I’ve been using the Pre-natal education system and the baby seems to be responding to that great. I usually get lots of fluttering and movement which makes me happy. I keep thinking that maybe as early as in the womb I can put this baby on a “stay awake during the day / sleep at night” schedule since they’re typically nocturnal when they’re born. Probably so not true, but it’s worth a shot haha! The system is supposed to make them more lucid and relaxed yet more awake and aware after delivery. It’s also supposed to make them a calmer baby, one that sleeps better and is more relaxed. It also is supposed to give them educational benefits later in life. But, as mentioned, it’s “supposed” to do these things, so we’ll see.
Last night I was lying on my side watching TV and rubbing the left side of my stomach. All of a sudden I could actually feel fluttering against my fingertips (instead of just internal). So I decided to just poke the area and see what would happen. Within seconds I suddenly felt it kick me or hit me back, right against my hand. It startled me because I wasn’t expecting a response and I got one! It’s one of the most exciting things that’s happened so far!
I’ve also noticed that I can tell where the baby is sitting. So if I’m lying or sitting in one position for a long period of time and stand up, I feel (internally, not externally) like there’s a hardness on the left or right side of my tummy. When I start walking it seems to go away. I think it settles in somewhere when I’m at rest and then shifts when I get up again. Again, I could totally be imaging things, but I’ve never in my life felt it before. I was also a little achy when I woke up this morning. The best way to describe it is that my uterus hurt. I guess that can be attributed to all of the stretching and growing and it went away after I got in the shower and woke up a little. But it didn’t feel too good!
I’m definitely going to gain more weight this month! This past week I haven’t done so bad, but this has been my worst month for eating things I probably shouldn’t. Had a huge steak dinner with all sorts of stuff last Friday night. Today I’m giving into my Togos craving and getting an egg salad sandwich. I guess it could be worse, I could crave something fried and horrible for me every single day. But I’m really trying to only gain within my guidelines so I don’t have as much to lose after. Plus so far I’m just carrying it all in my front, so I’d like to keep it that way as long as possible!
With the weather heating up to 97 degrees on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, I definitely got a taste for what it will be like to be pregnant during those hot summer months. It wasn’t good, haha, especially when trying to sleep at night. We went and bought two new floor fans, so we’ve been running the A/C, two floor fans, a small desktop fan, and a ceiling fan during the night. I’m starting to feel the weight on my stomach pull on my back now when I lay on my side. So I try and slide my pillow under my belly as much as possible, and my belly is getting bigger, but not big enough to sit by itself on a pillow all night. Having the body pillow between my legs feels good on my back and definitely takes some of the pressure off though. I just haven’t mastered 8 hours with the body pillow, warm weather, and a hubby and cat in bed with me.
Not having a good reaction to coffee right now. It seems to make me feel like I’m going to throw up shortly after I finish my cup. The nauseated feeling lingers for about an hour or so. It feels so bad I’ve almost gone home a few times. It’s really weird and the only thing that makes sense is that it’s the acid levels in the coffee that make me feel that way. So needless to say, I’ll be steering clear of my decaf lattes for a while.
I’m obsessed with diet caffeine free Dr. Pepper right now. Moved from Root Beer to Dr. Pepper – really weird. I never crave soda when I’m not pregnant and now I seem to more. I try and keep it to no more than 2 a week though.
Well I think that sums up week 18 pretty well. Lots of exciting changes!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
17 weeks, 4 days...
This week I’ve really felt the emotional ups and downs. I can attribute that to my stressful and hectic job, I mean who in their right mind supervises 11-12 people (women) willingly? Someone who’s insane like me is who! On top of the surmounting pressure of trying to supervise all of these people, I have an insane amount of pressure to succeed, re-shape and improve this entire department. All of it, somewhat on my own with a sales guy for a director. I seriously cannot believe how many nights I toss and turn just dreaming about work. Why aren’t I a normal person who starts off supervising 1 or 2 people? What the hell was I thinking doing all of this while pregnant! Well, I know what I was thinking, I was thinking about the 5k increase to my salary that would help raise this child and the opportunity that could boost me into management in only 2-3 years. Yes, these are all awesome things, but dealing with all of this, while being pregnant is definitely not the best time of my life. My memory is so bad right now that it’s completely affecting me learning a new job. And believe me, if you use the wrong term or say the wrong thing, your employees will be the first to call you out on it. No, I am not a dumbass, I’m just pregnant, thank you. Oh and the confidence part is killing me. My boss tells me to have confidence when I speak with the director and the direct-reports, but it’s really hard to portray that when you have no idea what the hell you’re doing or talking about sometimes.
It’s also difficult to change the ways of 12 people who have been allowed to behave, work, act, talk, write pretty much any way they want over the course of the past few years. My biggest challenge is to motivate them to be the best that they can be, even if they have no aspirations of moving up in the company. How do you motivate someone to do their best if they don’t care if they do this job forever? How do you tell someone in their twenties that their grammar sucks in emails and they need to fix it so upper management doesn’t think we, as a department, are stupid? How do you get someone to treat you with respect and like you’re a supervisor? These, among millions of others, are my daily challenges, along with bosses and bosses-bosses, and bosses-bosses-bosses and being pregnant. When I don’t sleep well and I don’t feel well the last thing I want to deal with is all of this.
Home life is stressful too. There’s never enough hours in the weekend to clean the house (I can’t believe I want a bigger house in a couple of years, because without kids I can’t even maintain the one I have), to do laundry, to rest, to get outside and get some fresh air, to run millions of errands. And I don’t think my wonderful husband has quite caught onto the “I have to ask you to do it” vs “How can I help you out with that” technique. I’m concerned that when I’m 9 months pregnant I’m still going to have to ask for help cleaning or doing laundry instead of it just getting it done. Last time I checked no one asks me to do things, I just get up and do them. So I hope that currently he just feels like I’m still feeling well enough and mobile enough to continue these tasks on my own for now and that once I’m feeling like absolute crap, he’ll actually just do things without me asking. I also feel like a bump on a log. Last night I was so upset from work and so stressed out, what I would have done to just have a glass of wine so I could wind down, but I couldn’t, so I just laid down and watched TV. What a great wife I am these days…
Tummy is still growing. My round ligament pain is still pretty bad on my left side, but luckily I don’t get it daily. It’s just when I get it, I can barely walk until it calms down. Friday I turn 18 weeks so I’m going to start using that Prenatal Education System. It’s so loud, I have no idea how I’m going to use it at work once a day. I noticed a pillow masks the sound pretty well, so hopefully the two girls on either side of me won’t be able to really hear it. But since I have to do it twice daily, I have to use it once at work and once at home. Hopefully I can stick to it. Twice daily is a lot for someone on the run all of the time like me. And like I said, it’s really loud, so it’s not inconspicuous or anything haha.
I have these moments, mainly at night when I’m resting, where I just panic at the thought of this baby. Like I said above, I’m on the go so much and I’m so used to it. I wake up when I want to (kinda), I go to run errands, go to work, go to the movies, go on vacation, everything when I want to. It’s going to be so different having to schedule everything out a bit more and to “prepare” for outings and also think about if we can go to a place we want to go to. Obviously the movies will be a huge issue, we’ll need a babysitter, which we obviously don’t have haha. One of us will probably stay home for some errands to make it easier. I know that it’s like a switch that gets flipped once you have that baby in your arms, and you just suddenly have different priorities and things of importance, but I won’t lie and say it’s not a little scary. It’s even scarier since we’ll have no help. I was thinking that this will be my first birthday since I was a kid where I won’t get to celebrate with even a dinner. That’s fine, but just weird. I suppose that there’s a never ending list of things to be scared of, I mean you’re caring for another life, and I’m assuming it’s normal to be scared. I hope, lol.
Well I should get back to work. So far it’s a better day, but things didn’t get insane until this time yesterday, so we’ll see. I could use a quiet rest of the week.
It’s also difficult to change the ways of 12 people who have been allowed to behave, work, act, talk, write pretty much any way they want over the course of the past few years. My biggest challenge is to motivate them to be the best that they can be, even if they have no aspirations of moving up in the company. How do you motivate someone to do their best if they don’t care if they do this job forever? How do you tell someone in their twenties that their grammar sucks in emails and they need to fix it so upper management doesn’t think we, as a department, are stupid? How do you get someone to treat you with respect and like you’re a supervisor? These, among millions of others, are my daily challenges, along with bosses and bosses-bosses, and bosses-bosses-bosses and being pregnant. When I don’t sleep well and I don’t feel well the last thing I want to deal with is all of this.
Home life is stressful too. There’s never enough hours in the weekend to clean the house (I can’t believe I want a bigger house in a couple of years, because without kids I can’t even maintain the one I have), to do laundry, to rest, to get outside and get some fresh air, to run millions of errands. And I don’t think my wonderful husband has quite caught onto the “I have to ask you to do it” vs “How can I help you out with that” technique. I’m concerned that when I’m 9 months pregnant I’m still going to have to ask for help cleaning or doing laundry instead of it just getting it done. Last time I checked no one asks me to do things, I just get up and do them. So I hope that currently he just feels like I’m still feeling well enough and mobile enough to continue these tasks on my own for now and that once I’m feeling like absolute crap, he’ll actually just do things without me asking. I also feel like a bump on a log. Last night I was so upset from work and so stressed out, what I would have done to just have a glass of wine so I could wind down, but I couldn’t, so I just laid down and watched TV. What a great wife I am these days…
Tummy is still growing. My round ligament pain is still pretty bad on my left side, but luckily I don’t get it daily. It’s just when I get it, I can barely walk until it calms down. Friday I turn 18 weeks so I’m going to start using that Prenatal Education System. It’s so loud, I have no idea how I’m going to use it at work once a day. I noticed a pillow masks the sound pretty well, so hopefully the two girls on either side of me won’t be able to really hear it. But since I have to do it twice daily, I have to use it once at work and once at home. Hopefully I can stick to it. Twice daily is a lot for someone on the run all of the time like me. And like I said, it’s really loud, so it’s not inconspicuous or anything haha.
I have these moments, mainly at night when I’m resting, where I just panic at the thought of this baby. Like I said above, I’m on the go so much and I’m so used to it. I wake up when I want to (kinda), I go to run errands, go to work, go to the movies, go on vacation, everything when I want to. It’s going to be so different having to schedule everything out a bit more and to “prepare” for outings and also think about if we can go to a place we want to go to. Obviously the movies will be a huge issue, we’ll need a babysitter, which we obviously don’t have haha. One of us will probably stay home for some errands to make it easier. I know that it’s like a switch that gets flipped once you have that baby in your arms, and you just suddenly have different priorities and things of importance, but I won’t lie and say it’s not a little scary. It’s even scarier since we’ll have no help. I was thinking that this will be my first birthday since I was a kid where I won’t get to celebrate with even a dinner. That’s fine, but just weird. I suppose that there’s a never ending list of things to be scared of, I mean you’re caring for another life, and I’m assuming it’s normal to be scared. I hope, lol.
Well I should get back to work. So far it’s a better day, but things didn’t get insane until this time yesterday, so we’ll see. I could use a quiet rest of the week.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
16 weeks, 4 days...
Had my 16 week appointment yesterday and all is going very well. My BP was 127/69, a little high on the top number, but that’s because it’s been hell at work for a week. Yesterday was a stressful day, so I just knew my BP would be up a little. I only gained 2 pounds! So that’s only 3 total the whole pregnancy and the Nurse Practitioner who saw me was very pleased. I’m pleased with myself! Look out cheeseburger, we have a date on Saturday! They didn’t say anything about my urine test for protein, so I’m guessing it was okay.
We were hoping to find out the sex of the baby yesterday, but it didn’t work out. At first she was just going to listen to the heartbeat, but she couldn’t get it on the ancient Doppler device they were using, so she had to do an ultrasound. Baby was lying on its tummy curled up in the fetal position. At first he/she had its head down looking down at my uterus, but then turned to look right at us. We saw the spine and ribs which was really crazy and then also saw the little heartbeat going like crazy. Crown to rump the baby is 4 inches and she said the legs should be another 3 (but I don’t think she knew what she was talking about, they’re probably more like an inch or so). Saw a foot waving around, but we couldn’t get it to move to see the gender. C’est la vie, guess we’re waiting until May 4th! Oh well it’ll save me another month of going on a shopping spree for clothes and accessories haha.
Had my blood drawn for Second Trimester Testing. Not sure how long it will be before I get the results. I’m assuming if something’s wrong they’ll call right away, if not then I’ll probably get a letter like I did the first trimester. Hopefully we’ll get that within 10 days so I’m not so nervous.
I’m doing a lot better this week. I’ve been getting a lot more sleep and I only get up 2, maybe 3 times a night to use the restroom. I am now hooked on pickles though!! I knew it was coming because I love them anyways, and now it’s arrived. I went through a whole jar in 3 days. Luckily I have a backup jar that will get me through the weekend lol. No new cravings though the stuff I really love I just want more and more of. I’m actually going for a smoothie at lunch today (yay for Acai Berry!) and what I wouldn’t do right now to have a big fat cheeseburger and fries. But I was a fry-lover way before my pregnancy; I just seem to think about them more now.
The baby is still fluttering around like crazy. Although the Nurse Practitioner did not believe me when I told her I could feel it. She looked at me like “this girl’s crazy, it’s probably gas.” But all of the reading I did on “quickening” it sounds like I’m feeling it! And other people who are as far along as me feel the same thing, so whatever! It no longer freaks me out feeling it like “something’s wrong” – it now makes me feel reassured that everything is right. It’s made it a little more real and now I’m starting to dream and think more about when we actually have the baby and bring it home. Jeff and I talk about things like signing him/her up for a Gymboree class or a play group, going to the park and having lunches a few times a week, family vacations we’ll be able to take in another year, etc. This whole new world has opened up and I feel like I can see beyond the pregnancy. It makes me think a lot about my childhood and our trips to the beach, going hunting for Easter eggs, playing in the backyard and running around in the sprinklers. All of those things I miss so much and long to have back, I will be able to re-live through my child.
I really don’t know what I would do without my friends and my parents at this point. Everyone is so great and so excited for us and it’s just amazing. There are some family members that we wish were more excited, more involved, or actually would stay in touch, and that’s really disappointing, but it is what it is. It’s so nice to know that my closest friends are just like aunts and uncles to our unborn baby. That’s priceless and means the world to us and we appreciate every one of you!
That’s about it for this week. Every week when the baby has baked another 7 days and I feel pretty good is a fantastic week for me!
We were hoping to find out the sex of the baby yesterday, but it didn’t work out. At first she was just going to listen to the heartbeat, but she couldn’t get it on the ancient Doppler device they were using, so she had to do an ultrasound. Baby was lying on its tummy curled up in the fetal position. At first he/she had its head down looking down at my uterus, but then turned to look right at us. We saw the spine and ribs which was really crazy and then also saw the little heartbeat going like crazy. Crown to rump the baby is 4 inches and she said the legs should be another 3 (but I don’t think she knew what she was talking about, they’re probably more like an inch or so). Saw a foot waving around, but we couldn’t get it to move to see the gender. C’est la vie, guess we’re waiting until May 4th! Oh well it’ll save me another month of going on a shopping spree for clothes and accessories haha.
Had my blood drawn for Second Trimester Testing. Not sure how long it will be before I get the results. I’m assuming if something’s wrong they’ll call right away, if not then I’ll probably get a letter like I did the first trimester. Hopefully we’ll get that within 10 days so I’m not so nervous.
I’m doing a lot better this week. I’ve been getting a lot more sleep and I only get up 2, maybe 3 times a night to use the restroom. I am now hooked on pickles though!! I knew it was coming because I love them anyways, and now it’s arrived. I went through a whole jar in 3 days. Luckily I have a backup jar that will get me through the weekend lol. No new cravings though the stuff I really love I just want more and more of. I’m actually going for a smoothie at lunch today (yay for Acai Berry!) and what I wouldn’t do right now to have a big fat cheeseburger and fries. But I was a fry-lover way before my pregnancy; I just seem to think about them more now.
The baby is still fluttering around like crazy. Although the Nurse Practitioner did not believe me when I told her I could feel it. She looked at me like “this girl’s crazy, it’s probably gas.” But all of the reading I did on “quickening” it sounds like I’m feeling it! And other people who are as far along as me feel the same thing, so whatever! It no longer freaks me out feeling it like “something’s wrong” – it now makes me feel reassured that everything is right. It’s made it a little more real and now I’m starting to dream and think more about when we actually have the baby and bring it home. Jeff and I talk about things like signing him/her up for a Gymboree class or a play group, going to the park and having lunches a few times a week, family vacations we’ll be able to take in another year, etc. This whole new world has opened up and I feel like I can see beyond the pregnancy. It makes me think a lot about my childhood and our trips to the beach, going hunting for Easter eggs, playing in the backyard and running around in the sprinklers. All of those things I miss so much and long to have back, I will be able to re-live through my child.
I really don’t know what I would do without my friends and my parents at this point. Everyone is so great and so excited for us and it’s just amazing. There are some family members that we wish were more excited, more involved, or actually would stay in touch, and that’s really disappointing, but it is what it is. It’s so nice to know that my closest friends are just like aunts and uncles to our unborn baby. That’s priceless and means the world to us and we appreciate every one of you!
That’s about it for this week. Every week when the baby has baked another 7 days and I feel pretty good is a fantastic week for me!
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