Pregnancy Journal: Weeks 20-23

Week 20: This was suppose to be a very exciting week, halfway through the pregnancy! I developed a bad case of paranoia though, not real paranoia, just a little more pregnancy nerves than usual. What brought on this case of the nerves? A strange lump under my skin on my forearm. A knot formed that grew red and painful. I figured this was some sort of infection, and I grew paranoid that my body would then fight my baby! I resisted seeing the doctor because I was going to the doctor next week. I tried to relax, get plenty of rest and leave the lump alone!

See the stress? May 5.

Week 21: Time for my appointment! We had 20 week sonogram, which revealed a healthy baby! The sonographer took over 30 minutes studying our baby which was much longer than I remember but I enjoyed any opportunity to see the baby! We are not finding out the sex of the baby, which drives everyone crazy, but we love the surprise! After the sonogram, I had a regular appointment with my doctor and the first thing I asked about was my lump. She decided to lance it, Ouch! Local anesthesia, ouch, her squeezing and scraping, ouch, festering wound afterwards, ouch!! The whole thing was ouch! I kept apologizing to my doctor and her nurse who had to attend to removing a harden mass from a fore arm! I was put on antibiotics for a week, and advised to put Bacitracin ointment on it (which I had never heard of, but seemed to work well!). The end result was a festering wound; open, oozing, and down right disgusting. (Sorry I didn't take pictures!) The doctor called the next day, and as it was still painful and swollen I became paranoid that something terrible would happen while I'm on vacation next week. The doctor reassured me and gave me the signs of further infection to look out for. Neither of us know how this happened, but I was thankful she addressed it and was hopeful for the future!

Mother's Day Ice Cream, May 12

Week 21: Vacation! You read lots about this week already but pregnancy-wise it was still a stressful week! My wound was healing up nicely, but I'm guessing all of the eating and activity got my body all out of whack. I felt like I wasn't feeling the baby move as much and let's just say my digestion took a vacation too! Fortunately I brought my $30 home Doppler with me, so I checked in often with baby to feel reassured that baby was just fine in there. My best guesses are: baby was in a constant food coma, baby didn't have much room to move, or I was so distracted that baby was moving a lot and I just wasn't paying attention, or maybe some combination of all three!

End of our vacation, May 22

Belly Shot, May 19

Week 22: Home again, my system slowly got back on track. I continued to tend to my wound, but it's no longer festering or in need of constant band-aid changes. We were home for 3 days before joining family for the long weekend. Now we're really looking forward to just being home and settled for a bit!