Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Third Trimester

Made it to the 3rd Trimester & going strong! This picture is at 28 weeks--12 to go:

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Baby News

Friday was my 27 week checkup (only 13 weeks to go!). I was really looking forward to this appointment because the doctor offered to do a quick ultrasound to once again check the sex of the baby. It has been 8 weeks since my last ultrasound & the baby is moving so much more these days that I was just sure they would be able to tell. However, the doctor said the "baby is in the worst position possible to determine the sex" and once again we left without any answers. They said that even with all the technology that we have these days there are still some babies that are in positions where you just cannot see well enough to determine the sex, and ours just happens to be one of the few. The good news is the baby weighs 2 lbs 3 oz. which is right on average for 27 weeks. It is still laying in the "head up" position though, so they will do another ultrasound at 34 weeks to make sure it has flipped into a better birthing position.

I also had to take the glucose tolerance test which screens for gestational diabetes. Basically it amounts to drinking some special fluid and then having your blood drawn 1 hour later. The blood is then tested for sugar levels. Within 10 minutes of drinking the fluids I felt really sick and barely even made the drive to the Dr.'s office. They did not warn me that this was a possibility so I was just sure that it meant I have gestational diabetes. However, they said it is fairly common to get sick from the test and they wont know anything for a couple days.
In other baby news, our most recent calving adventure has been quite the struggle. The heifer calved during the day while Luke & I were both at work. When Luke got home she was just up with the rest of the cows like nothing had happened but he could tell she had had a calf. So he spent about an hour looking for the calf in the dark and finally found it trying to nurse off the other cows. The heifer does not care one bit for the calf and knocks it down every time it comes near her. Its a good thing she had such a strong little calf because he just never gave up trying to nurse. We've been putting her in the chute several times a day and then she stands and lets the calf nurse. He just goes running right up to her and nurses her dry every time. This is fine except Luke & I have other obligations rather than being home to put the cow in the chute so the calf can nurse all the time. I'm not sure what we're going to end up doing with this pair. The calf is a really nice AI bull calf out of Big Eye so we want to keep him healthy & fed!
In other news...we are dealing with the most mud that I have ever seen! In Montana we may complain about having rocky soil but at least we don't have to deal with mud like this. The "gravel road" a.k.a. mud path to our house is basically only driveable in 4 wheel drive. I haven't even been driving my Explorer because I think the running boards would drag on all the ruts. It's really bad and with all the rain I don't see it improving anytime in the near future. The corral is really deep in mud as you can see--here is Luke feeding the bulls a bale of hay yesterday morning: