Thursday

I got crafty/techy and posted the tickers are the top of the blog page; I think they are fun and I hope you all enjoy them.

Long week, but it is finally Thursday and I get my fun updates. The one website talks about how the baby now has fingerprints and its head isn’t as huge in comparison to its body as its body starts to grow. He/she is also able to hear and react to sound and encourages me and baby-daddy to talk to it. He/she has also started to develop vocal cords and can respond in such a way to noises. He/she is the size of a peach or a large shrimp – they don’t seem comparable in my book, but whatever works.

Also the vomiting is starting to teeter off, and I’m sure you are all sick of hearing about it as I’m sick of writing about it. I still do so every morning, but I’m better immediately afterwards, where it use to last all day. I did get pain killers for my headaches and haven’t needed to take them, but am glad I have them just in case.

Supposedly this thirteenth week is the actual last week of the first trimester, so after this week I will be in the relatively blissful state of my pregnancy. Here’s hopin’!

Bella Band

Well I thought I would post something about the Bella Band for those of you who don't know exactly what it is and for those of you who might be able to provide me with advice -- my trials and tribulations...

The Bella Band is basically a big cylindrical piece of fabric that goes from right below your breast to just below your butt, if you want it to. You can scrunch it up if you don't need it to go that far. You can get different colors and patterns and wear it below your shirts for a layer affect too. The gist is you're able to wear your normal pants, leave them unbuttoned or unzipped, and put the Bella Band over your pants/under your shirt to keep your pants up. *this is not my belly*


I ordered two from http://www.amazon.com/ one in black and one in white. It cost me about $30 for both and I thought it was a valuable investment. I started sporting them this week because when I zip up my pants the tightness in my belly causes me to vomit and I'm trying to avoid that. Yesterday was my second day wearing the white one and I think it was a little stretched out, I also think it's a looser fit then the black one.

Today I've got the black one on, tighter pants, and a longer shirt -- all which seem to be a good combination for successful use of the Bella Band. My body is interesting proportions with a long torso and a high waist, so things are always somewhat challenging to fit on me. The point for now is to "look as normal as possible" so nobody at work catches on for a few more weeks.

I broke down and ordered some maternity shirts on http://www.oldnavy.com/ I did have a 15% off coupon so it was justified. They are longer than normal shirts and I have a feeling my long torso and I will really like the fit.

Changes... Second Trimester Begins

I can’t explain all the things that are changing with my body, but there are for sure changes going on! I am tired more often and sleep hard. I pee a lot more and that has actually started to ease up a bit which means my uterus is starting to move up and out of my pelvic and not resting on my bladder anymore. My hip joints are starting to ache like crazy and I'm missing my Advil for sure! I am still queasy and don’t feel like eating much and I still get sick in the mornings--those two things are not fun at all. I’m giving it another week and then might need to get meds.

Though I have lost 8.5lbs my pants are starting to feel really uncomfortable. I am sporting the Bella Band today and don’t know if I’m too fond of it. I feel like my pants are too loose now. But, I’m not going to spend the money yet on maternity pants, as I feel I’m going to need them more in the future, and I’m not about to buy a size bigger in regular pants so I feel better, the Bella Band will have to work for now. I guess I need to buy longer shirts.

I’ve been getting headaches more these past week, as I use to get them prior to the pregnancy – and didn’t get them much in the first trimester, but I think I am at the point were I’m going to call my doctor and see what else I can take besides Tylenol, its not cutting it! I’m really trying not to be one of those typical novice pregnant women asking questions every five minutes, but I’m going to have to break down if it involves my wellbeing.

I don’t think I’m showing per say, do to the fact I had my fair share of midsection fluff prior to this, but I’m to the point were I can no longer suck the fluff in… kind of fun, will take a belly pic and post soon!

Nothing too exciting, but there were somethings I wanted to share… Also I wanted to let those of you who are reading my blog know that I’m not going to be posting anything on Facebook until my school year is over, which will be June 4th. For reasons that are silly, but still personal enough to think this way. So we won’t be going "Facebook Official" until then.

Side notes: I’m currently in love with the Coke I am drinking. I have been really good through the first trimester and I was feeling beat today, so I grabbed myself a Coke and I love it. Promise not to do this too often. AND Explorer payments are going to be even less than we thought! Wonderful news.

Thursday and a Dr Visit!

So today was a double good Thursday! I got my email updates which the big thing this week is reflexes and the little person is about the size of a plum, 2 inches long head to rump.

But the best part of today was my doctor’s visit. I have been trying to get in and see my doctor since last Tuesday for my first official appointment. There have been numerous babies born and that has kept me from getting in to see her. I wasn’t complaining, I would want her there for my birth. So luckily I had taken today and tomorrow off and they were able to get me in.
I did as a good patient should and drank a glass of water on the way there so my bladder would be full for my urine sample. I checked in, peed in the cup, and found a good People magazine to read. When Nurse Dawn called for me we did my blood pressure, a solid 128/80 and my weight (I’ve managed to lose 8.5lbs) I explained I wasn't keeping much down.

A little more waiting and then the doctor came in. She asked how I was and told me I no longer needed to take the progesterone, which might help with the nausea, and if I don’t have any luck in the next week to call and she will give me medication for that (this week has been a rough week with the vomiting).

Then came the fun stuff, the Doppler. I lowered my draws and she slathered my belly up and started searching for that little guy/gal. She didn’t find anything off the bat and told me that was normal this early in the game. She could hear movement and a slight heartbeat but wanted to double check me on the ultrasound! Oh excitement, I hadn’t been expecting to see it again so soon!

So into the US room with more goo on my belly and a big computer screen staring me in the face. Again had to do a little searching, I have a tilted uterus…. And pop there he/she was again, and this time it totally looked like a human. He/she was still sitting rather low in my pelvis which is why it was hard to find the heartbeat. The best part was every time the doctor would find him/her it would jump, literally! We were laughing so hard, I had to turn my head so I wouldn’t laugh so she could get a good reading.

A great end to a tough week!



The scan doesn’t look like much, but the baby's little head is bottom mid-right and it's belly is just to the left of that, there is a small arm/hand just above the belly.

Thursday

Well he/she's the size of a fig, this seems quite a lot larger than last week... explains the cramping and stretching pains I'm getting my uterus I bet!

BeBe's finger's aren't webbed anymore and he/she has skin, the beginnings of fingernails, and tooth buds. Expected to grow three times its length in the next three weeks. Gosh!

I have received a great book from my dear friend and experienced mother, Julie. Julie and Paul also got us a Cardinals bib, towels, and washclothes! Also got fun Mother's Day as you wait cards from friends and family and a fun first trimester kit full of bubble bath, Tums, and lotions from Heather.

I also found out I'm a week difference from my friend Luci and we are having fun sharing info back and forth about how we are feeling. She's a week ahead and is informing me what to expect, she's also a nurse so I'm going to be hitting her up with medical questions!

I am feeling a lot better and have been able to have three meals a day for the last three days, and the vomiting has subsided. I see my doctor next Tuesday to hear the heart beat again (I think I love this more than the ultrasounds!) and to check my weight, blood pressure and urine.

Just haven't met you yet

Just haven't met you yet.

Driving to work this morning, it was about 10:00, so all the morning DJ's were off and it was a transition phase, they play the most and the best music at this time of the day. The song "Just Haven't Met you Yet" by Michael Buble came on. I realize he is singing about finding his love some day, but every other lyric that I listen to I started to relate more and more to it as a mother to be. I thought it was perfect, at lunch over Noodles & Co. Michael agreed this is our anthem for the next six and a half months.... Brings tears to my eyes now. I love to look at it like this.... Enjoy.

And I know someday that it'll all turn out
You'll make me work, so we can work to work it out
And I promise you, kid, that I give so much more than I get
I just haven't met you yet

I might have to wait, I'll never give up
I guess it's half timing, and the other half's luck
Wherever you are, whenever it's right
You'll come out of nowhere and into my life

And I know that we can be so amazing
And, baby, your love is gonna change me
And now I can see every possibility

And somehow I know that it'll all turn out
You'll make me work, so we can work to work it out
And I promise you, kid, I give so much more than I get
I just haven't met you yet

They say all's fair
In love and war
But I won't need to fight it
We'll get it right and we'll be united

And I know that we can be so amazing
And being in your life is gonna change me
And now I can see every single possibility

And someday I know it'll all turn out
And I'll work to work it out
Promise you, kid, I'll give more than I get
Than I get, than I get, than I get

Oh, you know it'll all turn out
And you'll make me work so we can work to work it out
And I promise you kid to give so much more than I get
Yeah, I just haven't met you yet

I just haven't met you yet
Oh, promise you, kid
To give so much more than I get

I said love, love, love, love
Love, love, love, love(I just haven't met you yet)
Love, love, love, love

Love, love
I just haven't met you yet

Becoming a Daddy

Well Michael did it. Traded in his truck for a 2004 Ford Explorer.

We are saving money and now have room for a car seat.

Oh how I love that man.

Thursdays!

Will I’d like to apologize to my future child and the few readers I have I missed my first Thursday post!
Yesterday was Thursday, a big day in the weeks of my gestation, and I missed it. I say this because when I first found out I was pregnant I created a profile on www.babycenter.com and through minimal calculations they determined the beginning of my gestational weeks were Thursdays! So since then I get wonderful emails from them outlining the progress of my fetus and what I might be feeling as a pregnant lady. I was excited to share the news with everyone, and already to make Thursday post something special and something to look forward to, but it was a totally shoot crap of a day.

The most vomiting I’ve had all pregnancy, all day exhaustion like no other, and shortness of breath (to be looked at further as possible adult onset asthma, triggered by hormone changes – WHO KNEW!!) Not a pleasant way to start off my Thursday post, but I wanted to get them started!

Kumquat! Every week www.babycenter.com compares the growing baby to a food of some sort, something my mom, Michael and I have all found rather humorous and stuck with. This little guy/gal has been everything from a blubbery to his/her current oh none other than a Kumquat! (Admittedly I didn't know what I kumquat was, but Michael informed me it's like a large orange grape). Its fingernails have started to grow and "peach fuzz" is noticeable.
The email also suggest this is about the time you would first hear the heart beat, however, Michael and I got to here that April 12!

Hope you enjoyed my first Thursday post!

Occuption?

New City – Three years ago I dropped everything and went back to school on a mission for a teaching certificate, and got my Masters in the process. Since graduation last year I have been looking for a teaching position and am still actively looking.

Through the strong coaxing of my mom, I have slowed the looking every since I found out I was pregnant. You see New City pays 100% of my health benefits and 50% of any spouse or dependent To add on to that I also get six weeks PAID maternity leave, something that isn’t every common now-a-days. Not to mention, my boss, is very caring towards her employees, especially pregnant female employees. So I have no doubt she would be rather understanding when all of this comes full swing.

The draw back – I make less money than I have at any professional job post graduation than I ever have and ever hope to! I have my masters and an internal struggle that I’m not getting what I’m worth...I’m not! So through my mom’s coaxing and Michael encouraging me to find a job that makes more money I have recently applied for two very promising positions.

One of the positions I found on MOREAP, the website that caters to teachers looking for jobs or anyone looking for a job in mostly public school systems, the jobs is a high school position at Fort Zumwalt, starting salary at least $12,000 more than what I’m making now. The second position isn’t fully opened yet, but my cooperating teacher called me about it and told me to send my resume to the HR head of City of St. Charles School District, again $10,000 pay increase. All those pay increases may sound like a lot, but I actually don’t make a lot at all, so those thousands of dollars will just bring me up to speed with the rest of the working world.

Struggle – it’s hard enough to talk to the nurses and office staff about what my current insurance will take and cover during this processes and the intimidation of switching to a new job and potentially new insurance is daunting! But my big pictures is simply this – if I’m making that much more in my salary I can get over the shit I’m going to have to deal with insurance...right?

A Scare

We first found out we were having a baby on a Tuesday morning. My normal Aunt Flow visit, if you will, is usually the second to last Thursday of the month until the last Tuesday of the month (I know this because we were attempting to start a family and you keep charts of this stuff).

So the last Tuesday of March rolled around and I hadn’t gotten my visit. Monday night prior, I bought the cheapest at home pregnancy test I could find (those things can run an upwards of $30) either you are or you aren’t, is how I see it. So Tuesday morning I jumped out of bed and held my pee for what seemed like way to long trying to tear open the package and read the directions. So I do my thing: 10 seconds, mid stream, and wait. It was still early so when the second little window started to turn from a minus sign to a plus sign I had to rub my eyes and blink a few times.

Michael and I literally rolled around in bed, kicking our heels to the ceiling, I couldn’t believe it. Grins and giggles and fun texts messages all day about being a mom and dad were exchanged. We had lunch and giggled some more!

I called the doctor’s office Tuesday morning after we found out. They told me they would be able to get me in April 21, about three weeks from that point, but that I was suppose to get blood work done tomorrow morning so they could double check the pee test.

Wednesday morning before work I went and got blood work done and headed off to work, the day again was filled with giggles and fun text exchanges. But the drive home was a different story. I started to feel a very dull cramp in my lower right side and every bump I hit in the road made it worst. I got home and Michael was making dinner and something started not to feel right. I used the bathroom and noticed a lot of bleeding, something that’s not normal for a pregnant woman. So I sighed and told Michael we might have got our hopes up too quickly. I got extremely tired that night and called it an early night.

I called my doctor the next morning and explained to her that I must have got a false positive. “Nope, you’re blood work came back full fledge pregnant, you need to come in right away.” WHAT! Are you kidding me, I had already excepted the fact this wasn’t going to happen and she tells me that things must just be out of whack and they need to get things back into whack. So with the doctor’s visit and the subsided bleeding it was determined that I have low levels of the hormone Progesterone, everything else was headed in the right direction for making this little seed into a baby.

Low Progesterone levels will cause the lining of the uterus to become week and bleeding during pregnancy is a common side effect of these low levels. This has to be kept under control or it could turn into something worst. The doctor has put me on prescription bio-identical Progesterone call Prometrium (more to come on my love of Prometrium) for my first trimester. Since then things have been going smoothly.

The Aviator

When Michael and I first moved in with each other we were paying $500 a month in rent and the only expense we were paying on were student loans and a credit card I’d taken out in college. Life was good.

In June of 2006 we had a bad storm go though town and all the car dealers were advertising “hale damaged deals”. So Michael who was driving around his grandpa’s purple Ford Probe got the idea it was time for him to get a new truck, rightly so. Long story short, we didn’t get the $14000 hale damaged one, but the truck that was twice that much. Looking at our life style at the time it doesn’t surprise me. We could afford the payments and he needed the hauling power.

Well then life happened. We decided to buy a house in the blink of an eye; one of those “it’s a good deal, how could we pass this up” thing. I quit my job and went back to school. And my poor dear husband got laid off twice in less than two years. You do what you can when things don’t go as planned which means taking our more credit cards, borrowing money from family, that you still haven’t been able to pay off, home equity loans, and defer student loans.

I had begged him to try to sell the truck for sometime now, with no luck. I saw it as the quickest way to save money and a pretty big chunk of it monthly. Well for whatever reason, manliness, pride, etc. he held on to and we worked around it.

Early February we “pulled the goalie” on the contraceptives and went for it, so it was late March when I first took a pregnancy test that showed us that awesome little plus sign. Since then, Michael has been doing all in his power to trade in the truck, sell the truck, and/or somehow drop the payments, and get a more family friendly vehicle. I’m impressed. He was going to purchase a Lincoln Aviator, with monthly payments half of what we were paying the other day, and all I said was that I trust him. So far we still have the big hunk of fuel sucking metal in our driveway, but I feel we’re heading in the right direction. He’s doing what he can to become a dad and that is something I feel honored to witness.

Morning Sickness

Well thankfully I'm already 9 weeks pregnant. I say thankfully because I have been suffering through morning sickness since about week 6 and I'm told relief will come at the end of my 12 weeks/first trimester. I hate to make this my first blog entry, but honestly it's all I think, do, sleep, and eat/don't eat these days...

I will lie in bed in the mornings dreading getting up knowing it will trigger some sort of a gag. I get pissed at myself and in an almost daring way tell myself to throw something up. I know I haven't eaten in the last 12 hours, nothing's coming up. So needless to say I sit on the side of the bed and heave for a while until I can move enough to get up.

Michael is sweet and feeds the dog, a smell I usually can't stand even sans pregnancy, while I'm frantically, in a very lethargic way, opening the winds in the house. Such a romantic life we lead. God bless Michael.

If I can get something down for breakfast and I usually try to, I may have a muffin, banana, or cereal. This morning I had a bagel, my mom has been suggesting toast, and gets upset when I tell her I ate something other than toast in the morning, so hopefully the bagel will suffice the opinionated MeMa-to-be. Which in all reality she "probably" (she does) knows what she’s talking about. She informed me of a god-sent remedy she used for her queasiness during pregnancy; Cheez-Its – and goodness are they ever, would cure a pregnant horse in my opinion.

For the most part this feeling will last all day (7-4:30) and by the time dinner rolls around I’m starving as all I’ve eaten is Cheez-Its. Though this is all more than inconvenient, for the time being, I thank God and Mother Nature what seems to be hourly for letting me experience this miracle.