29 weeks

First things first -

29 weeks, 1 day, taken in the bathroom of my office. And that shirt is definitely one of my favorites. Though looking at this picture now, I swear my belly looked bigger at 28 weeks than it does now...

What else, what else.....

We have made MASSIVE headway on the nursery, but I need to upload the pictures still, so there will be another post dedicated to our weekend progress forthcoming!

The rash is still getting the best of me, and my fears that it may be PUPPPs seem to be coming true. The dermatologist had told me that if it was the pregnancy rash to expect it to spread to my belly, arms, and thighs... well guess what! It has. -_- And it's itchy as hell, to boot. But I've been doing what they told me to do - apply steroid treatment once the rash breaks out and hopefully we can maintain it. Luckily the rash on the chest area has been staying put, being less itchy, and actually drying up, so that's a plus. Having to scratch at my boobs while I'm at work has not been ideal.

Of course, I still don't know if what I have is, in fact, PUPPPs. I called my doctor this afternoon and was informed that the blood work results were in, but my midwife still needed to review them, and that she would be giving me a call later this afternoon. Luckily they told me they would forward a copy of the results to the dermatologist, so that when I got for my follow-up appointment tomorrow, we'll all be on the same page.

But assuming the worst, I've started to do some research into this lovely pregnancy rash. It apparently shows up 1 in every 240 pregnancies, occurring in the 3rd trimester, in first-time mothers and those carrying multiples, and studies have shown that 70% of cases are while the mother is carrying boys, leading researchers to believe there is something about the male DNA that contributes to the rash. Although not harmful to mother or baby, it's annoying as hell, and won't go away until after the baby is delivered. Treatment includes steroids - topical and in some cases oral - as well as oatmeal baths and cold compresses. I was taking Benadryl to help with sleeping, and it did help at first, but last night was just a bizarre drug-induced sleep and I was not enjoying it. Plus I know taking anything like that affects BabyBaby, and I don't want her to be any less active, I don't care how "safe" it may be to take. Some sites I've read says that the itching goes away 1-2 weeks after treatment... I can attest to that for the chest, but the arms, belly, and thighs still have a few days to go before they stop, and for that I cannot wait.

In other news, we went to a Carseat 101 class at Babies R Us last night. It was all right, but definitely informative. So much so, we added a forward-facing carseat to the registry because we have a feeling BabyBaby is going to have her father's height and grow out of the infant seat before she hits 35lbs.

And Childbirthing class #2 is tonight -- gotta remember my 2 pillows!