Little Bits of Happiness

Lately I've been down a bit about the way I look. I used to weigh more than I do now by about 20 lbs. But it wasn't very long ago, and I honestly don't think I look any different pregnant at the weight I am now than I did just plain fat at this weight. Yeah, my belly is bigger...but it was when I weighed more, too. For some reason I imagined that by the time I got to halfway through the pregnancy, I would have a cute round preggo belly. Instead, I have my usual flabby belly, just bigger. I wear my cute maternity tops mainly so that people know I'm pregnant and not packing on the pounds again. Honestly, I could get away without them for the most part. But quite a few of my shirts aren't long enough to cover the panels on maternity pants anyway. I'm swimming in most of these shirts right now (have to make sure they'll fit near the end, after all) so even that doesn't lift my spirits much.

Today, however, was different. The high was predicted to be in the 50s, so I decided to pull out one of the few short sleeved shirts I have. I bought them last summer when I was pregnant with Arabella and haven't worn them once. I remember trying them on during that pregnancy and they were absolutely huge on me. I went with the pink one today as it was a nice cheery color and was surprised to find that it fit rather well. Of course, it's a wrap shirt so it's a lot more adjustable than the other ones I own...but I have to say that in it, I actually look pregnant. AND I had my first total stranger realize that I was pregnant today. It was so cute. I was helping this elderly couple at work and when I went back to my desk to check on something for them, from behind the partition I heard the lady whisper, "She's pregnant, you know!" She winked and blew me a kiss when she left. Okay, so it was a bit weird, but what do you expect - she's in her 80s! On the other hand, I also saw some former coworkers today who I haven't seen since October. They told me I look great, which usually means, "Gee, you don't look pregnant at all!" I'll take the good with the bad though...

So here I am at 20 weeks 4 days:



I realized today that there are only 45 days left until the 3rd trimester. Well, now that it's near the end of the day, I guess it's closer to 44... but still, that's only a month and a half away! Hard to believe that the time is going by so quickly. Before I know it, I'll be holding that little baby in my arms!

Spoke Too Soon

Remember when I was talking about our dog, Becky, and her obsession with the pack 'n play? Well yesterday she jumped into it. Brian didn't think she could, but I saw it with my own eyes. I was sitting in the living room, she was sitting in front of the pack 'n play in the next room, crying. The next thing I know, she jumped up and right into it. I can't believe she cleared the side of it! Immediately she found out that was not acceptable, but it's further evidence that she feels she is queen of this castle. We'll be in for a struggle, I'm afraid. When I told Brian about it when he got home from work, his response was, "Well I guess we can't leave her alone around it." His lack of reading shows (or should I say my obsessive planning?). I had to explain to him that you're not supposed to leave dogs unattended with babies anyway... animals are unpredictable, as Becky proved yesterday. So after that, she decided to sniff up the stroller for a while... this should be interesting.

To all of you domestic goddesses out there, how often do you mop your floors? There is no carpeting in this apartment--vinyl floor in kitchen, tile in bathroom (the tiles are coming up...lovely), and pine floors in the rest of the apartment. I have a hard enough time getting to vacuuming lately, but I realized it had been quite some time since I mopped. It's been on my to do list, I just never get around to it. So I'm sitting in the living room now, waiting for the kitchen and bathroom floors to dry so I can get on with my life. I haven't mopped the rest of the house in even longer, but mainly that's because the wood floors obviously haven't been sealed in a long time and I'm afraid of ruining them with the water. I usually save those floors for the warmer months. The reason I ask what you do, though, is that I feel that my domestic inadequacies will become a much bigger issue once we have a child crawling around on these floors. The thought of it grosses me out... We don't wear shoes in the house to help keep down on the dirt, but still, our dog trots these floors every day and Lord knows what she's been stepping in! I'm hoping our next apartment will have more carpeting so this isn't as much of an issue. Sure, carpets need to be shampooed, but not as often as bare floors need to be mopped.

Drumroll Please!

I bit the bullet and bought another scanner. Brian's not too happy about it... He seems to think we have no use for one. But I've felt lost ever since we replaced our all-in-one with just a printer-I obviously can't live without it. I do have to say the quality has gone up since my last purchase...and it's really easy to use.

So, without further delay, here are the ultrasound pictures from Wednesday, February 2nd when I was 19 weeks 6 days... (these are the scans of the printouts I was given)



Our sleepy little Peep :)

Past Halfway!

Yesterday was 20 weeks 0 days (well, according to calculating by ovulation date) which means today there are only 139 days to go!! I've made it past the halfway point!

On top of that, I actually got some sleep last night! I started wearing wrist guards for my carpal tunnel, as suggested by Dr. K, and tried using the body pillow behind me so I was sort of laying on my back. It took a lot of pressure off of my hip and arm and enabled me to get some sleep until I had to get up to pee at 4:30AM. Then, Peep decided it was a good time to wake up and started punching and kicking me. I wonder if his/her sleeping schedule will be similar once s/he is born?

I plan on doing some more decluttering this weekend. When I set up the new pack 'n play, I realized there wasn't as much room created by my previous decluttering as I had hoped. I'm also trying to get Brian to call on a few ads in the paper for apartments. We really need at least one more room. I still hate the idea of moving now with a baby coming, mainly having to take so much out of our bank account to do so, but I know I will be miserable trying to squeeze all of us in here with all the accoutrements that come with a baby. Here's hoping he makes those calls because a few of them actually sound promising!

Regarding the new pack 'n play, our dog Becky is fascinated by it. Maybe not so much it as what's in it, since I put a bunch of stuffed animals that we have for Peep in there so it wouldn't be a total waste of space right now. The first night, she would go over, put her paws up on the side, then sit down and cry. She even stood on her hind legs on her own trying to peek inside, then would cry. Since then, she's taken to sitting in front of it and staring. I guess it's a good thing she'll have all this time to get used to it. And we'll have to make sure she doesn't learn how to jump into it since she can jump really high. But at least she isn't terrified of it, like she is of the stroller!

We're having....

...a baby! And a lazy one at that! Peep didn't move much at all during the ultrasound, in spite of the 16 oz of orange juice I chugged 15 minutes before my appointment. There he or she was, perfect as could be, but absolutely and totally asleep. So the tech tried shaking my belly around to get Peep to wake up. Peep was obviously jolted by this surprise, yet s/he went back to sleep-but not before waving to us. :) So I go back in a month for another ultrasound because the tech couldn't even get all of the measurements she needed. What she got looks good, though. Peep's heart was beating at 154 bpm and (from what I could see on the records-nobody told me) it looks like s/he weighs around 11 ounces right now. Speaking of weight, I only gained 1 lb since my last appointment, which brings me in at a grand total of 9 lbs gained so far. I got a warning that I should start watching what I eat and avoiding empty calories and too many carbs since my PCOS puts me at a higher risk for gestational diabetes. They won't be testing me until 28 weeks for it, but Dr. K said now would be a good time to start being more careful. Should I happen to develop GD, they will do monthly ultrasounds from that point forward to make sure Peep doesn't get too big. Otherwise, the next ultrasound will be the last one.

I also have to wait another month now for my CD of ultrasound images since I'm going back on March 2nd for another one. I guess I'll really get my $20 worth, but I really wanted to be able to show the images we had. I'll have to see if I can get them scanned at my MIL's house this weekend...

I'm thinking maybe this is a sign that we shouldn't be finding out whether Peep is a she or a he. I had been thinking a lot about letting our baby make the decision for us, although I never worded it that way to Brian because I figured he'd think I was looney tunes. Regardless, Peep certainly made the decision for us this time.. So maybe I won't pursue the answer to the gender question next time.

Today's The Day!

I decided to take another day of rest from work so I can be fully prepared for my ultrasound this afternoon. I didn't sleep much last night anyway. I don't know if it was that sort of Christmas phenomena-you know, when you can't get any sleep because you're so excited about what might have been left under the tree for you-or if it's just because I'm sick. Regardless, the excitement is mounting. I kept saying to Brian last night, "Tomorrow we'll see our baby!" He seemed about as excited as a man can be. ;)

I'm still undecided about finding out the gender. It's the problem that has plagued me much of my life: I can see both sides of the argument as valid. On the one hand, it would be nice to have that surprise at the end. On the other, it would be nice to be able to buy all those frilly girly things now if I can. :D I wonder if the only reason why I agreed to not find out was because it's the unconventional thing to do. I think I read somewhere that only 20% of pregnant women leave that as a surprise. And I was known for doing whatever was unconventional in my youth just to be contrary, to go against what was expected of me. It was my way of getting attention and standing out in the crowd. As long as there's a healthy baby (or babies!) in there, that's all that really matters in the end. But I really would like to be able to plan ahead...

I won't have any ultrasound pictures to share after my appointment today, unfortunately. The office I go to gives you a CD with jpegs and avi files from the ultrasound on it, but you have to wait about a week to get it. So while I will have a print out or two for my own collection, I don't have access to a scanner anymore so I'll have to wait for that CD to come to share with all of you. But hey, we've waited this long, what's one more week, right? ;)

Sick :(

I knew it was coming. I had an earache over the weekend and I haven't had one of those in a while. I've been a lot more tired than usual, too. And sure enough, I woke up (if you can call it that since I didn't sleep too well to begin with) in the middle of the night with post-nasal drip, a sore throat, and congestion. I didn't get much sleep the rest of the night. This morning I had the usual internal debate when I'm not feeling well: to go to work or not? I'm not feeling horrible quite yet...I've certainly felt worse before. But I've always felt that some preventive measures can keep things from getting worse. At first I was going to stay home and rest all day (which sometimes works...but if the tenant upstairs is home all day, it's usually a waste of a sick day since they tend to be noisy). Then I decided to go to work. I have a pension negotiations meeting today so it wasn't like I would have to spend all day working with the public. Then if I still felt ill tomorrow, I could stay home then knowing I wasn't planning on being there the whole day anyway because of my ultrasound appointment. I took my shower and contemplated it further. Finally, I decided to stay home. I called in sick and found that my boss is also sick again. Same symptoms. Of course, she felt like this several weeks ago, kept going to work anyway, and ended up having some kind of upper respiratory infection-something I tend to be quite prone to since I have asthma. I hope that isn't what I have now. I hope it isn't even a sinus infection. I used to get those several times a year, usually with it turning into bronchitis. But ever since I started getting the flu shot, I've been able to skip that horrible fate each winter, for some odd reason. I had been so healthy so far in spite of all my coworkers coming into work sick that I thought maybe, maybe, maybe I just might make it through the winter illness-free. It looks like my luck has run out.

So here I sit on the couch with my bottle of water and box of tissues handy. I took some Tylenol Cold after another internal debate (did the doctor say I could take this or not?) because in the end, I was advised by my OB to take something for my symptoms if I am sick-that I will not be helping Peep any by suffering. No matter what happens, I AM GOING TO MY ULTRASOUND APPOINTMENT TOMORROW. The only thing that would force me to cancel is death itself. In the meantime, I wonder what I can find online to buy for Peep. ;)