Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Woo, new territory!

Today marks 7 weeks since my last period. That means this is the most pregnant I have ever been.

And on this joyous occasion, I feel like crap. I think I maybe finally have what they call morning sickness. I've had an upset stomach before this and I've certainly had heartburn, but today and part of last night I felt like moving would cause me to be sick. I actually got sick for the first time last night. What a cruel twist of fate that I'm excited about feeling terrible.

Now, to food or not to food?

Days Pregnant: 46
Days to go: 234

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Mourning the loss of a friend

Mothers are suppose to be frustrating, telling us things we need to do for our own benefit. Their pieces of advice aren't always easy to hear and often result in bickering, but the role of a mother is an important one.

My own mother has been nagging me about various things since I got pregnant this time. One of these things has finally sunk in and I'm giving in to her requests. I have decided it is time to say goodbye to caffeine. Not forever, maybe not even for the rest of the pregnancy, but for the rest of the trimester. That means nearly 6 weeks with no morning pick-me-up or afternoon pick-me-up.

I bid farewell to my beloved caffeine this morning with a cup of dishwater decaf coffee and a salute. Caffeine, you are loved and will be missed.

Days Pregnant: 45
Days to go: 235

Monday, February 22, 2010

Sometimes I'm Sad

*Warning* Cranky hormonal ramblings, little pregnancy content.

Damnit. When I started trying to get pregnant (a year ago), I had two friends with little babies and didn't know anyone who was pregnant. By the time I got pregnant, there was one other person in my extended circle who was pregnant but we were only a few weeks apart! That was exciting. Then I miscarried... and did it again and time moved on for my friend's pregnancy and not for mine.

Now I'm pregnant again and two of my friends are pregnant and in their second trimesters and it just sucks watching everyone else I know get pregnant successfully and getting to announce it to the world. I just found out about one of them today. Thus the rant.

I realize that I am currently pregnant, saw the heartbeat on Friday and I have no reason for concern, but I can't help it. I'm being eaten by fear and it sucks. It's also really sad to go back a few days in how far along I am. I'm tried of making the happy face for my friends who are successfully pregnant now.

I think I need to start telling people. Not because I'm positive that this will all work out this time, but I'm much more emotional about it than I would like to admit. If this goes well great, no harm done telling people too early. If this doesn't go well, I am going to need the support. I think it really broke me to find out that another friend is in her second trimester.

Days Pregnant: 44
Days to go: 236

Friday, February 19, 2010

Ultrasound results

Woo! Saw the doctor. Ok, I suppose it's not quite woo worthy, but it was way better than my last ultrasound.

I have no pictures to show for it... pffft. But They measured my pumpkin seed at 5 weeks and 6 days, which is really close to where I thought I would be. So that's excellent. And there was a heartbeat! Ha :) The downside was that it was 100 beats per minute, which is ok but not great. It's within range that is normal enough for how far along I am, but it wasn't awe inspiring. But the good news is that the Doc wasn't too worried and I go back in 11 days for another ultrasound and my first real visit.

In any case, I'm very encouraged and I can rest a little easier. However, I'm not really inspired to tell anyone yet. LAME. I'm so ready to spill this news but I don't want to have the awkward conversations yet.

The other interesting bit about my appointment was that they gave me samples of prenatal vitamins. 8 types and 41 days worth! And they are all prescription. That's sort of insane to me. I'm already taking a prenatal vitamin with DHA plus extra folic acid so I'm not sure why I care except maybe these would be less expensive? I suppose I'll take these, that's almost 6 weeks worth, not bad.

Huh, I suppose I should modify my "days pregnant" and "days to go"... we'll run with the 5 weeks and 6 days measurement.

Days Pregnant: 41
Days to go: 239

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Whiny Pants

Not telling people is hard.

Not whining about my husband is potentially harder. I am hormonal and moody and super irritated about things that may or may not be reasonable things to be whining about. Either way, I'd like to complain but won't, at least not yet.

In other news, I have had an almost entire absence of "morning sickness", but my stomach has continued to just hurt/ache off and on. No fun. Maybe this is heart burn? That's not something I've had in my regular life so that could be a possibility.

Days Pregnant: 42
Days to go: 238

Week 6!

Today marks the beginning of Week 6. Huzzah! I go see the doctor in two days. Fingers crossed that I will see a heartbeat.

I get an e-mail at the start of every new week telling me all about the growing pumpkin seed I'm carrying and about what's going on with my body. Highlights from this week:

Pumpkin seed - Nose, mouth and ears are all developing this week! Heartbeat (which started last week I think) is at 100 to 160 beats per minute. Major organs like the brain, the lungs and the intestines as well as the pituitary gland are developing this week as well. Also, it's actually pumpkin seed sized! Ha :) Well, small pumpkin seeds anyway.

Me - Actually, the major topic this week was about mood swings, how they are normal and how to cope with them. So when I'm snapping at you, it's normal, I don't mean to and I'll try to work on it.

I feel like I'm so far along, 6 weeks is a long time. But really it's more like 2 weeks and that's not very long. But the fact that my baby will develop a nose this week is pretty neat. Also, 2 weeks may not be very long but it's an eternity for me to keep a secret like this. No idea how much longer I'll hold out. At least until next Monday, maybe longer? Depends how the u/s goes on Friday I suppose.

Days Pregnant: 42
Days to go: 238

Monday, February 15, 2010

Boo, I want to like water.

In my non-pregnant life I am no stranger to alcohol. I occasionally find myself having had a little too much the night before and with a nasty hangover. For me a hangover is predominantly two things: nausea and an aversion to water. When I wake up and I drink from my nightstand glass of water and it's gross, I know I overdid it. I keep Gatorade or Vitamin Water on hand for those mornings when water tastes awful and won't stay down.

Why am I talking about this? Well, today, water is gross. Like hangover gross. When I'm not hungover I am a water fiend. I typically drink .5 to .75 of a gallon of water a day. That's a lot. And I like it that way. But today I've maybe had two glasses and they were both pretty awful. I'm not a big soda or juice person, but I feel like Gatorade or Vitamin Water are not the answer either. Maybe some additive like Crystal Light?

The fact that my morning sickness is manifesting itself like a mind hangover is kind of a cruel joke.

Oh, and I've finally made it to the week with my Doctor's appointment at the end. Yay!

Days Pregnant: 40
Days to go: 240

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Taking moody to a whole new level

Mood swings!! Oh man, not entertaining to me or to anyone who happens to get stuck in the wrath. Things that would normally irritate me a little are making me full blow screaming mad. This morning I went from the silent treatment to crying over a youtube video (thanks dad) to an all out screaming tantrum. Then I stormed out. I actually picked up my car keys and left. Leaving the house, eating (after 2.5 hours of being awake!) and accomplishing something made me feel much more normal, but man these hormones are intense.

Days Pregnant: 39
Days to go: 241

Saturday, February 13, 2010

There it is!

I kept expecting to be super exhausted while pregnant. Both from what happened to me last year and from everyone I know who has been pregnant. Today it hit. Oh man, i walked a mile to lunch (mostly uphill) and then the mile home and then I was too tired to even move. I napped for about three hours and now I'm still sort of out of it. At least I could nap today!

Days Pregnant: 38
Days to go: 242

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Past the 5 week point and going crazy

I am going crazy not telling anyone. I am going crazy mostly because I am nervous as hell and just want to talk about it. I have gone back and forth about whether I wanted to address in this blog the fact that I miscarried twice in 2009. I suppose that is my answer. As excited as I am about this pregnancy, I am nervous and freaking out and if I'm not thinking about the task at hand (work, cooking, whatever), I'm scared. It is the overwhelming, all consuming thought in my head. With the last two pregnancies, I told everyone right away, and then had to retract and untell. It was really difficult that I was going through something awful and I had to talk about it, repeatedly. Now I'm going through fear and anxiety and I'm trapped in my own, self inflicted bubble.

I had a friend confide in me this morning. Her life has some really awful circumstances right now and some very hard decisions need to be made. I feel so bad for her, and I wanted so desperately to tell her that I'm freaking out too. I imagine that the result of both our circumstances will be positive, but right now it kinda sucks.

I'm so nervous it's ridiculous.

Days Pregnant: 36
Days to go: 244

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Stomach cramps

My stomach hurts. It's sharp pain and dull pain and cramping all all rolled into one. I was feeling intermittently hungry and nauseous yesterday and food seemed to help. Food is not helping the pain today. It actually made me feel worse and now I'm slightly nauseous again. I am mildly (or severly?) stressed out at work today. I have a presentation to the CEO and the COO in a couple of hours. I can't tell if this is nervous pain or pregnancy pain. Either way, it's right at the base of my breast bone and it is for sure my stomach. Ouch.

Days Pregnant: 34
Days to go: 246

Monday, February 8, 2010

Bleh, what is that smell?

My most interesting pregnancy symptom is my sense of smell. It's crazy powerful. Way more powerful than I could have ever dreamed. Tonight I have discovered that strong smells, even ones I like, are capable of giving me a headache. It's really awful. I had my husband cook me dinner (super sweet and willing to do it) and it was delicious. I ran out on a quick errand and when I got back I felt like I was smacked in the face by the smell of dinner. My head is killing me now. :(

It's also not doing anything good for my morning sickness, I'm feeling terribly nauseous from the same thing that was delicious 2 hours ago.

Days Pregnant: 33
Days to go: 247

My little pumpkin seed

This weekend someone asked me point blank if I am pregnant. I'm not telling anyone, but I'm also not lying about it either, so I confirmed. I suppose she will tell her husband which will bring my grand total up to 5 people who know. Unfortunately, this is a good friend who I don't talk to often and see even less frequently so I'm still lacking anyone to really talk to about it. Time will fix this, I know.

Today I have a headache. This is one of the bits of pregnancy that I was dreading. Headaches make me way less functional as a person and now there is almost nothing I can do about it. I'm having a tiny cup of coffee at the moment (1/3 coffee, 1/3 decaf, 1/3 milk) to see if I can cure it with caffeine, but I don't have particularly high hopes. Only another 250 days before I can take a pain killer again. Is that even true? Can you have pain killers while breast feeding? No clue. I've read a whole bunch about being pregnant and what to expect and what to do and not do, but I haven't begun looking into what happens when the baby comes.

I have a friend who gave birth in January 2009. She called her little baby 'poppy' for a while when she was pregnant. Super cute name and very fun, and descriptive because that was the size the baby was when they told people. I'm in the poppy seed stage now and not telling anyone. I think by the time I'm going to tell anyone it will be substantially larger, probably to the point of being pumpkin seed sized, which is cute because I'm due in October. How fun is that!? My little pumpkin seed. Yes, I stole this from my pregnancy forums, but I'm probably going to be the only one in my life pregnant and due in October, so I'm ok with that.

Days Pregnant: 33
Days to go: 247

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Going out with people who don't know

Last night I went out downtown with friends to celebrate a birthday! It was a great night out with our typical assortment of bar hopping and happy hours with one exception. I can't drink, and I can't tell them why I can't drink. It was mostly fine, but a little boring. I ordered a pina colada (virgin) at the Tiki place and it came in a fun glass and I enjoyed it. When we got to the beer place I got a root beer that they brought to me in the bottle, even though everyone else got theirs in glasses. I felt lame but just didn't address the issue myself really. The kicker for the lameness of the night was when everyone else wanted to head to a cigar bar as location #4 and I had to bail on the evening claiming that I didn't want my coat (my nice wool one) to smell like cigar. That part was true, but seriously everyone looked at me like I had grown a second nose. I'll be happier in a couple of weeks when I have gone to the doctor and been given the thumbs up and can tell people.

This week I get to contend with going out to drinks with one of my best friends and one of our former coworkers without telling anyone. I understand why I'm keeping this secret, but it's obnoxious anyway.

Days Pregnant: 32
Days to go: 248

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Video game workouts

There are very entertaining conflicting ideas out there between maintaining physical activity through pregnancy and taking it easy, basically listening to your body. I, you know 3 days in and still mildly light on symptoms, am going to try to walk the center line. I am not a particularly active person in my normal, non-pregnant life, but I always want to be. I'd love to be one of those fabulously thin athletic people who are always full of energy and going for runs. But I'm frankly pretty normal. Oh well.

During this early stage of pregnancy I have decided to work out with a Wii game. Just Dance to be exact. I bought it for myself with some christmas amazon gift cards. While it's merit as a traditional video game is pretty lacking, I enjoy being able to just get up and move for 20-30 minutes in the comfort of my living room. I have a long history of dance, so this video game is fun without being too taxing. I have been trying to do 5 songs a day for now. I missed yesterday because my husband came home from work early and I didn't get my living room to myself, but I've hit 5 days in the last week thanks to a bonus unexpected session today. I don't know if it'll help me keep my pregnancy weight in check, but I do hope that by getting my heart rate up I can at least maintain a reasonable amount of energy. We shall see.

Days Pregnant: 31
Days to go: 249

Friday, February 5, 2010

"Morning" sickness

Ok. Let's talk Morning Sickness.

Anyone reading this is probably aware that the term morning sickness is a misnomer that does not take place in the morning. In fact, so called morning sickness can happen at regular times of the day, or all day and may last for the first trimester or all pregnancy long. It's basically just nausea/no hunger/ trouble keeping things down.

As of about 20 minutes ago, it has struck me. I'm in the nausea category for now. I'm trying to overcome it by not moving. Convenient since I'm sitting at my desk just typing for the afternoon. Not convenient because I've been needing to pee like every hour all day.

Days Pregnant: 30
Days to go: 250

Not telling anyone is hard!

This counting thing is so strange. I've known I was pregnant for a whole 26 hours now, but I'm 30 days pregnant. I'll get over it soon I'm sure, but man, super odd.

Anyway, still haven't told anyone about it. I have an ultrasound scheduled for two weeks from today so my plan is to wait until I hear good news at the Doctor and then spill the beans. This is probably my biggest news ever and I'm just sitting twiddling my thumbs and trying to pretend life is going along as normal. Boo to that.

As far as I can tell, there are two types of pregnant women. The first type look like they always look except they have stuffed a beach ball under their shirt. This is the type that from the back doesn't really look pregnant at all. Then there are the rest of us. We get the beautiful pregnancy belly, and the rest of our body feels left out so it balloons too. For us (and I'm just guessing here that I'm in this catagory, but I'm super bloated so it's a good guess), it looks like our baby fat has returned our faces and we just sort of look swollen. Oh well, so be it. At least I get some new clothes, right?

Days Pregnant: 30
Days to go: 250

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Little purple(?) line

I found out today that I am pregnant. Hooray! Not bad considering my new year's resolution was to find myself in the family way. As of today, Feb 4th, I am 4 weeks pregnant. For those of you not in the know, pregnancy time is this really odd way of counting that starts when a woman begins her last period. Pfft... so in reality, my little seed of joy (because it's poppy seed sized at this point) is like 2 weeks old and has been attached to me for probably 2 days.

Whenever I hear anyone talk about a pregnancy test I sort of have the phrase "Little blue line" stuck in my head. Maybe little pink line if I really try. Or a plus sign. But my tests, now that I think about them, they have purple lines. How odd. That either means that Hollywood got it wrong or that my bargain bin tests are different than the expensive ones. Dunno. Did you know that a drug store wants to charge you like $10 for something that you can get online for like 50 cents? I mean sure, I have to miss out on the fun of actually peeing on a stick in favor of collecting my pee and dipping something in it. And my pregnancy tests are thin and flimsy and don't come with instructions. But come on, this is the "green" era and my tests have way less waste!

Know what is super frustrating? Having this HUGE life altering news and not being able to tell anyone. I'm trying to be all good and not tell people right away in case the tiny thing inside of me decides not to get any bigger. I mean yeah, I have joined message boards and started thinking about baby room colors, but the first twelve weeks are considered the "danger zone." Hey, at least I'm already 4 weeks into that, right? So those pregnancy groups I joined have all of these nutty acronyms for various things. Like LMP - last menstrual period. Or EDD - estimated due date. There will be none of that nonsense here. I am a fan of proper grammar, correct spelling and whole words.

Ok, given that I've known I was pregnant for all of 9 hours and not a lot has happened I will wrap up for today. More exciting things to come! At least I hope.

Days Pregnant: 29
Days to go: 251