Week 18 - Sweeeeeet Potato!

Week 18 - Sweet Potato
(September 22-28)

I've started to feel the baby move a bit, and I'm pretty sure I've been feeling this 'quickening' for at least a week or so. Sometimes it just feels like a little muscle spasm in my belly and other times it's more like a fluttery feeling. We have our second trimester ultrasound coming up on October 1st and it's all I can think about! Most people are saying girl and I have to agree...I feel like this little one is a girl. We'll see if I'm right!

I'm amazed at how hard the morning sickness hit me at the beginning and how good I feel now. I didn't know if I'd ever feel good again (you try being sick every day for about 10 weeks!) so this is such a relief. Whew! For me, morning sickness mostly felt like really really bad motion sickness. Sooooo happy that's behind me!

Week 17 - Onion

Week 17 - Onion
(September 15 - 21)

Vacation was sooooo relaxing! We had such a great time and it was so nice to not be running all about. I was up by 7am every day and in bed by 9pm almost every night. The exception was when my mom made me stay up and watch America's Got Talent with her. :) James and his dad rented sea kayaks for one morning, we took the dogs on lots of walks on the beach, visited the pier and watched the sunset, and did A LOT of sitting on the beach. My mom and I braved the waves on our last full day there and had so much fun splashing around.

Here's the view from the beach house:

And here's the gorgeous sunset we watched from the pier:

Week 16 - Avocado

Week 16: Avocado
(September 8 - 14)

We leave for Holden Beach, NC tomorrow and will spend a very relaxing week there with my parents and in-laws. I definitely have a lot more energy and less nausea...just in time for vacation! Holden Beach is a really small family beach in southern North Carolina and is where my parents took our family when I was a kid. I think we went there every year for at least 15 years (sometimes twice a year) so there were lots of great memories made there. I can't wait to just lay on the beach, read, and laze about.

I had a doctor's appointment scheduled for today but rescheduled for the week after we get back. There's too much packing and cleaning to do before my parents arrive later this morning.

Orange - Week 15

Week 15: Naval Orange
(September 1 - September 7)

It has been a rather uneventful week other than my stomach is really starting to get bigger! I'm not sure if the rumblings and weird feelings in my abdomen are the baby moving or just random things, but hopefully I'll know for sure in the next couple of weeks.

The nausea has been much better and I'm slowing regaining my energy. I still have food aversions to seafood, Chipotle, and anything ginger-related, but other than that, I seem to have regained my appetite. I have to eat smaller portions now because there isn't as much room in my stomach, but that is fine with me!

First Trimester Screening Results

Sooooo so happy with the results. I didn't think I was very nervous or overly worried, but I had tears of happiness running down my face when the doctor gave me the information. I guess I was a little more concerned about it than I thought! :)

Here they are!

Original Risk for a 35 Year Old Woman:

Down's Syndrome: 1 in 267
Trisomy 13 and 18: 1 in 482

My Risk:

Down's Syndrome: 1 in 4,765
Trisomy 13 and 18: 1 in 9,621

She said my results are like that of a 20 year old! Needless to say, my mind is at rest and I'm extremely relieved.

Just Peachy - Week 13

Week 13: Peach
( July 25-July 31)

It was a really good week; we got the results from the first trimester screening (separate post for that!) and I've been feeling a bit better. I am still tired and queasy, but not as bad as previous weeks. I can make it until about 8:30pm now versus 7:30 or 8pm so that's definitely an improvement. No new cravings or food aversions...the usual suspects are still in play. My next checkup isn't until Sept 10 and our next ultrasound is October 1st...I'll be 18W2d so I hope they can determine gender! Very exciting...just over four short weeks away!

First Trimester Screening

The screening went smoothly but we won't have our results until later this week. We got great pictures of the baby and it was so exciting to see him/her move around. It was a little strange since I can't feel anything yet, but amaaaaaazing to see the little baby just wiggling around like a jumping bean! I really liked the doctor who explained the numbers game when it comes to the Down's and Trisomy 13 & 18 odds. Our bloodwork should be back by Friday so my fingers are crossed.

In the meantime, here's a picture of Baby P - no word on gender yet, but we go back in 5 weeks for the second tri screening...hopefully the baby will cooperate and will reveal himself or herself. ;)

Daycare dilemma?

In order to start planning and budgeting, I called some in-home daycares as well as more 'corporate' daycare centers like Minnieland, La Petite Academy, etc. The in-home places are a bit less expensive, but I really prefer the security of the larger daycares. I was a little relieved that the cost isn't as bad as I anticipated so that's a plus! One of the cons for an in-home center is that we would't know who would be coming/going from their house, whereas the larger ones have regulations to follow and enforce strict security policies. I've heard arguments for both, and while we're still not 100%, I think we are leaning towards the larger daycare centers.

Plum - Week 12

Week 12: Plum
(August 18 - August 24)
Things have been moving along very nicely. The morning sickness is still in full effect, but I'm not officially at second trimester until next week. Yesterday was one of the worst days for morning sickness; I could barely get out of bed. I'm so thankful that my job allows me to work from home when needed or else I wouldn't have any vacation time for March!

The first tri screening is tomorrow morning and I'm nervous and excited. I'm staying positive and so ready to see more pictures of our baby. Once we see that everything is fine, I think I'm ready to 'announce' the pregnancy to more people.

I've been able to eat more fruit and I love pluots, grapes, and apple with peanut butter. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are either my lunch or snack (depends if I can wait until lunchtime to eat it...), and I've found that ice cold water with fresh sliced lemon really helps with the nausea. My daily breakfast is Frosted Mini Wheats and my body loves the fiber. I was really enjoying caffeine-free Coke, but found that I wasn't drinking enough water when it was around...so no more. :(

Despite it being necessary to wear maternity work pants, I definitely don't look pregnant...more like I gained a little weight (although I have lost weight!). My regular jeans still fit and most of my shirts/sweaters/suit jackets are fine too.

Lime - Week 11

Week 11: Lime
(August 11 - August 17)
For some reason, Week 11 feels like a milestone. I still have a while before I start the second trimester but 11 weeks feels really good. I'm very excited for the perinatologist visit scheduled for next Thursday (8/19) and can't wait to see the baby again. I'm still really tired - I'm in bed by 8pm most nights - so I'm really looking forward to getting some energy back soon. We booked a beach house for a week in September and I cannot wait to just relax and do nothing. We're going with my parents and my in-laws will join us for half of the week. I found a pet-friendly house, so the dogs get to come with us too! This will be their first visit to the ocean so it will be interesting to see how they react to sand and the waves.

I had a strong aversion to coffee during weeks 5-6, but recently starting drinking decaf and I'm so happy that it tastes good again! I still can't think about seafood or Chipotle, but some things I love: McDonald's french fries, frosted mini wheats, Italian food (especially pizza), chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples, pears, and peaches.

Prune - Week 10

Week 10: Prune
(August 4 - August 10)

I had another doctor's appointment to get the results of my bloodwork and do some routine tests. All of my bloodwork came back great and I am not scheduled for another regular doctor's appointment until Week 16. However, I do have to visit a perinatologist (aka High Risk Doctor) since I'm AMA (Advanced Maternal Age). Apparently, 35 is NOT the new 25 when it comes to babies, so I accept my AMA title with great honor. It just means more tests to check for red flags of chromosomal abnorbalities. I'm happy it means more pictures of our little Peanut! I had to give in and buy maternity pants for work. I have a pair of regular jeans that still have some room left to grow, but my work pants are much less forgiving. I've even LOST 1.5 lbs but work pants that used to be HUGE on me are impossible to button. After weeks of no exercise due to pure exhaustion, I dragged my butt to the pool this week. It felt really great to swim and I really wish that our gym had a pool. I'll have to look into joining the YMCA for winter swimming. Almost at Week 11!

Green Olive - Week 9

Week 9: Green Olive
(July 28 - August 3)

Not much happened during Week 9; no doctor's appointments or tests or anything new and unusual. I guess I can mention here that I was (and still am!) extremely nervous about losing the baby. I think that one miscarriage is enough to put that fear in any woman's heart! I freaked out when my breasts weren't tender when I woke up one morning...but lo and behold, they were just as sore a few hours later. I had very light spotting a couple of times and all I can say is do not make the same mistake as me: DO NOT GOOGLE when things seem bad. All you will get are pages of results from women sharing their horror stories. Google is NOT a pregnant woman's friend when it comes to things like this; as almost every woman has heard, "every pregnancy is different!" It's very true! The morning sickness got much worse this week; other than water, I couldn't keep most food or drink down. Thankfully, my doctor gave me a prescription for Zofran, which is used to treat nausea. I take the medicine in order to keep food down and nutrients going to the baby. I researched before I started taking the medicine, and while I know some disagree with taking it, I really have no choice. I honestly cannot function if I don't take it. The RX says to take it every 6 hours, but I do okay with one at night before bed, and one when I wake up in the morning. I only have one very uncomfortable side effect...

Raspberry - Week 8

Week 8: Raspberry
(July 21 - July 27)

The morning sickness started getting out of control this week.. I could barely eat anything and things that I used to love started sounding absolutely disgusting to me. The CANNOT EAT list at this point included Chipotle, most seafood (especially crab legs), most red meat (except for hamburgers), most vegetables, and most poultry. I ate a lot of pasta, apples, grilled cheese, cereal, potatoes, and bacon. We had a doctor's appointment at the "Med Spa" where they gave me a gift bag with coupons, date books, and other things, and I learned what I was not allowed to eat/drink/do. No sushi or other raw meats/fish, no deli meats unless cooked to steaming, etc etc. I already knew most of it so it was a pretty relaxed appointment with few surprises. I also had more bloodwork done to check for infectious diseases, bloodtype, etc.

Blueberry - Week 7

Week 7: Blueberry
(July 14 - July 20)

We saw the baby for the first time! We also learned that I was exactly 7 weeks on July 14. We saw and heard the heartbeat (139 bpm!) and were both relieved when there was only ONE. I think twins would have sent James to the loony bin. Of course, he always told me that if we had twins, I had better pick a favorite to keep. haha. :) Morning sickness really started to hit me this week and I had really bad back pain. I finally figured out it was a gas bubble stuck in my back, so taking Gas-X really helped. I thought the nausea was really bad at this point and was not prepared for what was in store for me! I had a follow-up doctor's appointment so we could talk about the ultrasound and see if I had any questions. I was very happy that I stayed at the same weight.

Sweetpea - Week 6

Week 6: Sweet Pea
(July 7 - July 13)

I only had to pop in at the doctor's office this week to have my hCG checked again. I was ecstatic to find out that it went from 3597 to over 20,000 in a week! I was still a little nervous about the progesterone - especially since they didn't test it again to see if it also went up. I ended up calling the nurse to see if I should be on progesterone supplements or have it retested since it was on the low side of normal the week before. She said she didn't want to second guess the doctor's decision, which sort of made me mad. I told her that SHE wasn't second guessing anything and that I was advocating for myself. She had the doctor call me back, who assured me (again) that there was no need to worry since the beta hCG had increased appropriately.

Appleseed - Week 5

Week 5: Appleseed
(June 30 - July 6)

I took the pregnancy test on Monday, June 28th.
I had spent the previous weekend at my parents' house in Pennsylvania and was surprised at how tired I was all weekend. I fell asleep in the car during the ride to PA, fell asleep on the couch a few times, fell asleep on a raft in the pool...I also felt like I was ready to start my period at any moment, so I chalked the exhaustion up to PMS. I really didn't expect the test to be positive when I took it (I can't tell you how many negative results I've gotten in the last year and a half) and immediately started crying tears of joy when it showed a positive result. James was already at work, so I sent him a text of the positive test. His reaction was "I can't feel my arms. I feel dizzy. Ka-plunk". Needless to say, we were both surprised and shocked and overwhelmed. It took a few days for the reality to set in and the shock and terror to wear off (more on that later). Don't get me wrong, we weren't sad or mad or disappointed I was pregnant; it was just a big shock since we weren't expecting it. I had my first doctor's appointment, but we still didn't know how far along I was at that point. They confirmed the pregnancy with a urine test, and did blood draws to check beta hCG and progesterone. My hCG came back at 3597 and progesterone was 10.3. I was a little nervous that the progesterone was low, but my doctor reassured me that it was in the normal range. But for me, that wasn't enough. I called my friend Chas (who is a doctor and has her own practice in PA), and called my old nurse from Shady Grove; they both assured me that the progesterone was normal and to focus more on the hCG going up for the next test (scheduled for the following week).

Bun in the Oven

I'm pregnant!