My Daughter

Oh. My. God. I have a daughter. A daughter... forever and all eternity. I feel her moving around inside of me, she is with me when I'm at work, she is with me when I sleep, and she is my daughter! No matter what happens, forever and always, I have a daughter. I have another one too, but I'll never know if it was a son or daughter and I never got to feel him or her inside me. This time, I know she's a girl and I know she's there because I feel her - she's no longer abstract. So somehow I feel like I already know her a little bit... she's mine (and John's of course) and I have something with her that no one else can ever, ever have. There are billions of pregnant women around the world and throughout history, and they all have that experience with their babies, but they can never have the experience that I have with my daughter. When she moves, no one knows but me and her. We are sharing a body and sharing blood and sharing nourishment... literally sharing life itself. And she will be mine forever and always and I already love her more than I can fathom... it is such a powerful emotion that I don't really know what else to say or do with it other than cry.

IT'S A GIRL!!

WE'RE HAVING A BABY GIRL!! She's 7oz. and approximately 7 inches long from crown to rump and looks very healthy. The sonographer looked at all her organs, her brain and heart, her fingers, toes, her face, everything. She also said that she has long slender feet with very little arch... I guess she has her daddy's feet!! Her hands and fingers are also long and slender.

We got lots of pictures and a video. My placenta is low (but not problematically low) and attached to the front of my uterus. Both the sonographer and the midwife said that a front-lying placenta can keep you from feeling movement very early, but this little girl must be a kicker because I've definitely felt her. The past couple days I have felt her moving around really, really strongly - stronger than ever before. She's really been kicking or punching me hard (for being such a little thing). I can't wait until John can feel it from the outside too and share it with me. It's such a cool feeling! The sonographer tried to get a better profile picture of her, but she wouldn't move her face away from my placenta, no matter what we tried. She had her little nose squished up against it.

We've been talking about names, but don't have one picked out yet. And we've talked a little about the colors for the nursery. I think neither one of us is really crazy about pink (although that could change, who knows?) and we have tossed around colors like lavender or really light aquamarine.

And I've started to eat more protein and less bread and fruit. I was eating every couple hours and feeling shaky and crappy in between each meal. I think I was getting too much sugar and not enough protein. It's going to be difficult, because I still can't even fathom eating cooked vegetables or chicken, *shudder*, which really limits what I eat because I'm not a very creative cook (or a very good one either). I feel much better already after only a few days. I don't feel shaky and crappy between meals, I don't eat as often, and I don't feel as heavy, yucky, and distended. You can probably tell from the picture that I'm feeling better...

We are both really, really thrilled that we got to see our little girl today. Driving to the ultrasound appointment was kind of like driving to the airport to see someone you haven't seen in so long and you are super excited to see. And it's really great to finally know that she is a girl and that she is healthy.

Big bellies seem so cute... until they're imminent.

17 weeks along and I feel like Jabba the Hutt. It's not so much size (although it's definitely bigger than ever) it's more like that feeling that you get after a day of eating nothing but junk and grease: heavy and full and thick and just plain gross. My belly still looks more like a beer belly than a pregnancy, and my regular clothes still fit (most of them were a bit loose to begin with) but this new belly is already uncomfortable sometimes. I can't imagine how uncomfortable it's going to be when it gets even bigger. Oof. It feels like there's no room to put food in there even though I might be really hungry... so I have a dilemma. Eat and feel stuffed like a pig and bloated and distended, or don't eat and feel like sh*t. Well, it's really not that much of a dilemma... I always choose to eat. About every couple hours.

How did my belly get so big compared to the other picture I posted from two weeks ago, you ask? Well, first of all, it did seem like it happened overnight. And second, I usually take my belly pictures in the most flattering way: in the morning, before I've eaten anything... a girl's gotta keep her pride, doesn't she? And that makes a big difference... The picture on the left is me just letting it all hang out after a full day of eating (so much for pride). The picture on the left is just yesterday morning... before eating. This is why I say I feel so distended and bloated and uncomfortable when I eat. What i find so weird is that the top is getting so big too. I expected it all to be in my lower belly but i guess my uterus is growing upward and packing all my organs like sardines into the top of my belly.

The whole point is, I used to think that pregnancy bellies were so cute and it would be so charming to have one. I'm starting to realize what it's really going to be like to have a big, uncomfortable belly (and I've only just begun!!), and I'm not so sure anymore it's going to be as charming as I thought... charming? What was I thinking!?!

Anyway, my fetal heart monitor came this week. It's definitely really loud in your ears and the distortion is unbelievably painful to hear. But, if you can sit still and not hold the thing (or even touch it) with your hands or anything else, it seems like it might just work. I'm only 17 weeks and supposedly it doesn't detect a heartbeat until 20-21 and then only if the baby's in a good position, so I'm not too surprised that I haven't heard it yet. I do hear noises coming from my belly, but as of now, I'm not able to distinguish with any certainty what is gas gurgles and what is possible baby movement. With the stethoscope, you can practically see the bubbles and know what couldn't possibly be baby, but it's not strong enough to pick up the baby movement (or at least I haven't heard anything with the stethoscope that I'd contribute to baby). With the monitor, everything is so loud, and it's electronic so almost all of it sounds the same. I'm going to give the thing a few more weeks before giving it a thumbs up or thumbs down.

And I've been having a horrible, horrible pain in my sacrum (the large triangular bone at the base of your spine) and right side of my bum. I finally went to a chiropractor on Tuesday because it got so bad Monday night that I couldn't walk, sit or stand with out excruciating pain. She told me that the sacrum is twisted to the right, but all she can do is pain management for now and we can work on correction after the pregnancy. Her two reasons were 1. she can't do an x-ray and 2. the pregnancy hormone relaxin, which relaxes muscles and ligaments to allow your pelvis to change shape, complicates things too much. Ugh. I don't have insurance and I can't afford pain management!!! I went twice though, and I think it's getting worse, not better, so I cancelled my appointment for today and don't plan on going back until I can get some kind of insurance. I'll just have to manage the pain the old-fashioned way: grin and bear it.

Nighttime Jumping Jacks

You would think that making a baby would tire a person out enough to where they'd sleep well at night. After all, something as simple as walking across the room can take it out of you sometimes. But a good night's sleep is just not in the cards for me. I don't know exactly how to describe it, it's like half the night, my head is out like a light, but my body is a hyperactive zombie. I toss and turn all night long and can't just lay still. But yet, when I get up to pee (which, unfortunately, is several times a night) I'm so out of it and sleepy I can barely stumble to the toilet and back. I feel like I have liquid lead in my veins instead of blood. Poor John, he's such a light sleeper and he has to put up with me flip-flopping all night like a fish out of water. And then, the other half the night, when my mind isn't black like I've had anesthesia, it's racing. I'm aware that I'm in this half-way world between sleep and reality and I'm thinking obsessively about one thing over and over or dreaming really vividly (and these are the times where I'm aware of all the jumping jacks... but just can't seem to do anything about it). I'll go to bed at 9 or 10 and wake up in the middle of the night thinking it must be like 5, only to find out it's only 11:30. Argh.

On a brighter note, I ordered a fetal heartbeat monitor the other day. They sell really, really cheap versions of a doppler at places like Target or Walmart. It was only 20 bucks. There were some really great reviews and some really bad ones... I guess it depended on whether or not the person could figure out how to use it or not - I think some of them didn't really follow the instructions and so couldn't get it to work. One of the reviews actually described how she couldn't hear anything because it was picking up all the movements from her hand that was holding the monitor in place... well, it comes with a strap because you're not supposed to hold it with your hand. I mean, how's it going to be sensitive enough to detect noise inside your belly but not detect a hand that's directly on it??? And it's not going to be like a doctor's doppler, it was 20 bucks for goodness sake!! Although, you can rent a real doppler for as low as 14/month so I might end up returning the cheap one and renting a real 0ne if it really doesn't work. Not because I need it, but because there's nothing else to do but wait. I want to do something. I'm waiting, rather impatiently, for the doppler to get here, but even once it does, I'll probably have to wait til week 20 or so to be able to hear anything baby related. I'm a pretty impatient person - I hate waiting. It's not a very fun trait to have during pregnancy - 9 months of just pure waiting. Waiting to find out if you're pregnant, waiting to see the first ultrasound, waiting to feel the movements, waiting to find out the sex. And then, after that, no more milestones, just wait, wait, wait for the baby.

So anyway, to pacify that impatience a bit til the doppler gets here, I borrowed my parents' stethoscope to see if I could hear the heartbeat, and wouldn't you know it? I couldn't. I hear nothing but regular old belly gurglings. To be fair, I'm only 16-1/2 weeks and they say that you can't really hear the heartbeat using a stethoscope until weeks 25-26 (grrrr!!) but I thought I'd give it a try anyway... (told you I'm impatient). I thought maybe I'd be able to hear it move around or something even if I couldn't find the heartbeat. But alas, I hear nothing baby-related at all. I haven't been able to listen during times when I can feel him/her move (which are still very few and far between and very faint). I'd listen all the time if I could, but the earpieces are really painful after oh, about a minute.

And it is impossible to find a picture of a fetus labeled correctly on the internet. How do I know this? I know this because you find the same picture labelled 14 weeks, 15 weeks, 18 weeks, and then, oh no, it's only 8 weeks! (this usually from anti-abortion advocates... don't get me wrong, I'm not choosing sides here, but get the facts accurate, people!!) So I am going to post a picture of about what our baby looks like these days, but I'm not going to say exactly how old the fetus in the picture is because I don't know - thanks to all the other bloggers and anti-abortion people out there who take a picture and label it whatever is convenient for them. But here's a picture of a fetus that, according to my best guess, based on the hundreds of hours of obsessive reading of pregnancy websites (I told you I'm not good at waiting!), is probably about 14-18 weeks old.

I tried finding a reliable website to pull it from, but all the medical websites only have drawings (or that's all I've found so far) which isn't quite what I'm looking for. You also get different information - not just different pictures - depending on what website you're looking at (even among the more reliable ones it seems). But, for the most part, they all say that this week our baby is about 4-5 inches long now from head to rump, can make facial expressions, hear sounds, and has tiny little fingernails, toenails, and fingerprints. It's simply amazing what's going on in there. The wait is well worth it.

The Baby Moved!!

Last night I felt the baby move!! I had just eaten some oatmeal and laid down to go to sleep and I felt a little flicker in the area of my uterus. My first thought was, !!Was that the baby??!! but then immediately I thought, nah, it couldn't have been - it's way too early for that! I wasn't expecting to feel anything til at least 18 weeks and no matter what I've felt in my belly, I've never thought it might be the baby. So I laid there quietly and waited for it to happen again. A little while later, I felt something again. It was the strangest sensation and it was in just the right area of my belly. It didn't feel the same as gas moving - it was so much more delicate and gentle and surreal. I waited some more, but nothing happened so I moved around and then held still to feel it... and it happened again!!! I moved again and yes, it happened again!!! After that, there was nothing, no matter how much I moved.

I lay in bed waiting for sleep, trying to figure out how to best describe the feeling. I came up with three ways. The first way I came up with is like when a fish nibbles at you or side swipes you underwater. The second way is if you were underwater and a bubble bumped into you and then bounced off. And the third way is like someone gently poking an organ (directly though - not from the outside). The description I like best is the bubble underwater description. I've heard people say it's like the wind or like butterflies, but that's definitely not how it felt to me. It was much more watery and less light and airy. I can, however, understand the description of a flutter (an underwater flutter though) or a tickle.

I woke up thinking about it this morning, and I laid there for a long time hoping to feel something. I felt nothing. I got up to eat breakfast and then laid back down to wait some more, but still nothing. I rolled around, I coughed, I prodded, and finally felt two tiny flickers. I finally got John to come in and yell right in front of my belly. Right after that, I felt another tiny little flicker and then nothing, even when he yelled a second time.

I was reading other people's accounts about it online this morning, and I found accounts similar to each of my three ways to describe it. I feel sure it was the baby and not gas. I guess I will know whether I was right or wrong in the coming weeks, but it just felt so different than gas or hunger pangs, and in a totally different place too. I am really surprised though that I felt it this early... I was thinking there's no way I'd feel it until 18 weeks or so! It was just the coolest feeling in the world and I can't wait to feel it again and again!!

15 Weeks... Already!

Well, I had my appointment today. We met a different midwife today than when we interviewed the center and I really like her a lot. She is the one who owns the birthing center and she's really great. She spent almost an hour and a half with us. She said that everything looks great and taught us how to feel my uterus... um, yeah, I still can't tell what's what. I will never understand how doctors/midwives, etc. know what they are feeling. She also found the baby's heartbeat (yay!!) and we heard the baby moving around. She said that we were hearing it when it moved against the doppler machine.

She also told us we were 15 weeks today (not 14-1/2 which was based on the first ultrasound from the last doctor). I guess 3 days doesn't really make that much difference in the grand scheme of things, but I got so used to Saturdays being the day I rolled to the next week that it kinda feels like cheating now to start using Wednesdays. I find differing opinions on the internet about which is more accurate... LMP or EDD from the ultrasound. I did find several sites which said that the EDD can be 7 days off in the first trimester (even more later on), so I guess I'll just change midstride and start going by the LMP. So YAY! I'm 3 days further along than I thought!! The only (minor) problem is that I've been taking my weekly belly pictures on Saturdays and I don't know whether to continue that or change that to Wednesdays. I guess at this point, it doesn't really matter because they all look pretty much alike so far anyway. Here's 8 weeks (left) compared with 14 weeks:

One good thing about the moved-up due date is that we got to schedule my ultrasound sooner (YAY again!!) and it is set for August 24th. I kinda cheated a bit in scheduling it - I won't quite be at 18 weeks, but what difference can 2 days really make?

And I have another pregnancy symptom to add to my list: sensitive gums. They are starting to bleed now when I brush my teeth. Supposedly that is also really common in pregnancy because your capillaries are closer to the surface of your skin. I'm sure I have a lot more symptoms to look forward to... some better than others and I can't wait. I can't wait to start showing (and not feeling like I just ate too much lunch) and I really can't wait to feel the baby move. Oh, and I'm also excited about those varicose veins I'm destined to get...

14 Weeks

So I am now starting my 15th week. My pregancy has been pretty uneventful so far. I haven't really been sick other than headaches more often than normal, occasional dizziness, and getting physically tired pretty easily. Nothing like my first pregnancy though, where all I could do was sleep and drink buckets of water (I had a miscarriage a year ago last April). It's been kind of hard to believe that I really am pregnant and it really is progressing normally this time... I had an ultrasound at 7 weeks where we found the heartbeat and that, combined with me not having my period for the past 4 months, keeps me from being sure I must be mistaken...

Things are starting to feel more real the past couple weeks though. I've been told by several close family members and friends that I am starting to get a pooch (isn't it funny how they all use the same word??) although I think it's more bloating and lazy stomach muscles than baby at this point. And I never had any food aversions until I started my second trimester... now all I can seem to eat are breads and fruit. Oh and sweets, of course, I can always eat those. I've also started to get some cramping which has me a little worried, but I talked to the nurse-midwife today and she said to take it easy and drink lots of fluids until Wednesday when I'll be in to see her. She said if I start bleeding, call her back right away, but otherwise cramping is pretty normal from the uterus and stomach muscles stretching all out.

I have finally decided I am going to have it in a birthing center with a nurse/midwife and no epidural... yikes!! I was pretty nervous about that at first (which is why it took so long for me to decide to go through with it) but now I feel like I can do it. I went to see the birthing center a couple weeks ago and I really liked it and the nurse-midwives that I met. I feel comfortable with and confident in them, and therefore I feel a little empowered - not that I really should, I know I have no idea what I'm getting myself into - but I feel like I really can do it. I keep dreaming about labor and it's always ok in my dream, so it's gotta be easy in real life too, no? Ha. Famous last words.

I have my first appointment with the birthing center on Wednesday and I'm looking forward to it, but can't really say that I'm exactly excited - they're not doing an ultrasound, so I think mostly it will be just like going to the doctor for any kind of checkup - lots of bloodwork and urine tests and such. Except for the doppler machine, I guess - I am really looking forward to hearing the heartbeat. I'm anxious to hear it to feel assured that everything is going as it should...

I'd be super-excited if they were going to be doing an ultrasound, but they won't do one of those until I'm at 18 weeks and so I have 4 looooong weeks to go before I get to find out if it's a boy or a girl... I want to know so bad!! Supposedly, they could tell right now if they were to do an u/s, which is pretty cool, but I guess I'll just have to be patient.