I'm at the doctor's office.  Here for the 2 hour blood glucose testing that is required around the 28th week of pregnancy.  I'm 28 1/2 weeks so it's my time.  Apparently the protocol has changed since my last pregnancies.  It used to be that you drank the orange drink (pictured above) at home first thing in the morning, then drove to the lab, had your blood drawn and that was it.  Done deal.  Now, things have changed.  You have to come to the lab after fasting 12 hours, have your blood drawn, pound down the orange drink within 5 minutes, wait an hour, have your blood drawn again, then wait another hour and have it drawn again.  So the entire thing takes up at least 3 hours of your time with the drive to the lab, etc.  I was pretty annoyed at first- very inconvenient for a full time mom since it meant either Myke has to take off work (which means he doesn't get paid) OR we have to pay a babysitter to watch the kids while I do the test.  We chose the latter.  So we're paying for a sitter and we don't even to go out on a date night!  Oh well.  It is what it is.  I asked my midwife what would be the repercussions if I decided to just NOT do the test at all.  She said it would make me be labeled as a  "high risk pregnancy" and I would have to be on all kind of monitoring during labor, and would probably have to switch to a high-risk OB instead of my midwife.  Back to Dr. Schwimmer maybe?  Anyways, I decided it was worth paying a sitter to NOT be considered a high-risk pregnancy again.  Been there, done that already!  I don't have time to be high-risk.  I have 3 little kids.  I don't have time to be on bed rest.  I barely have time to go to my monthly midwife visits.  In fact, I scheduled them all at 6pm or later on the night the clinic is open for evening hours.  That way Myke is home and no babysitter is required.     It's just so different than the last 2 pregnancies where I couldn't wait for my appointments.  Well, of course when I was on bed rest those appointments were my ticket out of bed and my ticket for a taste of the real world outside of our home.  I LOVED those appointments.  I got ultrasounds so regularly then...every week or every other week (I forget).   In this pregnancy I've had maybe 2.  This pregnancy is "normal".  Thank goodness!  

On to other news:  We ARE IN ESCROW!!   We have been looking at houses for a long time.  At least the past year or more- mainly just browsing the real estate market online and seeing what was out there.  We decided last winter that we'd stay in our condo in PB for 2 more years tops.  Then the boys would be 2 1/2 and Chloe would be turning 5.  We wanted to be settled somewhere before she started kindergarten.  Then this surprise pregnancy happened and we realized we probably had to get out of here sooner rather than later.  We started looking a little more seriously.  However, we weren't/aren't uncomfortable enough to feel desperate to get out.  We were just looking around....putting the feelers out, if you will.  We even started considering moving to another state since real estate is so pricey in southern California and we have some very specific needs (we need enough rooms for 4 kids, we need a space for Myke's office since he works from home,..and this space needs to be isolated enough from the rest of the house so he can actually get some work done, we wanted a yard, we needed good schools as private school for 4 kids so close in age is out of the question, etc.).  Anyways, to make a long story short, we ended up finding a house that we really liked in Encinitas, CA.  It's in San Diego County but is up north a bit.  From our exit to the new home's exit is a 20 minute drive if you aren't driving during rush hour times.  Anyways, we're pretty excited about the change...we are ready for it.  We love Pacific Beach but we are ready for something new.  Encinitas is a great beach community with a lot of families and great schools.  We will now be about 2.5 miles from the ocean instead of .75 of a mile...but with all our kids and gear we end up driving anyways when we go for a beach day.  It's a quiet neighborhood with a great park just a couple blocks away that we can easily walk to.  The park has a huge grass area so we can even take Kyla and let her run around.  We're so excited about that...Kyla has chunked up a bit in the past couple years....we don't get her out on as many exercise runs/walks as we used to.  Also, there are enough bedrooms for everyone.  The boys are going to have to share a room, still...but it's a really big room that could even be split into two rooms if you really wanted to.  We'll play that one by ear.  Even the new baby will get her own room.  Anyways, we'll keep everyone posted.  We don't close until next week but so far everything is looking good for a successful close.  Yay!

A look at the front entrance

Well, just a few more minutes until my 2nd blood draw for this glucose test.  I'm STARVING and drinking the sugary orange drink on an empty stomach has not been too fun.  It's making the baby jump all around which adds to the slight feeling of nausea I have.  I'll survive though!