What's a doppler?

I'm a lucky snot. Overall, I haven't been sick hardly at all. There was that one incident with the ramen where I had to leave the house for a few hours. I only shout at the big white telephone every once in a while. Usually, it's if I get a whiff of something icky or if I see eggs on TV. Eggs on TV make me hurl. They always have them huge, in your face, and glistening. urrp. Brian warns me though. "Don't look!" Then tells me when it's all clear.
I get sleepy very easily and I don't have my usual stamina. Naps are lovely things. I get pain in my lower right abdominal quadrant sometimes when I stand up. Doc says that it is from ligaments stretching, that it's prefectly normal. I like normal.
Most of my appointments are pretty easy now. She asks me how I'm feeling. Then I promptly forget all the questions and concerns I had. I need to write this stuff down. Then she checks the baby's heartbeat. The first time she did this I was confused when she didn't crack out her stethoscope. Instead, she shot goo on my tummy and chuckled at my Halloween underpants. Then she grabbed this device about the size of my hand that had a little wand on the end of a cord. The wand squished around on my liberally greased tummy, a quick repetetive whooshing noise came from the speaker. The baby's heartbeat she said! I found out later that the device is called a doppler. Apparently, you can't hear the baby's heartbeat with a stethoscope until later (18 or 20 weeks?). But with a doppler you can hear it at ten. Ignorant me. But, I love the doppler. I wanted her to just hold that cold little wand on my tummy for an hour. I wanted to wallow in that whoosh of the heartbeat! But it was over too fast and it just seemed too surreal. She said the heartbeat was 173, at the next appointment it was 150, at my appointment I just had it was 153. Active li'l ticker.
My bloodwork all has come out good, except that I am anemic. Rats. More vitamins. They are really watching me for gestational diabetes, too. They said that my bloodwork was fine for it, but that they wanted me to test my blood anyway. So they sent me to the nutritionist at Mercy.
There were 2 other ladies in the class. They were both 7 months along and I was terribly jealous. Then I started getting confused. The teacher commented that we all had failed our glucose tolerance tests twice (No I didn't!). And talked about a few other tests and problems that I hadn't ever had. This was a class for women with gestational diabetes, she said. I don't have that! Hopefully I won't get it. Apparently, I looked very confused. The teacher asked me if I had a question. So, I explained that I didn't have bad tests or gestational diabetes, that the doc just wanted me to come to get the blood tester and some good advice on how I should be eating. She said that was fine and that it would mean a few differences between what she wanted me to follow and what she wanted the other ladies to be doing. Phew. So, they talked about a good diet and making sure that you didn't gain too much weight or have too much glucose in your blood. But they also talked about making sure that you don't lose weight. That is bad for the baby for several reasons, apparently it will release ketones in your blood that isn't good for the baby and also the baby won't get enough nutrients. Seemed pretty straightfoward, and we have been following their advice pretty well. Brian has been a huge help in this. He just on the bandwagon too and is completely supportive. He's an angel.
I'm also testing my blood. At first she had me do it everyday 2 hours after eatting. She looked at those numbers and said they were fine. Then she said to do it every other day. Once when I first wake up and then once 2 hours after eatting. No problem. It's very reassuring to have my glucose numbers be good. In a month or so they are going to give me a glucose tolerance test. If I do well on that she said I won't have to stab myself all the time anymore. Cross your fingers and toes.

On Dec. 12th we have another ultrasound. If the baby isn't mooning the camera, we should be able to see if it's a boy or a girl! Holly and Bridgette want a girl so badly. They watch too much Disney where little brothers are evil.