Week 18

We are in week 18! Today, we had a doctor's appointment. I gained 2.4 pounds since my last appointment (4 weeks ago). After two noticeable growth spurts, the gain was within reason.

It was much easier for the doctor to find our baby's heartbeat this time. It sounded like a racehorse. A great sound after waiting a month for confirmation that our little one is fine.

Today, they took blood samples to finish off the NT screening and I asked my doctor to also test me for toxoplasmosis immunity. She also suggested that I get a flu shot this year. It will be the first time I get a flu shot, but I suppose people are being extra careful this year because of swine flu.

We scheduled the "big" ultrasound (anatomical ultrasound) for two weeks from now. It will be exciting to see our baby again. And yes, the upcoming ultrasound will be the one where gender is determined/predicted (if baby cooperates). Will we find out the gender at that time? I think, we'll decide then and there.

Dear Baby,

Below is a picture of your dad at 17 weeks into our pregnancy. He's been doing all the laundry since we found out about you. He also cleans the litter box and continues to do most of the dishes. He has taken over the yard work and when I'm not feeling well, he makes dinner and massages my head, back and feet. He works hard at his job, too. Here he is working from home with the laptop on his lap:

Gender Predictions?

When we went for our NT screening, both Matt and I felt like our little one is a boy. We don't have any reason for thinking this except that we both gravitated towards calling our baby he. Last night, Matt dreamed we had a baby boy. Then again, look what I found in my fortune cookie a few weeks ago.

More Bump and More

We had another growth spurt over the weekend. I now have a fold forming at each hip where my belly is widening. This appeared not overnight, but over Saturday afternoon!

Week 17: Smiling on the inside.

I'm now wishing I'd been keeping track of my weight and measurements here at home. The last two growth spurts have made me curious. Last night, I finally checked my weight and I'm about 2 lbs above my pre-pregnancy weight. I'm going to start keeping a weekly weigh in and measurement day from this week on.

Monday is our next prenatal appointment. It will have been a month since our last appointment, so I'm excited to hear the baby's heartbeat again. We also have questions for our doctor. Mainly, I've been having trouble sleeping at night. I try to sleep only on my left (as suggested by info I've read), but it's causing my spine to keep going out of place. So, I sleep half the night on my left and the rest of the night with pillows propped up so that I can sleep sitting up. By about 3a, my back hurts too much to not sleep in a sitting position. Is all this discomfort really necessary?

I'm also curious about when the glucose testing will be done and if she can test me for toxoplasmosis immunity. I'm not big on having pets in the house and our cat is not exactly the cleanest animal though he's been much better since his surgery last year. For our part, we will need to wash the futon cover and our pjs more often and wipe down furniture surfaces where he sits. I'm hoping to already have the immunity and this cease to be a concern.

As for symptoms, I still have mild food aversions, but I can eat most vegetables again. I've been put off my meat and I'm starting to prefer veggie sandwiches and soups again. I don't have an cravings and my appetite hasn't yet kicked in. I'm trying to eat a little more throughout the day since I've let my appetite and work schedule reduce my food intake to barely 3 meals a day.

Work has been demanding and last weekend, I had pager duty. I was paged at 2a on Saturday morning and had to work on a problem for a few hours. I was paged again on Sunday and worked 6 hours on that problem. Starting the work week again on Monday, I just couldn't get my energy back. I had to take a 30 minute nap in my office yesterday afternoon. Long work hours and the stress that comes with it is not a combination I want for this pregnancy. It makes it difficult to be well rested. I'm hoping to try working from home more during the week to help balance off the demands of work with a little more time at home.

Matt and I are still reading Cranford and Curious George to our baby. I'm really enjoying this time with our little one. Oh! Another funny thing is that I've been getting these strange feelings in my belly that might be flutters (might not be). When I get them I ask, "Is that you Baby?" And, invariably Neo (our cat) comes running out from his lounge area and meows at me as if to say, "It's me! It's me!" Then I say to him, "No, you're our buddy. In here is our baby." Silly cat, but so cute.

Baby Bump Pictures

We finally took some photos of my growing body. I'm still wearing regular tops so instead of looking pregnant, I look fat. Oh, well. I'm going to try to post pictures every couple of weeks.

We're currently in week 16. Next week, we start month 5!

These pictures were taken in the baby's room. The wall color is a little washed out from the camera flash. It's a little more golden yellow (Pooh-inspired).


I insisted that we get a picture of Matt, too. He hardly has a baby bump, but I know we (Baby and I) are going to be glad we have pictures of Daddy, too!

Baby's First Book and Other Stuff

We're going through Cranford as fast as my lungs can handle. I don't think I get my normal capacity back until after the baby is born and I suspect I will be a little more out of breath in the last trimester. Matt took over the reading last night and I got to listen along with Baby. It's a good book and got a few laughs from Matt and me.

We bought baby's first book on Saturday while we were at Fry's picking up a couple of things. Matt had looked for The Bernstein Bears earlier in the morning, but didn't find anything. I decided to get a collection of 8 stories from Curious George. So, Baby's first book is Curious George. Leave it to bookworms to buy books before diapers!

I've been having trouble staying comfortable during the night. Whatever side I sleep on hurts (ribs) when I wake up. I'm thinking of getting a body pillow or one of those cool/expensive pregnancy pillows I saw the other day.

I've also been fighting heartburn lately and since the last growth spurt I can't eat very much at one time. I had 5 glorious days of appetite and capacity. Now, I'm back to small meals. And then there are the hiccups. It seems that I cannot get enough of hiccuping or needing to pee.

About 98% of the time, I'm excited and happy. I get a little grumpy when I'm tired and don't feel like talking, but I don't think I'm making hell for anyone (Matt)---I hope! And sometimes, I'm worried and bummed that I have no control over my body. People are right when they say that pregnancy is an exercise in patience and adaptability. I'm trying not to dwell on worry about the discomforts that I might experience later in pregnancy. Instead, I'm trying to focus on how I feel right now and how I feel right now is pretty good and very grateful.

Early Influences

I started reading to our baby last week, just a few poems from Winnie the Pooh. It was a book that was given to me years ago and one in which I silenced my "I hate kid stuff, why did you give this to me?" Now that I've been too tired or busy to get to Barnes and Noble, I'm grateful to have at least one kiddie book in the house. My shopping list of kids books is growing and I'll need to get to the book store soon.

Meanwhile, the baby and I are reading Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. It's important to me to expose the baby to classic literature (along with children's literature). That said, I'm not going to be reading Dante's Inferno to him/her. Matt and I will have to find good, light, literature for developing the baby's brain and creative/abstract capacity. Reading to the baby is also a way for her/him to get familiar with our voices.

Not just our voices. I love rock music, but I also don't want to provide cacophony, so I'm opting for the happiest rock music ever made: Huey Lewis and the News.

We've also been talking to our baby more and more. I've gotten in the habit of announcing what we are doing throughout the day, "We're getting up now. We're going to work. Your dad is driving. We're going to lunch. It's so hot out here; We're leaving work. Yay! " I just hope our little one is not thinking, "Shut it Mom, trying to relax here!"

Growing

Things are still progressing smoothly. The worst of my first trimester symptoms are gone and I've picked up new, milder ones. My appetite is still not fantastic, but eating is no longer the bottom of my day. I've figured out what vegetables I can tolerate (mainly raw veggies) and I can now feel when I'm hungry rather than just getting shaky and cranky.

My new weird symptom is a gag reflex. It happens when brushing my teeth or eating bananas. I can eat through about half a banana before the involuntary gagging starts. I can imagine it's quite disgusting to witness, but laugh every time I do it.

My belly continues to grow. I tried on a pre-pregnancy shirt the other day. It fit fine around the chest and even buttoned over the belly, but it was not long enough to cover my whole belly. Quite an amusing sight. I'm enjoying the changes and as I get bigger, I notice a lot more things that will be impossible to do in a few months, like picking something up off the floorboard while sitting in the car or squeezing around the garage to put something away.

A Day at Home

I called in sick today. I woke up with my low, low back hurting like crazy. Whether I was on either side or my back, it felt like the back of my pelvis was being pulled apart. By the time I got out of the shower, the pain had crept up my spine to my mid-back. I decided I better stay home today and avoid potentially being home for several days if I threw out my back. Right decision, because a minutes after Matt left for work, I started getting painful spasms in my mid back.

I finally found a position in which I could lay on the futon and I kept as still as possible (excepting having to get up to go to the bathroom). By the afternoon, the spasms were gone and I was able to walk around with no pain. By the time Matt got home, no pain at all.

I've been stretching every morning as soon as I get up, but I think this week is when my uterus works its way up and out from my pelvis. My belly sure seems to support this theory. I'll need to be extra careful and patient with my body this week. Working the way we did last weekend (moving the treadmill and assembling furniture) will be the last weekend I let myself work that hard before the baby is born.

August 3

I can't believe it's August already. Pregnancy is a strange combination of time slowing and skipping ahead. I'm trying to just relax and enjoy the experience, but I'm also very excited to get to the next milestones.

Today, we had another prenatal appointment. The results from the NT screening were good. The next set of tests will be blood tests at 20 weeks. We're in week 13 right now.

During the appointment, we got to hear the baby's heartbeat. It was very faint and at first my doctor had trouble finding it. She had to take out the ultrasound machine and find the baby and her/his position to know where to find the sound. Matt and I were fixated on the ultrasound image of the baby's face and head. It was the first time we've seen him/her from that perspective. We get really excited to see our baby. Both of us spoke to our little one, saying, "We saw you again today." Our baby can now hear sounds so we are both making a point to speak to him/her. Lucky me, I get to eavesdrop on Matt's conversations with the baby. Matt also likes to kiss my belly where our baby is growing. I have no complaints about that. =)

Speaking of my belly. It's growing--faster than I expected. I'm getting a faint line in my skin running down the middle of my stomach down to just above the pubic bone. Is this a stretch mark? I see the line on other pregnant bellies, but I'm a little surprised to see it so early even if my belly is getting rounder and sticking out more.

The good news is that I've only gained a half pound in the last month. I need to be careful to keep my weight in check early on since I was overweight before getting pregnant.

Overall, things are going smoothly and we're very happy to be in our 2nd trimester.