Music to my ears

*swish*swish*swish*swish*swish*swish*swish*swish*

So I went in for my 2^nd prenatal visit today.  The nurse weighed me (153), took my blood pressure (120/64), and checked the baby’s heart rate (158).  I tell you, that little heart beat was the most beautiful, amazing sound I have ever heard in my life!  The nurse had a little trouble getting the rate because she said the baby kept floating away.  I guess it doesn’t like getting poked!  I can just picture it (him) in there wiggling away!  Haha!  So then Dr. H came in and we just chatted about how good things seem to be going.  Apparently I’ve lost 5 pounds since my last visit.  He wasn’t too concerned about that.  He said the first weight could have been wrong, or I was just retaining a lot of water that day or something.  I told him I already felt like I was eating everything in sight and he suggested adding ice cream to that and I’d be fine.  So that sounds like a plan to me.  My labs from last time were all good/normal.  He mentioned my hemocrit (hematocrit? (red blood cells)) was on the low side but still in the normal range.  He poked around to feel my uterus and that all seemed fine as well.  He said to take care of myself, wear plenty of sunscreen, and come back in a month.  So my next appt is July 27^th and they’ll do an ultrasound a few weeks after that, somewhere around 20 weeks, so get your votes in before then!  Oh and he said I could wean myself off the progesterone if I wanted, but it might help me sleep at night so I’m okay to keep taking it too, it’s not a big deal.  He suggested maybe stopping the morning dose and keeping the evening one.

Anyway, YAY, I *really* feel like I can relax now.  Time to coast and focus on FINISHING SCHOOL!

Heartbeat... Check!

At the Dr now, it was 158. Yay!

Thanks,
Amanda

Another girl dream

So last night I dreamed that I was at work, but we were all in an indoor swimming pool. Eric came in with our baby in a carrier, and he had a mustache (so weird!). The baby was a girl, but it sure looked a lot like Shauna's daughter, Hailey. At one point she stood up out of the carrier and took like 3 steps before she fell down. I thought that was a little weird for a newborn! Haha!

I also dreamed I was racing on a motorcycle, around a track. My bike was purple, and it was really muddy.

The votes are all tied up again, so much fun! I can't WAIT to find out who is right, and who is dead. Oh sorry, sometimes Princess Bride quotes just fly out of my mouth (or my fingers) against my will.... anyway, I think maybe I just dream about girl babies because all my close friends whose blogs I follow have girls. So those are mainly the pictures I see, and therefore those images return to my head when I dream. That's my theory anyway :) My sister in law's friend Carrie is about to have a boy any day now, so maybe I need to go hang around her a little, and see if that changes things.

12 weeks, 5 days

I’m starting to get really anxious again with just 4 more days to go until my appointment. I called the office yesterday to see if they wanted me to stop the progesterone and they said go ahead and keep taking it at least until my appointment. Then Dr. H can decide then if I should stop or not. I feel like things must be ok just judging by my expanding waistline. It’s definitely popping out a little below my belly button, so cute! And when I do my cat and cow exercise I can kind of feel my uterus flopping around in there, it’s pretty weird. I still haven’t gained any weight though. That’s a little strange, even though I am getting about 2200 or more calories a day (on the days I keep track). I wonder if I’ll get lectured about that at my appointment. Honestly I’m finding it a little hard to eat so much! I guess I could probably easily eat 3000 calories a day worth of junk food and cheeseburgers and pizza and ice cream. But 2500 calories worth of healthy food takes some SERIOUS planning.

School starts again tonight, I am so not looking forward to it. This quarter is going to be a total pain. It’s really going to ruin most of my summer, I can feel it. So class is tonight, then tomorrow night I have a meeting to go over the requirements for my portfolio and orals. My portfolio is just a big binder of all my best papers and presentations that I’ve completed throughout the program. Hopefully I can find them all. Not sure yet what exactly the orals are going to entail. So anyway, I have to have my draft portfolio turned in by July 7^th. So that will for sure put a damper on my 4^th of July weekend/vacation. So much for taking a week off to relax, no no no, I’ll be doing homework, yup. FUN.

Magic 8 Ball

I have this promotional magic 8 ball on my desk that was a free gift from a vendor a few months back. I decided to ask it some questions today… let’s see what the baby’s fate might be according to this mystic predictor of all things.

Will I have to go on bedrest? – “Focus and ask again”

*focused* Will I have to go on bedrest? – “Can’t say now”

Will the baby be a boy? – “You can count on it”

Will the baby have red hair? – “Positively”

Will it be born in 2009? – “The stars say no”

Will the baby weigh more than 9 pounds? – “Absolutely” (oh no!!!)

Will Mandy make it over in time to take pictures during labor? – “Absolutely”

Will I go into labor on a weekday (so Dr. H can be there)? – “Positively”

Will I have to go on bedrest? – “Can’t say now” – it really doesn’t want to answer this one!

Will our baby go to Harvard? – “Positively” (ok, wow)

You can tell I am working really hard today, huh? Anyway, that’s all the questions I can think of. I didn’t want to ask anything scary like “will I need a c-section” or anything like that. Sounds good so far though! Let me know if you have any other questions for it :)

12 WEEKS!!! I should be able to go off the progesterone now. I’ll probably just wait until my Dr’s appt on the 29^th but that is exciting too.

All knotted up

It's official, I've made my decision. My vote has been cast. I'm thinking boy.

I reserve the right to change my mind...

Feeling better...

Wow, it seems like so long since I’ve posted anything, but it’s only been two days!  I guess time does not fly when you are anxiously waiting for another opportunity to know for sure that your baby is still growing.  I still have12 more days until my 2^nd prenatal visit.  I am pretty excited because I’ve never had an appointment with Dr. H where he was not giving me bad news.  That should be interesting.  As kind and caring as he has been throughout all our troubles, I have still always gotten the subtle impression that he is a lot more interested in healthy pregnant women (as opposed to malfunctioning ones).

Anyway, I’m almost 12 weeks so that means the baby is about the size of a lime.  A LIME!  I can’t believe that something the size of a lime could be squirming around in my womb and I can’t even feel it!  Womb is such a weird word.  It’s a little close to “tomb” – don’t you think?  Dang, a little too close!  Wish I wouldn’t have brought that up…  Anyway, baby center’s week 13 food comparison is… a medium shrimp!  How do you go from a lime to a shrimp?  That just doesn’t make any sense.  Either way, I am happier thinking about limes and shrimps than about figs and kumquats.  Could they have come up with something a little more obscure?  I think not.

I have been feeling a little better this week.  My skin is clearing up, so that is really nice.  I haven’t had any morning sickness since Sunday.  I felt a little dizzy Monday morning but that is about it.  The girls are still a tiny bit sore and itchy but not too bad, it almost seems like they are resting up for another growth spurt.  If they are I will definitely have to go bra shopping soon.  I am still pretty tired but that could be partly because I just haven’t been sleeping enough.  Yesterday I played (horribly) in my golf league for the first time this year.  I got a cart but I am not sure I will do that again for awhile.  I think getting in and out of the cart seriously hurts my game.  So does getting tired at the end of a round, but I think the cart was worse.  So here’s hoping that next week I’m just FULL of energy! 

Weekend in review

Ahh it is Sunday afternoon and my house is empty and quiet again. My mom and brother came in to town on Friday to attend my graduation ceremony which was yesterday at 2pm. I don't officially graduate until August but commencement is only once a year, so I went. It was about 82 degrees outside and about 140 degrees underneath my gown. I swear my eyes were sweating. Afterward we went out to The Onion and had some food, including the hugest, greasiest onion rings you have ever seen in your life. That combined with the extreme heat earlier probably resulted in me throwing up later for the very first time. But I felt better then and we made homemade Rocky Road ice cream which was amazing.

Today my mom and I got up and went to Motherhood Maternity. I tried on pretty much everything in the entire store and walked out with about half of it thanks to the generosity of my mom. I got some wonderful treasures. All of it looks totally acceptable on me now, even without any belly to speak of. So I am pretty well set for the summer I think. I might need some maternity shorts or capris later on but my top is covered for awhile ;) Now I am trying to decide what to do with the rest of my afternoon. I am a little tuckered out so I may just have to relax and watch a little LPGA on my DVR. Yay!

Eleven

11 weeks today!!  I can hardly believe it.  My book says today if we could take a peek inside we’d be able to see boy parts (if it was a boy of course).  Probably not without a magnifying class, but they’d be there!

I met with a dietician yesterday as part of a training package I’m splitting with Natalie.  She was very impressed with my diet and only had a couple of tweaks (which were to drink more water and add in a couple more vegetables every day).  She said in a couple of weeks I’ll also start needing to eat MORE so I can gain some weight.  So far I haven’t gained any; in fact this morning when I got on the scale I was down 2 pounds.  So I’ll be making up for that today!  I am excited to start getting the occasional whole milk latte (decaf of course), or maybe even a breve, mmmmm.  I do love half and half!

TGIF!!!  The weeks are certainly not flying by for me.  Just one week off and then back to school for the final push for my MBA.  It’s going to be one busy summer.

Nerves and stress and anxiety, oh my!

So I have still been feeling really uncomfortable not knowing what is going on.  I am making a solid effort to just trust that God knows what he’s doing (either way) but that just makes me worry more that if things are going south, it is for a good reason and I should just accept it.  This sucks, why can’t I just be happy and feel secure?  I am totally over analyzing everything, I know.  My boobs hardly hurt at all anymore, like all of a sudden, so that really freaks me out.  But then my skin is still terrible, and I am increasingly moody and emotional (like I am holding back tears right now).  Then this morning I woke up with a headache, was gagging while brushing my teeth and also half of my drive to work I was fighting not to throw up on the steering wheel.  So that’s all well and good.  But for some reason I just still can’t shake the anxiety.  I still have two weeks until my next doctor’s appointment and I know that all this stress just isn’t good for me.  Natalie tells me not to “become a self fulfilling prophecy” but I don’t know what to do.

So for today, this is what I’ve got (thanks Mom).

Isaiah 41:10
Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

I feel a little better…

Okay and I am just going to admit this as well, just for the sake of keeping my documentation up to date (even though everyone will probably think I am crazy).  Two nights ago I thought I felt the baby move.  It felt exactly like a tiny goldfish flopped.  Just once.  I have not felt anything since, no matter how quietly I lie there hoping for it.  But I’ve also never felt anything like it before.  I know that at just 10 ½ weeks it was probably just wishful thinking, but I am looking forward to feeling it again (or the real thing).

Crabby pants

I have been really grumpy the last couple of days.  I am just in a terrible mood, it sucks.  I think part of it has something to do with the paranoia creeping back.  I am so frustrated not knowing what is going on in there – I need a concrete validation that things are moving along as they should.  I still have 3 more weeks until my next Dr.’s appointment, and really not much to expect until then to set my mind at ease.  I am ready for it to start moving so I can keep tabs on it!  I guess this is pretty much what I can expect from motherhood, worrying about my child’s well being, huh?

Eric and I went to Babies R Us this weekend, just for fun.  It was interesting to hear Eric’s point of view on the various baby items.  We walked around and mostly looked at all the major stuff like strollers and cribs and car seats and swings.  Eric’s policy on those is that they have to be gender neutral so we can use them again!  Which makes sense I guess, but it really limits your choices.  Having a huge husband also poses some interesting challenges.  He is concerned about the changing table being tall enough for him, first of all.  And we were trying out the rocking chairs and most of them are too small/narrow for him to be comfortable in (think Goldilocks & the 3 Bears!!).  The bigger ones reclined and we didn’t like those because they seemed to recline for Eric whether he wanted them to or not.

I had a dream last night that it was here, and hungry all the time.  I remember in my dream thinking, oh man she has eaten a lot and we haven’t changed a diaper in a REALLY long time!  Note that it was a girl though.  That’s the second time I have dreamed that it was a girl.

Dream #1,276

Last night I dreamed that I was Kate Gosselin.  You know, from Jon & Kate plus 8.  I was standing there talking to Jon and this lady came in and started videotaping us.  I yelled at her “Get out of here!”  But she didn’t leave.  Then we were out in this big crazy pool, swimming.  At that point I am not sure, but I don’t think I was Kate anymore.  But the whole family was there and then some, I guess it was their entourage.  Then I went inside to get dried off and one of the twin girls threw a ball at my head.  I was really frustrated about that for some reason.  That’s all I remember.

Bring it on!

Dang! I feel so sick again today! It’s funny how I can feel so great, like yesterday and then WHAM! The next day it’s back and worse then ever. It’s going to be ugly if I have to throw up, the bathroom is SO far away! Don’t get me wrong, I am loving every minute of it :) I have a little bit of heartburn today too, that’s new. Oh and one thing I haven’t mentioned yet is my skin – bleh! My forehead has been seriously protesting all the extra hormones. Luckily the rest of my face seems to be ok, it must be the bangs that are really irritating my skin. I have to wash my face multiple times a day and exfoliate like crazy to keep that under control.

Tomorrow I will be 10 weeks! I can’t hardly believe it! Next week according to babycenter.com the baby will be the size of a kumquat. What the HECK is a kumquat?!?

THIS is a kumquat!

Crazy days

Yesterday was pretty rough, definitely my worst day so far.  I had some serious "morning" sickness right after I got to work and felt this overwhelming need to lie down.  Not too unusual but normally it passes within minutes, and this time it just kept going on and on.  So I decided I better just go home (hey, why not?).  At home I hung out on the couch for awhile, drank some sparkling water with a splash of ginger ale, and finally started to feel a little better after an hour or two.  I ultimately worked the rest of the day on my laptop and got more work done than I probably would have otherwise!

Then this morning, I was eating my egg mcmuffin sandwich (homemade of course on a whole wheat with FLAX english muffin) on my way to work and BROKE MY TOOTH.  How do you break your tooth on an english muffin, I ask?  It was pretty disgusting.  I actually broke the tooth about 6 years ago and the composite I had on there just popped off, and I bit down on it accidentally and swallowed it, ew.  Luckily when I got to work I called the dentist and they were able to get me in right away.  I was a little nervous because I know both times prior when I got the tooth fixed they had numbed me up and who knows what crazy drugs they would have been injecting.  But they were able to fix me up without any x-rays and no anesthetic either.  Luckily it's not a bad break so it wasn't painful at all.  It probably turned out to be cheaper that way too.

Insurance update

I just got a notification that the charges that were resubmitted to my insurance from my ultrasound in February - COVERED this time!  Yayyyy!  My deductible still applies so I have to basically pay the whole thing anyway, but at least now I get to pay the contracted amount, which is $74 cheaper.  I love the small victories in life.  :)

1st appointment!

Eric and I went to our first OB appointment today, how exciting!  Another milestone that we've never made it to before!  I saw the ARNP that works with Dr. H and it sounds like we will be alternating between the two of them for the rest of my pregnancy.  They gave me a new book called Your Pregnancy & Birth.  That was really convenient as just as I was getting my pap & pelvic Eric opened up to the page with a diagram of exactly what she was doing.  Other than that we went over my ultrasound (the baby's heart beat was 152 by the way), talked a lot about my symptoms, how good everything looks so far, how much weight I should gain, optional prenatal screening (we opted not to do any), etc, etc, etc.  My due date is officially 12/31/09 by my LMP and 1/1/2010 by the ultrasound.  She said they usually use the LMP date unless the two are more than two weeks apart.  So New Year's Eve it is!  That will be better for taxes I guess :)

I mentioned that I seemed to be really thirsty and asked if I needed to have my blood sugar checked, and she said no.  She said that the increased thirst is really pretty normal in pregnancy not to mention the weather has been getting a lot warmer recently and my body is probably adjusting to that as well.  She said if I had siblings or parents with diabetes then she'd be concerned, but at this point it is nothing to worry about.

Aside from that, I left some blood and urine to be checked for the usual stuff.  My next appointment is in 4 weeks with Dr. H, on the 29th, same time, same place.  I should have another ultrasound somewhere around 20 weeks, and at that time if the baby cooperates they can tell us the sex.  Yay!