grabbed my muscle and was pulling and twisting it away from my bone, but a little worse. I think I scared the crap out of TJ, because all of sudden he was hovering over me asking "what's wrong, WHAT'S WRONG?", and I was in so much pain that all I could say was "ow, ow, ow, ow, ow", so he still didn't know what was going on. He finally just put his hand where mine was and when he felt my leg muscle jumping and twisting he figured it out. He massaged it out for me and once it finally stopped, I went to move my leg back down to the bed and there it went again, me crying "ow, ow, ow", my muscle jumping and twitching, and TJ massaging my leg. After it stopped this time, I was terrified to move my leg at all in fear that it would start again. I very slowly lowered it down to the bed, and tried to fall back asleep. I almost had a heart attack when I tried to stand on it out of bed the next morning, and I had to limp into work that day. My calf was bruised and sore from that damn cramp for the next 2 days.