24 week appointment

I had another regularly-scheduled doctor's appointment today, and it pretty much coincided with my 24th week of pregnancy. Everything looked good. I'm measuring right on track, and baby's heart rate was about 140 bpm. My blood pressure was good, too - 110/62. I had a bunch of questions for the midwife, and she was absolutely awesome about answering them.

I've been SO happy with our decision to go with midwives for the delivery of the baby. Their attitude about birth is exactly aligned with mine - birth is NOT an emergency in nearly all cases, so there's no reason for a ton of intervention that may not be necessary. The hospital we've chosen has a great NICU if something goes wrong, but, in the highly likely situation where things progress normally, the midwives will be able to help deliver the baby.

The other crazy thing is that it's really sinking in how far along I am in this pregnancy. I've scheduled my next appointment for about 3 weeks from now, and, after that, I start going in for biweekly appointments. Why? Because I'll be in the THIRD TRIMESTER. I can't believe how fast things are going. Our new baby boy will be here in just a few months, and I feel like there are so many things to do in the meantime. Oh well - we'll get there. Everyone does.

It's a boy!!

We had our anatomy scan today, and, as you can tell by the title, we're having a boy! We were right, and we couldn't be happier.

If you had asked me yesterday how I would feel knowing that we're having a boy, I would have thought that I would have been a bit nervous about it. I only have a sister and have never really had a lot of experience with little boys. Plus, my husband was a bit of a naughty kid. Still is naughty - now he's just a grownup. Now, though, I couldn't imagine it any other way. I'm absolutely over the moon about having a little boy.

Here are a couple of pictures of our son (SON!!! I'm going to have a son!!! Crazy):

Here's a profile shot. Notice him with his fingers in his mouth. We may have a thumb-sucker...


Here's one of the 4D pictures. Kind of alien-like, no?


Here's a foot. You don't even have to wait until the baby is born anymore to make sure it has 10 fingers and 10 toes.


And, here's an arm, complete with the elbow he's apparently been using to poke me with (you could see him jabbing me with it during the scan):


I'm not going to post any photo evidence that we're having a boy, but you'll have to trust me that it's true.

The ultrasound tech commented that most babies don't move their limbs as much as our kid was this early. OBVIOUSLY, our kid is already way more advanced than most. :-) I kid. It was pretty funny, though, and it supports my theory that, if this kid is as active outside as he has been inside, we're in for an adventure.

As for the rest of the appointment, everything looks great with the baby. Spine, heart, kidneys, brain, amniotic fluid...everything's great. We actually elected NOT to have any of the birth defect screenings (the blood tests), which I think was surprising to us both. Before I got pregnant, I think we both would have thought that we'd want the testing. Now that we're here, though, we aren't interested in the tests. Since we aren't high risk, and since most of the tests aren't diagnostic, we just decided to skip them.

My placenta is a bit low-lying, but not of any concern right now. They're going to check it again in a couple of months, but it should continue to move out of the way as I continue to grow.

Wahoo! Everything's going well!

Second appointment

We had our second appointment - everything looked great! They weren't able to find baby's heartbeat right away with the doppler, so they brought in a small ultrasound machine (this practice has several of them that they transport from room to room). It was crazy to see the little bugger flipping around in there! It really looked like a baby this time, instead of just like a gummy bear. We didn't get another picture, but we scheduled our anatomy scan for November 30th. That's when we'll find out the sex of the baby (hopefully)!

I think the midwife actually got enough of a glimpse today to guess what the sex was, but she wouldn't tell us. The small ultrasound doesn't produce the best images, and, since it's so early, there's no way she could have been sure. She did say something to the effect of, "Whoa! We got a really good shot there!" And she looked at us wide-eyed. When pressed, though, she wouldn't venture a guess. Not that I blame her. And, waiting another few weeks is no big deal.

So, now there really aren't any more excuses for me to tell everyone at work! That's going to be a little awkward, though. Telling people that you're pregnant is a little like saying, "Hey! Congratulate me!" I think it needs to be done, though, or people are just going to start gossiping at some point.

We also got some contact information for a local doula, which is exciting. For those that don't know what a doula is, it's essentially a labor coach. They attend the entire birth (unlike midwives or doctors who are generally in and out quite a bit), and they help you with things like pain management throughout the birth. I'm very interested in a non-medicated birth, and doulas definitely help with that. I hope I like her!

What I thought this would be like

Before I got pregnant, I had ideas about what the pregnancy would be like. Some of my ideas have been relatively true (I haven't gained a ton of weight, my symptoms haven't been too bad), but others have been way off base. The biggest area where I've been wrong has been my excitement level about the pregnancy.

Don't get me wrong: I am excited to be pregnant and to have a baby. But, at the same time, I'm still just trying to live my life. Work is busy, and I'm busy with other areas of my life. In a lot of ways, it's as if life is just progressing as normal.

I thought I'd be taking weekly (or at least frequent) belly pictures. I haven't taken a single one yet. I thought it would be hard for me to keep the pregnancy a secret, but it hasn't been. While we've told several of our friends face-to-face, I still haven't sent out a mass e-mail to all of my friends back home, cousins, etc. to let them know about the pregnancy. I'm not really sure what I'm waiting for. The baby is clearly getting bigger (I can feel my uterus growing when I push on my belly), but I'm still delaying. I have another appointment next week, so maybe I'll be more interested in telling after that.

I think, in some ways, I kind of like it being a secret. It's like a little secret between me and my husband, and, in some ways, it makes me a little sad to let it out. We're only planning to have 2 or 3 kids, so I know that there are only going to be a few times in my life where I'm pregnant and no one knows it but us. It's actually kind of a cool feeling. And, while I'm thrilled to be able to start telling people, there are definitely some mixed emotions.

I have a feeling that the next 18 years (and probably the rest of my life) are going to be filled with all kinds of mixed emotions. I'd better start getting used to it.

Feeling better every day

I know I haven't been a good blogger lately, but I've been swamped at work. Things have finally started to calm down, though, and I think I should have some more time for this blog now.

The big news now is that I'm generally starting to feel better. It's crazy to think that I'm nearly at the end of my first trimester. My energy level is improving, and my nausea continues to get better. I took last week off from the gym, but I was able to go again yesterday for the first time in about 10 days. I'm trying not to beat myself up over taking a week off. After all, I'm pregnant! I just don't want to use the pregnancy as an excuse to totally let myself go, physically. Last week, I felt pretty crappy in the evenings, though, so I took those days to just rest (rather than pushing it at the gym). I still walked every day - just no weight lifting. As I feel better, though, I'm looking forward to getting into more of a routine.

My weight gain has been pretty minimal so far, which is good. I gained a couple of pounds almost right away, and, as of this morning, I'm up about 4 pounds in total. That's actually a little on the high end for first trimester gains (you're supposed to gain 2-4 pounds), but I'm trying not to overthink it. I was pretty thin to begin with, so I'd expect to gain a fair amount of weight.

Overall, things are going great! We're going to start telling our friends tomorrow abou the pregnancy, and then I'll tell work in about a week and a half. We have our next appointment on the 26th. It will be the first with the midwives, and I'm pretty excited to meet them.

First appointment

We had our first appointment today. I know that I'm 8 weeks and 3 days pregnant, but, the OB thought I should be something like 11+ weeks pregnant. Luckily for me, that meant that the OB scheduled a dating ultrasound. Even luckier, we were able to get in to see the ultrasound tech today, too.

She found the baby right away (I still can't believe there's actually a baby in there), and she saw a heartbeat. I'd been a little worried about a miscarriage (as all pregnant women are), so I was very glad to see it. The heartbeat was 170 beats per minute. There's an old wives' tale that heartbeats over 140 beats per minute are indicative of girls, but we'll see if that's true. We'll get another ultrasound at about 20 weeks, and we'll find out the gender then - probably right before Christmas.

Everything else looks good. It was my husband's first time being at an OB / GYN-type appointment (obviously), and he was pretty horrified and uncomfortable by parts of the exam. He got over it, though, and he was so so so excited to see the baby on the ultrasound. He and I talked afterwards about the fact that we'd just started coming to terms with the fact that we're having a baby, and now it seems so unreal again.

I also found out today that the practice has midwives, which makes me really excited. I've wanted to deliver with a midwife for quite awhile, and this is exactly the type of delivery environment I want. The delivery will be at the best hospital in the area (the only area hospital with a NICU), and it will be done by a midwife as long as things progress normally. If things go awry, there is ALWAYS a doctor at the hospital to step in and assist as needed. We also got some information today about the hospital where I'll be delivering, and it sounds like exactly what I want. I'm very pleased.

Other than that, things are going well. I feel fine, mostly. Occasional mild nausea, but nothing really noteworthy. Some insomnia, some headaches, some moodiness - basically a little bit of a wide variety of symptoms. I know that I'm lucky to be feeling so good. While there's still time for things to turn south, I've been really lucky so far.

My next appointment is scheduled for the end of October. It's really starting to feel real now.

Our first (big) baby purchase

Target was having a big baby furniture sale when we went there today - buy a crib and get a free changing table, basically. I had originally wanted to get a dresser and use it as a changing table, but this seemed like a great deal. We got both today. Here's a picture of the crib:



It's the Graco Lauren crib, and I've liked it for awhile. The one I posted a few weeks ago is no longer available at Target, and it was a lot more expensive than the one we just bought. We got this entire set for $160 for both the crib and changing table.

I'd still like to get a dresser and a glider. I think we can get a decent dresser from Target for about $250, and the glider is going to be about $400. Eek! That's a lot of money, but it will help that we'll be able to use the Target gift cards that we'll get from our credit card rewards.

We also got 3 baby books today - a book for each of us on pregnancy, and a book called "Baby Bargains" that's been recommended by everyone who has kids. It's been interesting so far, although it DID say that changing tables are a waste of money. Oh well! At least ours was free.

I'm obviously a little freaked about buying baby furniture (even if it was a great deal), but I know that Target has a 90 day return policy. I've saved the receipt, and, if something goes wrong, we'll be able to return the furniture.

It's starting to finally feel real. At least for now. I'm still in denial a bit because I still feel like it's too early to get excited. My first doctor appointment is in a little over 2 weeks, so I hope to feel a bit more reassured after that.

Last pre-baby medical step

When I went for my pre-conception appointment a few weeks ago, my doctor told me to check to see if I had gotten a TDAP vaccine recently. It's a tetanus shot with a vaccination for whooping cough. Apparently, in the last few years, the guidance for tetanus vaccines has changed. It used to only be that kids got vaccinated for whooping cough with tetanus. Now, it's recommended that everyone get vaccinated for it.

Well, I hadn't gotten the TDAP vaccination since 1986, so I needed to get one today.

It sucked.

Needles don't particularly bother me, but tetanus shots are always kind of sucky. It stung a bit, but I'm glad to have it over with.