Blood work strikes again!

If you don't recall my last exciting experience doing blood work around my 8 week mark, feel free to read here.

It's mandatory that every pregnant woman takes a glucose blood test between 24-28 weeks. One month ago during my last appointment, they gave me a sheet of instructions on what to expect. They admitted to me that the glucose drink was nasty. Since I'd be fasting for three hours, they told me to bring something to eat right after.

I dreaded getting my blood drawn starting in the beginning of October. Whenever I looked at the monthly calendar, it seemed to laugh at me due to previously being scarred from last time.

I told my family about the test and had them pray for me since I was really anxious to get it all over with!

My test was at exactly at 3:10 p.m., but I had to finish my sugary orange concoction drink by 2:10. I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything after that. Additionally, I wasn't allowed to eat two hours before 2:10. So I couldn't eat after 12:10 p.m. (but I could drink water). I was nervous about finishing the whole drink within the allotted 5 minutes, so I probably wasn't well hydrated before then.

I cleaned my apartment to distract myself before I came to part one of this distasteful event. I prepare myself for the worst, and was pleasantly surprised by the taste! It tasted like orange soda to me, and I like my sugary beverages! One part down, one to go!

After I check in with the receptionist, I listened to a cute sappy love song that Spencer played for me recently on repeat. (Then by Brad Paisley if anyone is interested.) The previous nurse didn't talk to me last time so I needed a distraction just in case.

I get called in and warned the nurse I passed out last time, but it was most likely due to being nauseous in the first trimester. But since I felt fine, we weren't too concerned. I got to tell her about the song I was listening to and voila! It was over!

I triumphantly go back to the waiting room to later hear my name being called to see my OB. I text everyone to tell them that I survived! Pleased with myself, I scroll the interwebs while eating my protein bar. Then suddenly, I started to feel nauseous and the granola bar didn't seem so appetizing anymore...

(in my head) 

"Okay Emily, you got this. Just take deep breaths, nice and slow..." 


"All right, this isn't working as well as I thought. Where's the nearest drinking fountain? Or the bathroom in case I throw up?! I'm probably dehydrated and that can cause nausea... it's happened before."

At this point, my eyesight was getting blurry with blue sparkles, while the room was moving.

"I remember near the front desk there were some mini water bottles. I could ask one of the receptionists if I could have one since I'm feeling light-headed..."

I stare at the floor and brace myself to walk since my balance was horrendous. I stagger over to one of them and say something along the lines of, "Hey, can I have one of those water bottles? I feel light-headed since I just gave blood."

After they say yes, I grab a water bottle while hoping it's not hard to open since I always need Spencer to open those for me. I almost miss the chair completely while sitting down. I successfully open the bottle and pray for the best as I re-hydrate.

I finished the whole bottle, I continued with my deep breathing and started to eat my fruit snacks. A short while after a few more deep breaths, a nurse called me back and immediately started to ask how I felt and if I needed to lay down.

I was feeling much better by then without any blue sparkles in my vision. I explained what happened the last time I gave blood. And no, they didn't need to prescribe me anti-nausea medication because I already have it! She made sure I had some snacks and let me go back to my seat to wait for my turn after she knew I was okay.

I suppose I only partially survived. Can't wait to see what labor is like if I can't handle losing a little bit of blood!

When a pregnant woman wants a slurpee on Sunday...

As Spencer and I were on our way home from my sister's house, we drove by not one, but TWO 7-Elevens.

Pretend this is a slurpee machine. GIMME SLURPEE NOW.

It was torture.

As we went by the first 7-Eleven, I told Spencer, "I wish it wasn't Sunday..." Then he finished my response, "since we'd go to 7-Eleven."

As some of you may recall, slurpees are one of the things I crave most (probably once a week). But I refuse to go there since we have a plethora of otter pops in our fridge. (This has nothing to do with the fact that the 7-Eleven closest to us has less than satisfactory flavors recently.)

No blue raspberry and cherry for me to mix together?! Unacceptable.

By the time we get around to the second 7-Eleven, we're toying around with the idea of taking Gatorade and ice, and putting it in the blender. (Mind you, we've thought about doing this previously.)

BUT... Spencer realized that the ice would water down the Gatorade flavor, so it would be best with Gatorade powder. Which we don't currently have...

But not all hope was lost. We got the idea of making an otter pop slushie in the blender! At first we thought about doing just one flavor (each otter pop is 1 oz, so eight would be an 8 oz slushie). But we mix flavors anyway, so we could just mix a bunch of otter pop flavors together!

Did two blue, orange, red, and pink!

I got me my slurpee on Sunday! It was quite good.

 Look out 7-Eleven, we're comin' for you!

Pregnancy dreams are weird.

Just the other day I had this SUPER cool dream. It had the adventure, the drama, the mystery! I'm pretty sure during the dream I thought to myself, "This is going to make a GOOD blog post!

But then I woke up and I had literally forgotten everything. I tried all day trying to remember bits and pieces of it and nothing came to memory.

So instead I'm going to tell you the first and a recent pregnancy dream that I do remember.

The First Dream

I was sitting at a table with my three sisters, my Utah aunts, and a few female cousins. This was before we had told anyone but parents. So what did my mind think in my dream?

So I blurt out to them excitingly that I'm pregnant!

...But then I realize I'm only 4-5 weeks pregnant and that it was probably a bit too soon to tell them.

I laugh it off and tell myself it's fine as my sister Heather comes up to me. She pats my stomach firmly and pronounces, "Yeah, I could tell that you were pregnant. You look like it."

Ouch. Did she just say that to me?

I woke up out of embarrassment. 😂

(No, Heather would have never said that in real life!)

Next Dream

I had just gotten back from a Faulk Family Reunion and I was thinking about cub scouts. I was also scrolling through Instagram and saw this specific slide:

All of these things made me have this... interesting dream.

We were still in California at the reunion while I was trying to seclude myself into a bedroom, hoping to take a nap before the next activity started.

But before I managed to get to bed, my niece and nephews barge into the room looking for snacks (smart kids). Then all of our cub scouts herd into the adjacent room! What?

I could hear the scouts on how excited they were and how they were so pumped for the next activity! It sounded like a zoo.

Just as quickly as everyone arrived, we were shuffled to a large river nearby. At the river shore, were all of these floating metal tables lined up in the water.

For some reason, the cubs scouts and I began to fight a mighty battle in showing team spirit by stamping team logos onto the table. I was too preoccupied with dominating the table with my rainbow-y stamp, I don't even know what the scouts stamp looked like!

I didn't like that I was outnumbered, so I jumped on over to another table while Spencer stayed behind with the scouts. I was on a table with Uncle Daniel, Aunt Shauna, my Mom, and I can't remember who else.

The race was about to start down the river on our metal tables.

My team and I sit on the table bench so our legs are in the water, but our torso and up is still dry. (Apparently realistic gravity doesn't exist in this dream.) We all grab our paddles and we wait for the gun to be fired.

We start paddling as fast as we can down the river!!!

But Uncle Daniel was not satisfied with our efforts... He turns to the rest of us and remarks, "It's time for the secret sauce," as he presses a hidden button.

The 'secret sauce' made the table go at not actually lightning speed and made it the same angle as the slide previously mentioned. Practically straight up in the air!  (We did not have seatbelts in this dream, but I think we needed them on this flying table.)

The wind was blowing through our hair as we left all the other teams behind!

Then I woke up... but I assume we won.