24 Week Baby Update

Last Thursday marked 24 weeks. I had a doctor's appointment and all looked well with the baby. His heartbeat is in the 150's and he is measuring about two weeks ahead of schedule. Not sure what that means, but if it means I get to be done two weeks earlier, that is fine by me.

I, on the other hand, feel like I am falling apart. The pressure and pain in my hips and pelvis are really beginning to affect my day to day life. If I stand or sit for too long in the same position, I am in terrible pain. Nights are the worst because it hurts to lay on my side, but I am not supposed to sleep on my back. I try to fall asleep on my side but always seem to wake up on my back. In an effort to elevate my head while laying on my back last night, I fell asleep in a nest of 6 pillows. In addition to my aches and pains, I have developed some other strange symptoms. The palms of my hands and soles of my feet become VERY itchy at night. My hands actually started to bleed this weekend from scratching. Lastly, I have a lovely red rash all over my abdomen. I ran through my long list of aches and pains and other strange symptoms and was assured that it is all normal for a second pregnancy. My OB gave me a prescription for maternity support hose (no thanks) and told me to drink 8 oz of water each hour that I was awake (no thanks again). I mean, seriously??? If I drank that much water, I would either have to move into the bathroom or start wearing Depends.

-Side note-

When I was teaching, I always had children coming up to me with complaints of headache, sore throat, stomach issues, etc. To see if they were really sick, I always encouraged them to drink some water and wait a while to see if it made them feel better. 9 times out of 10 the water magically healed whatever seemed to be ailing my students. My recent visit to the OB made me wonder if they are pushing water to see if it magically cures me too.

I also found out that I put on another 5 pounds since my last visit. This had me fighting back tears as the toothpick of a nurse recorded my weight in the computer. I have put on 15 pounds total so far, which is average. But, I only gained 20 with Charlie, so it is depressing to realize that I am probably going to gain more than that this time around. Let's face it, the baby is only about a pound now, so that means I have to put on at least another 6 pounds of just baby. That puts me right over 20 pounds!