Low Risk Again

I suppose I should update after that last post, yeah? I'm sure you all are hanging on the edge of your seats. Or not.


Anyway, everything is good. I did any excellent job of NOT PANICKING up until the night before my follow-up ultrasound. Pretty good for me, especially when I'm all hopped up on pregnancy hormones. Omphalocele is gone and we're back to being boring and normal, low-risk, etc., which is exactly where I would like to be. Exhale.


Pregnancy is otherwise boring. Which is good. And honestly, this time around I don't end up thinking about it much because I don't really have the time, with a full time job and a toddler. However, things seem to be taking a bigger physical toll on me this time. I'm still not obviously pregnant, but I already feel like I'm harboring a bowling ball that is ready to roll out of my abdomen at any moment. I'm sleeping terribly. I'm already getting a little heartburn, and my morning sickness hasn't even gone away yet. I still don't like food. And I had my first pee-sneeeze the other day, which I'm pretty sure didn't happen with my previous pregnancy until I hit my due date. I had to lay down on the kitchen floor in the middle of slicing up some strawberries for Tycho today because I felt like I was going to pass out. I'm a little afraid I'm just going to skip that happy place 2nd trimester having energy and feeling good phase altogether. Hopefully we get there soon.

So.

We had our NT scan yesterday. My baby is... not perfect?

Mostly everything was good. The NT stuff is totally fine, and I'm not expecting the bloodwork to say anything different. Baby appears to have all the appropriate parts and appendages. But baby also still has some intestinal bits left on the outside. We were probably just a little earlier (especially since my midwives moved up my due date and I still think they're wrong), and most likely things will resolve themselves here shortly, but it's weird being in this place where things aren't quite right. I go back in two weeks to recheck, and I'm really not worried at all, but I still feel weird that I can't say everything is perfect because everything is not perfectly perfect. Hopefully it will be again soon.

Niiiiine weeks.

What? So while I feel horrifically impatient I do have to admit that this round of pregnancy really is flying by compared to last time. I periodically have the chance to forget that I am in fact pregnant because there is too much other shit going on in my life for it to be constantly at the forefront in my brain. But then there are smells and I remember. It would be nice to feel not sick or like actually eating non-carbohydrate food or something, though. Soon enough I guess.

Gut feeling this time around is girl. Not as strong a feeling as I had with Tycho, and I don't believe in gut feelings anyway, but it would be convenient because we've agreed on a girl name and then stopped discussing names altogether. But I've definitely started thinking about the baby as she and her hypothetical name, so there.

Kyle has somehow convinced himself we are having twins, which I wish he had never said aloud because the very idea makes me break out into a cold sweat. He doesn't want them either, but a friend teased him that he would inevitably have twin daughters and then apparently I spooked him by pointing out how ginormous I am (but I mean really!), so now he is slightly freaking out. And for some reason we asked Tycho if he wanted one or two babies this morning and he said two babies because of course. I don't know. Things are pretty good though, despite the twin paranoia and the nausea and the zits and constipation and my delightful night-owl first born suddenly waking up at 7am every day for the last week, when I desperately need to catch up on my sleep. Yes, that. Mostly good? Mostly pretty good.

Taste

The problem with being pregnant (well, one of them) is that everything tastes wrong. Except for chocolate. Chocolate still tastes like chocolate and chocolate tastes delicious, so you just eat a lot of chocolate to the exclusion of everything else because it's the only thing you can trust.

Yep I am super healthy.

2.8

This is what eight weeks pregnant looks like the second time around:

What kind of fuckery is this?

Obligatory updates.

I feel neglectful of the blog but I still don't have much to say other than how much I feel like barfing all the time. All I really want to do is complain about stupid minor pregnant problems on Facebook but I can't because we haven't officially announced anything and I'm hormonal and grumpy all the time and I am kind of taking it out on Kyle.

I also haven't posted about Tycho in ages either. He is... kind of amazing. His speech therapist thinks he will be at age appropriate when we do his transition evaluation next month. He is starting to use like, actual legitimate sentences here and there. We bought him some books about babies. Nothing "big brother" specific quite yet, but just general info on how babies grow and he very much likes the "Egg Book" and he can say egg and sperm and uterus and I showed him the pictures we have from his birth and he said "Ouch! Mama sad! Mama push!" Basically he is adorable.

Today is eight weeks. I look roughly as pregnant as I did at about 20 weeks with Tycho, especially in the evening. Pictures later.

Things do not always go as planned.

Yesterday, after spending our afternoon crafting for my sister's wedding, my mom and I were about to head out with Tycho to get some dinner when we got the call. Well, text. Called 911, taking Grandpa to the ER. No other details. Not even which hospital.

We just start driving, and figure out where we are supposed to be going. He had a massive stroke. On top of a million and one other ailments.

I told him he has another great grandchild on the way. He liked that. I hadn't planned to share so early, but you need good news on a night like that.

Things are looking up today. They got him there quick, and he is responding well to treatment. Time will tell what his recovery will look like. My mom says he remembers my news from last night and he is very excited. Okay.

2.4

Four weeks today, I guess. I don't know that I can obsess over every little detail of this pregnancy like I did the last one. I can hear Tycho stirring form his nap right now. And by that I mean banging on his bedroom door for me to let him out. So far so good though. Morning sickness can suck a big bag of dicks, but besides that (and the boobs), I feel okay. I still have an appetite, which is nice, and the oppressive fatigue has not yet kicked in. But I really do wish I had more time to day dream.

Belly pictures are back by popular demand (well, my mother's). Here's today:

I'll have to get back into the habit of taking these things, and hopefully make them look not terrible. I'll probably hold off on more pictures until anything start happening, but for now, this is the starting point.

Round Two

The feels, I have all of them.


Mostly good ones. I am completely over the moon excited, grinning like an idiot, can't imagine keeping this a secret for any length of time, already scheduled my first midwife appointment even though it isn't until March because I just can't wait.

I went bananas on baby name research and we went from having no ideas a couple days ago to being pretty sure on a girl name and I love it so much and I want this baby to be a girl so I can use it, the same way I wanted for Tycho to be a boy so we could name him that.

Tycho... won't even listen to us try to explain a baby. It's early, I know, but I want to at least start getting him familiarized with the idea that a baby grows in a mama's belly and then we can eventually extrapolate from there, but he won't hear me on anything. But deep breaths, we have lots of time.

And then we rough-housed and he punched me in my already-sore boobs. And that is how the second pregnancy differs from the first.

One Year

It's been a year since I went off birth control. A long, hard, depressing year. A year of really long irregular cycles and fleeting, phantom symptoms, and disappointment. I've been having a hard time. Kyle didn't really understand, because we really hand't be trying very, AHEM, hard, and we took a couple of months off so we made sure we'd be able to fly out to my sister's wedding this summer, but none of that changes that it is a whole year since I decided I wanted a baby and that we completely missed the two to three year window that we originally wanted to space our children and that this stuff is hard and it hurts and WHY ME.

Saturday we went bridesmaid dress shopping for my sister's wedding. I won't lie, I was having a hard time getting excited about it, because I was sure I'd already have a baby at her wedding, and then I was SURE I'd be pregnant, but now I don't even know what to think. I would need to buy a dress that would look good either way, but that's probably impossible.

Saturday morning was cycle day 35. Not surprising lately, though. We've done a better job this month actually trying, but zero symptoms, so I was already bummed. But I had an extra test lying around, and since girls shopping day also was going to involve a lot a day drinking, I peed on a stick.

I have never been shocked by a test before! Every minus I've ever seen I expected, and I knew I was pregnant with Tycho before I could even get a positive result. But this! I thought I might be seeing things, but although faint, that line is unmistakable.



I just... !!!! EMOTIONS! I have been on cloud nine. I tried on a fake belly with the dress I bought and I didn't want to take it off and I can't stop smiling and the crazy ouchy boobs kicked in later that day and OMG OMG OMG!



I have a million more thoughts and feelings about this but for now I'm just a happy pile of goo. You can keep a secret, right, blog?

I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want

I really want... another baby? I think? Maybe?

It feels a little crazy. A month ago I was still firmly in the NO WAY NO HOW NOT NOW camp. Which is, I am pretty sure, where my dear husband is still. It kind of snuck up on me. Maybe it's that now Tycho's sleeping through the night, maybe since he's now so clearly a little kid and no longer a baby, maybe I'm finally ovulating again since we're nursing (slightly) less. Maybe.

I can just go back and read my old blog posts and know that pregnancy made me sick and that the newborn stage was so hard and I know that we're finally settling into a good groove here and finding our sea legs and blah blah blah some other such analogy, but I'm feeling all nostalgic about it all right now. I miss sharing my body with my baby, miss being one person, just the two of us. I miss being his whole entire world, both when he was on the inside, and later on the outside, too. Now he has so much more beyond just me, and that is good, wonderful even, but different, and I'm feeling all melancholy.

We're not really quite ready yet. We're going to take ourselves on a grown up vacation, without Tycho (yay for grandmas!) in February, We haven't decided officially yet, but probably Hawaii. But after that, I think I'm ready to get my IUD taken out and see what happens.

Sigh.

Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day to me!

Birth Story, the Prologue

I guess we should start well before my labor actually did. My due date was July 13th, but I was so sure I was going to go early. Kyle and I were both early babies (3 weeks, and one week), as was my sister, and my dad and all of his siblings. There was NO WAY I was going to make it. Emotionally either. By 39 weeks I didn't think I could handle another moment of pregnancy. But my due date came and went and I was still pregnant.

I was on a cycle of about two days of acceptance, one day of complete breakdown. Kyle said it was like I was going through the stages of grief, except that I couldn't hold on to the end, and always broke down and started over again. I tried to keep myself busy with one active, out-of-the house thing everyday, but it was hard to get myself going, and find people to do things with, and not just retreat into bed for the rest of forever. I was sure that if I made it to my 41 week, 1 day appointment, that I would be a complete and total sobbing mess, and made Kyle take the day off so I wouldn't have to go alone. 

But when I lost my mucous plug at 41 weeks I started feeling much better. I knew it didn't necessarily mean that I was going to go into labor like, RIGHTNOW, but it was a sign that my body was still in fact working up to birthing this baby, and had not completely abandoned me. I was pretty sure that I would have a baby before the end of the weekend.

At my midwife visit the next day I had my first vaginal exam of my entire pregnancy. (Side note: thank goodness my midwives don't do them on the regular, because they are TERRIBLE.) It was so reassuring to hear that I was 50% effaced and two centimeters dilated. I was thrilled, but the midwives were slightly less optimistic, as I didn't have much blood in the mucous I had passed, and scheduled me for a biophysical profile ultrasound and then an appointment to discuss natural induction options for the next week. But I was in such a good mood I even let Kyle take me to lunch at the Olive Garden afterward. (I would need another whole blog post to explain his obsession with the Olive Garden.)

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

Another week?

Why hello 41 weeks. I thought for sure I would be greeting you with a baby in my arms instead of in my uterus, but apparently not so much.

The last few days have been... tumultuous. To say the least. I made it 22 hours of Kyle's birthday being a good, un-irritating, scarce wife... but then I had a complete, sobbing on the bathroom floor nervous breakdown, obviously. I can't even really recount it now, since once you get out of these episodes it's really hard to remember where your head was when you were in them. But some combination of being totally tired of being pregnant, feeling like my body wasn't working right, total terror at the unknown of (dun dun dun) INTERVENTIONS that I hadn't really thought about because I was sure I wouldn't need them, something something hormones, emotional crier, yadda yadda.  Even though I can't (and have no desire to) get back into that headspace, I can tell you that it was a scary, dark place that was as bad as I had ever been, where my only coping mechanisms are really breaking things and hurting myself. I managed to refrain from both of these things, but yeah.

Kyle says it's like I'm going through the stages of grieving. Yes, except for that once I reach the acceptance stage I can't seem to stay there and head back through the cycle all over again.

Today I feel pretty good, not least of all because I lost my mucous plug/had some bloody show this morning. I know it doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it at least goes to show that my body hasn't completely abandoned that baby-birthing project, as was my fear. Also, TMI, but SO. MUCH. MUCOUS. Really, I had no idea. I've also been having seemingly more significant contractions for the last two days, but they haven't really seemed organized enough to matter, so I'm mostly just giving my belly the side-eye and waiting for things to be more definite.

Today also marked my very last day at work. Possibly FOREVER, but at least for the next 12 weeks. Very strange. Tomorrow morning is my midwife appointment omg scary times, but I'm feeling pretty optimistic about it, what with recent developments. I feel pretty confident, at least for the moment, that things are not going to end all scary scary doctor hospital needle scalpel DEATH. Whee positive attitude! I try.

At least today is somebody's birthday!

Today will be an experiment in how to not completely irritate your husband on his 28th birthday when you are also 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant. It might be tricky. Plan so far is to get the fuck out of the house and get a pedicure, because I am sure I am far less annoying when I am not here. We'll see how it goes after that.

I love you, Kyle.

Another day

Today is a better day. Yesterday was pretty okay, too, actually. I haven't cried since Friday, but I cried way a lot on Friday, so I guess it all evens out. But at least a little bit I think I'm learning how to live at this new pace that is the end of pregnancy. Living slower is making me feel like I'm not doing quite so much impossible waiting. I'm sleeping in and taking leisurely showers and generally not clock-watching and probably moving half as slow as the rest of the world, but I think that's for the best. The only hard part is that no one else is on my new schedule, so it can get kind of lonely. Everyone else also has lives and jobs and things, and I think are reserving their time for later, because it's much more exciting to hang out with a newborn baby than a bitchy term pregnant woman.

However. Kyle and I wandered and ate our way around the Bite of Seattle yesterday, which is pretty much the perfect event for a pregnant woman, and today BFF and I did some mall-walking, Frappuccino -drinking, and nursing-apparel shopping. I am a much happier person if I get out of the house and do something, anything, at least once a day. Tomorrow the only thing I have planned so far is a pedicure, but that is something at least. And beyond that, who knows. I'm having a hard time thinking more than one day ahead at this point. Everything seems far too uncertain.

I am starting to feel like I'm living in some sort of dream world. The longer things go, the less real anything feels. Kind of like the early weeks of my pregnancy where in between bouts of nausea I wouldn't have any symptoms and my body hadn't started changing yet and I would feel like I had imagined it all. Obviously, I am huge and clearly pregnant, but the reality of getting a baby sometime in the next week and a half seems to recede further and further into the distance. A week ago I felt like labor was imminent and I was ready, and now... it all just seems impossible. I feel like I am sitting in a nursery decorated for no one, and that I'm going to turn into a crazy lady pushing around an empty stroller. It is very strange and surreal.

But I guess it will all be over soon. This is the last month I will be pregnant. I will have a baby in the next couple weeks. This will end, and I will have my new reality and it will be good. I just need to remain calm and patient. I'm doing okay at that today.

Overdue

I've been putting off writing this post,  as it feels a bit like admitting defeat, but here I am. Still no baby. My due date has come and gone and nothing really has changed much. Baby boy shows no signs of being ready or willing to come out ever.

40 weeks, this past Wednesday

I am.... barely holding it together. There are lots of tears. LOTS. I think I am dehydrating myself from crying so much, actually. I have a wicked headache this morning. I'm trying to rein it in and get more fluids in me, you know, in case I have the occasion to need to buttload of energy in the near future, but I'm really no match for my hormones and emotions right now. Yesterday Kyle decided that an hour of hysterical wife sobbing was a reasonable excuse not to go into the office and took me to lunch instead. And before he went out in the evening for baseball-related activities, he had me invite myself over for dinner at my parents. They thought it was hilarious that he was having them "babysit" me, but it was probably for the best, since I likely would have otherwise sat at home in the dark crying. Yes, I know I am pathetic.

I also got myself a Frappaccino yesterday afternoon and walked around the lake listening to my labor playlist, and it was very nice. 2.8 miles and it only took me an hour and twenty minutes. It was actually lovely, even though it started raining a couple times. The headphones means that no one talked to me and I got to get some alone time without it making me feel depressed and isolated and helpless. And you know, the walking thing, that's supposed to help, right? I think it's going to be a regular afternoon activity for me until baby boy decides to show up.

My sister is also back from France now. She got in Wednesday night. I'm happy she's here, of course, but I was really hoping to have a baby before she got here, so I haven't been as joyful about it as I perhaps should be. I love my sister, but she can be somewhat emotionally draining for me, and I'm spread thin already as it is. And she doesn't understand why I am so short and so angry and so quick to fly off the handle, that I'm not really ready to spend a lot of time with her quite yet. Unfortunate.

I really want to have a baby soon. If I make it to my next appointment on Thursday I have to have a non-stress test and we'll sweep my membranes and schedule an ultrasound and I really want no part of any of it. Please please please please please let me have a baby first.

Still here.

Oh hey I am still pregnant. I guess that's not super surprising, since my due date isn't even til Wednesday, but I feel like I've had this baby inside me for pretty much forever, and there's only so long you can go without completely losing your mind.

I think this would all be a lot easier if I could really give into just living in the moment and not worrying about how much longer I have and what plans I have for this week and whatever, but unfortunately the rest of the world doesn't exactly work like that, so it's really hard to just let everything else go. I still have to worry about when I am scheduled at work, and who I have to call to make sure the world doesn't end if I can't come in and that my sister is coming back to Seattle in a few days and that Kyle has a baseball game later, and good lord everything is so damn inconvenient when you are a term pregnant woman working with an even that can happen anytime in a five week stretch. Although I guess at this point I only have to worry about two and a half.

Once labor truly begins, though, time really can stop mattering for a while, and I am so looking forward to that. Once we get there, the only thing that will really matter is what is currently happening, and I no longer have to worry about the rest of the world's schedule. It will just be me and my body and my husband and my baby and our family going at the speed that works for us, and while the world is obviously not going to be stopping also, we can for the most part happily ignore the artificial scheduling of everything. I can't wait for that.

39/40

I am 39 weeks pregnant today. Woo-freaking-hoo. I am absolutely done being pregnant, but unfortunately my dear little fetus doesn't really give a crap that I am done. So, in my body he remains. Hopefully not for much longer. I have a good feeling about the next couple of days, but it is just a feeling, based on nothing in particular, and as such has no merit at all, and at this point I should just resign myself to being pregnant for a full 42 weeks, so I can be pleasantly surprised if baby boy shows up any sooner. But really, like, RIGHT NOW would be just GREAT.

The good news is that he keeps dropping in small increments such that I am actually interested in eating meals again, instead of a steady diet of milkshakes and bowls of cereal. Although, now that I think about it, I am going to go get a bowl of cereal.

An invitation:

Dear Baby,

Hey baby boy! How are you? I am incredibly uncomfortable.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I don't have any plans for tomorrow, so if you're not busy either maybe you'd want to hang out with me? We could meet up at the birth center. I'll even invite Daddy; he can drive. Let me know if you're interested. You know where to find me.

Love, Mommy