Wednesday, January 30, 2013

16 weeks 3 days - somewhat annoyed

16 weeks and counting....

As I get further into my pregnancy, I am amazed at how many people have an opinion about how I "should" feel or what I "should" do or "should" think.

I know there are some people who do not want to hear my complaining when I am having a bad day or feeling like crap because they think I should be cartwheeling or backflipping due to finally being pregnant. Now, I understand to a degree where they are coming from because we are THRILLED at all of this - to the point words fail me to explain.

HOWEVER:

I am still a first time mom who has NEVER experienced this before, it's all brand new and scary to me. I don't know what's going on in my body from day to day (sometimes minute to minute feels so unknown), it feels different and I am in an adjustment phase for all this - so somedays I am just completely overwhelmed both positively and negatively. I am pregnant, which means I can be the following in any order and all at once: sad, scared, mad, confused, frustrated, happy, nervous, excited, anxious, sentimental, overwhelmed, etc.

This is a whole new ballgame for me - I don't think there is a particular way I should feel because so much is so unknown to me. I have read the books, talked to people who have gone through it before to make sure I am not way out of bounds.

We can't wait to be parents, it's what we have been working toward for such a long time, but that doesn't mean that makes me into a person who isn't scared to death and gets overwhelmed from time to time. We are so excited about it all because we have been to hell and back to get to this point, spent a small fortune, and had our relationship tested time and again with the stress. We are still going strong (I would say stronger, to be honest) but that does not change us from being first time parents who are adjusting to the changes we are experiencing right now, let alone all the changes to come.

No one tells other pregnant women that they should just get over it when they are having a bad/sad/overwhelemed day, so why am I any different???

Okay, I am climbing down off my soap box now.


How far along? 16 weeks and 3 days
Total weight gain: I have been working hard at spreading out my eating throughout the day to help me get more nutrition, so hopefully at my appointment next week, I will have at least maintained if not have gained a little bit of weight
Maternity clothes? that's what I am fitting into right now, all maternity pants
Stretch marks? No new ones
Sleep: I bought a pregnancy sleeping pillow which seems to be helping some with the sleeping issues, a few more hours of sleep makes a huge difference for me
Best moment of the week: Buying some adorable new clothes for baby girl - we are blessed to get lots of hand-me-downs, but some new clothes for the new baby is a necessity for us :-) A little bit of spoiling never hurt anyone
Miss anything? Not really
Movement: No, but it should be coming pretty quickly - the next few weeks
Anything making you queasy or sick: No more queasy!! Thank goodness
Gender prediction: We are going with girl until we are told otherwise
Labor signs: Nope
Symptoms: strong smells is the killer one for me right now
Belly button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? the rings are on, most of my bloat is gone
Happy or moody most of the time? lately is a flip-flop between happy and sad. Last night, I started crying for no reason whatsoever when getting ready for bed! Caught me off guard and I cried for over 15 minutes straight - still not sure what that was all about!
Looking forward to: the next ultrasound which should be somewhere between 18-22 weeks to do a more in depth anatomy scan for development as well as hopefully confirm for me that she's doing all right in there and growing strong!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

15 Weeks and 3 Days - the baby is a....

It's a girl!!!

We had our elective gender ultrasound on Saturday and it was so cool! :-) She has gotten so much bigger since the last ultrasound we had seen at 8 weeks 5 days! It took a little persuading to get her to move around enough for us to see the gender, she was lying on her back which made it nearly impossible. Luckily, we had the most patient ultrasound tech who kept me moving around to help to get a different angle until we were able to get a good view.

So here she is:


Aaron and I had chosen names over the summer when we were going through the 2 rounds of IVF because it was a positive thing for us to do when we were hitting a frustration point. So as soon as we found it was a girl, we knew what her name would be. Genevieve is for my great-grandmother on my mom's side and Ann is for my grandmother and mother. It's a way to honor all of the women in my history. Plus, it's just a beautiful name in general and not one that we hear that often. We wanted a name with meaning for us and was something that not everyone would have in her classroom as well.

Now for the weekly update:


How far along? 15 weeks and 3 days
Total weight gain: Well I thought I was done losing weight, but apparently I was wrong. I am down another almost 4 pounds brining our total to -13 pounds since finding out we were pregnant. Time to stop losing and start gaining a little
Maternity clothes? that's what I am fitting into right now, all maternity pants
Stretch marks? No new ones
Sleep: well this week has not been a great sleeping one, my body is waking me up at about 3:30 am and then I can't fall back asleep - making my days seem so much longer than necessary
Best moment of the week: Seeing the baby on the ultrasound to see how much she has grown since the last ultrasound and to see Aaron's face as he saw how much bigger she was
Miss anything? Well food is better, but I need to start eating more because of the weight loss - not as easy as it sounds though when I am getting full faster and faster
Movement: Nope
Anything making you queasy or sick: No more queasy!! Thank goodness
Gender prediction: According to the ultrasound, she's a girl - it was a pretty obvious there was nothing else there so until we are told otherwise, she's a girl!
Labor signs: Nope
Symptoms: strong smells, gas (so much!! I am a human gas factory right now), leg cramps are starting and woke me up last night, some headaches
Belly button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? the rings are on, most of my bloat is gone
Happy or moody most of the time? generally happy but the hormones are increasing - I have noticed that my frustration level gets hit quicker than it did before and I have to make myself calm down before losing my cool all the time
Looking forward to: the next ultrasound which should be somewhere between 18-22 weeks to do a more in depth anatomy scan for development as well as hopefully confirm for me that she's doing all right in there and growing strong!

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

14 weeks and 3 days

Well here we are again...another weekly update.

Last week, I woke up in terrible pain down the back of my right leg. I went to work and the pain just became worse, finally at about 2:15 am I woke up Aaron and said we had to do something because it woke me up out of sleep. So he got up (even though he had just gone to bed not too long before) and we were at the ER by about 5 am. However, because I am pregnant, they wanted to check for a blood clot first since pregnant women can have those and the symptoms mimic what I was feeling. The downside was the ultrasound tech did not come in until 7 am and they wouldn't do anything until that was cleared and my blood work was back. So back to sleep we went in the ER while waiting. Finally, it was time for the ultrasound (all the way up from the top of my thigh to the ankle by the way - ouch!) and it came back clear. The ER doctor said he felt as though I had developed tendinitis of my Achilles tendon somehow and that was the source of the pain. The nurse wrapped it (which super duper hurt and I cried a ton as she did it) and we were given directions to rest it, ice it, elevate it, and keep the wrap on for at least 48 hours. By the time we were home, it was nearly 9 am and poor Aaron had barely any sleep but was going to have to go to work soon. I felt awful for the whole thing, he's a good husband: made sure I had my ice pack, my laptop, all the remotes for the TV/DVR/DVD player, wrapped in a blanket, and some snacks near me so he could get some sleep without me having to get up very much. This week at school, I have been wearing my boot which allows me to not put all my weight on my ankle while walking and I have a follow up appointment on Monday. Ugh. Very frustrating situation.

In other news, we found out that our ultrasound place will only allow 2 people in the room with the tech so that threw a wrench in the whole plan for having my mother-in-law in the room when we found out the gender. Thankfully, a solution is there is another place that will do an elective ultrasound where you can have tons of people in there with you AND they will do the gender scan even earlier! So we now have an appointment for this Saturday and she gets to come with us! I hope the baby is cooperative and we can find out. I want to know if it's a boy or girl and why not do it earlier when it is not that expensive ($60 for the scan) and then we can go back later to do a 3D/4D ultrasound if we would like. That's pretty awesome.

Next week, we will have the gender update!


How far along? 14 weeks and 3 days
Total weight gain: I am not losing anymore, which is really all I can say to the positive at this point.
Maternity clothes? that's what I am fitting into right now, all maternity pants
Stretch marks? No new ones
Sleep: getting a little bit more sleep now than I have been before
Best moment of the week: finding out we can do the gender scan earlier!
Miss anything? Well food is starting sound better finally, so I am experimenting at things that bothered me in my first trimester to see if they are okay now
Movement: Nope
Anything making you queasy or sick: No more queasy!! Thank goodness
Gender prediction: Not really sure but the FB poll has it at 20 voting for girl and 5 voting for boy
Labor signs: Nope
Symptoms: strong smells, gas (so much!! I am a human gas factory right now), leg cramps are starting and woke me up last night, some headaches
Belly button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? the rings are on, most of my bloat is gone
Happy or moody most of the time? generally happy but the hormones are increasing - I have noticed that my frustration level gets hit quicker than it did before and I have to make myself calm down before losing my cool all the time
Looking forward to: a hopefully cooperative baby on Saturday so we know if baby G is a boy or a girl

Thursday, January 10, 2013

13 Weeks 4 days

So this week has brought about some new adventures:

1. The nausea has passed!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't be happier about that because it means that I don't spend the whole day running to throw up all the time. I feel like I could shout from the rooftop that I don't want to throw up anymore.

2. The downside is that I have to eat more, but my stomach doesn't seem to like any food I like. I am trying to eat all the things I have enjoyed before and that makes eating a bit more of a challenge. My doctor now wants me to start gaining weight (I was down almost 10 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight through the first trimester) slowly and increasing my nutrition now that I can keep down food.

3. We bought at home Doppler to listen to the baby's heartbeat at home between doctor appointments. While it's a little tricky in the beginning, it's amazing to be able to listen to the heartbeat whenever we want, it allows me to feel much less stressed because I know the baby's heart is beating strong.

Weekly update:


How far along? 13 weeks and 4 days
Total weight gain: I am -9 pounds from pre-pregnancy weight - I am sure that will be changing soon as I am under orders to eat more now
Maternity clothes? that's what I am fitting into right now, all maternity pants
Stretch marks? No new ones
Sleep: getting a little bit more sleep now than I have been before
Best moment of the week: hearing the heartbeat at home on the Doppler for the first time
Miss anything? Currently, I miss some of the food that I have loved in the past but currently my stomach does not seem to think is good stuff. I am not sure what to eat at this point
Movement: Nope
Anything making you queasy or sick: No more queasy!! Thank goodness
Gender prediction: the dreams are still leaning toward girl
Labor signs: Nope
Symptoms: strong smells, gas (so much!! I am a human gas factory right now), leg cramps are starting and woke me up last night, some headaches
Belly button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? the rings are on, most of my bloat is gone
Happy or moody most of the time? now that we are out of the scariest trimester, I feel much more comfortable with everything - that trimester was keeping me on the edge of anxiety all the time
Looking forward to: finding out the gender next month!! So close to it!!

Thursday, January 3, 2013

12 weeks and 4 days

I hope everyone had a fantastic New Year's celebration, no matter what you did.

We had a good time with a group of friends. Last year, we went on a party shuttle with a group of friends and it was fantastic. So, we decided to do it again this year. Although it was a bit more interesting being 3 months pregnant and still dealing with morning sickness, plus a terrible head cold. We made sure that we had a back up plan in case I wasn't feeling very well and needed to leave, but fortunately did not need to use it.

Here we are in the 13th week, heading into the second trimester and thankfully getting a bit of relief from the terrible morning sickness. I have to say that whomever named this awful part of pregnancy as morning sickness obviously never had it because it was all day and all night. It didn't matter what I ate, when I ate it, or how much I ate - all of it made me sick. A good day was only coming to the edge or throwing up 4 times, some days were up to 10 or 11 times a day. It is very difficult to function as a human being when all you feel like doing is keeping your head in the toilet and lying in bed with a blanket over your head. I am so glad that it's tapering off finally, now it's maybe once a day every other day or so. I couldn't be more thrilled with this new development.

I have a doctor appointment on Monday to hear the heartbeat and to get the plan for the upcoming doctor appointments. I have ordered a handheld Doppler which should hopefully be here soon so we can hear the heartbeat at home whenever we want. Talk about a relief that will be when it gets here.

Now the weekly update:


How far along? 12 weeks and 4 days
Total weight gain: not sure I have gained much, but I feel like it
Maternity clothes? that's what I am fitting into right now, all maternity pants
Stretch marks? No new ones
Sleep: getting a little bit more sleep now than I have in days due to a terrible head cold
Best moment of the week: spending the new year with my friends and family
Miss anything? I admit that I did wish for a drink on New Year's Eve, but stuck to water and soda
Movement: Nope
Anything making you queasy or sick: FINALLY getting better!
Gender prediction: the dreams are still leaning toward girl
Labor signs: Nope
Symptoms: strong smells, now getting headaches pretty regularly
Belly button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? the bloat is coming down on my hands so my rings are back on
Happy or moody most of the time? starting to feel better now than I have so far
Looking forward to: the complete end of the nausea all the time and feeling more like myself again