Funkhouser Update: Week 34

Today was Funkhouser's last fetal echo cardiogram and we have officially 'graduated' from the heart center with a clean bill of health. He will get an EKG sometime in the first few days after he's born (while we are obviously still in the hospital), but no one anticipates any problems. So, check that off the list: heart-A+.

I have been having routine non-stress tests every week, which as I have described before, involved hooking me up to two monitors, one for Funk's heat rate and the other to monitor my uterine contractions. Last week (so at 33 weeks), the uterine contraction monitor was going off like gang busters. To the point where the nurse asked me, 'um, are you feeling that??' I was and it hurt, but I figured it was either Braxton-Hicks (ie, fake) contractions or Funks giving me a karate chop to the gut. See, I don't really know what a real contraction feels like. When Norah was born my water broke completely but I never contracted on my own, so all I know of labor contractions are the pitocin induced contractions of doom. And apparently, I am an idiot. I had to be monitored for a bit more and then monitored again later to make sure it wasn't something more to be concerned about. It wasn't, but I got the strict instructions to take it easy, drink more water, keep my feet up, and not travel more than an hour from the hospital. Sucks because I had to miss my Cooking Club on Saturday and the annual retreat for the lawyer organization I am on the board of on Sunday, but I suppose it was a good thing because yesterday's NST was much less dramatic.

In other news, my insomnia has reached critical mass. I fall asleep around 10 and then am generally up at 11, 12, 1, 2, 3-5. You get the idea. And this is after taking a Unisom at bedtime. It's brutal. I am not a great sleeper to begin with as you know, but this is getting completely ridiculous. It doesn't help that I have a horrific head cold right now and can't breathe. Congestion+insomnia+anxiety about not being able to breathe or sleep=me about ready to go insane. I can't lay down or sit still and spent a good part of the middle of the night last night walking around the block. I thought I was going to avoid the crazies this time around since I seem to have been successful in avoiding the rash from hell, but it looks like I am still going to end up in a bad, bad place. It's not pretty. Someone from my local mom's club recommended an acupuncturist who apparently works wonders on crazy brains like mine, and so I am seeing her for the first time on Friday. Cross your fingers.

I am also huge. HUGE. I went from 'that's a giant belly' to 'holy crap, what is living in there' literally overnight. I got a sandwich from a place across the street from work yesterday and the woman asked me when I was due. I said 'just over a month' and she said, 'are you having twins? You are HUGE.' I said, 'don't you know you aren't supposed to say something like that to a pregnant woman?' She gave me my lunch for free.

Thankfully, Norah and BVZ are taking it all in stride and are doing their best to take good care of me. We were at Target on Sunday and the clerk asked Norah if she was getting a brother or sister. She said, 'he is a brother. I am his big sister. He is a baby and is going to sleep in my bed with me. I love him. His name is Funkhouser.' And that, my friends, makes it all worthwhile.