26 Weeks (WALKMAN) - 3.0: Jan 5-11

• Baby's eyes can now open
• Dom often talks about my bellybutton being an "Audi, like the car" (outie)... haha
• Dom and Emilia spent some time telling the baby about their teddy's the other day which was pretty cute. 
• So along with pregnancy often comes some increased hair growth, which means I have more peach fuzz than usual on my belly. All fine, whatever. When I roll my pants down to expose my belly Dom is obsessed with trying to pick it all off though. Less fine haha. 
• Pregnancy brain is a listed symptom for 26 weeks. I'll say! I went to Costco on Tuesday - the first day of 4 hours where both kids were at preschool. I had a huge shop to do, and was feeling pretty good. I happened to get a PRIME parking spot, like surprised it wasn't a handicapped spot. I got my whole shop done, and was headed back to the van. I could feel the pressure to get out of my spot to open it up for another busy person. I, and my big belly, unload all the groceries and tetris it beautifully into the back of the van. I go to grab my keys to start the van, and they're missing. I looked for 15+ minutes for my keys. I KNOW I had them, because I had to unlock the van. I unloaded and reloaded the groceries a few times, checked my pockets, got on hands and knees to check under the van, checked the road, checked the van, checked my purse a thousand times... they are nowhere. There are people waiting for my prime parking spot, and I have to turn a few away because they will be waiting for an undetermined amount of time. Finally, I break down and start crying. Hope is gone. The keys are gone. I call David, and thank goodness he is home and he comes to rescue me. When he gets there, he hops out and helps me find the keys. They had fallen under all the heavy grocery buckets, and under the fold-down seats in the back of our van. No chance I would have been able to get those. Alas, it was incredibly embarrassing... 
• I have a midwife appointment this week with Nargess! I have to bring Emilia with me because Dom is at preschool and Dave is working. All is well, but the moment we get into the room Emilia announces she has to pee. I quickly run her down the hallway to go pee and it's barely a trickle, but great job Wheels! We get back to the room and I apologize and we continue the appointment. Then Emilia, "Me have to pee." We laughed and I asked her to wait. Nargess then told me that many kids don't like to be in those rooms because the windows are frosted so they feel trapped. She doesn't often see kids Emilia's age actually have success in getting out of there though, so she was impressed haha. 
• Weight: 131 lbs (+9 lbs total - good job eating over Christmas Renee! Up 4 lbs since last appointment, which is a pound per week; what's expected)
• Blood Pressure: 110/70
• Baby's Heartrate: 148BPM (lowest it's been yet!)
• Fundus (uterus height): 24 inches. Small, but I always measure small it seems. 
• My glucose test results for the 1-hour screening came back low, below range. Typically they'd suggest going for the 2-hour test now, but I declined for a few reasons. Nargess has never seen someone come back low, and then test positive in the 2-hour test (she's been practicing for decades), this same thing happened with Emilia and 2-hour test came back fine, and blood sugar was a little low which I think is better than high. 
• My iron also came back really low (14) which was surprising to me because I've been feeling good. Nargess says that's because my hemoglobin is still good probably because of the supplements I've been taking. Still, they want me to up my iron dosage. That means I guess I'll have to up my fibre intake too!
• We filled out a Doula application. We weren't planning to hire a doula, but Nargess said we may be eligible for a Doula Scholarship where it would be covered by the clinic, so we're going to give it a shot. 
• My next appointment is in 4 weeks. There's the option to do a phone appointment for that one, but Nargess suggested in person so they can check my belly measurement to be sure I'm growing at an appropriate rate even though I'm measuring small. Works for me. 
• Some days I feel huge, other days I feel like I was way bigger with the last two at this point. I think I just feel better than I did with the other two. Way less pain/discomfort so far (thank you workouts!)

Dom totally seems to get that there's a real baby in there. I'm not quite sure where Emilia's at with her understanding of everything. She's still quite convinced when I have a baby she will also be having a baby, and we will sing our babies songs together.