Week 15 is here

I can’t believe I’ve reached Week 15! 

Dre and I are really starting to organize and empty out the office so that I can’t turn it into the baby’s room.  Once we know if we’re having a boy or a girl then I can start planning décor and all that stuff. 

We’re also starting to seriously look at the nursery furniture.  I found the dresser I want at IKEA.  The only thing is that the dresser is white and I was planning on a cherry or ebony crib.  So either I change the crib color or I incorporate different furniture colors in my design.  Anyways, I think I’ll make a post soon about the options I have running through my head.  Since we have to order the furniture soon, we don’t have that much time to think about it left.

So after thinking about it, Dre and I decided to start stocking up on organic disposable diapers when they’re on sale since the organic ones are so much more expensive than everything else.  For now, we’re going with the Huggies Care & Nature (or something like that) since they have less dyes and chemicals in their diapers.  This is also the kind that my CD friend uses when she puts her daughter in disposables.

I had an appointment with my doctor this Monday.  Everything was great!  Baby’s HB on Doppler was very strong and he kept kicking the crap out of the Doppler...so funny!  She also gave me the order to schedule my Anatomy U/S next month.  I’m scheduled for it on September 13^th…I cannot wait since we’re going to be finding out if it’s a boy or a girl then!  This is all so exciting!

Week 14

15 weeks 3 days

I definitely have a noticeable bump all the time now.  In some clothes, I look really pregnant.

I think my scale is on crack, but that’s ok.  This week it has me as gaining 5 lbs, but since I lost 2-3 lbs. at the beginning that puts me at 2-3 gain overall so it’s not too bad and when I mentioned this to the doctor she didn’t seem concerned at all.  I’m still doing Body Pump for now since I can still lie on my back until I’m 20 weeks, but I’ll have to stop in 4.5 wks even though my gym membership won’t have expired yet by then. 

Nausea is still lurking around.  Mostly, it comes when I’m at work which reinforces my belief that the baby’s just allergic to work.  I’ve had massively bad heartburn for the first time this week.  I’ve always suffered from indigestion so I’m used to that.  I’m not really used to having acid burn up my throat! 

I’m definitely wearing almost all maternity clothes by now.  I don’t fit in any of my pre-pregnancy clothes.  Stretch marks are still staying far, far away which makes me really glad!  I’m still waking up once a night, every night.

I think my best moment this week was my doctor’s appointment.  I love those because they reassure me that everything is ok and I get to ask tons of questions.  

We still don’t know baby’s gender, but we’re anxiously waiting to find out.  There’s been no labor signs which is a very good thing.  My belly button is actually about ¼ of the way out already.  Crazy, eh? 

I’m looking forward to finally looking really pregnant so I don’t keep getting sideways glances as if I’ve been eating boxes of ho-hos or something.  

So my weekly wisdom this week is that you should enjoy every moment of pregnancy even when it makes you feel like crap because pretty soon the baby’ll be here and it’s going to be a different ballgame!

This week the baby is the size of a navel orange which is huge!  He’s growing so fast!

Stuff, stuff, and stuff

Yup, I stole this from Google Images. 

Lately, I’ve had a major shortage on things to write for this blog.  I’ve never been the blog every day type, but I can usually do better than this.  It just doesn’t seem as if very much is happening in my life right now.  

I just spend my time making lists of things I need to do soon because time is going by fast and February is going to be here before we know it.  I just realized that I need to order the baby furniture ASAP if I want to be able to pick it up in September.  So, Dre and I need to break out the tape measure this weekend and measure the office to make sure that everything we want to get will fit and not look too crowded.

Dre’s parents are supposed to come down for the weekend.  We’re planning on spending Saturday at the beach with the in-laws and maybe go walking at a park for Sunday morning.  On top of that, Dre and I want to have some friends over for some drinks and munchies.  I’m not sure if one of the couples can make it yet, but that should be fun.  I wonder if I’ll make it to Sunday though…I might be too exhausted to get up by then.  

Of course after the weekend, it will be Monday!  And on Monday, I have a doctor’s appointment!  I love those because I get to hear baby’s HB, ask a million questions, and get to schedule my Anatomy u/s where we will hopefully find out baby’s gender.  Yeah!  I can’t wait!  On the downside, my boss just told me he’s taking next week off which means that I’ll be slammed at work all week.  Booh!

So that’s pretty much what’s going on in our lives right now.  I’m working some overtime every day to make up for the fact that I’m taking all my Fridays off this summer and going to doctor’s appointment every 4 weeks.  This makes for very long days without too much to do.

In other news, I got on the scale this morning and the POS told me I weighed 158.4 lbs.  That would be a 7 lb. gain in 10 days and a 5 lbs gain from my pre-pregnancy weight.  How is that even possible?  I’m not eating everything I see…I swear!  So, either my scale is broken (maybe I should replace the batteries, but I’ll have to re-mortgage the house to afford the batteries this thing needs) or I’m putting on serious muscle weight from my Body Pump class twice a week.  I know I’ve been getting stronger since I’m lifting slightly more for it, but I really didn’t think it would affect my weight quite this drastically.  I wonder what the doctor will have to say about this oneJ 

Week 14

Welcome to Week 14!  I can’t believe I’ve reached 14 weeks…it just seems to have gone by horribly slowly and really quickly all at onceJ  In just 26 weeks this baby is due!  

People keep telling us not to wait until the last minute to do and buy everything, but I find even making a list of what we need a daunting task.  Another thing I’ve seen on TB is to start buying essentials now a little at a time.  That’s a really good idea, but I don’t know if CD is going to totally suck and I’ll quit and need tons of diapers.  I don’t know if I want to use disposable wipes or make my own.  Ughh! 

I do know that I want to start the baby in disposables.  Yes, I’ve read all about the nasty chemicals that are in those, but I don’t want to buy Newborn sized CD.  Also, if I end up with a big baby (my mom only had big babies) then I’ll have a stash of newborn diapers that the baby will use for like 2 weeks.  Blah!  So I’ll probably buy 2-3 newborn diapers to practice with and then just buy CD for 15lbs babies and up either in One-Size or Sized.  Don’t even get me started on the array of CD out there.  I’ve read a gazillion blogs about them and I’m still confused which is mostly because mom’s opinions of diapers seem to be very subjective.  So I’m back to the question of what kind of disposables should I buy for my newborn?  Expensive Organic Brands?  Cheap Kirkland brand?  Pampers?  Pamper Natural?  So confused!

Anyways, Dre and I have started doing the filing that we just let accumulate in the office usually.  Once that’s done, we’re going to be going through the boxes in the office and clearing out the closet.  I’m going to have to decide what to do with several pieces of furniture that I “could” use in the baby’s room, but will be the wrong color (furniture is pine colored and I’m getting ebony baby furniture).  We’ll obviously take down the computer desk and give that away, but what to do with the futon?  Obviously, I’m not giving it away because it was really expensive, but maybe we should put it in the basement now instead of in the baby’s room.   If we do that, it’s going where all of Dre’s workout bench and gear is in the basement.  Also, I’ll have to decide what to do with my wedding dress.  It’s been 2.5 years and it’s still hanging in the closet.  I haven’t even had it dry cleaned!  I LOVE that dress and I don’t know if I can bear to part with it, but should I pay $200-300 to get it cleaned and boxed?  Really?

Maybe we should just buy a bigger houseJ.  For some reason Dre didn’t think that was a good solution…

That’s what has been going on in our house in the last week. 

13 Weeks

14 Weeks 2 Days

Baby’s HB on Doppler has been good this week…hovering between 160-170 BPM.  It’s also been much easier to find on Doppler than when I first started.  I got on the scale this morning and I swear it’s broken or defective.  Damn thing insists I gained 5 lbs in the last week. Really!  Hmmmm, I think not!  Either my scale is broken or I’m also putting on muscle weight from my Body Pump class.

Nausea was well and alive all last week and then on Thursday it miraculously disappeared for the whole weekend just to make a timely reappearance this morning.  I think I’m allergic to work and getting up early.  That’s my explanation and I’m sticking to it!  Indigestion is mostly gone and when it does surface drinking some fresh ginger tea, flat Ginger Ale, or chewing gum usually clears it up.

Since realizing that my bloated self will never fit into any of my fall coats, I bought a nice raincoat at Costco for pretty cheap.  I got a large and I’m not sure that will fit through all of the fall, but I tried on the XL coat and it looked like I stole my mom’s coat and was trying to play dress up.  Bad look!  I’m also already sick of trying to figure out what to wear for work.  Friends from work came and are coming to my rescue though!  One friend gave me 4 bags full of clothes and another friend who is my size and height is supposed to lend me some of her stuff.  That is going to help me out a ton!

This week, I’ve woken up 1-3 times a night to pee.  Lovely times!  In other news, 4 more weeks before we can officially have out anatomy scan and hopefully find if it’s a girl or a boy.  We’re really excited about this!  No stretch marks in sight and I wish for them to stay far, far away. 

Overall, most pregnancy symptoms have either totally disappeared or gotten much better over the last few weeks.  Hurray! 

Also, I know I’ve been pretty lazy about posting lately.  I think it’s because I’ve been pretty lazy with most things in my life in the last few months.  I’m hoping to start posting a lot more regularly now that I’m feeling better. 

2nd Trimester has arrived...finally!

I’m going to skip Week 12 since I didn’t take a picture and was on vacation and feeling pretty good.

Here we are in Week 13…the official start of the 2^nd trimester!  Yeah, we've made it! 



Week 11



Week 13 and 2 days
I actually seem bigger in my 11 week picture.  I think it's because I was either standing straighter than yesterday or I was more bloated.

Here's a picture of my belly without clothes.  I wasn't sure if I was going to post these, but since I have them why not.  I probably won't post these every week...just every now and then.

Definitely blubbery looking.  Can't wait till my tummy gets all hard and "pops".

At the end of last week just before we came back from our vacation, I posted my “I’ve contracted pregnancy” picture on my Facebook. 

That was fun!  That means that I’m officially out to the world.  The idea gives me panic attacks and hives because of my experience with the last miscarriage.  While I know that at this point I have less than a 2-3% chance of a miscarriage, I also know that anything could happen so I have to keep doing deep breathing exercises and run to get my Doppler every other minute to check that the baby is still there.  Yes, I know that makes me extremely neurotic and paranoid, but that’s how I’m coping. 

I did buy a Doppler while away on vacation.  I got the Hibebe 2 Mghz Doppler.  Love it!  Since I have a retroverted uterus, it’s a little hard to get the HB and hold it so that I get an accurate reading of the HB, but I can definitely find it.  Of course, Dre thinks that the baby is running away from the sound waves and thinks we should leave it alone more often and not listen too much.  Blah!  I’m too paranoid for that!

Anyways, back to my 13^th week stuff.  The scale yesterday said that I was still holding at a 2 lbs loss overall.  I find this hard to believe because I ate like a pig while on vacation and definitely watched zero of the stuff I ate.  Maybe, I’ll change the batteries in my scale.  I expect to start putting on 1-2 lbs a week from now on and I’m going to have to start counting my calories to make sure I’m getting between 2100-2300 calories per day if my weight doesn’t start to go up by next week.

Nausea has been blessedly absent for all of my 10 day vacation and on Sunday it reappeared.  I thought that it might just be because I was in the car a lot on Sunday, but then I had it all day yesterday, Monday, and today it’s been coming and going and I almost threw up on my couch this morning…fun times!  I thought m/s was supposed to go away and stay gone by the 2^nd trimester.  Blah!  If it keeps up, I’m going to start taking Diclactin when I go to bed so that it heads off the m/s in the morning.  The indigestion stuff is mostly gone, but I’m now drinking flat Ginger Ale with most of my meals to make sure that it stays gone.

I’m still in skirts and dresses for work along with my one, lonely pair of maternity capris.  I’ve also just realized that there’s no way my pregnancy self is going to fit into my nice, snazzy fall coat and much less any of my dressy winter coats.  This is why it’s more expensive to have a baby in the winter than the summer. In the summer, we don’t tend to wear all that many clothes anyways.  So, I’m thinking about buying a fall coat I saw at Costco last month in a bigger size.  For the winter coat, I have one ski jacket that is quite roomy and will most likely fit until the end, but it also happens to be my light winter coat which is not very warm at all.  Who knows, I might just steal Dre’s winter coat and get him to buy himself a new one.

No stretch marks in sight.  Sunburn and subsequent fun, peeling skin are gone.  My SPF 60 protected me really well on vacation, but I didn’t get a chance to test it in water and at the beach. 

Still waking up once a night, every night to go and pee, but I just read that as my uterus migrates upwards that that should stop until the 3^rd trimester.  Can’t wait!  Also, there’s 5 more weeks until we know if we’re having a little girl or a little boy and then I can start picking out baby names.  So exciting!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this on here before, but the reason I started this blog and want to record every week of pregnancy is so that I have something to look at down the road and something to show my children when they want to know how my pregnancy went and what they were like as kids.  They won’t get the faded memories related through the rose colored glasses that time brings, but instead they’ll be able to read exactly what I thought and felt like at a specific moment in time.  I would love to have that from my mom now.  Whenever, I ask her about her pregnancies I get random crazy stuff like she could feel the baby moving at 12 weeks for her first one…right!  I call that pregnancy amnesia!  Don’t worry; I won’t be scarring my kids with my descriptions of morning sickness until they’re adultsJ

Tomorrow, I think I’ll post about our trip and put up a few pictures of our trip…

I'm Back!

I'm sure you were all wondering if I had died or something since I disappeared without a word...but I'm back!!!

I got wrapped up in packing for the trip and totally forgot to put up my Goodbye!  I'm on vacation! post.

I did think I might post during my trip, but lack of access to a computer and my iPhone deciding that it didn't like connecting to the 3G network conspired to keep me from posting.  Anyways, I'll post all about the vaca and stuff later on today or tomorrow.

Bye now...

Week 11 is here!

Week 11 has arrived and along with it came a great doctor’s appointment!

So to start, here is the picture from this week.  Ignore my dirty kitchen…I don’t have the energy to care about the crumbs right now.

Week 10

Week 11 and 3 days

Everyone who keeps insisting that they barely have a stomach and don’t have any bloat is very lucky.  I was not anywhere close to my ideal weight when I got pregnant so I guess it shows.  My uterus which has now peeked over my pelvic bone seems to be pushing all the fat, blubber, and bloat and giving me a very definite bump already.  I can’t wait till I get to 20 weeks so that when someone asks me how far along I am I don’t have to mumble, “Hmmm, 11 weeks.”  I still love the bloat/blubber bump thoughJ

Doctor’s scale has my weight down by 4 lbs, but my scale is still saying down 2 lbs.  Now that the digestion is cooperating and that I’ve started eating dessert and snacking more I think my weight should bounce back soon enough.  Also since I’m starting the 2^nd trimester in a couple of weeks, I should start putting on 1-2 lbs a weeks anyways.

Nausea is still around and seems to be particularly bad when I’m at work.  My doctor suggested taking the Diclactin she prescribed before I go to bed so that I feel better in the morning.  I think I might start doing that for a few days to see if it helps.  The indigestion is mostly gone, but I’m still paranoid so I’m eating pineapple every day and drinking ginger tea or eating ginger candies every day.

I live in skirts and dresses right now.  I cannot stand the sight of my work pants and I refuse to buy 10 pairs of dress pants for this pregnancy.  I did buy pregnancy capris, but I can’t wear those every day so all the other days I’m styling in a dress.  It’s a good thing the temperature over here has been scorching for the last 3-4 weeks.  

No stretch marks, but I have a really bad sunburn from my girl’s weekend.  I put on sunscreen everywhere every couple of hours which is usually more than enough for me.  I burnt so badly that I went and bought SPF 60 for my trip.  No more burning for this mama!  The worse thing about these burns is that now they’ve started itching unbearably.  It makes me want to scratch my skin off!  I read that itchy skin can be a problem during pregnancy and when I read that I was thinking, “How bad could itchy skin be?”  Hmmm, bad!

I’m still waking up every night to go pee, no movements yet, and I’m convinced it’s a girl, but Dre is really hoping for a little boy.

Tomorrow, we leave for the Maritimes to go spend a week with my brother and wander around Eastern Canada visiting places we haven’t seen a long time or have never seen.

Baby has a strong HB of 174 BPM as of Monday’s appointment.  Dre was asking me if I still wanted to buy a Doppler and I said, “No.”  I think I’ve changed my mind.  I want to be able to listen to the baby every day…it’s my happy place that keeps me from being irrational about the possibility of losing this pregnancy.  Once it’s happened to you, I don’t think you can totally let go of the idea that the baby might not make it for whatever reason and hearing it every day would reassure me…especially now that we’ve started telling everyone.

Dopplers are awesome and some other stuff

***I’ll do my weekly update tomorrow I promise!  I forgot to ask Dre to take a picture so I’m going to do that tonight.***

I still love this one! 
I'm thinking of putting this as my profile picture on FB next week to see how many people will catch on.

I had my second doctor’s appointment yesterday.  It went very well which is a relief since for this appointment I am 11 weeks which is the same as I was for the last pregnancy.  This is also the appointment that started to clue us in to the fact that there might be a problem last time around.

Dre came and to get me at work which is so nice of him.  I don’t mind taking the bus, but I’ve been having a hard time since I got pregnant as it seems to increase my nausea.  When I got to the doctor’s office, we registered and I waited for the nurse to weigh me, take my blood pressure, and have me pee in a cup.

One of the nurses walks over to me and asks me if this is a new pregnancy.  I said, “No.” since this was not a new pregnancy…it’s a pregnancy that’s already been confirmed by the doctor and this is my follow-up appointment.  So we keep waiting and another nurse brings us to the doctor’s office to wait for her.  By this time, I realize that the nurses here are apparently clueless or they don’t read my chart which is troubling (This is not the first time I’ve had strange comments from the nurses…last time after I’d had a confirmed missed miscarriage once of the nurses was trying to work me up as if I was still pregnant.  I had to tell her I’d had a miscarriage even though it was in my chart.).  

Dre gets up and goes to tell the nurses that while this is not a “new” pregnancy it is a pregnancy and don’t they want to do the blood pressure and weighing stuff.  Now they’re all confused!  They thought I miscarried earlier this year.  So Dre has to tell them that I miscarried early this year and am now pregnant again.  (This is where you’d think they would have seen this in my chart.)  So the nurse comes and gets me and does all my stuff.  Let me just say that while I don’t expect the nurses to remember me all the time that there are only 3 nurses at this doctor’s office and that the one who asked me if it was a new pregnancy is the one who confirmed my pregnancy the first time around.

Anyways, now I’m stuck with the nurse who I don’t like at all to do my blood pressure stuff.  Last time I was pregnant, she noticed that I was in her sister’s prenatal class and mentioned it to me since she recognized me.  Then she told me I lost weight which is fine, but her tone made it seem like I was trying to do it on purpose.  Nice, eh?  Anyways, we had the miscarriage confirmed and I went to my doc’s office about 5-6 times in the next 3 weeks.  Every single time she saw me she went the other way or tried to avoid eye contact…never said another word to me.  Things like this just rub me the wrong way.  I expect a medical professional to acknowledge that sometimes pregnancies end in miscarriage and not act like a teen around a difficult issue.  There’s all kinds of people I guess…they make the world go round apparently.  So this time she weighs me, goes to write it down, and then weighs me again as if she can’t believe that I lost 4lbs (according to their scale).  Ugh!  It’s a good thing I really like my doctor.

After all of this happens, we go in to see the doctor.  We discussed a few of my questions and she confirmed that since neither Dre or I are deathly allergic to peanuts (fatal allergies on both sides of the family) that I should be able to eat peanut butter all through my pregnancy and that there is no limit to the amount of ginger that I can ingest in one day.  Also, Dre asked about sex.  Hehe!  Poor guy wants to make sure the baby is all safe in thereJ

Then we got to hear the baby’s heartbeat on Doppler!  Yeah!  At first, she had some trouble finding it which stressed me out.  I have a retroverted uterus and that makes the HB harder to find in the early stages, but she found it pretty quickly after all.  It was between 168-174 BPM which is great for an 11 week baby.  She did tell me it would slow down to100-150 as he or she grows which is normal.  I’m glad she told me that since I’d never heard that before.

This all means that I feel like I can safely tell everyone now!  Of course, Dre wants to run around and announce it to everyone which is his style, but it isn’t mine.  So, I need to tell my boss at work first, but that stresses me out because I don’t like having those kinds of conversations.  I have a great boss, but I spent 4 years in my job where he was co-worker and when my old boss retired 6 months ago they restructured my position to report to him which is sometimes awkward.  So I think I’ll tell him tomorrow before I leave for my 10 day vacation.