It's a boy?

This child apparently wants two things. 1) To make sure Mommy can't possibly forget she's pregnant and 2) For Mommy and Daddy not to have a CLUE about its sex.

I was pretty convinced I was having a girl until the baby decided to cause some trouble yesterday...and no daughter of mine would ever be a trouble-maker!

In all seriousness, I thought yesterday this baby might go ahead and make its entrance into the world. It began with my drive to school, and I got a really bad pain in my right hip. I thought I was sitting funny or just sitting too much, so I tried not to give it thought. When I walked into school, the pain was more intense. Maybe I pinched a nerve?

I have a lot of very motherly, knowledgeable women who work with me at school, and they were naming off probable causes all morning. Regardless, I wasn't feeling well, and it was getting progressively worse throughout the day.

At about 10:30 a.m., the cold sweats came. I felt nauseous. I could not sit. I could not stand. All I could do to ease the pain was sway back and forth. Sweat was pouring off of me, and I knew something was wrong. My principal and school nurse insisted I go home.

I quickly scrounged together some activities for the kids to do without me, and I got the heck out of there. I needed gas, so I stopped at the gas station by my school. Somehow, I ended up putting the wrong kind of gas in my car because I was so delirious and not thinking clearly. Thankfully, it was not diesel! I just ended up paying a $1 more a gallon for premium gas until I realized it and stopped the sale.

I made my way down the road and called my doctor for the third time. I had left two messages on the nurse line, but they hadn't gotten back to me. When I called the third time, I pressed 0, which was if you need "immediate assistance." I was feeling terrible cramps, and the pain had spread to my back. It was at this point that I really thought I was going to have the baby that day, and I got really scared.

The doctor's office told me to come in at 2:00, which was a miracle. My wonderful husband had yet to return any of my 10 phone calls and text messages, and all I could think about was me having our 24 week old baby and him not being there. My mind was going to some interesting places on this hour long drive!

I made it to the doc, and they checked all my vitals. My blood pressure was high initially, but they took it again and it was better. They listened to the baby (sounded good), measured my stomach (I was told I was measuring perfectly!), and did a test for preterm labor. They couldn't find anything "wrong," which was great news, and I was told to go home and not to do anything but rest and drink water.

I fell asleep, and when I woke up Luke was home, clueless as to what was going on. He had left his phone at home, so he had no idea what had been happening. I filled him in, and he felt awful for not having his phone with him. We talked that from here on out, the phone must be with him at all times!

Later that night, my doctor called (I had seen a nurse practitioner during the day, not my doctor) me and wanted to know how I was doing. Given my last negative experience with my doctor (feeling rushed and not important), I thought it was a nice gesture to call me off hours and want to know how I was doing. She insisted I take one, maybe two days off work, to which I laughed (and disobeyed...I went to school today). She wanted me to call if things got worse, and she wanted me to call today to give her an update on my condition regardless. I was very happy with her phone call and thought that was a nice gesture.

So...long story concluded, I am feeling a lot better today. No pain. No cramps. I think the baby was just growing and stretching and moving my organs around even more. I told Luke that I envisioned my belly doubling in size over night with the amount of stretching that was going on. Luckily, I wasn't twice as big, but I do feel bigger by the day.

So, if I am having a boy, he better rid himself of his trouble-making tendencies before he's born, or a lifetime of groundings are in his future!