15 Week, 3 day word vomit

Blah.  That's how I feel today.  I know, "Shut up you're pregnant!" you're all screaming.  I get it.  Still this is my blog and I will complain if I want to.  I don't even really have much to complain about.  I just had a slightly uncomfortable afternoon/evening yesterday (my lunch just did not sit well with me) and then I sneezed in the middle of the night after returning from my nightly bathroom visit and it fucking hurt!!!  I think because I was lying on my side and my abs weren't able to engage or something but that sneeze was a mutha fucka!  Okay I realize you are about to delete me for complaining about a sneeze.  This morning when I woke up I just felt so tired and my belly was just uncomfortable.  Not crampy but just a slight pressure and general aching with all my ligaments stretching and my organs getting pushed up and squished.  Doing the simplest activities like walking up stairs makes me feel winded.  Really for no reason it made me weepy and I almost cried while driving to work.  I sucked it up though.  I know that what I'm experiencing is next to nothing and I think it was mostly just all mental. 

What else.  I bought expensive Burt's Bees Mama Belly lotion to try and prevent the impending stretch marks and it gave me a lovely rash all over my belly.  So, rash or stretch marks?

 I was granted permission to sign up for birth classes with this birthing class guru lady even though the last class is 2 days after my due date and they want you to finish the class 2-5 weeks before that.  I can't attend the earlier session because of work.  As it is I have to get a sub for my last dance classes (the last classes before their end of the year recital!) to be able to go to the first class.  So I am barely squeezing in birth classes.  They were actually really nice and told me that the last class is a breast feeding class and I can go to the earlier session's breast feeding class but unfortunately I can't miss the last two Tues. of classes before recital.  So I am just hoping little miss decides to come a few days late.

Every couple of days I use my fetal doppler and check up on Hazy (that is her official nickname...unless we make a last minute decision when she's born).  Her HB is so much easier to find now.  She is always just a little off to the right way down by my pubic bone.  It astounds me that she is still way down there where it's still relatively flat territory while the rest of my belly has exploded like a balloon with all my displaced organs.  It's weird.  Anyway Hazy's HB is usually around 150 and it always makes me happy to hear it.  It's a little reality check because even though my belly is growing it is still an abstract idea to me that there is a real live baby inside me.  I can't wait until I can feel her moving.

Should we talk about poop?  Lets!  Pooping has gotten weird.  I am pretty sure it's mostly my Iron supplements that I have to take.  My midwife did blood work and I'm anemic.  The Iron turns my shit almost black and tends to constipate people.  I am having fairly regular BMs but I am always really excited if I feel like it was an especially large one or if it happened without much effort.  When I do have to make a BM it's way more urgent then it used to be.  Not like I'm gonna shit my pants (yet) but like I gotta find a bathroom and take care of business asap, I can't wait til I get home.  Ok, we can stop talking about my shit now.  

We officially kicked my pup out of bed :(  Sad because she is the BEST cuddler and is so warm and soft.  But she insists on sleeping between me and B usually with her head tucked under a chin or buried in an armpit and inevitably her paws end up in someones back.  And she has to be under the covers.  Total cock blocker.  She overheats a couple times a night and switches to on top of the covers down by our feet but then cries to get back under the covers 45 min later.  So sleep is disrupted and when Hazy arrives I can't have my dog trampling her while we are asleep!  Also I know our sleep will be a thousand times more precious than it is now and we can't have our dog making things worse.    The last two nights she slept on her dog bed on the floor next to ours and it's gone surprisingly well.  Our old dog is a lost cause.  She still cries to jump up and get under the covers in the middle of the night but at least she always sleeps at B's feet.  She also wakes B up once a night to go outside and poop.  There's really nothing we can do about that so I think that will be daddy diaper changing time, ha ha!

I am going to have to mediate between my mother and my sister over my effing baby shower.  My sister is a total pinterest, crafty, baker type and threw my bachelorette party and my surprise 30th birthday party.  So it was natural that as soon as I told her I was pregnant she would start planning my shower.  She also lives in the same city as me.  My mother, who does not live in the same city but lives 3 hrs away, has now lamented twice to me about how she feels sad that she can't throw me a baby shower.  I have told her that she can co host the shower with my sister and I have no preference over who is involved but she needed to talk to my sister about it because I knew my sister was already making plans.  My mother claims that she has tried to text and call her but my sister ignores her.  Sigh.  So my sister just texted me today wondering if we can hang out on Sat and talk about the baby shower so I am going to have to tell her to make my mother feel included.   All I truly care about is I want there to be donuts and mimosas and I will be having both! 

One week from tomorrow is my 2nd midwife appt.  I am sure it will be anticlimactic but I am looking forward to it!

At this point I have told all the people I work for that I am pregnant.  I am pretty sure I have told everyone who I think should hear it come out of my mouth so all that's left is the FB announcement.  B is anxious to do one so that all his peripheral friends know about it.  I am still dragging my feet.  Once it's out there it's out there.  I feel like who gives a shit if all those people know that we are having a baby?  If they don't know it's because they obviously aren't close enough friends to have seen or talked to us in the last 4 months so how important can they be?  But I have told him we can make an announcement after our midwife appt. next week.

I guess that's all for now!   I'll leave you with a picture of my pup, she likes to lie in front of the heat vent until she is roasting hot and panting.  So cute!

 

Hallelujah, thank you sweet baby Jesus!

Last night while I was walking through a crowded parking lot with my hands full of heavy shopping bags filled with maternity pants and a few cute gender neutral baby clothes (first that I've bought!) I saw I had a missed call so I checked my voice mail and it was from my nurse at the fertility clinic.  I was at first confused if it was an old voice mail and by the time I realized that it wasn't she was already leaving a message saying that our genetics test came back and it was all negative which means the baby is healthy and normal!  I was of course very relieved but hung up before the message was over because the genetics test was also going to reveal the gender of our baby and I didn't want to find out in a parking lot by myself without my husband!  I had a couple more errands to run before I could head home so I booked it like crazy so I could get home and listen to the rest of the message on speaker phone with B. 

By the time I got home B was waiting anxiously for me because I had texted him the results of the genetics test to let him know all was good and that hopefully in a few minutes we could find out the gender together.  We sat down and I dialed my voice mail and hit speaker phone to listen to the whole message this time.  ....very anticlimactic.  My nurse only gave the genetics results and then said to call her if we had any questions.  We were both disappointed.  We decided to call the clinic in the morning even though it was Sunday.  I figured there would be a nurse there who could just get our file and read us the gender results. 

So about 20 minutes after waking up this morning, while still lying in bed, I called the clinic and told the answering service to have a nurse call me back to talk about my test results.  Low and behold MY nurse called me back a few minutes later!  She just happened to be working a random Sunday.  I told her we wanted to know the gender and asked if I could put her on speaker phone so we could find out together.  She of course said yes.  I put her on speaker and told her we were ready.  She asked if we had names picked out and I told her we have our girl name locked in but are still fighting over the boy names.  She said "well good news (I gasped, maybe shrieked, and burst into tears) you are having a GIRL!!!!"  I started screaming and continued to cry while giving B a wide eyed, mouth gaping open in shock, "I can't believe it!" look. 

So we are having a girl...I can't believe how excited (yes I can) and elated I am!  I have had a shit eating grin on my face all day.  I started texting and calling all my family and close friends immediately.  It fun to tell people when my excitement is still super fresh, unlike how we have been telling people that I'm pregnant.  Not that it isn't exciting to tell people that I'm pregnant but that has happened gradually and so much more cautiously.  There are still a lot of people who don't have any idea that I am pregnant!  We have yet to make an announcement on the dreaded facebook.  I am waiting until after my next midwife appointment.  

We called my mother in-law first because I knew how excited she would be to know we are having a girl.  She had two boys and my brother in-law has two boys.  My husbands side of the family always has boys.  I have broken the streak!  She of course cried.  I had to force my mom to get on the phone so I could tell her.  She didn't want to know until the birth but it was very unrealistic that she wouldn't find out by accident since EVERYONE else will know.  I finally convinced her that she would just find out from someone else and be mad so she might as well hear it from me.  She hates boys (lucky for her she had 5 daughters and no sons!) so she was happy. 

I feel like we hit the jackpot.  I have always wanted to have a daughter.  I would love to have a boy also but if I never had a daughter I would feel sad.  I am relieved to be having a girl this time around so next time it wont even matter and I can relax about it.  It's so strange to think that exactly two months ago we found out we were pregnant and now we know it's a girl.  I feel like my heart is going to burst and I will die of happiness.  How quickly things change.  And that is something I should remember before I get too cocky and self congratulatory.  How quickly things change.  But right now I am happy, oh so happy!


(I am posting a new bump pic if you are interested in seeing how fat I have gotten)

Tri-2 Club and beastliality

It's official.  I am done with the first trimester and now a member of the Tri-2 Club.  Yup, I just made that up.  Seriously I am still shocked that I am pregnant.  Even my expanding belly doesn't really help it to sink in.  The only time I feel like this is real is when I am having an US and the Dr. is confirming that there's a heartbeat, everything looks good and I can see it wiggle around.  Also when I hear the heartbeat.  The rest of the time it's like I am just pretending that I am pregnant.

This is how I celebrated the end of the first trimester and the beginning of the 13th week.  

1)  Bought new maternity pants at target and a maternity shirt.  I kinda hate both of them but they are not hand me downs, they are mine.

2)  Treated myself to a glass of wine in front of a nice fire.  Don't judge me.  This is the first drink I have had since a full week before I knew for sure I was pregnant.  I am choosing to follow the European guidelines for drinking during pregnancy which is 2 drinks per week.  I don't even plan on having one drink per week.  I will just treat myself to one glass of wine every once in a while when I want to.  In case you wanted to know I also haven't smoked any weed at all.  No plans of doing that for the time being.  I'm more inclined to eat an edible than smoke but that's another story.  Let me remind you that where I live it's now legal so put that self righteousness in your pipe and smoke it!

3)  I bought the Sonoline B Fetal Doppler and it should arrive in 3-8 days.  Mad at myself that I didn't order it sooner. 

4)  I painted my nails a very pretty light shell pink and it makes me happy to look at them. 

5)  I ate peanut butter chocolate ice cream.  It was perfect.

Earlier this last week I did the blood draw for the Panorama Genetics tests.  It tells you within 98% accuracy if your baby has a horrible chromosomal disorder like downs or whatever the various other ones are where your baby doesn't live past 3 months.  Horrible.  One of the perks is we also get to find out the gender!  So in about 2 1/2 weeks we will know if our baby is healthy and we will know what we are having.  I equally cannot wait and am super anxious.  It's so hard to not have any control over the outcome.

I will leave you with my latest pregnancy dream.  It's a good one.  And by that I mean disturbing in a beastliality sense.  So in my dream I am breastfeeding my dog.  And I'm cool with it.  I am still pregnant and I know that breastfeeding my dog is only temporary until the baby arrives but hey, I'm lactating and I might as well, ya know?  But then I start to worry that I am wasting all the "good" milk on the dog.  You know how when you first start breastfeeding your milk is filled with colostrum that gives the baby antibodies to protect it from diseases and germs?  Well my concern with the situation was not that I was putting my nipple in my dogs mouth and encouraging her to suckle but that she was stealing all the colostrum.  I guess the pregnancy dreams are starting.

Okay, good night.  And please don't report me to PETA.  

Really boring post about my diet and budget...I apologize.

Ugh,  I have to go back to work this week.  I had a week off during Christmas and then a light work week last week.  I had a three day weekend but now tomorrow it's back to all of my jobs.  Fuck.  I am constantly wanting more time off but then when I have the time off I realize that I don't have any money so it's probably a good thing that I will start bringing in the cheddar again. 

Hmmm, what the hell have I been doing that I can pretend is interesting enough to tell you?  Sorry, going with bullet points.

1)  Today I hit the 12 week mark!  I know I need to get through this week before I am officially out of the first trimester but it's so close I can taste it!  

2) Had my first official midwife appt. on Fri.  Still really like her.  I met the student midwife and she also is really nice.  I was there for about an hour while they went over my health history and talked to me about everything from water intake and nutrition to weather or not I would be breastfeeding and how I was feeling emotionally.  The best part was hearing the heartbeat!  Except I really couldn't hear it very well but the midwives were happy with what they heard so I am taking their word for it.  I still need to order the doppler so I can do it at home....I wont get to hear the heartbeat again until my next appt in a MONTH!  So far away from now.  No planned US either.  I think the next time I have an US is the 20 week anatomy scan!  It will be absolutely insane to see how much the baby actually looks like a baby by that point. 

Based on that conversation I have recommitted myself to drink more water and to try to monitor it.  My sister got a three pack of water bottles from costco over xmas and gave me one of them.  They have measurements on the side so it will be easy to track and honestly if I carry around a water bottle I am much better and drinking it!  

God this is boring.  Sorry.

They also talked to me about getting enough protein.  I am a vegetarian so it's actually pretty hard to get the 60 grams of protein they want me to get each day.  Normally I just eat what I want and don't every really pay attention to how much protein or iron are in what I'm eating.  I have discovered that it's really fucking challenging for me to manage to eat 60 grams.  Yesterday I only made it to about 45 grams and I was really trying.  Today I am doing better, I'm at actually over 60 grams and I have a protein packed dinner planned for later.  Phew!  What's so tricky about it is I don't eat meat and while I eat soy I am trying to not eat too much soy because of my suspected endometriosis.  A lot of fake meat products have a good amount of protein but A) are usually made with soy and B) are usually very processed which I am also trying to stay away from.  This is what I ate today to achieve 66 grams so far:

Non fat Greek yogurt with granola and blueberries =15 grams
Two eggs with cheese and 4 fake sausages and 8oz of milk = 40 grams (roughly...guestimated the cheese)
Apple with peanut butter = 5 grams
1 wax covered cheese = 6 grams
Dinner will be a bean, rice and cheese burrito with fake ground beef crumbles.  So I will probably hit the 75 gram mark by tonight!  Woo hoo!  (I have noticed the lack of vegetable intake and will be pairing my burrito with a giant salad.) 

It was exhausting though.  And then I have to do it all again tomorrow, sigh.

My midwife also drew my blood and had me pee in a cup to retest me for all the STDs and iron levels.  I had been tested for all the STDs way back when we first started TTCing but guess what?  They are now out of date. 

3)  I made a budget.  This is a big deal because I have never really made a budget for myself before.  Of course I've had savings goals but I've never taken a hard look at my income and where it all goes.  I pretty much know where it all goes because I don't really make that much money so there really isn't a lot to track.  I have rent, bills, student loans, dog expenses, food, gas/car maintenance and that's about it.  There is usually enough for me to cover everything and I am able to save a little bit each month but some months are way tighter than others and I generally just buy what I want when I want or need it.  

I made a budget at mint.com and it really helps me to see it all laid out.  Duh, right?  Yes I'm fucking 32 and just now finally getting my shit together!  So what?  Anyway, I created a savings plan for when the baby comes and I'm on maternity leave (I have zero benefits at all of my jobs) and just for fun I created a savings plan for going back to Hawaii.  In 2016.  I was horrified to learn that in the month of Dec. I spent over $700 dollars on groceries.  For just me.  B buys his own groceries.  There is definitely some cross over when we plan a meal together but for the most part I buy my food and he buys his.  700 fucking dollars!!!  Needless to say I set my grocery budget at $400 for the month so I can only spend $100 per week.  I spent $100 this weekend at the grocery store so now I CANNOT go back to the store until next weekend, gulp!  Not sure if I will make it but I will try. 

I also forced B to come up with a goal that he can save before the baby comes.  We actually came up with the same number so if all goes as planned (I anticipate it wont) we will each save a matching amount.  If we do actually manage to hit both our goals I think we can swing a trip to Hawaii in summer of 2015 for baby's first birthday!  :)  That would be sweet.  And would force me to get my ass back in shape. 

4)  I have gone on two run/walks since hitting the 11 week mark.  I want to get back into a regular exercise/cardio routine.  I was really too paranoid during the first trimester especially with the spotting and I slacked hard core.  Besides walking my dogs every day I really have done nothing.  I plan on doing my run/walk 3 times per week and adding in taking ballet barre every sat.  Also my boss at my Pilates studio wants to teach some of the instructors a barre class where we will get credit to put towards workshops (which we have to take to keep our certification current) so I will get some free classes on sundays for a while.  I am also planning on trying to find a prenatal yoga class that fits into my schedule. 

5)  I am finally going to post some bump pics.  I am adding a page for them so if you don't want to see them you don't have to. 

Okay, that is all for now.  Sorry to such a boring pregnant freak.