My 3-hour glucose test came back normal. That's the good news. The bad news is that I gained 5 pounds over the holidays and my doctor advised me to restrain further weight gain to a half-pound a week for the remainder of the pregnancy.

In the world of mass transit, a man got on the Metro this morning and started singing a song whose main point was "Trust in Jesus." But he had an Asian accent (I didn't get a good look at him), and "Jesus" came out a lot like "Cheesus."

In the world of work, I feel like my boss is trying to cram too much work into too little time. This is particularly frustrating since she's on vacation right now.

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Obviously, I have had some difficulty keeping this updated... Work has been hectic so no time to do entries there. When I come home, A. is usually on the computer or there are 80 million other things to do, so haven't been able to write entries then. But it struck me the other day that I only have about 2 months to go, so if I'm going to write anything else, I better hop to it.

I am fairly sizable now, and the baby is kicking regularly. I am supposed to do a fetal movement count every evening for 30 minutes or until I feel 10 movements. I usually hit 10 in 5 minutes; occasionally, it takes 15 minutes. For the most part, I enjoy the baby kicking. The only times I don't are the hard jabs up near the ribs (only on the right side - for some reason, it leaves the ribs on the left side alone) and when it settles down on the bladder. I can't discern the different body parts from each other, though.

I have been feeling well - I get stiff if I've been sitting or standing for a long time, and when I stand up and start walking, it takes me a few steps to adjust to walking. The past 10 days or so I've been tired, but don't know if that's stress or third-trimester fatigue kicking in.

Have just about decided to stop wearing my engagement ring every day. It's periodically but reguarly irritating my finger, I think because my fingers get slightly swollen, just enough for the hard edge of the engagement ring to irritate the area above it.

January was the designated time to start doing practical preparations for the baby - for instance, setting up a registry, arranging child care, finding a pediatrician, making room in the study for the crib and whatever we're going to use as a changing table. So the start of January has occasioned some stress. We did get the registry pretty much done yesterday. There are a couple of things I'd like to add, but I'm not too worried about it since there's enough there and I figure we'll have to buy stuff ourselves anyway. There were things A. wanted that I did not; I gave in on some. We still have to have the great Diaper Genie debate (I lean towards the Diaper Champ since you don't have to buy special bags and could use biodegradable plastic bags, which would alleviate my environmental concerns about the Diaper Genie. I also think that fewer moving parts means less likelihood of breaking. A., meanwhile, is of course all about the high-tech.)

Next doctor's appointment (30 weeks) is on Wednesday. I have actually seen the nurse (whom I like very much and is very competent) twice in a row now - the first time the doctor was sick and the second time she was delivering a baby. So if the doctor is out again on Wednesday, I'm rescheduling (and really, they should make me reschedule).

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At my polling place, they had "I voted" stickers and also "Future Voter" stickers for kids. I put a "Future Voter" sticker on my tummy.

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I had the 20-week doctor's appointment on Tuesday, and they said everything looked fine. The heartbeat was kind of faint at first, but then the baby moved closer to the outside of the belly and it got louder. The nurse measured my belly for the first time; at previous visits, there wasn't much to measure. The doctor said my weight was fine - I was going to ask about that since one of the books or a pregnancy website said something like "You're at 4 months! You should have gained about 10 pounds by now." I've gained closer to 15, though I'm a little past the four month mark, so that could account for the difference.

This week I've had lots of energy in the evenings, so much so that last night, I had trouble settling down to go to sleep. As a result, I didn't get in the bed until about 11:30, then was kept awake with leg cramps off and on in the night and had to get up once to stretch out my legs a bit. So tonight? not so much energy.

I bought two pairs of pants at Target Tuesday night. Wore the jeans today; they're a little big, but I suspect my belly will grow into the elastic band. Right now, the band doesn't really grab the belly so they slide down. The other pair of pants are grey slacks, which fit better than the jeans and I think I can wear them to the conference next month - I just need a nice shirt to go with them. I also ordered a pair of khakis from Old Navy that came in the mail today, and they are quite comfortable. So the pants crisis is over.

In other news, thanks to my bras being a little too small (that's the next shopping project) and v-neck shirts, I'm sporting some mighty impressive cleavage these days.

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sonogram
I had the sonoogram yesterday morning and managed not to find out the sex of the baby. But it did get a new nickname - Squirmy, based on the sonogrammist (?) saying "you've got a squirmer here."

I could see bones fairly clearly, and the spine looked quite nice, it seemed to me. Of the pictures they gave us to take home, my favorite is the one of the foot. The face looked like a little skull so the picture seemed suitable for Halloween, actually. But the coolest thing about the sonogram was seeing the movement. We got to see a close-up of the heart and saw the valves operating. We could also see it kicking - since I can't feel that yet, it was fun to see it moving around in there. But it wasn't something that I got all emotional about - even though I was seeing it on the screen, it still seems a litle unreal to me that there's a fetus in there.

The sonogram person said "looks good" after everything she found and took pictures of, but I don't know whether they actually tell you there if something doesn't look good or whether they write it up in their report and let your doctor tell you. But it seems to be on track - the due date was exactly the same as what they gave me at the 8-week sonogram.

My shirts indicate that I am still getting bustier. Shirts that were too big when I tried them on a few weeks ago fit now, and shirts that fit well are now a bit tight.

Work is very quiet today - everyone else is out of the office for various reasons, though the boss may swing through again this afternoon.

A. (with a little help from me) got the house all picked up and mostly clean for a small party we had last night to meet the neighbors (his idea, but a nice one, and he did the lion's share of the work), which means step 1 of the process of figuring out where to put nursery stuff is complete. Next step is to rearrange the office and reduce the amount of stuff in it so that we can carve out nursery space. But that has to wait until I get my conference paper done, which really won't be until mid-November when I present it. So I'm guessing we'll start talking about how to arrange the space in December but won't actually do anything until before or shortly after A. starts his new job in January.

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A historic day in the pregnancy this week - for the first time, someone actually offered me a seat on the Metro. Of course, it was so historic that now I can't remember if that was yesterday or the day before. I think it was yesterday. Nope, I remember what I was wearing, and I was wearing that outfit on Wednesday, not yesterday. It helped that I happened to be standing in such a way that my belly was quite visible to her, and she wasn't engrossed in reading something or sleeping. (Actually, I declined as I was feeling pretty good, the train was moving well, and I wasn't going far. But I thanked her very nicely.) Today, someone yielded a vacated seat to me, but he then proceeded to leave other seats empty, so I think he just wasn't a sitter.

Must find time to buy new pants, as I am down to two now. I suspected that the grey ones were no longer wearable, and indeed, when I tried them on this morning, they were too small.

As I was coming up the escalator from the train platform today, the heel on my shoe fell off. That's what I get for wearing nice shoes to compensate for having to wear jeans to my nice anniversary dinner out tonight. But how convenient that I work above a shoe repair store! I dropped off the shoes, went upstairs in my sockfeet, had very cold feet for a few hours, then padded back downstairs at about 1 and picked them up. Now I need to go see the owner (who is also our landlord) and find out how much he's going to charge me.

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milestone
After many years of thinking this would never happen, I have actually completed drafts of all the chapters of my dissertation. I can hardly believe it.

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