Week 24 Pregnancy Update

Actually, I'm writing this during week 25 (almost 26), but just humor me and pretend that this post is on time! I'm running late (on many things!) around here.

Life has been super-busy here for the past few weeks as I run frantically about trying to get my life together again. Routines! School! Chores! Housekeeping! Planning! Cooking! You get the point. There just hasn't been a lot of time for writing.

But the list of blog topics is building up in my mind, and I need to set aside some time for writing. Thus, I start with that which I have most neglected - a pregnancy update.

I have been meaning to write a pregnancy health update, and also a pregnancy what's-been-going-on-around-here update. This post will have to combine both. So here goes! Let's start with what's happened lately with pregnancy, nausea, the very-low-carb diet, and all of that:

Pregnancy Health Update

The Very Low Carb Diet

I have gradually added some "low-carb but not very-low-carb" foods into my diet, starting at around week 16-18. The end result is that I have gradually travelled from deep ketosis through mild ketosis and am (I suspect) no longer in ketosis at all (I will find out officially tomorrow, but I suspect that I left ketosis at about week 22).

I am actually a bit disappointed with this. After all of the research that I've done into ketosis, I now consider ketosis to be an extremely healthy state, and I'd rather be in than out. However, that's life! And it is nice to have some more food variety available to me. Foods that I've added include:

• Small amounts of low-glycemic index fruits, such as apple and berries
• Full-fat cottage cheese
• Full-fat plain yogurt (watch the brand - for example, Mountain High has nearly twice the carbs that Dannon has)

I've also indulged in various "bites here, bites there" of totally off-plan foods, as well as a few meals that were 100% cheating (chicken with corn and beans, lasagna). While it's been awesome to have foods that I haven't had in several years, I can say with confidence that every indulgence in carbs has made me feel yucky. In fact, one of the closest times that I came to throwing up was at 23w0d after eating the chicken/corn/bean dish. Yikes. And it doesn't matter whether the carbs are "good" carbs or "bad" carbs - my body doesn't really care. For right now, carbs are just not my friend. Too bad. I'd looked forward to spending the second half of my pregnancy being able to eat the foods that I haven't eaten in so long, but it looks like my vulnerability to post-carb blood sugar crashes is going to stay with me. I'll have to cram a whole lot of cheating into the immediate postpartum. Christmas cookies, anyone? 

As a matter of fact, I'd probably be doing much better if I was still strictly on the VLC diet with no cheats (even the low-carb cheats). However, now that I'm not as vulnerable to nausea and am able to handle them better, it is nice to have those foods. 

How I'm Feeling

Right now I feel anywhere from "okay-ish" to "yuck." Nausea is still present around the clock, but it's only troublesome at various points during the day. I still have not thrown up (YAY!) or taken any medication stronger than a half-tab of Unisom. 

Weeks 20-24 were a time of great improvement, in terms of levels of fatigue and nausea. I'm still nauseated, and I'm still tired, but I'm doing so much better than I was a month ago. I'm back at church, I'm back to doing most of my household responsibilities, and tomorrow I'm going to do my best to take the children to our first park day since March. (Or rather, my first park day since March - DH has kindly taken them to their park days while I've been out of commission.)

How Baby's Doing

Baby finally has a nickname - Thumper! He is such a little wiggleworm - a very active and enthusiastic little chap. I enjoy his in-utero gymnastics very much! 

We do not do routine ultrasounds, so I cannot give any *definites* on baby's health. However, every single prenatal marker for baby (fundal height, heart tones, etc.) has been exactly spot-on, and all of my checks (weight, blood pressure, etc.) have been normal. So far, this pregnancy is proceeding according to textbook measurements. 

Pregnancy Weight Gain

Speaking of textbook pregnancy measurements, one added benefit (of many!) of the VLC diet has been a more normal pregnancy weight gain. As of my 21 week appointment, I had gained only 19 pounds, which is extremely low for me. During my other pregnancies - most likely due to the constant high-carb eating to fend off nausea - I gained weight at an incredible pace, for a total of something like 80 pounds or more. (Even during my active-HG pregnancy I managed to gain a net 25 lbs.) Very hard for mobility, very difficult to lose in the postpartum. I'm thrilled to be gaining a more reasonable amount of weight this time. 

Pregnancy What's-Going-On-Around-Here Update!

It's Nesting Time!

I have been having great fun with a new project - making comprehensive checklists for spring and fall cleaning! While I love having a clean house, in the past I've had to rely simply on my obsessive-compulsive cleaning habits rather than any type of regular schedule. With these lists, I can simply move from one project to the next without having to rack my brain trying to figure out where I should focus next.

Yes, I really did remove every single item and dust/wash the entire thing! One of my bigger projects so far.  

Only problem? Having worked thirty minutes a day on these projects for two months now, it now appears that "spring cleaning" is going to take me approximately... the entire year. Seriously, do you realize how much work there is in thoroughly cleaning a house? It's incredible! At this rate, I'm hoping to finish up working through the lists once before baby makes his appearance. And I'm not even moving furniture to vacuum! (Deep cleaning is one thing. Moving furniture is another.)

And...

I'm also working on another fun project, simply for the pure joy of it, which I will announce... when it's finished! How's that for giving lots of detail?

Back to housecleaning...

I managed to jump one of my mental blocks last week - I used some Groupon Bucks to order a couch cleaning! It's tomorrow! Now let's see if I can soldier on and manage to do the same with a carpet cleaning! Seriously, these things make me a total nervous wreck. I despise ordering services of any kind. But they do need to be done, and I'm doing my best to make them happen! 

Homeschool Diaries

We are now more than one-quarter of the way through our school year, which is a source of great encouragement to me. It's gone so quickly! I am pressing ahead ruthlessly, knowing that baby is not going to wait for us to finish up our work before putting in an appearance! That means Saturday school when math doesn't get done, but thankfully, we've managed to put in full weeks almost all of the time. 

I'm also starting to work on curriculum choices for next year. Some looming questions include:

• Which Language Arts program will we choose?
• How will we choose to teach history over the long-term?
• Which add-ins will we choose for next year (Spanish, piano, etc.)?

The work never stops. 

Speaking of work, we very recently (as in yesterday) decided to give me an hour or two on Sunday evenings for lesson planning. This includes:

• Printing planning pages and filling them out
• Printing craft and science experiment directions and making shopping lists for ingredients
• Filing
• Researching, printing, communications, scheduling, etc. 

It worked beautifully this week but for one thing - one hour wasn't long enough! Hopefully we can swing two hours next week, and that will be a big help.

Birth Prep

I have started gathering birth supplies (hurray!) and last night finally broke out the Hypnobabies CD. Still to go - ordering my birth kit, mail-ordering my afterpains tincture, and finishing the work on my before-baby to-do list. 

Life in General

As I've mentioned before, I spend a lot of post-morning-sickness time just trying to work back into real life. I don't know how a four-month hiatus manages to wreak such havoc, but it really is hard remembering how to do life again - how to regain routines, how to plan meals, how to get the children back into a structured existence, etc. Every time, I have a very difficult time getting back to normal. It's not an easy transition - it's very time-consuming, confusing, and stressful. However, I am happy to say that we are indeed working back toward normalcy, and the past few weeks have seen great progress. I can say now that we are mostly back to normal around here, although there's still quite a ways to go. But honestly, "normal" is a fleeting state around here. Perhaps I should simply adjust to a new normal, as a wise fellow blogger once put it.

"I clearly remember praying one day, 'Lord!  I just want to be hormonally and physically normal for a while!'  And He very quietly and lovingly said, 'This is the new normal...so you need to adjust.'"

That's what my life feels like, for sure!

In the meantime, life is super-busy with spring cleaning, school work, and all of the insanity that comes from having young children around 24-7. 

I'll try to get some of my post-ideas down on this blog soon! In the meantime, love to all!