week 26 update
Things seem to be going well. My weight is still at 150, and I've gotten pretty used to it.

My midwife told me that right around this 2nd to 3rd trimester transition I should be getting an increase in blood volume, which the body takes a little while to adjust to. This often causes a dilution of iron/hemoglobin and therefore increased moodiness. I seem to be back to being more balanced, or at least, as balanced as I ever am ;) But the time when I was feeling highly emotional unstable was when I had that big growth spurt.

I'm pregnant in most of my dreams now, which leads to some very amusing incidents. I think the other day my subconscious decided to explore what past life would have been like pregnant. Among other amusing explorations, I had one dream where I was trying to surf while pregnant. In reality I would never be able to lay on the board with my body how it is right now, but in the dream I was able to catch waves, although even in fantasy land I couldn't actually jump up to stand ;)

Since my blood sugar levels were out of the norm when I tested them with a glucose monitoring kit, I went ahead and had the glucose water test with the doctor a couple of weeks ago. He confirmed the analysis the midwife and I had: out of normal range, and steps should be taken to normalize, but not in a diabetic danger zone.

So, I'm having to be even more restrictive about my diet than I already have been, which is a sore spot for me, but which I'm managing ;) Up to this point in the pregnancy post-morning sickness, I've mostly been focusing on avoiding transfats, and of course, keeping up my old raw sugar avoidance. I've also been having a high protien diet, which the midwife approved of, but I need to work on making sure my first meal of the day is high in protien, and to go for lower glycemic index carbs.

I also had a bit of a scare when I visited the doctor because he said he thought I might have a uti. I'm normally prone to chronic utis, but am now on an after-sex antibiotic, so I didn't think it would be a problem. However, the doc said that my urine sample was high in protien, which can signify utis, and that the antibiotic doesn't prevent all strains of infection, and utis during pregnancy are often painless.

Since I'd told him about my concern about premature labor, he assured me that everything seems fine, no dilation or anything, but noted that *a uti* can cause premature labor. I'd been having increased discharge right around that time, in addition to having to pee all the time, so I was suspicious that I very well could have a uti.

But thankfully, everything is fine :) I figure I probably just had high protein count because of having such a high protien diet.

I've been continuing to sleep and feel better. I think there are two main reasons for this. One is that I've started wearing panty-liners 24/7. I've been having insanely increased discharge for around a month now, and at first I was just trying to change my underwear a lot, but I finally admitted that it was not just a passing phase and that I was not going to be comfortable until treating it as though I was on my period all the time ;P Its gotten even more pronounced these last couple of weeks. I now even have to change the panty-liners several times/day. And in addition to wearing liners, I've finally gotten underwear that fits ;) Since I mostly wear large when I buy clothes at Motherhood Maternity, I had bought large underwear, but I'd unfortunately missed the fine print saying that you should buy your pre-pregnancy size ;)

The other thing I've started doing over the past week which seems to help is getting up at a consistent, somewhat earlier time ;) I'd been having such problems with sleep that I was letting myself sleep later and later just in trying to get some, but because I was doing that I was just going to bed later and later and not really catching up. So while I'm still having sleep problems, I'm getting to bed a bit earlier and they're getting a bit better.