Friday, May 28, 2010

we have a stubborn baby (plus visual aids)

so yesterday was my "20 week" checkup - even though i won't officially be 20 weeks till tomorrow. it's funny though, when they first measured baby mushroom, he/she was 3 days behind, they said i'd be due on the 19th, and so tuesdays were "officially" my day for moving up each week. well yesterday, baby mushroom was measuring two days ahead, so he/she - if on time - would be arriving on the 14th. which means by their watch, i'm "officially" 20 weeks and 1 day... and this is why i always knew in my head that i'd just continue to stick with the october 16th due date (which i think i wrote about in one of my original posts).

anyhow, yesterday was the anatomy scan. one person (the ultrasound technician) now knows if our baby is actually a "he" or a "she" - it's really exciting, even though ben and i don't know, but just that our baby's gender is identifiable at this point... it amazes me. even our doctor doesn't know, since ben and i don't want to find out if we're having a boy or a girl till the baby is born, our OB told us she doesn't like to find out either until the little bugger pops out. i kind of like it that way.

even though we don't know, ben really thinks it's a girl. so of course i'm now feeling like it's probably a girl, too... but i go back and forth.

utterly exhausted from work, today, i came home and took a nap soon after...

i dreamt that i gave birth to a baby girl at work, and it was easy-peasy. i simply went into a bathroom, and like some twitch of a nose out of "bewitched" i was holding a clean, dressed baby in my arms instead of her being in my uterus. i then made a sling for her, and went back to work. (while i was making the sling, though, i set her down on the floor - she could sit up at this point, and don't worry, it was clean! and she said to me in this sweet little baby voice, "i don't like sitting on the floor.") if only child-birth was that easy, right? anyhow, after i've "birthed" and slinged her, i go back to work, and my customers and coworkers were very confused, "weren't you pregnant when you got here?" "where's your bump?" (i of course had my, ahem, flawless figure back as soon as i was holding baby), and i would point to the baby in the sling, and they just ooh-ed and aah-ed as if i'd given them a fireworks display. it was a fun dream. but i think there may be some freudian frustrations in this dream, some unconscious psycho-babble leaking out...

it's surprising to me how even though this has felt like a really easy pregnancy (no morning sickness? hallelujah! no spotting or complications so far? thank You, Lord!!!) - what i've lacked for in the really unpleasant stuff, i feel like i've made up for in the menial stuff: forgetfulness, sciatic pain - accompanied by other aches and pains, feeling overly tired - if not exhausted sometimes - and for what feels like no real reason (i haven't done anything all that tiring, but, oh yeah, i am just growing an entire human being in my womb), my getting up and down barely rivals that of the local octogenarians (like if there's something on the floor, or i need to sit on the floor to get/do something) and i'm having difficulty sleeping.

and it's frustrating to feel limited. to not push myself. to have to let things go (like having everything done/picked up/cleaned/etc. before ben gets home from work. not that he can't chip in, like i know he's stated, but if i have the time, i like to have that done for him, since i do work a handful less of hours, and i know he appreciates it). to admit that i simply can't do it all right now.

one of my coworker/friends whose already had four children gave me some really important advice though, "if you push yourself too hard, you could end up on bed-rest, and you do not want that." it's easier to pull things back a notch when i keep that in mind, but i still feel guilty, like i'm being too easy on myself, and that's where i struggle most, i think.

but now for the fun part - ultrasound pictures!!!
as i said in the title, we have a stubborn baby. he/she stayed curled up and moved arms or legs every now and then, but for the most part, kept his/her head tucked into the chest. the ultrasound technician had to work for over half an hour just to get the measurements she needed, and even had me do deep coughs to try and gently agitate the baby into moving. it kind of worked for a moment, but baby mushroom was still being difficult, so we don't have a lot of great shots, but we do have some good ones - and from what i could see, we have a pretty cute baby. :)


^ here you can see what will eventually be baby's bellybutton! (where the umbilical cord connects to the belly, lower left third of the photo). baby still has his/her head tucked down, but if you follow the umbilical cord, leads you to baby's forehead. you can see baby's eyes, little button nose, and a slight smile. i love this one.

^ this is a profile of baby. on the right is his/her head; you can see an ear, maybe? plus the nose and lips. i believe the round bump below baby's chin is still the umbilical cord coming up from the belly.

our doctor said that everything is looking exactly as it should be, very healthy - even me! (the ultrasound technician checked out my gallbladder and kidneys as well - i guess they can tell things from looking at those.) it was a great check-up, but it only makes me more anxious to be able to hold little baby mushroom, to be able to give little mushroom a name, see the color of his or her eyes, smell the top of that freshly born head... (new born babies smell so good. if they could get that smell into a laundry detergent, i would do laundry all day long just to get a whiff of that scent.)

only 4 months and 18 days to go!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

oopsie poopsie! (or, how sugar does NOT help me sleep at night)

so tonight (or rather, last night, as it's currently 2:48 in the morning) i had some girl friends over, and we made a bunch of delicious food together and watched the movie "precious" (an excellent and important movie, a harrowing story filled with heartache and unimaginably appalling situations - one that i had wanted to see, but ben didn't, and some friends did, hence the get together.)


anyhow, our food was much more enjoyable:

  • baked brie in a puff pastry shell filled with cherry flavored cranberries, pecans, honey, and a hint of rosemary. don't worry - i made sure that the brie was pasteurized, which my OB said was fine for me to consume, and we baked it, so i'm double safe :P i think this has to me my new most favorite appetizer ever.
  • hot dish (most of my friends here have never heard of "hot dish") - ben's favorite: rice, corn, ground beef, mixed with cream of mushroom soup and a few spices

and let's not forget dessert!

  • chocolate fondue!!! :D and you'll never believe what i finally got to try dipping into chocolate: BACON! i think it might be my new favorite dessert ever :P we also had strawberries, marshmallows, and dried mango for dipping. it was excellent.

after my friends went home, ben and i watched a little bit of the finale of "biggest loser" before going to bed. we finally agree that we're both too tired to finish the episode tonight, so we go to bed, and i'm able to fall asleep relatively easily.


but then, as has been happening more frequently, i wake up finding myself completely uncomfortable and unable to find any position that will enable me to fall back asleep. i finally realize (you'd think it would be an instant realization, but it's not) that my bladder is full and so i head to the bathroom, knowing that this will help me fall back asleep.


i crawl back into bed, only to engage in more tossing and turning. i am wide awake. and i think it's the chocolate's fault. (and i suppose my own for eating so much of it so late in the evening.)


before i got pregnant, i knew full well that any caffeine after about 5 pm was almost guaranteed to keep me up late, wide eyed and bushy tailed. (maybe not so bushy tailed, but definitely wide eyed.) caffeine at 5 would probably keep me up till 1 am; caffeine at 7 or 8 could easily keep me up till 3 am. it was awful, and i quickly learned not to drink caffeine after 5 pm.


i should have known that the effects of even the small amount of caffeine in chocolate would only be exacerbated by pregnancy, and that similarly, sugary foods would have the same problematic outcomes if ingested late into the evening.


i’d say it was around 8-ish? that we were diving into the chocolate fondue.


and whaddya know, here i am, unable to fall back asleep, and it’s now 3:37 am.


at least i don’t have to work tomorrow (i mean today).


it also probably doesn’t help that we have our ultrasound and doctor’s appointment today, that we’ll get to see baby again - hopefully more active than last time we saw him/her, and that i’ll be 20 weeks as of this saturday.


that’s halfway baked.


i’m so excited for this baby.


and i think i'm tired enough to finally maybe hopefully go back to sleep. (hallelujah!)



Friday, May 21, 2010

oh my!

lately my skin has been clearing up quite nicely. i try to remember to wash off any makeup i might be wearing before going to bed, and i think that's helping.

it's nice not to feel like i have the face (or, rather, complexion, really) of a 14 year old boy...

this morning, however, i woke up to a symphony of zits serenading my nose.

okay, it was only a few, but it sure felt like my nose was getting picked on - no pun intended. luckily, they were all ready to be popped, and i don't care what the dermatologists say, i'm popping my zits when they're ready... problem solved! :)

Thursday, May 20, 2010

finally!!! :)

so this morning, ben and i finally had time for him to take a picture of my ever-growing baby-filled belly, and i was able to finish picking up the nursery and take some pictures of that as well.

i posted them on facebook, but even if you don't have an account, you can click here to see them - the first 8 pictures were taken by ben's sister when we were with his parents for easter, the ultrasound was actually taken just before that, and all the pictures proceeding are from this morning - enjoy :D

update on baby: still haven't felt any movement yet, but i suspect i won't until i'm closer to 20 weeks along, and a week from today we have our next ultrasound! overall, i've been feeling both more and less energized. it's weird. by the end of a work shift, i tend to feel pretty zapped, but i'm finding i still have the energy i need to get through each day/week/etc... sometimes it just takes a little more get-up-and-go effort than it used to.

meanwhile, my sciatic nerve seems to still be ever present. i was able to enjoy a quiet little hiatus there for awhile, but the past two days it's been quite the little bugger. if i'm doing a half-limp-sort-of-waddle, that's why. it's not that the pain is at all unbearable. just uncomfortable. my stomach muscles have also started/continued (?) splitting, which causes a slicing pain in my abdomen (at least that's what my doctor said was causing the pain) - but all these aches and pains, strangely enough, only help me to be more excited for childbirth. well... maybe "more excited" isn't the correct term. less terrified. that's better. the way i figure it, though, these pains, while uncomfortable, unpleasant, and sometimes intense, aren't nearly as terrible as i usually feel pain to be. maybe because they're expected? natural? not caused by outside forces, like when stubbing your toe or scraping your knee on gravel?

whatever it is, i'm taking it as mild-practice for childbirth. here's hoping it actually works!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

"snissing" and such... (perhaps a little t.m.i.)

so pictures won't be in this post. :\
(mmaaayyybe tomorrow, or else wednesday or thursday, as those are my days off this week.)

but in other baby related issues - two nights ago i sneezed, and i ended up peeing my pants a little. i thought that didn't start till after i had popped out say, 3 or 4 kids? (i've noticed in the bump community that it's known as "snissing" - a combo of "sneezing" and, i assume, "pissing")

yikes. i was thoroughly embarrassed, to say the least. ben just laughed, mostly at me, but i did laugh a little too, in my shame. thankfully, we were at home, so no else was able to witness the trauma.

time to start buying depends? (ha! not quite.)

the weird thing is, my bladder didn't even feel full. i had no urge to use the little girls' room, only the urge to sneeze. and then i feel like a little kid, back in kindergarten, wondering what i'm going to do about the puddle under my chair. (granted, i didn't completely relieve myself. it was barely a dribble, but i was embarrassed enough that i went and changed immediately.)

anyhow, so there was that incident.

then! last night, ben and i finally went and bought a wii! we'd been saving up for either an xbox 360 or a wii. i knew i would give the wii lots of love and attention, but ben wasn't sure he would enjoy it. he wanted the xbox 360 for call of duty, and maybe halo or some racing games i believe? and then we discovered that there's call of duty for the wii, too! ben wasn't sure how much he'd play the 360 to make it worth it, so we settled on the wii, and oh i love it! even ben seems to enjoy it - although the classic controller we got isn't compatible with his call of duty game - which is why we bought that remote - so that's been a little difficult to figure out, but otherwise, it's still oodles of funsies!

and how is this baby related, you may be asking? well for one, i mean, sure, it may not be as invigorating as a workout on the elliptical at the gym, but i'm super enjoying wii sports (the only other game we currently have). i tried the wii boxing last night, and good gracious! i could feel the burn in my arms, that's for sure! so while it certainly doesn't replace working out, it's a nice addition to my attempted exercise "routine" in efforts to maintain healthy weights throughout this pregnancy.

AND, after baby arrives, i'm hoping by then we'll have saved up enough for the new wii fit, so then when baby is sleeping (and i've had time to recover from the heroic endeavor of birthing baby), i can start working on ridding myself of that dreaded extra "baby weight" by exercising in the comfort of my own home and not have to worry about waking baby, bundling baby, leaving baby with gym's nursery staff while i work out elsewhere and wonder if baby is doing okay - on top of which, if i'm at home, i don't even have to be showered or in clean clothes!

not that i intend to become a total slob post baby's arrival, but at least the societal pressures of working out in a gym will be lifted :p

Thursday, May 13, 2010

eep...

i don't know how i got so busy all of the sudden... i don't even feel that busy. maybe in all my pregnancy-related forgetfulness, i forgot how to properly manage my time? (ha! i know i can't blame my "preggo-brain" forever, but while there's a baby in my womb, i'll continue to use it.)

anyhow, there's a lot i've been meaning to do: take/add pictures of the nursery (it's so adorable, just wait till there's a baby in it!!!), take new pictures of the ever-growing bump, and i think there were other baby-related postings i'd wanted to add on here...

but along with all that, i'm now working 30+ hours each week, my parents were here for a week, there are chores to be kept up with (on my good days, anyhow... the slow days where i'm nearing exhaustion, it seems almost impossible to process just one thought, but i'll attribute that to the extra little human my body is miraculously growing inside of me. isn't it just so crazy-amazing that the woman's body is able to take a microscopic squiggly tadpole, a tiny little egg that was created while i was still in my own mother's womb, and from that, an entire human being is created? and from the dna within, that little human will grow to be an adult human, with a brain and thoughts and a heart and feelings, and everything in between needed for survival. it's just mind boggling. you'd think i'd need to go to the craft store or something. add some superglue, attach some yarn here and there. but nope, just get the nutrients and rest that i need, and wham! in 9 months, my body has already done all the work, i just need to push the thing out, and even there, my body will pretty much act on its own behalf, with very little input from my own conscious will... astounding stuff.)

and can you believe this saturday i'll be 17 weeks already? (woops! strike that!!! i'll be 18 weeks as of this saturday!) in just 3 days, i'll be exactly (if baby is "on time") 5 months away. it's going by so fast, and from what i hear, the older we get, the faster it goes.

anyhow, it's thoughts like that which get me sidetracked.
all of this to say, suddenly it seems i have so much to do, and neither the time or energy to get every big and little thing done. so first i'm learning to prioritize, and eventually, i'll get this thing properly updated :\

(hopefully sooner rather than later)

:)

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

nursery pics coming soon(ish)....

but for now! more crazy baby dreams!!!!

well, just one dream, really.

there's a lot more weirdness to it, but the part that left me most weirded out was the beginning, and that's really the only part worth retelling, so here it is:

i gave birth at only 5 months along to a very healthy baby girl - she was 9 frikkin pounds!!! i don't even remember the birth part, i was simply in the hospitable, having just given birth, they tell me it's a girl and she's 9 pounds. i was supposed to work that day, so i leave the baby with my dad at the hospital. (real-life, my parents are visiting for the week, so maybe that's how my dad got dragged into dream-world? i have no clue. i'll let any of you freudians out there dissect this one for me if you feel so inclined.)

anyhow, i finally get done with my shift, so i go back to the hospital to pick up my baby. my dad tells me that they needed a name, so he named her petra. you read that right. p-e-t-r-a. petra?! petra! (real-life again, i seem to remember a girl in one of my college classes who was also named petra, as well as my best friend/former roommate, christina, who had a petra t-shirt, but those memories are a bit hazy, especially now that preggo brain has ensued.)

so ben and i are trying to discuss how to gently break it to my dad that petra is not a name we were considering naming our baby, and that we will be changing it.

and then i finally get to see petra.

i know all babies are supposed to be beautiful, but the only beauty petra would ever have attained could only have been inner beauty (unless of course she decided to go the cosmetic surgery route). she was huge to begin with (again, the 9 pounds, looked more like a 1 year old than a freshly born infant), she had jet black hair fashioned in a donald-trump-look-alike-coif, and a giant fuzzy black unibrow, complete with snarling chubby baby face.

i wasn't repulsed or anything. i didn't feel a lack of love for this baby. i just felt it was matter of fact that i had given birth to the ugliest baby ever. we still needed to address the issue of my dad naming her petra.

then the dream went on, as i mentioned before, but hopefully you enjoyed that as much as i did.

i shared it with my coworker friends and now it's our new slang. latte art didn't turn out quite so pretty? "wow, what a petra!" spilled some milk? "you really petra'd that one!" customer being unpleasant? "she was such a petra!" and then we giggle. who knows, maybe it'll catch on?

PS - to all you women named petra that may or may not be reading this: i don't think your name is hideous or outrageously strange. i don't think your name should be synonymous with "ugly" "bad" or "annoying" - but i will probably always associate it with my ugly 9 pound dream baby. it's not you, it's me. i promise. please don't take offense to my hormonally hopped up dreams.

PPS - dear future baby, just so you know, if you come out with jet black donald trump hair, a snarling face, and a caterpillar sized unibrow, i won't love you any less. if you never achieve worldly beauty, i will not be disappointed in you. worldly beauty is overrated, anyhow. if you weigh 9 pounds, i probably won't be too thrilled when push must come to shove on your birth-day, but i'll probably forget about it by the 1st anniversary of your joyous arrival. i hope.