Tuesday, March 27, 2012

9 weeks, 2 days

Had my first prenatal visit today at the Women's Birth and Wellness Center. Took a bit of finagling, getting my mom to pick up P from school (which required advanced notification and a note to the teacher, and showing my mom a map of the school and sending instructions), as well as my mother then arranging for my father to watch him later on when she had to go out. Nik had to arrange his work schedule to be home in time, and I had to set up A's whole day around an early nap so he could go with us. Which was a mistake, he was running around the calm, quiet office like a bat out of hell (a very cute and excited bat, but still really fast and loud and out of place). Set up my next appt 4 weeks from yesterday, when A is in school. Fingers crossed that works out just fine :)

There was a lot of paperwork. I'd filled out a bit already and handed that in, then filled out more, then went over more with the midwife, then looked through a packet and talked about screening tests. That's our big decision at the moment, take the screening tests (which might just add panic for no reason), or just not know until birth. We still need to talk and research this.

The midwife spent a good amount of time talking to me, getting to know my history, and was very gentle (and thorough) in her exam. I got a pap, cuz why not, as well as the pelvic, and oh yeah the blood draw and the urine sample. So I guess they'll be calling me soon hopefully with all positive results.

The midwife tried to find the heartbeat but couldn't. It's a bit on the early end for hearing a heartbeat on a doppler, and during the pelvic exam she discovered that my uterus tips backward making it near impossible for us to hear a heartbeat on the doppler at this time. Babe us well encapsulated inside me at the moment, protected on all sides and not squished up to the front.

Still have to just cross fingers that all is well and that Surprise is doing okay. If we do one of the early screening tests it would be in a few weeks and would include an ultrasound, which makes it a bit tempting but I don't want to put Surprise in danger. So again, more research needed.

Oh, and my uterus measures perfectly for 9-10 weeks pregnant. And I have a "perfectly adequate" pelvis for delivery, haha! And another cervical polyp. Of course.

Monday, March 19, 2012

8 weeks

I am now eight weeks pregnant.

Or, okay, yesterday I was.

Anyway, I think I'm starting to get the hang of this pregnancy thing.

I feel sick all the time, I'm always super full, super hungry, or both. My blood sugar drops suddenly and often (well, I should be able to see it coming honestly). I'm tired all. the. time. And it often feels like I'm having menstrual cramps and yet there's, thankfully, no blood. And yesterday I started getting tinglies in my feet. Yay.

I've looked through a few websites telling me what I shouldn't and shouldn't do in yoga class right now and I have to admit I wouldn't have guessed some of the poses I should avoid. I'm really going to have to get into swimming and stop going to yoga classes 4 days a week. I LOOOOVE yoga but I think I'll end up doing just gentle yoga and swimming for a long time, as well as walks. I just don't really have enough energy right now, which is understandable when my body isn't so much focused on Standing Pigeon or Up Dog as it is on growing another little life inside of me. A life which, according to my Pregnancy book, is now not only clearly visible but almost an inch (!!!) long, with arms, legs and elbows, eyes, and almost no tail. Shocking.

I've been spending too much $$ at restaurants. When I want something, I want it BAD!!! Like I pass by a pasta place and I'm suddenly famished and it's like their primavera with the red cream sauce is the only water in a barren desert or something. I mean, literally, stomach growling, mouth drooling, brain unable to focus on anything else. So even though it's 8pm and I had dinner almost 2 hours ago I swing by and buy MORE dinner which I gobble down at home, and then just sit there like it was the best thing I've ever done. Literally glowing, haha!

I'm still very, very nervous about miscarriage, which I guess is understandable given that this is a first pregnancy and I'm so early on. But now it's less "miscarriage is inevitable and I feel sad because there's nothing I can do" and more "I'm really loving this baby now, I'm really looking forward to being big-pregnant and giving birth, oh please don't let me miscarry." The risk looms overhead and I hate that. I wish I could be all naive and triumphant and just sit back and enjoy the ride, you know?

And it's really all just one worry after another.

Will we ever get pregnant?

Will we make it past the first trimester?

Will the ultrasound show that something's wrong?

Will I make it to term?

Will I have a difficult birth?

Will I have a stillbirth?

Will we get through all of this only to end up losing our child to SIDS or cancer or a car accident or something else horrific?

I don't think a parent's worrying ever ends... though I have to admit, it's nice having a 6 year old I don't have to worry about quite as much :)

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Sea Bands

Are awesome.

They are so awesome.

OMG they are awesome.

I am me again.

I am me, and I am a bit more tired than usual, a bit queasier than usual, and still have some big food preferences going on. And the nose knows things she didn't used to know.

But I am me.

I can play with my children.

I can walk.

I can drive.

I can eat.

I can hold real conversations.

I can do yoga.

I actually felt so happy when I woke up today and had a blissful morning with A, a complete turn around from last Tuesday when I felt that I was at my end (and then it kept getting worse throughout the week).

The morning sickness wasn't just wave after wave of nausea. It was trouble breathing, heart palpitations, the inability to stand up straight due to excruciating stomach pains. It was light headedness, dizziness, a disconnect from the world, a dreamlike state, an inability to focus. It was constantly hoping this would just end, not the pregnancy, but the sickness.

And Sea Bands?

Oh, oh they are awesome.

And today, I'm a little sleepy, a little queasy, and feel a bit more full than normal.

But I can do this. Hooray!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

7 weeks

Lucky number seven.... still hanging in there! "Only" 33 more weeks to go :)

Morning sickness has been kicking my butt pretty seriously. Yesterday I declared, "enough! I can't function like this!" So I looked some stuff up and I'm trying a more serious tactic than just eating what I feel like and sitting down a lot as waves of nausea wash over me.

I bought some SEA bands at Walgreens today, and I've already noticed an improvement. I don't care if it's a placebo affect or something, I felt so much better this afternoon than I have the previous afternoons. Still queasy, still an upset stomach, but able to function mostly without it being a hindrance. I felt more awake and less light headed too.

As for the queasiness, I the woman who hates gingerale have been gulping it down in mass quantities. And it's awesome. So are mint candies, purified water (tap water tastes like dirty dishrags), spearmint gum of all things, and even the smell of the Mommy's Bliss morning sickness tabs makes me feel better. Ginger doesn't smell like ginger anymore. It smells like Heaven.

My stomach has gotten smaller with all this queasiness but my blood sugar drops very quickly. I *NEED* to eat every 2 hours or so. It's not a want, it's a dire need. A protein bar, an apple, half a sandwich, a small reheated bowl of leftover soup, whatever! My meals are relatively small now compared to what I used to have, which kind of makes me sad in a way. I loooove food (it shows) and watching those around me munch down on a full meal while it's hot and fresh while I'm eating only the "best when it's fresh" bites and packing away everything else to much on later is somewhat frustrating. But I'll get used to it.

I still feel like I'm getting my period. I've felt like that for 2+ weeks now. Not even a drop of blood, though.

Looking forward to my first prenatal appt in a little over 2 weeks and hoping that everything's doing well. I know it's a long shot and highly unlikely, but I'm also hoping to hear the heartbeat. I will prepare myself for that not happening (9 weeks is so early for a doppler to pick up a heartbeat, and I do have extra padding making it even more unlikely). Even so, I have read too much about blighted ovums and I would love to hear a healthy heartbeat and know that Surprise is doing alright.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Birth Center

Today we toured a birth center, one that many of my friends/acquaintances have used and that my doctor recommends. It wasn't quite as homey and warm as I was expecting, but definitely has everything we're looking for and seems to be in line with our goals. They like to see people for the first time at 10 weeks, but I requested to be seen at 9 since we'll be out of town for week 10 (and I'd really rather see a doctor before spending over a week traveling and visiting Disney). They likely won't be able to hear the heart by then *pout* but at least I'll have seen someone and that feels much better. Nik agrees that their super crunchy practice, educated and certified staff, and close relationship and proximity to the hospital are all pluses. They only take 35 women per birth month, and they're booked through September, but they said that if we make an appointment then that makes us a patient and gets us "in". My EDD is Oct 28. We were first in line for that appointment.

So we're in with them, and as it's 45 minutes away we expect to be traveling a lot. Hopefully.

As we were driving home I was talking to Nik about how odd and unreal this all feels. I've convinced myself I was pregnant how many times? How many times did I note how late I was, obsess over nausea and cramps, get all jittery and excited, and then squint and squint at negative tests? Nik told me that this is the first time that he's convinced I'm pregnant. I told him this is the first time I'm convinced I'm not.

I know too much. I've read to much? I've heard too much. I know how frequent miscarriages are, how you can have a blighted ovum, how other things can appear to be a pregnancy. I know that still births aren't just big scary fairy tales and maternal death does happen. It's frightening, but it's true. So much could be wrong, so much could go wrong....

But so much more could go right.

And honestly just looking at numbers alone odds are that everything's fine and that everything will continue to be fine and that we'll end up with #3 this Autumn.

I just have to keep taking care of myself and my family and just hope for the best.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Morning Sickness

Oh, wow... I thought it had hit before. I was wrong.

From what I'm seeing online, 6 weeks is the norm for morning sickness to hit, with a peak intensity at 8 weeks (only 10 days away from sheer hell, woohoo!) and tapering off, sometimes to nothingness, at 12-14 weeks.

On top of this I suspect that I'm mildly anemic. There's iron in my prenatals, but I was awful about taking my iron supplements and as a vegetarian who had heavy menstrual bleeding for 6 out of 30 days (or one fifth of the month), my iron stores weren't exactly where they needed to be. I'm trying to add more iron to my diet but if it doesn't improve I'll see if I can get an additional supplement.

I had been somewhat queasy, light headed, and a bit crampy until yesterday. Yesterday the exhaustion, coldness, and full on nausea hit hard. No throwing up or passing out, though I felt both coming on at different points. I was awful with Ambrose and both boys are now acting out with me. P is having some PTSD problems, as he always does when I'm sick. A is just upset that mommy's off lately and not playing our normal games like chasing or wrestling. In a couple months, kid...

Throughout this, though, I keep looking down at my stomach and saying, "Seriously, though whatever you want at me, just stick around, please." I just started some morning sickness pills from Whole Foods, hopefully that will help some. And in the afternoons I do feel better. As I've been telling Nik, it's like having the flu all morning until about 2pm, and then recovering from the flu for the rest of the day. I feel better, not as sick, cold or listless, but I'm still weak and not totally myself.

My doctor tells me this is good, that nausea usually indicates a "sticky" pregnancy.

But I'm still worried....

What if something's wrong?

What if I do lose this one?

What if everything's developing except the baby and they'll never find a heartbeat and an ultrasound would only find an empty sac?

What if there are chromosomal abnormalities that prevent this one from growing and developing?

So many what if's still...

I wish I was the naive girl I was when we were married six and a half years ago. I just know too much now, too many possibilities for sadness....

Just have to hope. Hope that all is well. Hope that this pregnancy leads to a healthy, happy baby. Hope that I can make it through a day of morning sickness without going nuts with Ambrose throwing things and running. Hope that I can keep from going insane while waiting for a basic prenatal check up. And love. The greatest of these is love, no? Even if something awful happens, for right now I can believe in the child in my womb, and I can love. Whether it's wise or not.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Six weeks

Today, if I'm write, I am six weeks pregnant. That makes Surprise 4 weeks old (in utero terms). That also make Surprise visible to the naked eye, with a beating heart, buds for limbs and eyes, placenta, etc.

I've now had 4 positive tests. I had used the Dollar Tree tests for so long and I was so used to squinting at the negatives for 10+ minutes just hoping that there might be the faintest sign of a line... it was nice to see the line show up dark red as soon as the urine hit, even with middle of the day watered down pee. The hcg is strong with this one.

I'm definitely more light headed than normal but a lot of the times it feels more like I'm on the verge of symptoms than actually experiencing them. Like, I'm not really nauseous but very mildly kinda ill feeling, or I'm not really dizzy, but I certainly don't feel as balanced as I normally do.

I'm still expecting blood. I still haven't seen any. If expecting it is what keeps it away, I'll keep on expecting haha! I'll do what it takes to keep Surprise around :)

Planning a trip to Disney at the end of this month/start of next month. Plans coming together courtesy of a friend and Disney Planner :) So excited!

I'll be helping parent in A's class tomorrow. Let's see if I can get through the morning without saying anything... though I might anyway. If I do, God forbid, lose Surprise I know that they'll offer support and that I'd be sure to get emotional around them anyway. There are two classmates due to become big siblings next month and should anything awful happen this might make me very upset, and it would be wonderful if they knew.... so I guess I'll tell them.... eep!

Hoping to find a way to see a doctor soon and make sure everything's okay.

Also, P got hurt this past Friday. 2nd degree burn to the forehead :-( It's infected but he's on abx and hopefully it will clear up (and heal up) soon. I'm expecting scarring for a long while. Maybe we'll work it into his Halloween costume :)

Thursday, March 1, 2012

I'm glad you came

Tuesday night I had too much time to myself. Shock, denial, and lots of free time on the internet do not mix well. I looked up symptoms, stories of false positives, what's a chemical pregnancy? What does ectopic feel like? Could I have pseudocyesis? Could I have bought two bad batches of hpts even when I bought a 3 pack and got a negative on the First Response months ago? I looked up what else could cause a positive result. I had myself half convinced I have bladder cancer...

So I took another test yesterday morning and yup, positive.

I think... I think it's starting to sink in.

I think this is really happening.

And at the time I was rushing the kids into the car and making sure Nik was okay to drive to work while sick and my head was spinning with what I had to do that morning and I turn on the radio and there's this song, just this boy-band party song that I'm sure I've listened to dozens of times and never paid attention to.

But there was this moment of silence in the car and one phrase of the song stuck out...

"My universe/will never be the same./I'm glad you came."

And I just about broke down weeping.

I thanked my boys for being with me, even though it confused them.

And I placed my hand on my belly and whispered a near silent "I'm glad you came..." to the tiny Surprise growing inside me.

"All that counts is here and now"

Indeed.