Two Weeks Later...

I know, I know, it's been a while since I posted anything. Sorry for the people that kept checking to look for updates and didn't find any. It's been an interesting couple of weeks. For starters, my husband's work schedule changed, so I didn't have consistent access to his desktop, where I prefer to write these posts. I am on my laptop now. Plus, I haven't had much news to report, and been feeling icky every now and then.

Well, here's what news I do have: Christmas was nice and quiet, just me and Bryan here at home. We each opened one present on the 23rd, Bryan gave me this awesome, incredibly soft blue robe. I'd been wanting a new one, because my old terry cloth robe is getting lots of holes. But this robe is nice and soft, and so warm. I wear it every morning. I bought Bryan season two of Law & Order: SVU, which is one of the only shows Bryan will sit and watch on TV. He hates commercials, so getting him the DVDs was a great idea.

My belly's getting bigger little by little. Every time I look down, I can see my belly button ring poking out from my shirt. I went to scratch near it on Christmas Eve, and it hurt really badly. I finally broke down and took it out. I hadn't wanted to, was going to wait until the day before my next appointment. I got all sad that night, because my belly button looks so much different now. I keep telling Bryan it's ugly now. I think it's already closing up. I'm afraid that it will close up all the way, and I don't know that I'd get it redone. It's not the pain, I just don't know that I'd go to the trouble to find a place to do it for me. Plus I'd have to pay for it again, and they won't use my own belly button rings, I'd have to buy another one. If it does close up, I just hope it doesn't leave a nasty scar that looks horrible once my belly gets even bigger.

Our neighbors invited us to her mom's house for a "quiet" Christmas with her brothers and neice and nephew. Bryan declined, and I kind of agreed. I would have felt strange, Sharon having all her kids and grandkids there, I would have felt like an intruder. Bryan just didn't want to spend Christmas with a family that wasn't his family. But it turned out to be a nice day anyway. We opened the rest of our presents, then watched television and talked to our families on the phone. Bryan got me a bathtub caddy that holds a book, a candle, and a wine glass. He also got me a really cool blender, which was something else I had been wanting. It has 14 speeds, including an Easy Clean setting, something I thought was really awesome. The cup is glass and holds five cups. We just went out and bought vanilla ice cream, so that we could make milkshakes. We were going to make smoothies, but we didn't buy any fruit that's smoothie-appropriate except for bananas. But I can still make chocolate-banana shakes. My mom got me hooked on those from Sonic when she was pregnant with my youngest brother.

The other day I had to go get a couple of maternity shirts. All of my others were getting to be too short to tuck in or keep from showing my belly. I have one that I bought a while back, but it's designed for bigger bellies than mine. But I bought two long-sleeved t-shirts. They are long enough that I don't need to tuck them in, and oh-so-comfy! I'm wearing one of them in the above picture. I have a pair of maternity pants, but I have three pairs of normal pants that still fit and have some give to them. So I won't need to wear them for a little bit longer.

I still wake up with a bloody nose every morning. Bryan has come to expect my morning sneezing attacks which usually occur shortly after blowing my nose after I wake up. My humidifier helps with my breathing at night, but it hasn't stemmed the nasal bleeding. I'm also getting a lot of that round ligament pain when I go through those sneezing attacks. I have to bend over when I feel a sneeze coming on, or I get a really sharp pain in either side of my abdomen. I also have to be careful when I stretch, or I get it too. Another discomfort I've been experiencing the last couple days is stomach upset. I can only have about half the amount of cereal I normally have. And if it has too much milk in it, I feel icky for about two hours after eating. This morning, I told Bryan I thought it was my lactose intolerance getting worse. But then, we had Subway for lunch, and I couldn't finish my sandwich. That had never happened before. So I finally realized that my capacity had been diminished by a growing uterus. My stomach just can't stretch as much as it could before. Time for smaller meals. I was already eating little bits all the time, but now I'm really going to have to watch my actual meals.

In other baby news, we've been told that this baby isn't going to have the honor of being the first grandchild for every parent. Bryan's younger sister is pregnant, and she's a month ahead of us. I felt really jilted when we first found out. But I'm over that now, for the most part. She and her boyfriend are moving to Florida, where his mom lives. She's going to a culinary arts school, in Miami, I think. I'm trying really hard to be happy for her, though her circumstances make it more difficult. She's 18, and her boyfriend isn't exactly a favorite person with the rest of the family. I just really hope she's stopped or cut back on her smoking. She's five months along, and just informed her parents on Christmas day. What timing... Anyway, before I let my bitterness get the best of me...

In yet more baby news, our kittens go to the pet store on Tuesday. I've done my best to stay detached, but the house is going to seem very empty without them. They've just ventured downstairs to meet the dog in the last week. The last couple days, they've been spending more and more of their time down here. We actually lose them every once in a while as they find random nooks and crannies to curl up and sleep in. Lilo, their mom, has been in heat since the 23rd, she's just coming out of it now, and starting to play with them and the dog. She's still really protective of her babies. When Sabre starts to chase one of them, she attacks him. It's quite hilarious. But we have one that spends nearly all of her time down here, and actually curls up next to the dog and goes to sleep. Bryan said he wanted to keep her today. The other day, he asked me if we could keep a couple of the kittens and sell Lilo. But he told me he wasn't totally serious about either of them. But we are most certainly going to get their mom spayed shortly after the babies go away. Her going into heat has gotten nearly intolerable. Plus, I want to be a more responsible pet owner than to let her get pregnant again. Granted, her babies are gorgeous and so much fun, but there are too many homeless babies out there. Our neighbor just rescued one that showed up at their house. Anyway, here are some pictures of our babies before they go away.

Our Last Childbirth Class (For Now)

I don't really have any specific subject to write about today, other than Tuesday's childbirth class. I've had a bunch of random stuff on my mind the last few days, but anyway...

Tuesday was our last childbirth class. It was supposed to be a three-part class, but the nurses teaching it have to work next Tuesday, so they shortened it to two days. It seemed to be a pretty short class despite having apparently had more information. They started off by talking about the signs of labor, and when to call the hospital. Then we watched a video of a cesarean section. Last week we watched one of a vaginal birth. After the video, a nurse anesthetist came and talked about various pain relief options, spending most of her time on epidurals, since that is the option of choice for most people. Then we went up to the second floor of the hospital to see the Labor and Delivery Center. We saw the triage rooms, where you start out when you first come in, and then we saw a labor room, where you deliver and I think you stay there until you are discharged, unless they need the room for someone else. The triage rooms have two beds, but the labor rooms are private, you only have to go just outside the door to go to the bathroom. One of the women in our group had absolutely nothing nice to say about the facilities. She actually went so far as to tell the nurses that she hoped the hospital was full when it came time for her to deliver, so that she could be transferred to another hospital. But we did get to go see the nursery. They are transitioning to a more specialized nursery, so that they can take babies that are born before 37 weeks gestation. That should be ready by the time we get to that point. I still felt strange going to the class, since everyone else there was ready to pop in the next month. But it was good information, and I was glad to be able to go see the labor floor. We might end up going again once we get closer to term. Bryan and I talked about my opinion on pain medication. I told him I wanted to try to have a natural birth, but I would do the paperwork for an epidural, in case I couldn't handle the pain.

Other than that, things are pretty normal. My body hasn't changed much since the last picture, so I'm not going to bother adding another one. As of yesterday, we have exactly six more months to go. I'm stalling on taking out my belly button ring, even though the last doctor I saw told me I needed to take it out. Looking at my belly, I can see it poking out there, and I just keep thinking, (think of Hammy from Over the Hedge) "But I like-a my belly button ring..." I'm just afraid I won't be able to put it back in without getting it re-pierced. I'll probably get it out before January 8th, when we go for the 18-week group class.

Passing the first trimester mark definitely lifted a weight from my shoulders, aside from the nausea going away. Most of the problems that are going to occur in any pregnancy occur in the first three months. My primary doctor definitely sent my blood pressure skyrocketing when he said the m-word (miscarriage), but I've heard SO many times since then that the bleeding I experienced in the second month was completely normal. Any pressure on the cervix, such as intercourse or an internal vaginal exam, can cause bleeding. I had both of those in a 12-hour span. But aside from miscarriage worries, if I get sick, it's not quite such a big deal to take medicine now as it was in the first 3 months. My preg doctor even said that if I needed to go back on anti-depressants, I could do that after three months. So passing that landmark was definitely a good thing.

As far as other things go, I've still got testing to go through, and I still need to get the results of my cystic fibrosis carrier test. The next tests are screening for neural tube defects, such as spina bifida, and for Down Syndrome. I think I get those after 20 weeks.

I don't know if I've posted it yet or not, but we have decided to go ahead and find out the baby's gender. We both thought it was the other one who didn't want to know, so we decided to just go ahead and find out. I also conceded to circumcision if it's a boy. My worries about circumcision, such as the pain and stress the baby will go through, will go away after a month or so. Bryan's worries are more toward the social aspect of it, and that will never go away, so I added that into the deal about finding out the gender. So we haven't added anything gender-specific to our baby registry, not until we know, or at least have an idea. I had been referring to the baby as a boy pretty much all the time, so until we know, I'm trying to quit that. If they do an ultrasound at this next appointment, we might even be able to find out then.

My appetite seems to steadily be getting back to normal, which is good and bad. I worry even more about getting enough to sustain the pregnancy above my maintenance. I'm not being woken up in the middle of the night with hunger pains, but they hit early in the morning. I wake up when Bryan gets up for work at 5am, and they'll hit as I'm trying to get back to sleep. So I'm still keeping granola bars by the bed.

That's pretty much it for now. I've got to walk to the store nearby to pick up some milk, and then I think I'm going to have a bowl of cereal. My stomach's growling at me.

TTFN!!!

The "Lovely" Physical Part of Pregnancy

I know I don't usually post so close together, but I don't figure you'll mind. Wednesday's post was all about the emotional stuff we were going through, and the other little day to day stuff of my pregnancy. Now I get to tell you all about the physical changes and problems I'm experiencing...

I've mentioned the significantly increased appetite before. That seems to have waned, at least the night part of it. I don't really feel hungry too often, but that may be because I'm eating nearly all day long. An apple, then a few chips, then a string cheese, then some macaroni salad, then a tangerine, then a Jello cup, you get the idea. Small things, but mostly healthy. The Jello is sugar free, and surprisingly very good. The only problem with this diet thing is that I've nearly become a vegetarian. I'll have meat with dinner, provided we feel like cooking that night, and that's it. I don't much care for the idea of ham sandwiches, and I've gotten burnt out on peanut butter. I bought a can of honey roasted peanuts, but the honey roasted part keeps me from eating too many of them. I'm trying to get my iron intake up a bit, because my doctor implied that I was anemic on my last visit. That's my biggest worry with not eating a lot of beef products. But I eat a bowl of iron-fortified cereal every morning, and I'm doing better about remembering my prenatal vitamins. So I hope I'm doing okay on the iron bit. I've been anemic before, but now I'm trying to increase my intake for the health of the baby and me.

Now onto bodily changes. I'll start at my head and work my way down. Seems easiest. First, I'm getting acne more. I had finally started to get my acne under control, I was having very few blemishes show up to plague me. Not anymore. I've got acne on my chest, on my shoulders, on my back, and of course my face. I'm even finding pimples just under my hairline on the back of my neck! Another thing affecting my head is nasal congestion. Seems like I'm always stuffy these days. And a lot of the time, it's bloody, both of which are apparently normal. Moving further down this baby vessel, I move to my chest. I have cleavage for the first time in my life! But the downside of that, they are very, very, very sensitive. It never felt good before to be elbowed in the chest, but now, it's nearly excruciating. Last night, we went to our neighbors' for dinner, and their little girl sat next to me on the couch. When she wanted to get down, she elbowed me in the chest for leverage. Oh, my goodness it hurt!!! On down, we get to my stomach. I've already talked about my appetite, or lack of one. I worry sometimes that I'm not eating enough, but I have to force myself to eat at times as it is. And that brings me to my digestive system. Earlier, I found myself more regular than I've ever been. That regularity isn't quite so regular anymore, but still not constipated. Unfortunately, I've been getting a lot of gas. And accompanying that gas are the gas cramps. I usually wake up with them, and they get worse when I lie down on the couch or when I'm trying to sleep. I feel really sorry for Bryan. At least they don't smell bad! Another kind of cramp I've been experiencing is round ligament pain. When I stand up too fast or strain too hard over anything, they'll cramp up. It's definitely not a pleasant feeling. But, moving on in our anatomy of a pregnancy, we reach my legs. I have been feeling lots of joint pain. When I stand up, my knees protest. When I stretch, my elbows protest. My shoulders even get into the act every once in awhile.

Well, that's all for the specific body parts. Overall, I'm feeling well most of the time. It seems my internal temperature is running a bit higher than it normally does, but I still get alternately cold and hot a lot. It's quite interesting trying to predict what temperature I'm going to feel at certain times.

I suppose that's all for now. I may update this particular post throughout the day as I think of things I may have forgotten. I'm going to add a preggo picture later today, when I can hook the camera up to my laptop. I took a picture last night right before I went to bed. Bryan had to come upstairs with me, because I suddenly got lightheaded and clammy, but the feeling went away shortly after I laid down in bed. Anyway, that's all for now.

TTFN!!!

Okay, so yesterday turned out to be a pretty busy day. We don't get those very often. We're such bums. But yesterday we went and got pictures taken for Christmas cards, then went and did a major update to our baby registry at Walmart, later going and getting our Christmas tree and some decorations. After we got home, I looked through the mail. My friend Lindsay sent me this wonderful pregnancy calendar and some other information about pregnancy and parenting, so I sifted through that. (Thanks, Lindsay!!!) Then we put up the Christmas tree and decorated it. After that, Bryan wanted me to see Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas movie, so we went to the video rental store, but neither of them had it. So we picked up something to eat while we were out and headed home. I went to bed shortly after. It had indeed been a busy day for us. So here is my edit, a day late.

The only other physical thing about this particular period of time is the backache. As my breasts and belly grow heavier, standing up and sitting up are harder on my back. Just sitting in one position for an extended time starts to hurt. I find myself flexing to try to pop my upper back. My lower back isn't bothering me too badly yet, at least. Oh yeah, and my asthma's back. It hasn't bothered me since high school. My doctor warned me that pregnancy could make it come back. He was right. My asthma seems to be different than anyone else I know, though. Most asthmatics I know can't stop coughing when they have an attack. I cough a few times to the gagging point. Once I've expelled all the air I possibly can out of my lungs, the attack's over. What I'm left with is the phlegm in the back of my throat. So I'm clearing my throat a lot after the attack is over. But my attacks can last maybe 30 sec to 5 min, where I've seen other people go 5 to 10 min of coughing, and they're left shaky and breathless. I'm usually fine after an attack. So my asthma is not something I concern myself with.

Other things I remembered occurred in the past month or so. I may have mentioned this in an earlier post, but I started getting short of breath about mid-November. I also kept getting this pain under the left side of my pelvic bone. And my heart rate was getting to be pretty fast. It seemed like laying down only exascerbated the problem. The pain came randomly, it seemed, and varied in its intensity and duration. But it seemed like when I lied down, my heart rate would accelerate, and the breathlessness would get really bad. It worried me, so of course my heart rate would quicken even more. I finally called the doctor, but it was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving when I called, and they were closed. My appointment was the following Monday anyway, so I just waited through the weekend. My doctor said that everything was normal. He explained it all away, and I left feeling much better than when I went in, especially since I'd gotten to see my baby that day, too!

Well, my morning cereal's not sitting too well, so I'm going to add my preggo picture and rest for a bit.

TTFN!!!

3 Months Along Today! (And Daddies are Expectant, Too)

Today marks 12 weeks, or 3 months along for us, and most importantly, the end of the first trimester!!! Yay!!! I think the majority of the nausea is gone now, to be replaced by heartburn. No more spicy food for a while. If Bryan wants tacos, he can have them, but I'm eating something else. I ate macaroni salad last night before we went to our childbirth education class, and I had heartburn during the whole thing, and for most of the night. The salad had red peppers in it. Not exactly a spicy food, but it still gave me mild heartburn. I think I need to get some chocolate milk mix. I can drink that to combat some of the heartburn, just not a lot, because it will set off my lactose intolerance. I'm looking forward to really starting to show, and hopefully to feel the baby move soon. Unfortunately, I think the military will allow us only one more ultrasound, unless there's a reason to do more than that, so we may not get to see the baby again for a couple months. I'm not really sure. If I end up being high-risk for any reason, they could do more, but I'd rather not be high-risk. That increases the likelihood that I won't be able to have a vaginal birth.

We attended our first childbirth education class last night at the hospital. Apparently, it was meant for women who are much closer to their due dates than we are. All but one of the other women there was due in January or February. It was still good information to hear about, though. They gave us yet another book to read through, I've gotten so much literature over the past two months. I'm sure I'm due to receive more still. Unfortunately, Bryan hasn't really looked at any of the literature I've received. I worry that he'll be horribly uninformed for this pregnancy and the months still to come.

We finally managed to talk about a lot of different things last night. He became quiet and withdrawn on the drive home from the class. That always signals he has something on his mind. He didn't want to talk about it, so I left him alone. Oh, but my mind was whirling, afraid that I'd done or said something wrong. I finally told him, it wasn't what he wasn't telling me that mattered, it was that he wasn't telling me. He finally expressed that he was feeling a little left out of things. I explained to him that I felt like he wanted to be. He didn't appear to be engaged with this pregnancy, other than making sure I was physically cared for. He didn't ask questions, he didn't bring up any concerns to me. But yet, he asked questions at the childbirth class last night. He totally took me by surprise, because he hadn't even mentioned that it was on his mind. He'd talked about it at work, apparently, but he'd not said anything to me. He was concerned about postpartum depression, because I am prone to depressive episodes. He asked the nurses at the class if there was any way to prevent it. Totally shocked me, because I had no idea of that concern. Of course, some of the blame for leaving him out was my fault. I don't want to worry him unnecessarily, so I go to other sources to express my worries, and research on my own to find out if I should be worrying. I'm also afraid that, when it comes to parenting styles or shopping for the baby, that he'll just defer to me anyway. He does that with anything involving shopping for anyone else. I tried to get him to look online with me for things to add to our baby registry, but he doesn't like the idea of registries at all. He feels it's like asking people to get us something. He's a very self-reliant person, sometimes to a fault.

I really fear being the one to do the majority of the care-taking of the baby, because I've done it before. He's never been around newborns, other than his siblings, who are 15 and 18 now. Because he doesn't ask questions or bring anything up to me, I worry that he's going to wait until the baby's born to ask how to do things. I would just really like for him to know those things already, so that I can rest those first couple of weeks. He feels that his questions will be answered in time by the doctors and various classes we'll take, with which I agree, I just didn't like the fact that I didn't know he had questions to begin with. He did tell me that we've talked about a lot of different parenting styles before, such as the use of pacifiers, but those conversations usually revolved around the little girl I babysit for. I needed a refresher on how he felt about this child in particular. So we talked about a couple different things, some he knew how to handle, some he didn't. It was a good conversation overall. It made us realize we are both going to have to handle things a little differently from now on as far as communication goes.

I really hope I haven't made him come off as a jerk. He never likes me to talk about this kind of stuff, because I guess I have a tendency to do that. He's really doing a wonderful job taking care of me, and trying to make sure he can come to all these classes and doctor's appointments with me. He pays really good attention to the nurses teaching the class, asking them questions about things they mention, like how long it takes for the soft spot on a baby's head to go away. He actually already got someone from work who is giving us some neutral clothes and a couple pieces of furniture for the baby. It's funny, he wants me to have the tests done for genetic defects like Down's Syndrome, so he can be prepared, but yet, he doesn't want us to find out the gender of the baby. I just think it's funny. I kept referring to the baby as a "he," and he told me I probably shouldn't do that, just in case it's a girl. We don't want to give the poor child a complex before she's even born. I guess I'm just hoping so fervently for a boy.

Anyway, I've been writing this for about an hour to an hour and a half now, so I should end it here. 19 Days Until Christmas!!! Yay!!! Time to go put on some Christmas music and maybe read a little bit. Later I'm going to make a list of things we need for the baby, and things we may want for the baby, so we can decide what needs to go into the registry and what doesn't.

TTFN!!!