I saw my midwife this morning. It was a pretty boring appointment, which is just how I prefer them at this stage! Baby has obviously grown enough to make the anterior placenta a nonissue because she was able to find the heartbeat right away. It was 140ish, which is quite a bit lower than the 165ish we got last time on the ultrasound. I told her that I'd been feeling this baby move for quite a while already, and sure enough, Baby kicked the Doppler several times while she was getting the heart rate!
Blood pressure was good. Weight was good (up 5 pounds from last time, but considering I lost 18 pounds early on, that's not a bad thing). Measurements were good. She answered all of my questions about the hospital policies, newborn testing, and delivery procedures. Anna got to see the rubber fetuses (feti?) again and see how much the baby has grown since my last visit.
I'm going to sign Anna up for a sibling class at the hospital when we're closer to D-day. It will include information on how babies work (sleeping, eating, pooping, that sort of thing) as well as some basic information about what will happen when Mom goes to the hospital to have the baby.
We also set up my ultrasound appointment for March 22, exactly 4 weeks from today. I can't wait to get another peek at our little one and make sure everything looks as it should, anatomy wise. We're also hoping to find out the sex, so here's hoping for an immodest baby who will flash his/her bits!
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Little Music Lover?
Tonight at choir practice, I got some of the best movement I've felt so far. Every time we stopped singing, I got a swift kick to my left side. Every single time! Not that this kid has a CHOICE but to at least appreciate music, with two singers for parents!
I'll be interested to see if this trend continues. Anna was the exact opposite, at least later on (I wasn't feeling movement this early in my first pregnancy). We'd walk into church, and she'd go nuts the minute the organ started playing and then get really quiet when it stopped. If I started singing, she would start rolling around and doing all sorts of alien acrobatics.
In other news, I wore a maternity shirt for the first time today. I've sort of "popped" over the last couple of days, but I'm still in that wonderful phase I lovingly refer to as, "Lady, you need to lay off the twinkies!" The maternity shirt definitely made me look more pregnant than tubby, which is a nice feature, but it still felt like overkill. At least maternity clothes have improved since I was pregnant with Anna. This shirt looks like a typical empire waist top (a little longer than average to cover the tummy, obviously), and I have several dresses that are very cute and trendy looking. A lot of the things I wore with Anna closely resembled tents, but with ruffles and the occasional bow. I'd like to strangle the idiot who decided that pregnant women (who are already "fluffy" enough on their own) needed clothing with lots of ruffles and bows.
More to come tomorrow. I have a midwife appointment, which should be good for at least a heartbeat and (hopefully) scheduling our big ultrasound. I can't wait to find out what "flavor" we're getting this time!
I'll be interested to see if this trend continues. Anna was the exact opposite, at least later on (I wasn't feeling movement this early in my first pregnancy). We'd walk into church, and she'd go nuts the minute the organ started playing and then get really quiet when it stopped. If I started singing, she would start rolling around and doing all sorts of alien acrobatics.
In other news, I wore a maternity shirt for the first time today. I've sort of "popped" over the last couple of days, but I'm still in that wonderful phase I lovingly refer to as, "Lady, you need to lay off the twinkies!" The maternity shirt definitely made me look more pregnant than tubby, which is a nice feature, but it still felt like overkill. At least maternity clothes have improved since I was pregnant with Anna. This shirt looks like a typical empire waist top (a little longer than average to cover the tummy, obviously), and I have several dresses that are very cute and trendy looking. A lot of the things I wore with Anna closely resembled tents, but with ruffles and the occasional bow. I'd like to strangle the idiot who decided that pregnant women (who are already "fluffy" enough on their own) needed clothing with lots of ruffles and bows.
More to come tomorrow. I have a midwife appointment, which should be good for at least a heartbeat and (hopefully) scheduling our big ultrasound. I can't wait to find out what "flavor" we're getting this time!
Strange Dreams
It's a pretty well-known fact that pregnancy hormones can cause some pretty bizarre dreams. I haven't had many dreams so far this pregnancy, but I had a doozie last night.
I dreamt that I had my baby (no idea whether it was a boy or a girl -- so much for mother's intuition!), and then they took it away to do all the tests and stuff almost immediately. I'm not sure why I dreamt that because the hospital where I'll deliver never takes the baby out of your room and encourages breastfeeding in the first hour.
So after they took the baby, I was tired, so I went to sleep. I woke up and discovered I'd been asleep for a whole day, and I didn't know where my baby was! I was in a complete panic because I hadn't fed the baby yet. I kept pushing the nurse button, and no one came. Finally, my mom showed up (I'm not sure where Jimmy was all this time) and said she had seen the baby, and they fed it something. They didn't feed it formula -- it was some totally made up name of some other liquid food that had a lot of sugar in it -- and I started yelling at her that I couldn't believe she would let them feed that to my baby. She acted really surprised that I objected to it and told me I was overreacting. I kept crying that I wanted to nurse my baby, and she told me to settle down because the baby would be just fine without nursing. She also said it really wasn't necessary for me to see the baby before I took it home.
I have no idea where all this weirdness came from, but I woke up in an absolute panic because I couldn't find my baby. It was so bizarre, and very real!
So...there you go. Weird, bizarre pregnancy hormones at work. Too bad they couldn't at least tell me whether I'm having a boy or a girl!
I dreamt that I had my baby (no idea whether it was a boy or a girl -- so much for mother's intuition!), and then they took it away to do all the tests and stuff almost immediately. I'm not sure why I dreamt that because the hospital where I'll deliver never takes the baby out of your room and encourages breastfeeding in the first hour.
So after they took the baby, I was tired, so I went to sleep. I woke up and discovered I'd been asleep for a whole day, and I didn't know where my baby was! I was in a complete panic because I hadn't fed the baby yet. I kept pushing the nurse button, and no one came. Finally, my mom showed up (I'm not sure where Jimmy was all this time) and said she had seen the baby, and they fed it something. They didn't feed it formula -- it was some totally made up name of some other liquid food that had a lot of sugar in it -- and I started yelling at her that I couldn't believe she would let them feed that to my baby. She acted really surprised that I objected to it and told me I was overreacting. I kept crying that I wanted to nurse my baby, and she told me to settle down because the baby would be just fine without nursing. She also said it really wasn't necessary for me to see the baby before I took it home.
I have no idea where all this weirdness came from, but I woke up in an absolute panic because I couldn't find my baby. It was so bizarre, and very real!
So...there you go. Weird, bizarre pregnancy hormones at work. Too bad they couldn't at least tell me whether I'm having a boy or a girl!
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Every new mother needs one of these!
I will admit to buying a few frivolous baby items since becoming a mother. Really, a lot of the stuff out there is not exactly *necessary* for the survival of baby or mother, though I might have argued with you when Anna would ONLY sleep in the swing!
But there are some items that are so over the top that it's hard to believe that anyone actually buys them. Case in point: I like to browse the Houston Craigslist site for gently used baby items. Sometimes you can find great deals on items that are not necessarily *needs* but are really nice to have. But imagine my surprise when I found a pink Baby Dior pacifier with protective case and Christian Dior gift bag.
The price was a bargain at...are you ready for this?...$35! Yes, that's thirty-five dollars. For a pacifier. Now, I will ignore for a moment that Anna hated pacifiers, so spending $3.50 (never mind $35) on one was a little obscene for us. But what usually happened to pacifiers in our house (and bottle nipples, and anything else made of silicone, for that matter) is that our cats sought them out and gnawed off the tips. It was like they had nipple radar. The could get into locked cabinets that contained bottle nipples and pacifiers, and they would decapitate every single one of them. We even found a portion of a pacifier in the litter box once.
So I give to you the $35 cat toy. Behold the Baby Dior pacifier -- just the gift for the truly spoiled princess in your life.
Okay, I'm editing to add a link to an article I found when I was trying to find the actual retail price of the Dior pacifier (which is around $40, for anyone interested): http://www.azcentral.com/families/articles/0323kidbling0323.html
Apparently, there is a growing trend among "middle class parents" to buy obscenely expensive baby gear/clothing. I suppose I should trade in my $90 Baby Bjorn (I almost had a heart attack paying $90 for a glorified Snugli, but I will now admit it was well worth the price) for the $790 Gucci carrier. And I'll definitely need a $1240 Louis Vuitton diaper bag and a $900 Bugaboo stroller. That's not even to mention the $395 Marc Jacobs hoodie and the $145 Kate Spade blanket. I clearly need to read up on baby couture before this one gets here, lest I make the mistake of dressing the poor kid in apparently-declasse Polo or Burberry clothes.
But there are some items that are so over the top that it's hard to believe that anyone actually buys them. Case in point: I like to browse the Houston Craigslist site for gently used baby items. Sometimes you can find great deals on items that are not necessarily *needs* but are really nice to have. But imagine my surprise when I found a pink Baby Dior pacifier with protective case and Christian Dior gift bag.
The price was a bargain at...are you ready for this?...$35! Yes, that's thirty-five dollars. For a pacifier. Now, I will ignore for a moment that Anna hated pacifiers, so spending $3.50 (never mind $35) on one was a little obscene for us. But what usually happened to pacifiers in our house (and bottle nipples, and anything else made of silicone, for that matter) is that our cats sought them out and gnawed off the tips. It was like they had nipple radar. The could get into locked cabinets that contained bottle nipples and pacifiers, and they would decapitate every single one of them. We even found a portion of a pacifier in the litter box once.
So I give to you the $35 cat toy. Behold the Baby Dior pacifier -- just the gift for the truly spoiled princess in your life.
Okay, I'm editing to add a link to an article I found when I was trying to find the actual retail price of the Dior pacifier (which is around $40, for anyone interested): http://www.azcentral.com/families/articles/0323kidbling0323.html
Apparently, there is a growing trend among "middle class parents" to buy obscenely expensive baby gear/clothing. I suppose I should trade in my $90 Baby Bjorn (I almost had a heart attack paying $90 for a glorified Snugli, but I will now admit it was well worth the price) for the $790 Gucci carrier. And I'll definitely need a $1240 Louis Vuitton diaper bag and a $900 Bugaboo stroller. That's not even to mention the $395 Marc Jacobs hoodie and the $145 Kate Spade blanket. I clearly need to read up on baby couture before this one gets here, lest I make the mistake of dressing the poor kid in apparently-declasse Polo or Burberry clothes.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
14 weeks
Happy Valentine's Day!
This week, I am 14 weeks pregnant. Depending on which books you believe, the second trimester starts in either week 13 or 14, so I'm really, truly, officially in my second trimester now! My morning sickness has gotten MUCH better over the last couple of weeks. I'm still very picky about what I eat, and I never know what's going to work for me until I put it in my mouth, but I've drastically cut back on the medication I'm taking, and I'm just generally feeling much better. Jimmy offered to take me out sometime this week for Valentine's day, but I think we're going to wait on that until I can appreciate food a bit more.
I'm still feeling the baby move sporadically. I get an occasional thump or two that is definitely movement, but it's still nothing consistent. One thing that has started much earlier this time is what the experts call "round ligament pain". Basically, as things start to grow, the ligaments holding everything in place have to stretch. Sometimes, they stretch suddenly, like when I get up quickly from a sitting/squatting position. When this happens, it feels like someone has stabbed a knife into my side. Ouch! Fortunately, the pain rarely lasts for long, but it sure is a shock when it happens!
I have another midwife appointment next week. The appointments during this stage of pregnancy tend to be fairly boring: weight check, measure belly, listen to heartbeat, blood pressure, and go home. Hopefully we'll be able to hear the heartbeat with the Doppler this time, since the baby will be bigger. The appointment four weeks after that should be our *big* ultrasound, and we hope to be able to tell if our little pumpkin seed is a boy or a girl!
This week, I am 14 weeks pregnant. Depending on which books you believe, the second trimester starts in either week 13 or 14, so I'm really, truly, officially in my second trimester now! My morning sickness has gotten MUCH better over the last couple of weeks. I'm still very picky about what I eat, and I never know what's going to work for me until I put it in my mouth, but I've drastically cut back on the medication I'm taking, and I'm just generally feeling much better. Jimmy offered to take me out sometime this week for Valentine's day, but I think we're going to wait on that until I can appreciate food a bit more.
I'm still feeling the baby move sporadically. I get an occasional thump or two that is definitely movement, but it's still nothing consistent. One thing that has started much earlier this time is what the experts call "round ligament pain". Basically, as things start to grow, the ligaments holding everything in place have to stretch. Sometimes, they stretch suddenly, like when I get up quickly from a sitting/squatting position. When this happens, it feels like someone has stabbed a knife into my side. Ouch! Fortunately, the pain rarely lasts for long, but it sure is a shock when it happens!
I have another midwife appointment next week. The appointments during this stage of pregnancy tend to be fairly boring: weight check, measure belly, listen to heartbeat, blood pressure, and go home. Hopefully we'll be able to hear the heartbeat with the Doppler this time, since the baby will be bigger. The appointment four weeks after that should be our *big* ultrasound, and we hope to be able to tell if our little pumpkin seed is a boy or a girl!
I love my chiropractor!
The hardest part of pregnancy for me (well, other than the morning sickness!) is sleeping on my side. I'm usually a back sleeper, and I have a really hard time getting comfortable on my side. I have a huge, U-shaped pillow that helps quite a bit. It's enormous and takes up as much space as a whole other person in our bed. I've named it George, and it's actually a vast improvement over the 9 or 10 pillows I used when I was pregnant with Anna, but it still just doesn't make it comfortable to sleep on my side, and I wake up stiff all the time!
So I went to see my chiropractor this morning. For a while, I was doing acupuncture for the morning sickness, too, but since the morning sickness is considerably better these days, I was able to forgo my usual needles. Those were getting really expensive because my insurance didn't cover them! Anyway, the doctor said he could tell that the side sleeping was getting to me, though. My hips were wonky, and he had to crack my neck three times to get all the kinks worked out!
So I got my adjustment, and now I feel great! I wish I had found out about the benefits of chiropractic during pregnancy when I was pregnant with Anna. It seems to make a huge difference, and I'm optimistic that it will help me have a shorter labor this time, since it will help keep my hips in alignment. After my 32-hour labor with Anna, I'll take any version of "shorter labor" that I can get!
So I went to see my chiropractor this morning. For a while, I was doing acupuncture for the morning sickness, too, but since the morning sickness is considerably better these days, I was able to forgo my usual needles. Those were getting really expensive because my insurance didn't cover them! Anyway, the doctor said he could tell that the side sleeping was getting to me, though. My hips were wonky, and he had to crack my neck three times to get all the kinks worked out!
So I got my adjustment, and now I feel great! I wish I had found out about the benefits of chiropractic during pregnancy when I was pregnant with Anna. It seems to make a huge difference, and I'm optimistic that it will help me have a shorter labor this time, since it will help keep my hips in alignment. After my 32-hour labor with Anna, I'll take any version of "shorter labor" that I can get!
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
13 Weeks!
Well, today marks the beginning of my second trimester. Woo-hoo! My morning sickness has gotten progressively better over the last couple of weeks, though I'm still taking medication once a day or so to keep the nausea at bay. All in all, I lost 18 pounds at the beginning this time, but I've gained about 5 back since I've been eating and drinking regularly. That's pretty good, considering I lost 25 and ended up in the hospital when I was pregnant with Anna!
This morning, I felt a couple of pretty strong little thumps in my belly, right around the same place I've been feeling little taps over the last couple of weeks. Baby must be getting bigger and stronger in there! I'm still not really showing, but I've been wearing maternity pants for several weeks because they don't put pressure on my tummy, which tends to rebel against tighter clothing. We definitely do not want a rebellious tummy right now!
According to Babycenter.com, the baby is about the size of a jumbo shrimp this week -- about 3 inches from crown to rump -- and fully formed. So the next 27 weeks or so are all about growing. My chance of miscarriage also reduces drastically around this time, so that's definitely a relief!
This morning, I felt a couple of pretty strong little thumps in my belly, right around the same place I've been feeling little taps over the last couple of weeks. Baby must be getting bigger and stronger in there! I'm still not really showing, but I've been wearing maternity pants for several weeks because they don't put pressure on my tummy, which tends to rebel against tighter clothing. We definitely do not want a rebellious tummy right now!
According to Babycenter.com, the baby is about the size of a jumbo shrimp this week -- about 3 inches from crown to rump -- and fully formed. So the next 27 weeks or so are all about growing. My chance of miscarriage also reduces drastically around this time, so that's definitely a relief!
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