Halfway Through

I'm halfway through the pregnancy this week. Part of me feels recently pregnant and part of me feels like I've been pregnant forever. My belly is growing and I am most certainly looking pregnant these days. I am finding it difficult just to bend down to put on my socks or tie my shoes. My belly doesn't bend the way it used to!

I'm still waiting anxiously to feel the baby move (although I MUST be feeling him move and I'm just not sure what to make of those feelings). I wish there was some way to know for sure whether or not I'm feeling the baby move. Of course, I worry that something is wrong and that things are not going as they should. And I would love to have another ultrasound to confirm that all is okay. But I'm just going to try to relax and go with the flow. I'm not bleeding or having sharp pains and my belly is growing, so I'm sure things are just fine. My husband will most likely buy a stethoscope so that we can listen to the baby's heart beat when we want to do so. I will look forward to that!

As of yesterday, I was 152.0 pounds. That puts me at a 9.5 pound weight gain thus far. I think I'm still on track for gaining a healthy amount of weight.

Yawn...times 3!

I thought that I was supposed to get my energy back in the 2nd trimester. In fact, for a little bit, I thought I was indeed feeling more energetic. But I can't keep it together lately. I'm falling asleep at work. I babble incoherently when I talk to clients. And today, I yawned three times while talking to a client (who noticed and commented on it)! I wonder sometimes how I'm supposed to get through the next 21 weeks.

Is there anyone else out there reading this that is in their second trimester and still ridiculously exhausted?

19 weeks and Fun with Bloating

I'm 19 weeks today and I was 150.5 pounds on the scale (a gain of 8 pounds). I've been feeling pretty good except for some ridiculous bloating that has made eating not very fun. I talked to the nurse about it and she said to follow the following rules:

1. Chew very slowly and relax while eating

2. Avoid sugary foods (but ice cream is okay because it has cream and protein!)

3. Avoid fried foods (which I do anyway because they always hurt my tummy)

4. Eat 6 meals a day instead of 3 males with regular portion sizes. I think this is mostly where I've gone wrong so far.

5. Avoid cabbage and broccoli and other gas-producing veggies (This must be why I've been avoiding salad already)

So I will try and follow her advice, rather than taking an OTC gas medication. I'm not sure it is working though. Today, as of 6 pm, I've had a bowl of cereal with strawberries, a toasted bagel with fake butter and one egg, some cheese and an apple and yep, I'm bloated. And I definitely didn't eat too much.

I still don't think I've felt the baby kick yet. I hope it happens in the next week or two.

I found out today that a high school acquaintance, someone that I swam with, is also pregnant with her first child and is also 19 weeks. Turns out that her official due date is 2 days before mine! How funny is that?!

The husband and I are busy getting prepared for Halloween. We have skull lights lining our front walkway, cobwebs on our bushes and are prepared to carve two pumpkins tomorrow. We also have schloads of candy because we are expecting schloads of kids. In fact, I think I'll stay home from work on the 31st so that I can see all of the trick-or-treaters, including the ones that come by early, when it is still kind of light outside. Man, I love Halloween. I love Thanksgiving more though. ;-)

It's a boy!

It's a boy! How exciting!

The sonographer said, "It's a boy! Wait, now I'm not sure. Oh man, I don't know what the heck it is." Five minutes later, the sonographer said, "It's a boy! Oh...well...I'm still not sure." But finally, after another 10 minutes, he said he was 95% sure it was a boy! My husband kept asking, "What's that between his legs?" Answer, "that's his feet." 5 minutes passes, "What's that between his legs?" Answer, "that's the umbilical cord."

This baby was not being cooperative. He was all curled up and facing my back. He appeared completely uninterested in giving us a nice profile shot. At one point he looked right up at us and blinked and that was both cool and slightly scary! He still looks quite like a skeleton.

But we saw 4 chambers of the heart, the cerebellum, 2 kidneys, the liver, measured the length of the femur and humerus, and saw 10 fingers and 10 toes. The sonographer said that the baby, at this stage, was "perfect." The head is measuring a little bit on the big side compared to the rest of his body. As if I didn't fear childbirth enough!!!!

I can't wait!!!

Tomorrow morning, we are having the level 2 ultrasound. I cannot WAIT to find out the sex of this baby. My husband still thinks boy (for no reason whatsoever). I used to think very strongly that it was a boy, but now I have no idea whatsoever! My sister is hoping for a boy so that she can give me more boy hand-me-downs. My mom thinks girl (because of 150 heart rate). My friend Lynn thinks boy (because of 150 heart rate). My secretary thinks it's a girl. My in-laws say they will love it no matter what. I just want to know. We already have such a wonderful name picked out for a girl. But if it's a boy, we'll just have to think harder!!!

Meet the Midwives

Tonight, my husband and I went to Brigham and Women's Hospital to "Meet the Midwives" of the Harvard Vanguard practice. It was really useful and I feel even more strongly that I will pick a midwife to attend my labor and delivery rather than a doctor. I am happy that the doctors will be right there in the hospital if I need them. But I like the statistic that only 10% of the midwives' cases need a C-section, but 33% of cases hospital-wide get C-sections. And I found out that 70% of the midwives' patients choose to use epidurals and so I'm not forced into a natural birth just to use a midwife. All of the midwives seemed so knowledgeable and kind and I think I will be in very good hands.

Now I need to decide whether to have my mother in the labor and delivery room in addition to my husband. If she isn't there with me, she can't otherwise "visit" as visiting hours are only from 1 pm to 8 pm. But I'm not sure if her presence will be helpful or not. I'll have to think about this one.

Results of Serial Sequential Screening!

Yeah! I am very excited to report good news from my serial sequential screening. Based on the nuchal fold translucency ultrasound and 2 different blood tests at different times, we saw the following change in statistics:

Risk of Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21) went from 1:330 to 1:4,600.

Risk of Trisomy 18 went from 1:3300 to less than 1:10,000

Risk of neural tube defects went from 1:900 to less than 1:10,000.

So these are great results and there is no way I'm risking a miscarriage to have an amniocentesis at this point. Today, I will be excited to hear the baby's heartbeat during my appointment with the midwife and I'm still super excited about Friday's Level 2 Ultrasound.

17 weeks

I am just over 17 weeks pregnant now and I can tell that I'm really starting to look pregnant. It's pretty exciting stuff! I was 150.5 pounds on the scale this morning (up 8.5 pounds) and so clearly something is growing in there! I am getting very very very excited for our Level 2 ultrasound this Friday. We will be able to find out whether this little alien is a boy or a girl. A bunch of people now think I'm having a girl. I was pretty sure it was a boy before, but now I'm starting to doubt that conviction. Soon we will know!

I mowed the lawn again this past weekend. The mowing part is quite easy (given that we have a self-propelled mower). But I'm glad that winter is coming because I'm really having a hard time now bending down to lift the mower and clean out the gross ickiness that is clogging the blade. And picking up the piles of wet grass and hauling the garbage bags around really exhausts me. My hips and ankles are starting to bother me. I guess that comes with having looser joints.

So far, this pregnancy has been fairly ideal. The only thing that has caused me concern recently is waking up at 4 am three nights ago with horrendous cramps. The cramps made me so uncomfortable that I actually went to the bathroom to look to see if I was bleeding. But nothing was happening and the cramps subsided after about 15 minutes. I will ask my midwife about this when I see her this Thursday. I'm hoping it's "normal" but my mother doesn't remember feeling cramps like that.

I *think* I may have felt the baby last night when having dinner at my in-laws. But it didn't really feel how people have explained the feeling. It actually felt more crampy to me than movement. But I didn't have gas and I do I don't know how else to explain the feeling. It was fairly low down and right above my pelvic area. It will be nice to eventually be able to say, "I'm sure that was the baby kicking!"