Feel the Burn!

My stomach acid has become my mortal enemy! I started experiencing heartburn pretty early on. Originally, I was handling it purely with tums. Eventually, I was eating so many tums, I worried whether that was safe. That was when I began taking Prilosec. Prilosec worked pretty well for several months. However, as my uterus has begun to move up, and put more pressure on my stomach, the acid began to overpower the Prilosec. At an appointment, I brought this up to my nurse practitioner, and she suggested I try Zantac, as she had known some women to have more success with that. So, I got some Zantac and began taking that. However, the stomach acid overpowered the Zantac so easily that I could hardly tell I was taking anything at all. I would take a Zantac in the morning, and spend the rest of the day munching on tums anyway. What's worst is that I could not lay on my right side in bed at all. If I layed on my right side, I felt like I was breathing fire. The heartburn would get SO bad. And unfortunately, I just am not as comfortable sleeping on my left side. For a few weeks, I was pretty miserable, and unable to really get any sleep. Then, my sister-in-law, who recently had her daughter, gave me what was left of some prescription heartburn meds she'd had to take while pregnant. It's called Nexium. Taking that seemed to work a miracle! Suddenly, I could sleep on my right side again, and I could get through most of my day without having to take tums. I do still need to take them around dinner time. So, at my next appointment, I told my nurse practitioner about the Nexium, and that it's the only thing that's seemed to help. She said that since I have tried three things, and not had much success she would TRY to write me a prescription for some heartburn relief.  The reason she said "TRY" is because I am on medicaid, and medicaid does not want to pay for heartburn meds. She sent the prescription out, and told me that she did not know how long it would take for medicaid to either give in and approve it, or not. So far as I know, they have not yet approved it. I am waiting as patiently as I can, while watching the Nexium my sister-in-law gave me slowly dwindle away. I am just praying that medicaid will approve my prescription before I run out. Honestly, I am scared that they won't, and that before long, I will go back to being miserable. But if that's the case, I can at least take comfort in the fact that I am nearing the end of this journey.

The medicaid fiasco is not the only bad news I got on that Monday. I had my glucose test that day, and I failed it. I was only over by six points, so I'm hoping it was a fluke. However, because I failed the one hour test, they had to schedule me a three hour test. Now, for the one hour test, what they did was tell me to eat something plain for breakfast that morning, and drink nothing but water. When I went in for the test, they drew my blood, then gave me the glucose drink. It was like orange syrup. After drinking that, I had to wait for an hour, then go back and have my finger pricked. They checked my iron and glucose levels with that. The three hour test is a little stricter. I will not be allowed to eat anything at all after midnight the night before. I will not be allowed anything to drink later than two hours before the test starts. When I go in, they will draw my blood again, then give me another glucose drink, which I'm told will be twice as strong as the last one I drank. After that, for the next three hours, I will have my finger pricked once an hour, to test my glucose levels. I can't eat until the test is over. And WHAT I can eat will depend entirely on the results of the test. If I fail it, I will be diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and I will have to start watching out for sugar and starch and carbs. If I have to....well, then I have to. But I know that it will be rather difficult for me to change my diet so drastically, especially when I'm hungry ALL THE TIME! So I am praying that the first test was a fluke, and I will pass the second one and not have to worry.

Some happier news: I have officially reached the stage of pregnancy where you're supposed to do daily kick counts. What that means is, you're supposed to pick a time during the day to count how often your baby kicks you. The goal is to feel ten kicks within a two hour period. If you don't, you're supposed to call your doctor. Well, since I have started, it has not taken me longer than thirty minutes to feel ten kicks. The quickest I got to ten was fifteen minutes. So, I guess I have a hyperactive, but healthy baby.

I have also now taken all the classes I had signed up for. All of them were fun, and I did learn some things. I think my favorite class was the first one, Preparation for Childbirth. The Sibling class, for Rusty, was also really fun. Rusty actually paid attention and when we got home, wanted to practice changing diapers on a doll I have. Since taking that class, he has seemed a lot more excited about being a big brother. I am thrilled. I know he is going to be such a great brother! Lexi will be lucky to have him!

The only other thing that is of interest that is going on right now, is that me and Russ are very close to being able to get a vehicle of our own. We just filed our taxes a couple nights ago, and once we get our return, we will be using that to make a down payment. We started off looking for cross-over vehicles, but those are in high demand right now, so they're expensive. Now we've been looking at SUV's. We think we've found one we like, which is at a dealership near here. It's a Ford Escape. It looks to be in pretty good condition, and it's roomy enough for the four of us, plus one more. With the deposit we will be able to make, we should be able to get monthly payments we can afford. Plus, it has decent gas mileage. Now, having a vehicle will be the first step toward some very tentative plans we've been making. We have been talking about taking a trip to Texas, to visit everybody, when Lexi is 3-4 months old. We want to have her baptized there, if we can go. We'd probably drive up on a Friday, and drive back on a Monday. That gives us a span of two days to see everybody. Those are going to be a BUSY two days! I honestly don't know if we'll be able to see everybody we want to. I've been trying to work out, in my head, how to organize all the visits we'll need to make, without taking too much time away from any of them. The most important visits, obviously, will be to my family and to Russ' Dad and Brenda. If we're having Lexi baptized at my parents church, then it just makes sense that my family will get Sunday. Then it's just a matter of seeing everybody else in between. We will figure it out, though, and we'll let everybody know if / when we'll be able to see them.