I'm a terrible blogger

I hardly update this blog at all these days. Sorry about that! I don't even have a good excuse, it just slips my mind and before I know it another couple of weeks have passed.

I'm now 25 weeks 1 day pregnant. Baby boy is very, very active. I find it incredibly reassuring to feel him do his acrobatics in there!

Here's a bump pic from Sunday, when I was 24 weeks 3 days along:

I had another prenatal appointment last Monday (1/21) when I was 23+4. My BP was fine and so was everything else. I don't know if I mentioned previously (I probably did) that at a few appointments my BP was kind of high. Well, on the way to my last appointment I told my hubby that I thought it would be normal this time because I'm no longer anxious about them being able to find the baby's heartbeat. I was right! :) Feeling him move a lot erases the worry I used to have, you know?

I found out I gained 11.2 pounds since the start of my pregnancy. Not too bad - at least it can't be terrible, because my OB hasn't said anything about it.

I asked my OB lots of questions:

• Should I write a (flexible) birth plan? --- She's happy to do whatever I want, as long as things are progressing normally. 
• How far past my due date will she let me go? --- She said if I get to 41 weeks she'd be really nervous... would start talking about induction a little after 40 weeks. Yikes.
• Is it really necessary to go to birthing classes? --- She said because I thrive on information, I would definitely benefit from the classes. I was hoping she'd say they're not necessary, haha, but we'll sign up for one soon.
• Other questions I can't remember now --- pregnancy brain is a real thing, seriously!

My next appointment is 2/18, and I'll be doing the 1 hour glucose test and also getting a Rhogam shot because I'm Rh negative. Nothing to worry about, at least we know. Hopefully I'll pass the glucose test, otherwise I'll have to do the 3 hour test. I did a 2 hour glucose test back in June, as part of the testing my OB did for "infertility". My results were perfect then, but of course pregnancy can wreak havoc on your body. Hopefully I won't have gestational diabetes, anyway. After the next appointment I'll be seeing my OB every 2 weeks instead of every 4. Delivery day is getting closer!

My mom and stepdad are coming from England to visit us from 2/22 until 3/9. It's almost 2 years since we've seen them; they visited in May 2011, and we haven't been to England at all since I moved here. We won't be going any time soon, either. One of my best friends is getting married, she got engaged in August maybe a week before I got my BFP. Anyway they set their wedding date a week or so ago, for August 24th. Prior to that they were saying "June, July, August or September". Quite a range of dates! Anyway, as much as I would like to be there for her wedding, it's just not going to be practical to travel so far (more than 5,000 miles) with a 3 month old baby. The sheer amount of stuff we'd have to take with us is staggering, and we just really couldn't do it. The direct flight from Phoenix to London is about 10 hours, and then we'd either have about a 4 hour drive to my "home" city or we'd have to take 2 trains - which would also take almost 4 hours in total. Not to mention the huge expense of traveling so far, and we'd have to go for at least 7-10 days to make it worthwhile really. It just isn't going to happen.

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Our long-term foster pugs, Lilly & Milo, left for their amazing new home on 1/19! They're doing really well and they're very happy. We've had lots of photo updates and we really couldn't be happier for them! Here they are (both on the right) with their French bulldog sisters!

Unfortunately, the pug I wrote about in my last post ended up declining and had to be put to sleep. We only had him for 4 days but it absolutely broke my heart. We bought him a yummy bacon cheeseburger before we had to take him to the vet, and he really enjoyed eating that! We stayed with him the entire time, from when the vet gave him his sedative which took about 15 minutes to take effect, to when they injected the final stuff. We gave him tons of love and lots of kisses and cuddles. It was very peaceful but so so sad. His name was Chester, he was about 10 years old and he was the sweetest little guy.

A few days after he passed away, I went and got a name tag made up for him. I have it on my key chain. I just felt as though it would be some kind of small tribute to him. I felt bad that whoever owned him wasn't there for him when he needed them most, and he didn't have a tag of his own.

I miss that little guy so much. It's crazy how 4 days can mean so much.

Sorry to end on a depressing note; as sad as the whole thing is, it's part of being involved in rescue. Sometimes we're just not able to do enough for the dogs who come to us. This was the best we could do for Chester, and he's not suffering now. We'll never forget him, but he's in a better place now.

Testing starts tomorrow, and other unrelated things!

I deleted my rant about my hubby's job: it looks as though we'll be able to make everything work tomorrow after all. The plan is that when I go to my gynecology appointment he'll get his blood work done, and then later we'll take his sample to the lab for analysis. Fingers crossed it'll work out, anyway!

We went to the gym today and yesterday and did an hour workout each time. We'll take tomorrow off and go again Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. We both feel a lot better now that we're going to the gym regularly.

I got some good news yesterday: my friend and her family are coming to visit next Easter! They'll be in our state for a little over 2 weeks, it'll be awesome! They wanted to come last year and this year but were unable to afford the trip, but now they've booked for next year so that's something great to look forward to. They'll be staying in a hotel, which is a good thing because honestly we'd struggle a bit with 4 house-guests for that length of time. We'd manage but it would be a shock to the system when it's normally just the 2 of us (plus the pugs!). The husband is allergic to dogs and one of the girls is developing allergies to animals too, so it's definitely in their best interests to stay elsewhere. Plus, they'll probably have a better vacation because they'll be able to do what they want when they want. There are 3 pools at their hotel, too - I'm sure they'll enjoy those!
So we have my mom and step-dad coming to visit (staying with us) from 2/22 through 3/8 next year, then my friends coming from 3/29 through 4/14. Exciting stuff! It's good to have things like that to look forward to.

I ordered some stuff from Amazon on Friday - one of those ovulation detector saliva microscopes, some more HPTs and a book. I was going to order regular OPKs but I figured I'd give the microscope a go, because it's something you can use repeatedly as many times as you want. It was about $28, which I thought was pretty good considering that I could spend $55 on OPKs monthly! This is a one-off purchase so it should be much better value for money. It'll be interesting to see how it is, anyway. It should be arriving around Tuesday, so hopefully it won't be delayed and I'll be able to use it for this cycle. Today is CD10 so I doubt I'm close to ovulating yet; it'll probably be another week at least.

Overall I feel a lot better now than I did last week. I don't know what changed, but I definitely feel more positive. I think it's partly due to the fact that we're being proactive, starting with testing etc. I don't feel worried about my hubby's SA results or his blood work results, because I'm almost certain everything's fine with him. Of course I could be wrong, and I think I'm as prepared as I can be that there could be a problem, but I'm not worrying about it yet. It'll likely be a week before we get his results, so maybe I'll feel apprehensive by that time!

I'm fairly calm about my gynecology appointment too. I'm trying to think positive thoughts - I really don't like doctor appointments but it's something I need to do. I tend to get really anxious when I have appointments (I have no idea why, maybe it's white coat syndrome!). I'm sure it'll be fine though. I hope I'll like the gynecologist and that I'll be able to ask her lots of questions and get good answers. That's all I really want - for her to listen to me and take my concerns seriously. Oh, and to be gentle! LOL.