20 Weeks! Half Way!

I am half way through this pregnancy. It's very hard to believe, especially when I still have moments where I forget I'm pregnant. These usually (always) happen when I am sitting down, and am immersed in some activity, like work. Right now though, Baby Girl is kicking me quite ferociously to keep me from forgetting about her.

The movement thing is another new development. Feeling movement that I Know is movement from Baby girl. It's such an odd and wonderful feeling.

This past Friday I decided to go into the Dojo, they were doing an "open workout" and I figured it would be good to go in and just practice my Kata and maybe practice with my Bo. Oh man, doing Kata was so much harder than I thought it would be! My legs were on fire about half an hour in. Also, I cannot lift my knee above my waist without hitting my belly, so all of my kicks were super low. I felt all kinds of awkward and tired really fast. I was glad I went though, even when later I got paranoid I'd hurt Baby Girl, since she was really quiet for the rest of the night and the next day.

I also was under the weather a few days this week, including last night when I started to panic about being sick. It started at work where I got really hot and no matter how much water I drank, or how many layers of clothes I took off (hey I had to stay somewhat clothed, I was at work!) I just couldn't cool off. And I had a headache. And I hurt all over. I got really scared there was something wrong. I took some acetaminophen, ate some smashed potatoes and few frozen fruit bars, and went to bed early. This morning, after sleeping about 10 hours, I feel fine. And Baby Girl is kicking away, so luckily it was nothing.

I've noticed I overheat easily, It's happened a few times, like this past Saturday when we started our Registry at BuyBuyBaby. By the time we left the cold air outside felt so freaking good, I almost didn't want to get in the car. I still can't believe I actually have a baby registry full of things for my baby girl. 

On the Baby Knitting front, I'm just chugging along on the Baby blanket I started, although I recently discovered Pinterest, and now have a million ideas of things I want to make for Baby Girl. This weekend I'm going to try to make a custom roman shade for her room. The instructions look relatively easy, the only thing I need to figure out is how to make the pull cord baby safe. This weekend we're also going to dismantle the desk that's currently taking up most of that room. Small steps towards making it a really nursery.

I can't wait till June. I love my little baby girl so much already.

Week 19

It's a girl! We found out on Tuesday. Somehow knowing the gender makes it more real. It's nice to be able to refer to "her" instead of "it". My mother was so excited when I told her she just whooped and cried and said "I knew it! Girls run strong in this family!"

I've been carrying the Ultrasound picture around with me, and just staring at it. In one of the pictures she's sucking her thumb. You can see the profile of her nose. I wonder already what she looks like. I wonder what color her eyes are, what color her hair is. Will she have curly hair like her daddy?

I'm starting to feel movement occasionally, and Baby Girl is always super active whenever we see her on the Ultrasound screen. I wonder if she'll be as energetic when she's born.

Now that we know to expect a Baby Girl, I can finish a few knitting projects with ribbons, buttons and ties to match. I've been working on a second baby blanket in this awesome waffle weave patern I've used for burp clothes and wash clothes already.

One of our friends, who has a little girl that's about 10 months now, just gave us a whole load of baby stuff. A bassinet, clothes, swaddling blankets, and a couple regular blankets. We haven't even set up a registry yet and we've got a room full of stuff for Baby Girl.

I had my first "I have to have it now" craving last night, I needed waffles. Just waffles with butter and syrup. I tried to ignore it, and I ended up getting really anxious and uncomfortable. So DH was amazing and made me pancakes (we don't have a waffle iron), and that did the trick. It was awful trying to ignore the craving! 

Week 16 and everything up to now

I havn't been updating, and I don't know why. I guess mostly because things are the same. There have been little milestones, but the big one is still coming up. Our next scan will be the one where we find out if we're having a boy or a girl.

I caved around two weeks ago and bought some maternity clothes. I just couldn't fit into my work pants anymore. So far, not a fan of these. I constantly feel like my pants are riding really low, because the actual material stops and the elastic begins way lower than I'm used to the waste line of my pants sitting. I'm also still really self-conscious about my bump. It's silly, but I keep trying to hide it with baggy shirts and empire waste lines, because to me I don't look pregnant, I just look fat.

I'm also having a lot of guilt about what I eat/how much I eat. I'm eating reasonably healthy, but I'm constantly reminded that I'm not eating healthy enough. And I'm not getting enough exercise. I just started getting back into it this week. I went to the gym and did a half hour on the elliptical on monday, and today I did about half of a pre-natal yoga video.

This pregnancy also seems kind of unreal somehow. As if I'm not really pregnant, I'm just getting really chubby. I'm paranoid that the next time I see my OB there won't be a heart beat. Idk why. I'm just really afraid of something going wrong. I missed a lot of my prenatal vitamins while I was dealing with the morning sickness, and I'm worried that messed up my baby.

For Christmas we got a lot of stuff for the baby. We got a MamaRoo, which has to be one of the coolest things ever, a Baby Bjorn carrier, a belly cast kit, a little Chicago Bulls track suit with a matching onesie (my brother lives in Chicago), Two Buffalo Bills Bottles (we're Bills fans, Yeah I know feel my pain), and a Lullabelly, which is this speaker band thing for my belly, so I can play music for the baby. I need to put together a play list to play for the baby, since it can hear now according to most information.  We tested it out the other day, the first song we played for the baby was David Byrne's "Strange Overtones". I swear I felt the baby moving along to the music, but I guess it could have been rhythmic gas.

I had a 3 hour Glucose Tolerence Test a while back, because they were worried that my initial blood tests were high, which turned out to be nothing, everything came back normal. So hopefully the 1 hour test will be nothing compared to that.

I have another appointment with my OB on the 11th, and I'm super anxious to hear that heartbeat again, and know everything's OK.

Week 12

I can't believe I'm almost done with my first trimester. Craziness. We had an ultrasound on Monday, and got to take home not just pictures but video of the little jumping bean. It looked so different this time! It's grown so very very much. It looks like a little person in there now, instead of a vaguely human gummy bear-ish blob. We had one of those amazing moments when we got to listen to the heart beat. I was just floored by that sound.


The nausea is still with me, although it's way way better than before. Now it's mostly the awful taste in my mouth that's a problem. I'm basically living with a breath mint in my mouth 24/7.

Also, I've finally reached the point where my normal work pants do not close. I've resorted to using a hair tie as a waste band extender, since I still feel awkward and impostor-ish when I walk into the maternity section.

Speaking of my work pants, I still haven't told work. I know I need to tell soon, since I'm starting to show, but I'm still so scared of telling my boss. I don't know what exactly I'm afraid of, except maybe making everyone angry.

Week 11

The "morning' (ha!) sickness is still in strong effect. I've become a vegetarian by virtue of necessity, the only things I can eat reliably are salads and fruit. I'm staving off dehydration best I can with water and frozen juice pops. The bad taste in my mouth is also persisting, although I'm working around that with breath mints and gum.

I'm also still tired all the time, waking up in the mornings is getting really hard. I usually try to nap in the afternoons, but even then I'm exhausted by 10pm.

An awesome friend of ours, who sadly is moving out to Cali, just offered us this amazing crib. Their youngest just graduated to a "big girl bed", so they won't be taking it with them. It's gorgeous, and practically brand new. I'm so happy about it, and I feel so honored that they thought of us!

We go in for our 12 week Ultrasound on Monday. I'm excited for another look at our jumping bean. I honestly can't believe we're almost out of the first trimester. This Monday appointment is also the first time I've had to actually take time off of work for an appointment, and I think my boss is starting to get a little annoyed with me saying that I might be late/need time off because of a doctors appointment. I'm going to have to spill the beans soon at work, now that the word is out with the family and friends.

I'm tentatively planning on going to the "First Friday" workout at the Dojo this Friday. I'd really like to go and just run through my kata and do some practice with my bo, but everything rests on how my stomach is feeling that day.

Week 10, and the first Ultrasound

I was really nervous when we got there. What if there was something wrong? The tech explained a few things to me, asked me a few questions, then said "We'll try to see the heart beat with an external, but if we can't find it we'll have to do an internal ultrasound." My fear ratcheted up a bit at that point, what do you mean if you can't find it?!

The tech squirted the gel on and started pushing the wand against my lower belly, and bam, there it was on the screen. Not just a heart beat. A perfect little image of our baby. I kinda just stared at the screen, awed. Then it started bopping around in there. Oh man it kept moving around so much. And it made me laugh with relief to see it. The poor Tech was trying to get the heart rate, but had a hard time between the baby bopping and me laughing. And the baby was boxing! it kept pushing it's little fists out one at a time like a jab-cross combination.

It's still so hard to believe that tiny little person is inside me.

Tomorrow, on thanksgiving, we're going to tell both sets of parents at the same time (we're all going to be in one place for dinner). Now we have a perfect little picture to show them. I think DH is going to have to make the announcement, because I'll just choke up and start to cry if I do it.

In symptom land, I've still got a good deal of nausea and exhaustion going on...along with a persistent bad taste in my mouth. I had nausea really bad on Monday, and ended up getting dehydrated. I'm going to stock up on freezer pops to help with that. My general aversion to meat continues just as strong, which kinda sucks because I normally like a burger now and then, but I guess it's helping me eat a lot of healthy green things. Fruit has also been my friend lately.

All of it is worth it though when I think about watching that little silhouette bopping around on the screen.

First official OB apointment

Today was my first appointment with my OB. Everything looked fine, nothing out of place. Got a huge packet of information and a lot of paperwork to fill out.

I scheduled my first Ultrasound for next Wednesday morning, it will be the "dating ultrasound" which will give us a more accurate due date. Hopefully we'll also get a picture to give to our parents. We're planning on making the announcements on thanksgiving.

I'm still rather nauseous, although I've managed (cross my fingers) to keep from actually throwing up for the past few days. My OB had some suggestions on foods that may help, and if the trend continues I should be feeling better by next week some time.

I am still super tired, although part of that may be the fact that I'm not really sleeping through the night very well. I have to get up at least once each night to pee (yeah i know tmi) and I usually do quite a bit of tossing and turning before falling back to sleep.

The good news is the OB gave me the thumbs up to return to (non contact) activity at the Dojo, once the pukey-ness goes away. I don't think anyone would really appreciate me inadvertently throwing up on them. I'm going to scale back how many days I go though, and pick the days carefully. Saturdays, yes, Thursdays, maybe. Mondays, maybe. I'm thinking twice a week will be all I'll be able to do, with one day a week doing a prenatal yoga video or something, and getting walks in when I can.

I really can't wait to be active again. I hate sitting around feeling like a lump. I know I'm supposed to take it easy, and listen to my body, and cut myself slack, but I just feel lazy. The fact that I don't have a baby bump yet doesn't help. Since there is no visible physical reason for me lying around all the time feeling simultaneously like I need a nap and like I need to empty my guts, I feel like maybe I'm exaggerating it, and I should just get up.

This past weekend I tried to buy some things from the maternity section at a store. As soon a I crossed that invisible (but very noticeable) line between the normal clothes and the maternity section, I wanted to bolt. I felt like a fraud, like an impostor. I do not have a belly, what am I doing in this section?! The same feeling came over me when I walked through the baby stuff section of the same store. Only it was augmented with the feeling that if I even touched any of the baby stuff I would jinx the pregnancy.

Sigh.

I'll get over this stuff eventually, I swear.

Halfway through week 8

I know it's been a long time since i posted. I've been having a rather rough go of it lately. Up until the last couple of weeks I was exausted all the time. The hardest part was not acting tired at my parents. Then a little over a week ago, the nausea hit, big time. I've just been doing my best to figure out what I can eat, and what I can do to keep myself from needing to loose my lunch at work or at my parents or in laws.

Last night it was a close call. For some reason meat, in all its forms, is strictly off my diet list for right now. My Father in law made some amazing herb crusted chicken and pork for dinner last night. As soon as I smelled it, it was all i could do not to loose it at the table.

I'm feeling a bit better today, celebrating the fact that I didn't throw up this morning, for the first time in days.

I had a mini panic attack the other night when it dawned on me that one of the things I've been eating for breakfast was 90% nuts. Not that I didn't know that, it just didn't register. I totally freaked out that I'm going to give my kid a nut allergy.

I have my first appointment with my OB next Wednesday, and I'm super excited for it. I really just want to know everything is going along well in there.

We've decided to break the news to the fam at thanksgiving. I'm going to buy my parents cheesy "I love my grandma/grandpa" photo frames and either put the sonogram pic in there or if we don't have one  yet, put a piece of paper with the due date on it in there. Since this will be their first grand kid, I'm sure it won't take long for it to sink in. I still haven't figured out how to tell my brother, I guess it'll depend on if he's going to be in town for thanksgiving or not.

I can't wait to have this all out in the open so I can stop trying to hide it when something someone puts on my plate makes me want to hurl!

Trying to get used to this

It still doesn't quite feel real. Other than feeling a little bloated, super tired, super thirsty, and needing to pee every 5 minutes, I feel the same. It's hard to believe that there's a little life growing inside of me.

Now the worry starts though. Every time I pee I check for blood. I made my first appointment with the doctor and I'm paranoid that I'm going to loose the baby before the appointment. I'm worried about how we'll handle our overly energetic dog as this goes on. DH has already said if he doesn't calm down we can't keep him.

We aren't telling anyone until after the 12 week mark. We're both paranoid about a miscarriage. DH doesn't want me to buy any baby stuff yet, and he keeps worrying that I'm getting to attached to it this early, when so much can still go wrong.


We're also not sure what to do about Maternity leave and whether it will make sense for me to work after the baby is born. I guess we still have a long time to figure that out, but it's high on my worry list. Along with our current apartment not really being quite big enough for the two of us, our 85 lb puppy, our cat, and a baby. My BIL (who is also our landlord) has talked about finishing off the attic above our apartment to give us some more room, but i don't know how practical that would be.

This weekend we're going to visit DH's grandmother, my BIL and SIL are coming as are my Mother and Father. I'm wondering if we'll get through the weekend without someone slipping up and saying something.