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!