Movement

19 weeks today, and where to start...

I guess the most exciting thing is that in the last week I've finally started feeling some movement!

A few days ago I collapsed in bed (laying on my tummy) after Karl finally woke up and took over for me for a few minutes, and I felt some little flutters! They were low down on my right side, and when they would stop I kept wondering if I had imagined it, or if it was just some bubbles or something, but then they would start again and it felt a whole lot like baby! Later that night I was just sitting in the bedroom talking to Karl and I got a pretty noticeable little thump, again, pretty low. Then yesterday, we were sitting in the car, about to get out and go into the house, when I got I good little kick (or punch) right where my seat belt was pushing on my tummy! I've been feeling more and more little movements ever since, but it's all still very random and not very noticeable for the most part.

I've decided having an anterior placenta stinks... I was so sure that this time around I'd catch a break and I was all prepared to feel my baby earlier, but no. It's also supposedly more common to have a posterior placenta, but I'm just super lucky I guess. The front of my uterus is just the cool place to implant, apparently ;)

In other news, we got our test results back from our integrated screening, and this baby has less than a 1 in 10,000 chance of having down syndrome, trisomy 18, or spina bifida. Yay! And since baby was measuring well with no soft markers for down syndrome, and no signs of cleft lip or any other defects, it looks like baby is healthy! This isn't a guarantee that there isn't anything wrong, but it is nice to have some reassurance. We still have one ultrasound to go to check things out next week, so hopefully everything is still fine and dandy in there (and hopefully our little guy is still a boy, lol)!

Also, I've gained a couple pounds! I'm now up to 3 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight, and I think I'm happy about that... But now I get to freak out over the whole gaining thing, lol. I'm just never happy.

Anyway, things are starting to pick up a little, and I have started to bond a little bit more, so I'm hoping that the next few weeks will be even better :)

17 Weeks and the Weight Issue

17 weeks today (or if I go by ultrasound dates... 17 weeks 5 days)! I honestly feel like I should be soooo much farther along than that; this pregnancy seems to be going so slowly!! I'm really hoping it picks up soon.

Also, I'm up 1 pound. Well, I actually went down a pound, so I guess it really means that I've gained 2 total, but I'm up a pound from my pre-pregnancy weight.

I am having a terrible time gaining weight! This is not generally a problem for me (unless I'm hyperthyroid). I usually eat despite the calories in my food (definitely an emotional eater), now I eat based only on calories :/ I hate eating and I hate food. Nothing tastes good and everything I eat makes me feel horrible. So... yeah.


Just hoping for better days ahead, eating wise ;)

Ultrasound #2, and it's a...

Demon-alien-skeletor!!!

 Just kidding... I love my baby, but this picture is pretty creepy looking. I thought I'd share for the sake of Halloween being right around the corner ;) Also, the doctor looked at these face pictures and kept telling us what a cute baby we have on the way... Between that and her comments about me being thin, kinda not sure about her judgement, lol.

ANYWAY, point is, we got to go to our ultrasound today, YAY! Karl and Evie got to go this time too, which was a fun adventure. 

A cuter, though blurry, pic of our little-one :)

The ultrasound went really well. The tech was pretty rough on my tummy, and her pictures weren't great, but it wasn't too bad of an experience. Evie was very interested... for about two minutes, then she wanted to go back to playing with her baby game, haha.

Baby was once again pretty chill and kept turning away from the tech so she couldn't get a shot of the face, lol. I don't know if we've just caught the babe at nap time twice (I even drank a bunch of OJ right before to help wake bebe up!) but this kid seems much more calm than the Evie-Cakes!

I have an anterior placenta again, which means it's probably going to be longer before I really feel anything, and a longer wait before we can feel baby from the outside, which makes me a little sad, but we'll see how it goes. Baby is also currently head down facing my right side and there is a baby bum hanging out just below my belly button ;)

Everything is measuring perfectly and looks good! Still measuring 5 days ahead, which is exactly what we were measuring last time. No soft markers for down syndrome, no cleft lip from what they could see, heart is looking good so far, fluid was good and no signs of pre-term labor... So happy!!

Waving hello!

 Also, the tech DID ask us if we wanted to know the gender... and we said YES. I Tried looking while the tech was moving around looking at things, but I didn't really see anything, so I was kind of thinking it must be a girl... but the picture was pretty hard to see! The tech finally got through with all her measurements and she suddenly said, "well THAT'S not umbilical cord!" I wasn't quite sure what she was looking at at first, but apparently, THAT little extra appendage means we are having a BOY! Apparently my mommy-intuition was indeed correct, I don't know why I doubted ;)

Bum pic!!

I'm still super nervous that our boy is somehow going to end up being a girl at our next ultrasound... but both the doctor and the tech (who looked separately!) seemed pretty sure he's a boy in there!

I'm also a little nervous about the prospect of being a mommy to a boy, but we're excited! We just have to get though the issue of names (Karl and I have differing opinions here), circumcision, and somehow coming up with a bunch of boy stuff, since all we've got are very feminine items... But I'm sure it's going to be great! 

Time for a little blue in our princess castle ;)

10 1/2 hours...

First off, happy 1st day of October! So excited for this month!!

Secondly, we have an ultrasound tomorrow (in almost exactly 10 1/2 hours)!!! I'm super excited to see baby, but I'm trying really hard not to get my hopes up about finding out whether we have another girly on the way or if we're getting a little bit more testosterone in our house!

They MIGHT not even look, and even if they do, the baby MIGHT no cooperate, and even if baby does, it MIGHT be inaccurate still at this point... So yeah... Trying to prepare myself for the worst, but it's not really working.

For most of this pregnancy I've been pretty convinced this kid was a boy. I don't particularly want a boy more than a girl or anything, but for some reason I just had it in my head that it was a boy. Every time I thought about baby I would just automatically use "him/he". The last couple weeks though, I've been starting to get unsure! I've had two separate people tell me (based on our last ultrasound/how I'm carrying) that it's a girl, so I've been trying to prepare myself to wrap my head around that outcome, and now I just don't know!

This is like the complete opposite of how it went with Evie. I had no feelings or intuition about her gender forEVER. People kept asking me what I thought and I felt so lame saying that I had no idea. Then, the week or so before the ultrasound, I started feeling "girl", still not superly firm in my mind, but I was getting a girly vibe.

Garg! I just don't know what to think this time around!

Luckily, neither Karl nor I have super strong feelings either way. A boy would be awesome, since we don't have one of those, it would be cool to try it out! It would be nice for Karl to have a boy to be more manly with too, but we've also identified some downsides... On the other hand, we know girls are awesome, we know how to deal with them, and we have all the stuff we need for one already, so that would be cool too. And it would be cute for Evie to have a sister.

Either way, we're happy. The thing I'm not happy about, is the waiting!! Let's see if I can get any sleep tonight!

16 Weeks and Feelin' Big ;)

This baby has officially made it's presence known to the world... Lol, definitely no hiding it now ;) Surprisingly, I'm still at my pre-pregnancy weight. I'm having a hard time gaining, though it certainly doesn't show, haha.

Also, while I'm here, I think I should mention a bit about cravings... This whole pregnancy I've only really wanted savory type things (well, during those brief periods when I've wanted anything at all), unlike Evie's pregnancy where what I wanted was all things SUGARY.

Right now what I'm going to call my cravings (but might be more like the only things I feel like eating), are J.J.B.L.T.s (from Jimmy John's) with cheese, onion, and oil & vinegar, and Starbursts (seriously, my favorite candy in the world right now).

Just thought I'd throw that out there, you know, in case anyone ever wants to make the the crazy pregnant lady happy... haha

Surreality, pt II

Getting close to 16 weeks and I'm still having a hard time really connecting with this pregnancy... I can't seem to keep myself excited about the whole thing, because most of the time I don't even feel pregnant. It's not that I am not intensely aware of my many pregnancy symptoms or that I don't look extremely pregnant (the belly has more than definitely "popped"!), but I just don't relate it all to the fact that I'm pregnant. 

I want this baby and I'm happy for this pregnancy, but for some reason it just hasn't clicked in my head. I've even seen baby moving around in there and I haven't gotten it yet. I have an ultrasound pic of our little-one in a frame in our living room, but when I look at it I seriously could be looking at someone else's ultrasound, I really don't have any feelings there yet. 

My brain also really can't grasp the idea that I'm going to be a mommy (again) in just a few months! This time next year I'm going to have a toddler AND a baby, and it just doesn't seem real! I think I may be in denial, haha.

I'm trying to remember how things went with Evie, but maybe I'm comparing a little too much. I know that by the time we had her ultrasound and found out she was a girl, I had a pretty good "bond" with her, but I forget that wasn't until 20 weeks and that was right around the time I finally started feeling her move. This time around I got to see baby so much earlier and haven't felt any movement so far. I'm thinking that's when it's really going to hit me. 

The other problem I think I'm having is that I just don't have the mental energy to spend on this pregnancy that I did with Evie's. I have to devote most of my brain power to the child who needs (sooooo much of) my active attention, plus there are so many "family issues" that are taking up my attention (well, stress), so I really don't have much to spare for daydreaming and bonding with the kid who doesn't remind me he/she is there every two seconds.

We've got two ultrasounds coming up in the next few weeks, so hopefully we'll get to know a little more about who this little person is, and I'm hoping to start feeling him/her soon!

I'm sure that in the next month or so reality will finally set in, to some extent, I just feel a little bit like a terrible mom in the mean time!

PAIN

All right, this is a complaint post...

With Evie I don't remember being in this kind of pain (or having to waddle when I walked) until the last couple of months, and by then delivery was in sight! I definitely remember feeling like my pelvis was seriously just going to fall apart every time I walked for the last bit, but I was so close to the end!

Now here I am at 15 and a half weeks and I already have been suffering from terrible sciatica and symphysis pubis dysfunction for a while now :( Which means that basically, every bit of my pelvis hurts when I make just about any movement. Just walking is pretty painful, but having a toddler means that I spend most of my day lifting, carrying, crawling, and getting up and down off the floor. It hurts, but with a toddler there's just no other option.

I'd like to see a chiropractor and see if there's anything that can be done to help, because so far the internet has no other suggestions besides taking a hot bath and not moving so much... If that doesn't help then I'm really afraid of how I'm going to get through the next 5 and a half months without needing a wheel chair!!

I know each pregnancy is different, but I didn't expect this! I kinda feel like I went straight from 1st trimester misery to 3rd trimester misery, without that glorious respite in between. I guess on the bright side, the horrible rib pain that plagued me with Evie has been minimal this time around...

Yay for the little things, I guess, haha.

2nd Trimester

Today I celebrated finally reaching my second trimester by vomiting while Evie patted me on the back...

shouting: "Spank your bum!! Spank your bum!!"

*sigh*

Morning sickness is definitely a different experience with a toddler in tow ;)

Our "Announcement"

Finally made it facebook official ;)  Can't believe my little baby is going to be a big sister!!

In other totally cute news: Evie loves to look at pictures of herself from the hospital the day she was born--with the doctors and all the different people holding newborn Evie. We talk about how she got bigger and bigger in my tummy and then we went to the hospital and the doctor helped us get her out. It's so cute... She brings it up all the time and loves to talk about how our baby is growing bigger and bigger. She likes to say to my tummy: "Hi baby! I-uh pay wi you!" or in other words, "hi baby! I want to play with you!"

She loves this kid already and is so excited... I really wish she didn't have so long to wait to meet her baby, lol!

12 Weeks!

We've made it to 12 weeks! There is honestly something magical about this week in my pregnancies (the theory seems to be holding up so far any way), in the last few days I've been so much happier, had a bit more energy, and have been able to eat more. I feel like my attitude has done a complete 180! I will admit that in the last couple weeks I've had more than a few "I am the worst mother/wife in the world" and "How am I ever going to do two when I am failing miserably at handling my toddler??" meltdowns...

It's amazing what a little energy and a semi regular blood sugar level can do for a person!

Today I got an extra mood booster, I got to get a good look at baby for the first time! Didn't get super great pictures, but I love them anyway ;)

Hello!

I went in for my integrated screening to check for genetic problems this morning, which was scheduled for 8:45 am, and they didn't call me back until after 9:15! I was starting to go a little crazy just waiting and waiting in the hospital lobby listening to people talking about all the horrible health problems they had (maternal fetal medicine shares an office/waiting room with oncology!), but they did come get me eventually. I had to talk to a genetic counselor, and then I got to see baby!

They needed to get some very specific measurements, and baby wasn't being cooperative AT ALL. Always facing the wrong way and kept rolling in the wrong direction... Definitely my child ;) Seems to be a lot calmer than Evie was, but maybe it was just nap time, haha. Anyway, we finally got the measurements we needed (after the tech bounced the baby, made me roll back and forth, go to the bathroom, and walk around for 5 minutes), and the doctor came in to talk to me about them.

Apparently everything so far looks fine and dandy, but there is a chance that I may be a carrier for a genetic translocation (which would mean a high chance of trisomies and miscarriage... normally more of a random fluke, but not with a translocation :/ ), and since I can't afford $2000 to get a karyotype done, they want to check on baby again in about a month, and then again at the regular 20 week ultrasound. So we may be able to find out if we're having a boy or a girl on October 2nd, 4 weeks earlier than I thought! Doctor said I shouldn't be worried, since things looked good so far, so I'm pretty excited just to be able to see bebe again!

That whole adventure ended up taking me over two hours (with Evie and Karl going crazy at home, gah!), and I still had my regular 12 week appointment to go to! I ended up taking Evie with me to my appointment by myself, which was a little crazy, but she was also very cute. She sat next to me on the little table while the midwife listened for baby's heartbeat, and she was totally transfixed by the sound. She kept talking about hearing the baby the whole car ride home, and couldn't wait to tell daddy all about it! She also loved the toys in the office and the "alligator" (aka, the elevator, haha).

It's been a hectic day (and I actually still need to get bloodwork done once Karl gets back with the car), but I'm pretty satisfied with the results. Also, I'm finally ready to officially announce that I'm having a baby! I'm just waiting on a picture so we can do it in a cute manner ;)