The list grows

After two days of really irritating anxiety, I woke up this morning feeling calm and positive. I listened to the heartbeat with the Doppler (160ish, as usual) and started my day with a smile.

We mostly cleaned the house and generally got ready for Easter. My BIL's b-day was Thursday and my MIL is in town, staying with him. But they're both coming to Easter lunch tomorrow, along with my dad. And maybe my dad's girlfriend, but I never got a real answer about that. We'll have plenty of food either way, but it would be nice if people understood that I do like to plan for my guests, but whatever.

Tonight we met my MIL and BIL for dinner down near him. (He lives about a half hour south of the city.) The evening was pleasant enough, with lots of baby talk that made me a little uncomfortable, but nothing bad. Just my own insecurities at play.

We went back to my BIL's to visit for a while (and eat cake!) That would have been fine except that his dog is quite ill behaved. I was sitting in a recliner and she kept leaping onto me. (Mind you, this is a 40+ pound Basset Hound) I instinctively shot my hands out to protect my tummy every time. My BIL's reaction was to chuckle and said "Better be careful, that belly will kick back." After a couple rounds of that, I said loudly "NO. It WON'T. But *I* will be very upset." The room went quiet. I suppose it was inappropriate but for heaven's sakes, it's not as though this pregnancy has gone off w/o complication, nevermind my history. If I'm not supposed to lift over 25 pounds, I think that essentially being punched in the gut by a 45 pound dog is probably not well-advised.

On top of that, I had a weird nipple thing earlier. As I got undressed to shower, my nipples (naturally) hardened a bit. Leftie felt a little weird, so I looked and it looked sort of pale. I went to the mirror, and it was like the whole top half of my aereola was thickened and white. Sort of like a raised rash, but a lack of color instead of reddened. My husband was sitting nearby, so of course, he got the standard "HEY.. Look at this." Now, normally he's blind. He sees nothing, hears nothing. But even from where he was (15' away or so) he agreed it looked funny.

Of course, I started poking and feeling around. It just felt exceptionally hard (but the bottom half was normal) and lumpy. David's response was to shrug and say "I guess that's pregnancy." At that point I decided that since I'm seeing the breast surgeon on Wednesday for my lump, I'd just go with it.

I showered and checked again when I got out. The raised bumpy/lumpy part was better, but I still have this white patch. As I expected my nipples to get darker, not lighter, it did make me worry.

So those things combined sort of killed my Zen.

Tonight I decided to have another listen to the heart beat just to reassure myself. I found it almost immediately, but the heart rate was more like 170 instead of the 160 that it's been for at least the last month. I realize it's only 10bpm difference, but as 160 is already rather high, and well, because I'm ME, I worry.

I googled. I really do know better. Everything seems to say that 120-160 is normal. Well, great. I'm outside that. Google has lots of scary words like "tachycardia" but almost all references to it involve labor, not 2nd trimester pregnancy. So now what? It's almost 4am on a Saturday night. And if I called the doctor they'd probably think I was nuts even if it was business hours.

I know- check again tomorrow. But wonderful. I've now added ANOTHER item to my list of things I can obsess about. I'm insane. I know.

Is it September yet?


--Trish