(nearly) 4 month prenatal appointment

I saw Yolanda, the midwife, yesterday. This was my first official prenatal appointment. She weighed me and then checked my blood for iron, and checked my urine for all kinds of stuff. Oh also she checked my blood pressure and pulse, and of course listened to the baby and measured me.

First things first: I am in excellent physical condition. She said she wishes all women could start pregnancy as healthy as me, and that made me feel really good. I have a large frame and my weight is well above "ideal," and I consider myself plus-sized. I wear about a size 16, which I guess is right at the cut-off of regular and plus-sized. But Yolanda said I am really very healthy. It was interesting, because my urine test said I had some minor things going on with my liver, and she asked if I had taken Tylenol or anything. I hadn't, but I just started taking an antibiotic for a dental issue. I took my first penicillin about three hours before the test, and it was kind of interesting that you could see that my liver was working to eliminate the medicine.

My uterus was measuring 20 weeks, which is more than a month ahead, but that's no big deal really, because this is my fifth baby. Yolanda said that in your first pregnancy or two, in her words, "the baby and the house grow together." But when you have more than two or three children, "the house grows faster than the baby does."

The baby's heartbeat was perfect. We couldn't get a long enough reading to get an accurate heart rate, because s/he was moving all around. But you could hear a nice healthy heart rate and that's the most important thing at this point.

We also looked at the Chinese gender chart and some other things to see if its a boy or a girl. Yolanda kept reminding me that those things were just for FUN, and not to count on them. All the charts said Boy, and Yolanda wrote it in my chart, so we can see if any of them were right.

I go back in a month, and in the meantime I need to go over my "birth kit" and start gathering supplies. Yolanda says to start gathering them now, because when I am in my eighth month I won't feel like going to medical supply stores. I have to agree with that.