18 week appt., etc...

Today was our 18 week appointment; I am actually 18 weeks, 3 days now. Almost halfway there! 12 days til our second and last (sad face :( ) ultrasound, but yay for Naval Medicine! :-) The midwife seemed pretty certain that they would be able to find out whether we have a boy or a girl! Whoop! Can't wait!!!

Nolan was able to come with me today - YAY! And, although we only got to listen to the baby's heartbeat, roughly 160 she said, got some general questions I had answered, as well as had blood drawn for the alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) test which screens for Down's Syndrome, it was great to have Nolan there! :-) Nolan had not heard its heartbeat since our first appointment (at 7 weeks and 4 days). It was somewhat funny that the midwife was able to find it right away, then the baby was "on the move" and started avoiding the monitor so it took a minute to find it again! I guess it doesn't like be pushed on... haha

Nolan's squadron has been great in making it possible for him to go with me to my appointments... Now don't get me wrong, Nolan doesn't get a free morning, he usually brings something to work on while we wait, which works for everyone! (He will be headed to West Point, NY for a few days in the near future.... so he was working on routes and such for that)

This may seem silly, but I was super nervous/excited to see how my weight had changed... I am more than happy to gain weight to make sure we have a healthy baby, but at a steady/reasonable rate, of course! I am elated that I am now at 145, I was 142 at 6 weeks, so they say I am right on target; they recommend about 1/2 - 1 pound a month (thus far - 20 weeks = gain of 5 pounds). I really haven't increased how much I eat, although I am trying to get more fruits/veggies than before. I have been walking with Sandi (and sometimes Nolan too) 3-4 times a week for 20-25 minutes, so I plan on keeping that up for the next 5 months... :-)

Of course, my blood pressure was a tiny bit high, but I have been checking it at home and it hasn't been high, so the midwife recommended that at my next appt, at 22 weeks, that I request to sit for 5 minutes before they take it... (since there are a lot of women who end up undergoing further testing when their BP is too high, although they weren't really stroking out.) I have pretty much always had elevated blood pressure at the Naval Hospitals, I think I suffer from "white coat syndrome." haha I will continue to keep an eye on it at home, since my mom did have preeclampsia...

I don't know that I can "feel" the baby yet, or maybe I just don't know what I'm feeling; I should in the next couple of weeks though, so that will be interesting. :-)

We are headed to California, then to Seattle, the third week of August, so I am a bit nervous about such a long flight to the other coast, but the midwife assured me I would be fine, as long as I kept hydrated and got up to walk around often. Nolan is headed to CA for a work related conference and we figured since he will be gone quite a bit in September that I would join him and celebrate my 28th birthday in CA/WA! :-)

Check back August 9th! :-) SO VERY EXCITED! ;-)