I pass.

A boring doctor appointment update: My belly is measuring where it should, the heatbeat sounds like it should, my blood tests all show what they should. So, in the words of my doctor, I am passing pregnancy. This means I get to keep the baby?

There were actually two exciting points to my appointment. The first is that for the first time since becoming pregnant, my blood pressure was back in a normal range. Typically, my BP is around 110 or 120/70, but its ranged between 135 and 155(!) at every appointment. Today it was 120/74. Yay me. According to my nutrition in pregnancy book, increasing your protein and calcium intake can help reduce gestational hypertension. So for the last few weeks I've been snacking on lowfat cheese, drinking protein smoothies, and taking a calcium supplement. Guess it helped.*

The other exciting point is that we set an appointment for The Big Ultrasound. This is the one where they look again for appropriate development etc. And, of course, they can usually identify the gender. My doctor reminded me that they can't always tell, and sometimes they can misidentify the gender (My friend Dayle has a story about someone she knows who was told they were going to have a girl, so went pink with everything, only had a girl's name picked out, etc. And ended up having a boy.). Anyway, the appointment is on January 16th. Look for a big gender update about then.

* I am a dedicated stair taker. If there's a choice between taking the stairs and waiting for the elevator, I generally take the stairs. Today, I decided to wait for the elevator. That might have also contributed to the lower BP. Sigh.