SEVENTEEN WEEKS

Zipping by the blog to make a weekly update, at least, because this has been the week from hell at work and I've had barely any time to even think about being pregnant. So grateful that the work week is over in a few hours. I'm going to go home and sleep for a million years!

My part of the SCA sewing project is finally finished, so this will be the first weekend that I get to take a bit of a breather... although, I will likely be taking my work computer home to get some work done, because in all the madness I'm behind in my staff's performance reviews and I have to get at least one more completed before the start of next week. SIGH. 

Still, I am not waking up tomorrow until my body says it's had enough sleep. If that's four in the afternoon so be it. I am exhausted.

This week I've mostly had baby flutterings on occasion, and sporadic nausea. I've taken one Diclegis at night and one in the morning, and it seems to control the nausea a little better and also keeps me from being quite so drugged in the mornings when I get up. Also - TMI - has anyone else noticed that pregnancy makes you more stinky? Kaitlin thinks it's hilarious. I'd probably have more patience with it if this week at work hadn't been so dreadful, but as it is I've really just been irritated by it. I feel like I need to shower 20 times a day just to smell not-terrible. X.x Of course, the stress probably isn't helping, either.

Well, here's hoping that next week things are better. And the requisite BabyCenter 17 week pic. Cuter by the day!

SIXTEEN WEEKS

We have an AVOCADOBABY today. <3 Will do an updated bump pic later tonight when I get home from work.

So to sum up this week of pregnancy: chips and salsa, haven't gotten to eat very much, lots of tummy fluttering (feels like a little goldfish swimming around and bumping into stuff), lots of unflattering gas, and a lot of moodiness and crankiness. Also, it is Friday and I am super tired, so I will be very glad to get to sleep in tomorrow. Morning sickness is almost completely controlled by the meds now, except for late at night when I still can end up feeling pukey. Oh, and still having the occasional round of uber-stinky-smells. Last night Kaitlin ate a chicken sandwich in the car and it smelled just awful. :/

Work is still running at high levels of demand and stress, and will be for the next two weeks. I have to finish another staff performance review today, then two more after that... then hopefully things will begin to slow down a little bit. Naturally, our work computer system decided to go down this morning. I sure hope it comes back up so I can actually get things done like I need to...

For right now I think I'll just focus on the next thing I need to do, and then the next, because I'm pretty much too tired to do anything else. Bring on the weekend and my sweet, sweet pillow! <3

Here's BabyCenter's 16 week baby pic. A real human-looking face now, even if the head is still a wee bit alienesque :P

15WK6D - Sixteen Week Checkup

Another crazy work week - really can't wait until performance review time is over, this month is insane. Anyway, on the baby-making front here's the latest news:

I made contact this week with a new OBGYN office that is covered under my work's new insurance plan. Got signed up for my first appointment with them, on 11/4.

Had my 16-week (and final) appointment with my current OBGYN this morning. They gave me copies of all my medical records to take with me to the new doctor's office. The new doctor is actually in the same building as my current doctor, just a few suites down the hall, on the same floor - so at least it's really nice that the location will pretty much be the same even if it's new and different people. Today we didn't have an ultrasound, I just answered a bunch of questions about how I'm feeling and we listened to baby's heartbeat on the doppler - doctor says baby's heart sounds good. Baby also kicked the doppler a bunch of times, which was pretty funny. They drew blood for the spina bifida test, too. I've gained 7 pounds so far, which the doctor says is pretty good.

Other than the fact that I'm getting really tired of chips and salsa - which is about the only thing baby will let me eat easily - I'm feeling okay. The Diclegis still makes waking up in the morning really hard, but it's better than feeling sick all day. I still run out of energy a lot faster than I used to, but I have more good days now where I can at least do the dishes or other small chores before I'm out of steam.

In other news, I am sad that the wonderful warmth of summer really seems to be gone for the forseeable future. It's done nothing but rain and be cold and dreary for the last two days. I am grateful that it's still just rain and not snow - dreading the snow. But it seems we've settled back into my least favorite part of the year, where it's dark when I have to get out of bed, and cold in the house most of the time, and we have to put electric blankets on and I have to wear a coat to work in the morning and my hands and feet are pretty much in a perpetual state of freezing. This is usually the time of year when I tuck away and hibernate, waiting for the warmth to come back. I guess I'm grateful, though, that I'll be pregnant through most of it. Gives me something to look forward to, and I love the fact that our first few months with baby will be during the wonderful warm months of spring and summer when we can take baby out and about and enjoy the world. <3

This weekend will (hopefully) be the last weekend of working on the SCA sewing project. I have huge skirts to pattern, cut, assemble, and attach to the gown bodice, and a heavily boned front plastron to make. Then the gown gets passed to the lovely ladies doing the hems and eyelets, and the following weekend (Halloween!) we can start work on the nursery in earnest. Step one is to clear out all the stuff that's currently being stored in the room - there's a full-size bed we need to give away, and a ton of Kaitlin's art stuff that will have to get moved to the basement. Step two is to hire an electrician to come wire up an overhead box so we can install a ceiling fan/light fixture (and while they're at it we'll have them do the same in the adjacent room, our office).

Then we can start painting. That's the part I'm most looking forward to. The idea is to do scenes from Disney's "It's a Small World" ride, all around the room - there will be a "Europe" wall, and some short "North America" walls, and then a Polynesia / Asia / Africa wall, and then a shorter Central/South America wall. With the big clock-tower-castle on the wall above the crib, in a purple / teal / pink / blue / some golds & whites color scheme.

Once we find the right nursery furniture on Craigslist we'll be able to furnish it, too. I'll have some small sewing projects, like curtains and little around-the-world plushies for a mobile and possibly a hot-air-balloon light fixture, maybe. Also thinking about running some Christmas lights along the ceiling over the crib, and stapling some filmy fabric over them to create a sparkly nightlight/sky/stars effect... we'll see. Kaitlin wants to make a 3D version of the clock face that actually rocks back and forth like the one on the real Disney castle - another thing that would be fun, though we'll see how far we get with it, LOL.

Anyway, super excited as we haven't done a home-improvement room-remodel in a long time. Here's hoping baby will love their room as much as we do :)

FIFTEEN WEEKS

Fifteen weeks and counting! We now have an ORANGEBABY. >D Kind of hard to believe, because while I have a bump my brain is telling me it couldn't possibly be *that* big just yet. 

I forgot to take my Diclegis for the first time last night, so I guess today is the test to see if morning sickness is gone. I feel a little bit sick to my stomach this morning, but nothing like the serious nausea of the first trimester, so I'm hoping it won't be showing up today. 

So over the course of the last week I've experienced a four-day-long headache (fun!), a reduced appetite (the only things that sounded good were iced tea and chips and salsa), a lot of random belly twinging and stretching, an uncomfortable amount of gas, and an increasing need to pee frequently. My energy level is much improved, though I still wear out early and sometimes have a little tummy upset in the evenings. And my sense of smell is still on overdrive, so I'm sure Kaitlin's tired of me cranking at her about the smell of the trash, the cat boxes, the dishes in the sink, and so on. I now realize what a blessing it is to have a normally-insensitive nose. This being able to smell everything is not as fun as it sounds. :P

Last night we went to see "Pan" at the Movie Tavern. Very pretty, imaginative movie, and I enjoyed it a lot, though I don't know that any Peter Pan movie is ever going to be able to match the magic that was Robin Williams in "Hook." :P

At work, I've almost completed one performance review, have three more to go. I also had to meet with my boss' boss this morning to give him feedback on my boss for her review. My boss will be meeting with all of my staff to do the same. I really feel like this year has been my best so far, so I'm hoping my staff & boss feel the same. Especially since asking everybody to accommodate me for three months of maternity leave next year is a big deal...  

I also have one staff member out sick all week, so I'm covering her phone calls, and this was the first week of implementation of the new digital file system, and half my staff have been in training or out on vacation at least two days this week, and in general it's just been a long, busy, tiring week. 

Today I really need to find a moment to make contact with a new OBGYN. Next week I have to enroll in a new insurance plan at work (since I'll be adding a spouse and a child next year, I have to switch to the plan that's free, because I can't afford the full-family premium on my current plan.) Unfortunately my current OB isn't in the network for the new plan. I'm supposed to have a 16 week appointment next week, but I kind of would prefer to get started with the new doc ASAP so that the first time I meet him/her isn't when I've already gone into labor. :P

Overall - and I feel like I've been saying this a lot lately - I mostly just want a nap. Looking forward to tomorrow when I can sleep in some <3

Here's the BabyCenter pic for 15 weeks!

14WK4D - Belly Pic and Ultrasound Updates

So first off, here's our 14 week belly pic. LOOKIT GUYS, I REALLY HAVE A BUMP NOW!

I can still mostly keep the bump covered under baggy clothes at work - but dang. Huge difference between 12 and 14 weeks!

So we went on Saturday to have a gender ultrasound done, and it confirmed that yup! The Harmony test results are right on target. ^^ We also got to see baby wiggling around some more and showing off. We got a good long video and ultrasound pics, but I'm not allowed to share 'em yet - sigh.

So let's see. This week the morning sickness continues to wane, though I do have occasional waves of the sickies in the evening before bed. I'm still taking the Diclegis - I have about three days' worth left. I think when I run out I'll try going a day without it, and if it comes back I'll get a refill. One really unpleasant new symptom, though, is a chronic headache that I've had for about four days now. I've been fighting it with Tylenol - the first Tylenol I've taken since we got our BFP - but only this afternoon has it really mellowed out. Not sure what that was all about but seriously not fun. :/

Baby is also a picky eater, still really only wants me to drink iced tea, and has a penchant for tortilla chips and salsa. I've also felt a lot more heaviness/stretching/twinging in there this week, which I am guessing means our little peachbaby is having a growth spurt. :P

In other news, work continues to be insanely busy, so much so that I barely have time to think during the day and I come home really tired - I feel like going to bed a lot earlier these days. And my pretty sparkly butterfly earrings from AliExpress arrived, so I'm adding them to the stash of stuff-to-wear-on-our-elopement in December. Good thing I bought a maternity wedding dress, I'm thinking this bump will be impressive by then! Sewing project is on track, I still have three solid weekends of work to do, but so far so good. And other than that, the thing eating up my brain lately is nursery prep. Really really want to get started but have to get the sewing stuff wrapped up first! I also have a few sewing projects in mind for our little munchkin, now that we know gender, and I'm plotting a supercute coming home outfit for baby to come home from the hospital in. I might have to make both a newborn-size version and a 0-3 months size version, just to be sure I have at least one that fits! Apparently some babies are too big for newborn sizes right out of the gate. Kind of hoping this one will be little enough, at least for a couple weeks, 'cause I've already started a bit of a stash of newborn-size clothes. *shiftyeyes*

Also made a long checklist (after surfing the internet for recommended checklists) of stuff we need to acquire before baby gets here. Stroller, car seat, nursery furniture, breast pump, cloth diaper stash, etc. etc.  Hoping to get 95% of the items used, with the possible exception of the car seat, because after wandering through Babies R Us and having some eyepopping moments at how expensive these little things (that last what, three or four years, most of them? At most??) are, it just makes a lot more sense to go green and reuse things that somebody else no longer needs.

So that's about it for now... off to eat dinner. Hoping baby likes Hamburger Helper. :P

FOURTEEN WEEKS

Well, if we weren't in the second trimester last week we definitely are now. :P My morning sickness was well behaved yesterday - didn't show up until almost 9 PM! Unfortunately today it returned at around noon (boo) but I'm hoping that means it's really going to back off soon.

Turns out, we got the call from the OBGYN yesterday afternoon with the Harmony test results - super happy to hear that all baby's chromosomes came back completely normal. No signs of trisomies of any sort, which is excellent. We also got to find out baby's gender, which I'm not allowed to share for a while. :P

It's interesting, how finally knowing the gender has had a much more profound impact than I had imagined. Because this is our only child, I knew that there would be a sense of loss no matter which gender our kiddo turns out to be - because I will only ever be the mom of a __________, and will never be the mom of the opposite gender. So having the field narrowed down to one automatically means that everything I would have looked forward to about the other gender is no longer really on the table. One of the names we chose is no longer relevant. One section of the toy aisle is probably a lot less likely to be as popular with our little one, same with one section of the kids' clothing aisles. (Though you can bet that we're going to encourage kiddo to play with and wear what appeals to them, boy/girl labels be damned.)

There's a long list of things that are awesome and somewhat unique to parenting a child of each gender, and one half of that list gets crossed off (mostly) once the gender's known. No matter what a lot of politically-correct folks out there like to say about nature vs. nurture, I worked in a daycare center for seven years and can tell you there is a distinct difference (generally) in the way little boys and little girls play, interact, and respond. There is also a distinct and noticeable difference (most of the time) in parents of all-one-gender children. Moms and dads of all girls have a unique presence, a different sort of aura to them. And the same can be said of moms and dads of all boys. In my experience, parents of all boys tend to be louder, more direct, more physical. Parents of all girls tend to be gentler, more subtle, and place higher emphasis on aesthetics. We plan on incorporating a healthy dose of all of the above with our kiddo regardless of gender - but I can't help wondering if/how kiddo's going to end up changing and affecting both of us.

What I hadn't anticipated, I guess, was how finding out my child's gender would suddenly impact my perspective on who I was myself, and who I am going to become. I'm going to be the mom of a _________. Forever and ever, for the rest of my life (unless, of course, I'm lucky enough to have a kiddo who is unlucky enough to receive the wrong body at birth. While that's not something I would wish on anybody, especially not my child, I'm totally ready to roll with it if that's what the universe has in store!)

In spite of my sleeping meds I got stuck in a rut of insomnia last night, because my brain wouldn't rest, thinking about it. It's not that I'm not super excited to be having a _________ - I AM!!! I can't wait, and I'm already in love with this little one. I just know this is the kiddo I was always meant to have (I actually suspected, since I was a teenager, that this is the gender kiddo I'd end up with) and I know we're going to have an amazing relationship. There are one heck of a lot of things I'm really looking forward to about being the mom of a ________, that I would have missed out on if kiddo was the other gender. 

But I guess my brain still needs a few days to really process that this is the direction my life, Kaitlin's life, and our little one's life is going to go. It's really nice, after years of uncertainty, to finally see the picture of the future getting a little clearer. But zeroing in on that future does mean closing the doors on other possible futures at the same time, if that makes sense. 

So yeah.

The other thing that I think both Kaitlin and I are experiencing is a sense of HOLY CRAP THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING. Our baby now has a name. (In fact, we just settled on the middle name today.) I can now go shopping for non-unisex baby clothes - my AliExpress wish list is already overflowing with adorableness. We can now picture our kiddo a little more clearly when we think about traveling, and sending them off to school, and taking family photos, and going to the museum and aquarium and theme parks and family holidays. And even though we'd be doing all those things with our kiddo regardless of gender, we now know we'll be doing them with a _______. And it somehow makes the whole thing a hundred times more REAL. 

Anyway, I'll talk more about baby naming in general in another post, because that topic is worth an entire blog all on its own. We have our for-fun ultrasound tomorrow, and we don't plan on telling the ultrasound tech that we already know gender - we want to see what they see on the screen first. ;) We'll take a belly pic when I get home tonight, too, so I'll have that up in a day or two.

In the meantime, here's the BabyCenter imagining of kiddo at 14 weeks:

13WK6D - Long Week

This week has been so crazy at work I haven't had the chance to blog. Performance reviews are due this month, which of course just happen to coincide with a massive transition from paper filing to a digital filing system, as well as contract renewals, some fiscal/budget questions that only I can answer, and so on and so forth. Now I remember why I always hate the month of October. Seriously.  SIGH.

Thankfully, morning sickness seems to be ebbing at last. Maybe. I am taking the Diclegis every night, and I still have some evenings when I'm feeling pretty darn sick by bedtime, and I did have one day this week when I felt sick even when I woke up. But, for the last couple days anyway, I've had pretty okay evenings. Exhausted when I get home from work, but tired is better than tired AND nauseous. I am going to bed a little earlier than usual, and sleeping a little later than usual, but doing pretty okay overall.

Haven't gotten word yet from my OBGYN office about our Harmony test results. I'm giving them until noon today, then calling again, because it's been two weeks. We have a private ultrasound scheduled for Saturday at the 3D ultrasound spa place, for gender determination. We were expecting to have the Harmony test results first, and then get the ultrasound mostly for fun, but now it's looking like we may end up getting our first gender info from the ultrasound instead. :P

Everything I read on the internet insists that I shouldn't be able to feel baby moving yet, especially since I haven't been pregnant before. But I don't know... I feel fluttering in there at least once or twice a day, and it doesn't feel like any other sensations I've had before, so I wonder??? I'm now wearing maternity pants every day to work. I don't think anyone's noticed anything in particular yet, though. I really just look like I gained a pound or two in my tummy area, and it's around the low belly where I have a bit of a pooch anyway, so I don't think it's setting off any red flags in my staff's minds just yet. I can definitely tell the difference, though. We'll be taking another bump photo tomorrow so I guess that will be a good test to see if it looks as different as it feels, LOL.

Otherwise, things are just sort of plugging along. The house is still a mess because I haven't had the energy to do many chores, and because my weekends for the next month are pretty much completely devoted to the SCA sewing project. I'm also starting to get pretty antsy to start work on the nursery, but it will be a few weeks yet, probably, before we really get to dive into it because I have to get through project commitments first.

In the meantime, really wish I could take a nap today - two of my staff called in sick and the rest of us are really scrambling to cover things for them. *sigh* Gonna be another long day, I guess...

THIRTEEN WEEKS

Thirteen weeks today. Some places online say this is the start of the second trimester, while others say that won't happen until next week. But whatever. I am ready for the first trimester to be done, and therefore I am dubbing today as the start of the second. :P

Today's another higher-energy morning, for which I am grateful. I've been able to juggle a couple of meetings that needed my full attention, so I'm feeling a lot better about today than the earlier parts of this week. It's noon and I'm only just starting to get a hint of stomach yuckies, so I'm hoping maybe tonight will go a bit easier. Took my last dose of meds, including my last injection, last night. Hallelujah!!! No more shots for meeee, no more shots for meeeeeeeee... now to wait for all these colorful bruises on my tummy to go away.

Baby has apparently decided that he/she hates potato chips, and will only drink iced tea. O.o Plain water is usually what I like, but baby is just not having it. It's iced tea or nothing. Still, now that I've finally figured that out, I've been able to get about three times more liquid down in the past couple days. So okay, little baby, iced tea it is. You sure are being weird. I can already tell you're going to be a handful. :P

Wearing my newly-acquired maternity jeans to work today. They are way more comfortable than regular jeans, but the seam between the denim and the soft belly band is going to take some getting used to. It's very low on my hips, so it kind of feels like my underwear is falling off, LOL. I still don't have a super noticeable bump yet, but I can definitely feel the difference in my clothes. 

In the meantime, I got a call back from the Sweethearts Wedding Chapel in Vegas yesterday afternoon, and was able to finalize reservations for our elopement ceremony. We had to do a lot of shuffling to find a date that would work - with an SCA event, Kaitlin's end-of-semester classes, Thanksgiving, Kaitlin's birthday, and Christmas all hitting so close together, and then a VERYIMPORTANTWORKMEETING that got scheduled for the one Friday we'd originally picked out (sigh) we finally had to go with December 11th. Which is okay, because we celebrate our anniversary in December anyway, so this is just moving it up a couple of weeks. It should be a relatively simple little ceremony, but we'll still get pictures and video and we're having Kaitlin's hair and makeup done and we bought cute new outfits and all in all it will be pretty darned fun. I got our plane tickets and hotel reserved too, so that's also crossed off the to-do list.

A little ironic, perhaps, that we'll be in Vegas getting married (with our little one finally on the way) almost exactly one year after our first trip to Greece. Last year on Christmas we were envisioning that we'd get to spend this Christmas with a new baby. Turns out we'll have a few more months to wait... but that's okay. At this point we're just so very grateful to have finally made it this far. <3

Here's BabyCenter's pic of baby at 13 weeks:

  

12WK6D - First Trimester Down, Two To Go

Well, this post's title is a wee bit premature, since technically the second trimester doesn't start until tomorrow when we hit 13 weeks. However, since today is the last day of the first trimester, it's a big milestone day for us - the day when we share the news with friends and family. <3

Sickness has been a little worse the last few days. The Diclegis still gets me through the first few hours of the morning, but I'm lucky if I make it til noon without starting to feel crummy, and last night it got really bad the hour or so before I went to bed. Today it started in at about 10 AM, which means tonight's probably not going to be much fun either. :/ Ah well. At least tonight is our VERY LAST HEPARIN SHOT. Not looking forward to it, but very much looking forward to not having to do it anymore from tonight on! Same thing for the meds - I'm finally down to one estrogen and one 100mg progesterone pill a day, and tonight is the last dose. Starting tomorrow it's just prenatals (and diclegis), and I'm pretty happy about that. It feels a little like we've at last graduated from delicate-medically-assisted-pregnancy to a self-sustaining, "normal" one.

In the meantime, Kaitlin scanned in our ultrasound from last week. Here's our little 12-week-gestation munchkin:

You can see the skull and jaw to the left, and the shadows of wiggly hands above the belly and one wiggly leg and foot. Also the little spine. Still waiting on the Harmony test results, kind of hoping they will come in today or tomorrow. I think if I haven't got the call by tomorrow I'll call them to check.

In the meantime, still a lot of things on my plate that need to be done, both at work and at home, but I'm feeling low-energy and seasick today. What I really want to do is go home for a half a day and sleep some more. :P Guess we'll see how the day plays out... the month of October's going to be crazy busy (performance eval time at work, and OMGSEWING every weekend) so I really hope the morning sickness finishes up shortly.

Welcome to October, little baby. Next year I promise you the coolest Halloween costume on the block. >D It will probably match the dog's.