7 Months

Ok, so these two pics with the dogs are a little blurry - I don't know why. I am wearing the best shirt ever though. It says "not finding out". We love this shirt. It gets a lot of reactions when I wear it. Some good, some bad. It's amazing how many people these days expect you to find out the sex of the baby and then get upset when you don't know. I am 29 weeks in these 2 pics which is mid 7 months. Notice the dogs posed with me on either side of my growing belly.

Here are two pics of me at around 28 weeks, early 7 months. Marianne and Todd had a Halloween evening and invited Mike, Josh, Bethany and us over for dinner and pumpkin carving. The pumpkin that looks like a Jackolantern is the one Chris carved - he won the vote amongst us all for best pumpkin. In the picture below - you can't tell - but Marianne's two months pregnant. Bethany is in the blue shirt and Marianne in the pink shirt.

Update on the pregnancy: my anemia is improving. My blood count is coming up partly from the iron pills I am taking and partly from all of the iron rich food Chris keeps making for me to eat. I recently found out that I have gestational diabetes. The positive is that it looks like my lab work is fairly normal and after the baby I should go back to normal. So for two more months, I just check my blood sugar, eat right, exercise and keep things under control. The doctors are considering inducing the baby around the end of the year due to the diabetes and the baby potentially getting too big to deliver. My due date is still Jan 7 (my birthday) but we are looking more like a Dec 29/30 delivery. We shall see - will know more as I approach weeks 35-36. Not such a bad thing though - our insurance deductable will be met and can anyone say TAX CREDIT!!

Hope all is well, will post more at the end of 7 months. Love, April

End of Second Trimester

Here is a picture of Lori (Chris' sister) and me at her birthday party. This marks the end of the second trimester for me, I am at 27 weeks (end of 6 months) pregnant. I really am all belly. Everyone keeps speculating on what the baby is and how I am carrying it. Well, I can truly say I have gained very little weight anywhere else but my belly. It literally goes from my ribcage to my pubic bone, straight up and down. Not sideways, just up and down all belly. So, if that tells any of you anything, there you go.

I have had a rough few weeks regarding labwork. My hemoglobin and hematocrit came back fairly low, low enough to take serious action. I have been eating more iron rich foods and taking iron supplements. I will have my labs repeated this week to see if there is any improvement. Also, I failed the glucose toleranace screeing test for gestational diabetes, but not by much. So, I just took a more extensive lab test this weekend and should know the results soon.

Hope that all of you are well and I will post more this week with updates and 7 month pictures.