No Rest For the Pregnant!

I remember when I was pregnant with Nathan, back in Colorado.  He was due on July 2.  I had been tutoring my neighbor in chemistry and college algebra, but I was done with that.  I had also been volunteering with "Right to Read", an adult literacy program, but I had stopped tutoring there as well.  My weeks during my last trimester centered around my wonderful moms walking group, which met Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings.  That left Tuesday and Thursday mornings for doctor appointments and trips to the library and commissary.  I also had to cook (measly amounts of) food for Bob and me, and do our (measly amount of) laundry.  Afternoons I spent down in our basement, eating Dole Fruit N Juice bars, since it was warm in Colorado in June (although not humid!), and we of course didn't have air conditioning.  I played with our big dogs, read books, and did the crossword puzzles my mother-in-law would send me.  What a life!

My last few weeks of pregnancy no longer look like that ideal, especially this pregnancy, LOL.  Right now I have a to-do list a mile long, and I am desperately trying to get everything done before this baby comes!  Thursday, after some school with the girls, my morning exercise, and a quick, early (low-carb, of course) lunch, I took the girls to get haircuts at Great Clips.  Anna started mentioning wanting a haircut after Lily C. got 27 inches (!!) cut a few weeks ago, and now she looks adorable with a little bob.  After we received our elementary yearbooks from last year on Tuesday, Anna fixated on a little girl in Jonathan's class, who also had a cute little bob, and from then on she mentioned haircuts approximately once an hour.  The girls all did need at least trims, but hadn't wanted any for awhile, so I figured I needed to strike while the iron was hot.

After haircuts all around, we had to stop at both Target and Office Depot, since I failed to get enough dividers and 1 1/2" binders for the 4 boys when I was getting school supplies at Walmart a few weeks ago.  And now Walmart looks like a plague of school-supply-eating locusts went through that section, so all you can get is spiral notebooks with weird covers and folders.  Target was the same, but fortunately Office Depot came through.  I bought 7 packages of dividers, so hopefully that will do, LOL.

We went rushing home because Luke and I needed to sign on to a virtual class orientation for a writing class we signed him up for back in March, when it sounded like a good idea.  Now he is just auditing it, since he has so much on his plate, but we needed to know how to access the recorded lectures, since the live class meeting is during his Spanish class.  While coming home, Luke called to ask if we were in fact going to be home to log on, and also to let me know that the USAFA admissions department had called with a "question about Nathan's transcript".  This led to much slightly panicked wondering on my part, as I tried to figure out what they could possibly be questioning, and if I would even be able to answer their question, whatever it might be.  I hope and pray they won't blame Nathan if I totally screwed something up!  Yeah--that was stressful.

After getting onto the orientation, I called the admissions department.  The question was where we took the classes we had listed as "AP" on our syllabus--at a school?  I was able to tell them that the classes were taken at Rivendell, and that all the teachers had approved syllabi with the College Board, and that I had listed each teacher in my course descriptions, so they could search the teacher's names to make sure they were listed as approved AP teachers (because you can't call a class "AP" unless you have the official College Board approval for your syllabus).  So that was actually an easy question to answer, but I was SOOO glad that I had gone back and listed every teacher and where the course was taken on the course description document for Nathan.  I need to go back and do that on the official Rivendell document too.  USAFA admissions is apparently on the ball with this stuff.  Whew!

Then Anna and I had to leap off again, this time to an eye doctor appointment for her.  I thought she had last been seen a year ago in April, but (whoops!) it turns out it was 2 years ago!  Her farsightedness is all gone, but she does have some astigmatism, so she is getting a different pair of glasses.  She has been complaining of some letters blurring together when she reads, especially small print, so hopefully the new glasses will be just the ticket to help her be able to spent more time reading.  The eye doctor did say something interesting.  She said that kids who play outside a lot tend to have less decline in their vision, maybe because they are focusing far away more, or maybe because of the effect of the sun's rays on their optic nerve.  So she recommended lots of outside play time for Anna.  Sounds good to me!

After we were done picking out new glasses at Walmart, we rushed home again.  I grabbed a quick bite of left-overs, and then Nathan and I drove off to first drop Luke off at cross-country practice, and then to continue on to Ft. Myer, where there was a West Point admissions briefing at the Officers Club.  That turned out to be interesting.  The briefer was an Army major assigned to West Point, but in charge of admissions for the southeast region.  He was a really good speaker--funny, self-deprecating, had good stories, etc.--so he was very easy to listen to.  Plus, he looked a lot like my cousin Pilot!  We knew a lot of what he had to say, but he did bring out some interesting differences.  West Point mainly bases their decisions on essays and ACT/SAT scores, even for public school students.   We went up and talked with him afterward to ask him a question about letters of recommendation, and I told him about how USAFA wanted the course descriptions, called me this afternoon, etc.  He laughed and said that USAFA had 6 people doing his job, and he didn't really look at any of that extra stuff.  We were also able to talk to someone who works with our Congressional representative on his nomination committee, and he had some good info about that process.  Nathan also got to meet his military admissions liaison officer, and it was good to put a face to that name/voice.  He was very nice and helpful.  So just meeting and talking with these men was very useful, so we were glad we went.  I will say that I stuck out (ha!  I'm so punny!) like a sore thumb as I waddled around, getting up to pee several times.  Definitely no other pregnant moms were there!  Nathan and I didn't get back home until around 10:15, and then we worked on some stuff for his nomination packages.  He's getting ready to send all that in on Monday, so we are coming down to the wire!

Friday morning I had to drive to Bethesda for both an OB appointment and a non-stress test.  On Wednesday it took me 1 hour and 10 minutes to get there at 10:00, so this time I left a little before 8:00 for a 9:20 appointment--and of course there was very little unusual traffic, so I was there in plenty of time.  You just can't predict!  The appointment went fine.  The doctor scheduled me for an induction starting Thursday night, Sept. 25, although she did say that if my glucose numbers weren't "tightly controlled", then they would still induce me a week early.  She checked my cervix, but I'm just 1 cm and still high, which is probably how I've been the whole time, LOL.  I couldn't get another appointment next week, so I won't see someone until next Monday, Sept. 15.  Hopefully my numbers will stay fine.  They've been good ever since we got back from White Sulphur Springs.

Then I headed up to the prenatal assessment clinic for the non-stress test.  Baby was not quite as cooperative as she was on Wednesday, but it didn't take too terribly long.  She is hard to keep on the monitor , though, as it seems all of mine are.  That alone makes me dread an induction, where there has to be continuous monitoring.  I have hold the sensor thing at a certain angle to keep her on, and whenever she moves around, it's all lost.  So the tests are not all that relaxing for me!

I had to go up to the pharmacy then and pick up more glucose test strips.  I ended up waiting over an hour before I went up and asked a tech who had a minute before he called the next person to his window.  It turned out they had totally skipped over my number, so I waited way longer than I should have had to!  I did finish my book though.  I didn't get home until after 1:00 (and I was STARVING), so it was a long morning.   And I still had a chiropractor appointment at 2:45, so I wasn't even home very long, just long enough to eat lunch and do memory work with Jonathan and the girls!  After my chiro appointment, I stopped by the library to pick up some more books for me to read during the non-stress tests.  I got some murder mysteries, which hopefully won't take up too much of my ever-diminishing brain power.  Then it was home for a quick dinner, then off to Bible study, where Nathan picked up the last of his letters of recommendation (thanks, Tim!).  Afterwards, we came home and worked on the last of his essays and got him ready for this morning, where CAP had set up a time to practice interviewing and to give feedback on essays for cadets applying to academies or ROTC.

So finally I fell into bed around 11:30.  This is definitely not the relaxing time of my first pregnancy!  No fruit n juice bars either, which is a bummer.  Those are really good!