She swallowed the spider to catch the fly...

We're into the third trimester, and everything is great... but there are some comfort issues I'm trying to tweak.

For the past couple of weeks, I've had very intense heartburn. When I talked to the midwife, she suggested some exercises and also said that getting the baby to turn head down would help a lot. As part of that, I started seeing my old chiropractor again; right now, she's just doing regular prenatal adjustments and will have me come in more regularly, concentrating on turning the baby, if Rooby hasn't decided to get into position by the time I hit 34 weeks.

Unfortunately, a lot of the comfort-issue tweaking seems to be negating the work I'm doing in other areas. For instance: Spinning Babies recommends holding a pose for 20 minutes a day wherein my head is on a pillow on the floor and my legs and feet are up on a bed or the couch. I support my backside with cushions or the ironing board. I've been trying to do this, but the position is the exact opposite of the "elevate your head" posture I'm supposed to take to avoid heartburn/acid reflex.

Same thing with my edema. It started early, and I'm thinking a lot of that is due both to my age and to some left-overs from my ruptured disc (my right foot had some swelling on and off for a good six months after I was out of pain). The best way to keep the swelling down is to sit on the couch with both of my feet up... but this forces me into a position that apparently crumples my digestive system. I get REALLY bad heartburn until I go sit completely upright at the dining room table. And I can put my feet up there, but not as well because there is still some tenderness from the ruptured disc, so sitting straight up and extending my left leg is still a little painful.

I have pretty intense meralgia paresthetica just like I did with Daphne, but this time, the "cure" my Las Vegas chiropractor gave me won't work because of the back injury. This is the one bright spot, though! I CAN do the cat/cow pose and that not only fixes the weird numbness/pain instantly, if I then go down on my elbows and stay like that for a while, it is supposed to help encourage the baby to go head-down, too.

In other news: I passed my gestational diabetes screen with flying colors. My fasting glucose level was 88, then I had a high carbohydrate breakfast and went back two hours after I'd eaten. The glucose reading at that point was 85. When I aced the test with Daphne, I referred to myself as "like a functional alcoholic, but with sugar."

I'm a little bit anemic, but since I tend toward anemia, anyway, that's not terribly surprising given my increased blood volume.

We're going to a birthing class on Sunday. I'm making Daphne go, too, in case she's here with me alone when I go into labor. I want her to know what to expect and not be scared.

A couple of people have asked me about maternity pictures, and we've taken a few "here's where we are right now" shots, but I'm not having anything done professionally. I wouldn't be a good model, because I never ever look at my belly with poignancy or drape chiffon around my sensitive areas to accentuate the paper-white skin stretched across my abdomen. James rarely comes up behind me and caresses my stomach lovingly while looking over my shoulder. If we wanted to capture the *real* pregnancy experience in photos, we'd need a bunch of GIFs of my trying unsuccessfully to squeeze between things like someone's chair and the wall because I'm not used to my need for increased clearance. Or pictures of my slapping my hand down over a specific portion of my middle, with a, "Seriously, what the heck?!" look on my face.

Or this. I do this a lot more often than I gaze lovingly at my middle. There's also the face of indigestion we'd need to capture. And the victorious dismounting of my bike after a long ride. Almost no lying on a tree limb, contemplating the future of my life with baby, though. So I'm not a great prospect for a maternity photographer.

We have had an awesome friend offer to do newborn pictures, and I'm excited about that. However, the baby will likely be just lying around on boring stuff like blankets and pillows instead of a baseball glove or inside a fishbowl of gumballs or any of the other uber-popular newbie contrivances. I think the first ever Gatannah-born baby will be cute enough without props.

I only have about a week of work left, then the swimming will get into high gear. I'm looking forward to that, as it's getting hot and humid already and I adore the buoyancy of being in the water.

We have a quick road trip coming up in a couple of weeks, a third annual event for James and me. It's almost like we're a real couple or something! I'm pretty happy and I think he is, too. Which is good, because I absolutely adore him.