Countdown!

24 hour countdown! Tomorrow is the day for THE ultrasound. I pray everything looks good and that Rico cooperates by flashing whatever goods he/she has!

Movement is still sporadic. I'm starting to feel it some while I'm sitting doing other things and not just when I'm laying down perfectly still and concentrating. Friday night I was taking a turn driving on the way to see my brother and sister-in-law and it suddenly felt like Rico punched (ok, he's tiny so it was more than a nudge, but still…) my innards. One day this weekend I was feeling a little bit of fluttering about and P started rubbing by belly and it seemed to make him move more. Yeah--an interactive babe!

I'll definitely update tomorrow!

I blame it on pregnancy brain....

I left work early this afternoon so I could take one of the pups to the vet. He's been licking his paws a lot and I noticed yesterday that they're starting to get pink and tender. So I leave work and start to head toward Jackson to the vet's office. Luckily I realized before getting on the interstate that PERHAPS I should go home and get the dog first.

Bump was reasonably well behaved at the vet's office, but he seemed to either recognize the word "shot" or the site of the syringe and bottle (usually he's not that smart). When K knelt down in the floor to come near him with the syringe, Bump had positioned himself behind my legs. Nice. We pulled him out, he got his shot of steroids (it's probably an allergy thing), K warned me that Bump may be more thirsty than usual and not to be surprised if he has an accident, and we went on our way.

The plan was to take Bumper back home, change clothes, and meet L at the gym in the warm water pool. I put on my suit, some shorts, tshirt, and sandals and headed to the gym. I got to the end of the street and realized that MAYBE I should take a bra and a pair of panties to put on after I get out of the water so I can leave the gym respectably.

Really, these things have to be due to pregnancy brain. That or I'm turning into my mother.

There's a BABY in there!

P got to feel the baby move last night. I don't feel a lot of movement yet, but last night we were watching tv and I felt Rico moving around some. It didn't really feel like kicks--not like it did one time, but just movement. I put P's hand on my tummy and he was able to feel too. There's a BABY in there!

Today we're painting the nursery. I'm on a fresh air break. I decided I like painting much better when 1. there isn't so much trimming because we took up the baseboards and door facings (I think we might paint them white before putting them back up) 2. we don't care about the floor. We're getting new carpet in there. and 3. there's no furniture in there. I'll post pictures soon. It's a pale yellow. It will definately took two coats, if not three. We're just painting over a beigey color but it was darker than this yellow so it's bleeding through. While we're waiting for the first coat to dry, we're going to go look at a couple of carpet places.

Things are moving right along! Eleven days until THE ultrasound!

Doctor's appointment

Went to the doctor this afternoon. Everything looked great. THE ultrasound is on September 9th. I was hoping for next week but she says its better to wait until 20 weeks. Hopefully the extra week will give P a better chance to be there. I got my flu shot--the regular one, the H1N1 or whatever the pig flu vaccine is called, isn't out yet. When I go back again, I'll be right at 23 weeks. Wow! Moving right along.

Fizziness...

I couldn't get comfortable early Friday morning and ended up on the couch. As I was trying to get back to sleep, I started feeling a funny sensation....kind of like a fizziness. It reminded me of what the inside of a soda can must feel like if its shaken up--well, except I didn't feel pressure. Its the closest thing I've felt to all the descriptions of "quickening" I've read.

This week was a week of meltdowns. I sat in my office crying for quite awhile one morning. No real reason. One of my coworkers gave me a hug and a Hello Kitty pen to cheer me up--thanks D! The past couple of days have been better. According to What to Expect, the weepiness may improve in a few more weeks.

On to week 18!

Old Wive's Tales....

So we know Rico's been moving up and growing--we find him with the doppler MUCH higher on my abdomen now than we did 6 weeks ago. At 20 weeks, the baby is supposed to be at mom's belly button. I'm at 17 weeks and this morning, I found him RIGHT NEXT to my belly button. Does that mean I'm carrying high? If so, which way is the old wive's tale supposed to go? Is high a boy or a girl?

I've taken some of the gender prediction quizes on line where they ask you a bunch of questions from different old wive's tales and then tell you what percentage of them say what. Things like--does your pillow face north or south, have you gained weight in your face, is the HB greater than 140....according to those, there's a 60-67% chance that Rico is actually Rica. Hopefully we'll find out what a more scientific ultrasound says in the next couple of weeks. If it says boy, I think I'll believe it. If it says girl, I'll probably be skeptical.

That you Rico?

While we were laying in bed this morning I'm pretty sure Rico was tap dancing. Or playing soccer. Or practicing karate. Whatever. I definitely felt something going on in there. We got out the doppler and heard all kinds of noises--maybe the kid's going to be a drummer. Where I felt what I'm reasonably sure were kicks was about an inch lower than where we heard the heartbeat. Yeah Rico!!!

Heart rate...

Dreams on the move...

I frequently wake up and tell P "I don't want to…." whatever I'd been dreaming about. This morning I was "I don't want to buy a new house and move." A few days ago it was "I don't want to move to Louisville." Apparently there have been enough other "I don't want tos" about moving recently because he asked why I was having so many dreams about moving. I told him about Michele's comments on the post from July suggesting that I was dreaming about moving because of I'd been thinking about what all needed to be moved around for the nursery. I bet that's it--that has been on my mind a lot this week. I knew A was coming to town last weekend and I didn't want to start doing anything to the guest room before her visit so I hadn't done anything in there until this week. This week we started moving a few things out of the nursery and this weekend I hope to move my clothes out of that closet so I can start stashing Rico's stuff in there. Moving is in my head and apparently I feel the need to move in my sleep!

So judgemental...and I don't think its the hormones

So I really should stop reading the pregnancy journals on Baby Crowd. Really. I never realized how judgemental I am. Today I was reading the journal of a 22 year old who is 15 weeks pregnant with her first baby. Today's entry was complaining about how her baby daddy (for some reason, I'm assuming he's not her husband--another judgement!) drinks too much. Then she turned right around and starting writing about how hard it is for her to stop smoking--she's hasn't stopped yet! Of course, in her reflections on her pregnancy, her biggest fear is that she'll have complications during her pregnancy or the baby will be sick. Pretty damn good thing to be afraid of if she's still sucking on cancer sticks. Oh, and she also thinks people treat you differently if you're on "Medicade." Image that. You can't even spell it, taxpayers are paying for your prenatal care while you're buying Marlboros and you're baby daddy is drunk all the time, and you think your treating differently? Perhaps with some disdain? It was all I could do to not leave snarky, bitchy comments in her guestbook.

Then there's the girl who is only 6 weeks along, keeps talking about how much is going wrong with the pregnancy, how worried her baby daddy is, how she has to go to the doctor's everyweek…..AND HOW SHE AND LILY (the baby) WENT JET SKIING LAST WEEK! I'm sorry, I've never been jet skiing. I really don't know how exertional or dangerous it is. But? Seriously? I know they say at that point there's not really anything you can do to cause or prevent a miscarriage, but still. Jet skiiing?

And don't even get me started on the people who ask questions on Yahoo! "I got stuck with a fat black guy as an OBGYN because on one else would see me cause I’m 5 months along and on Medicaid. Is it legal for them to see me?" That girl got reamed for being a racist and for being on Medicaid.

Moving on up!

Rico is moving on up. When we started listening to his heartbeat, we found him just above the pubic bone. Over the past several weeks of listening to him, he's gotten higher or higher. He's supposed to be about belly button level at 20 weeks. He has about 4 inches to go to get there.

Moving on up...to the east side. To a deluxe apartment in the sky......

Hormones...

So P and I knew we'd be in for some emotional outbursts with this entire process. Hormones always leave me rather prone to them anyway. How could I not have a few dozen outbursts (a week) while preggers? I don't think either of us were necessarily prepared for such an event at 3 am yesterday. Yep, had to get up for one of my many middle of the sleep cycle bathroom breaks, laid back down and suddenly got overwhelmed.

Earlier we'd been talking about finding out if we’re having Preston or Isla and P commented (yet again) that we could wait to get stuff until after the baby is here. Ok, we've been through this before. Regardless of whether or not we are able to find out if he's a she or she's a he, the nursery WILL be done before the kid is here. As much as possible anyway--I know there will be things we don't think of or need extras of right away, but I'm not planning any post-partum shopping trips. I don't know how I will feel, I don't know if this will be a "good baby" or a baby that cries constantly, I know it's not a great idea taking a freshly birthed baby out in public right away, and it's going to be January, so I'm doubting it's going to be 70 degrees and sunny. I don't know how serious P is about the entire issue or how much he's just trying to tease me b/c he KNOWS that such a plan will.not.work.for.me. But it doesn't matter. At 3:00 yesterday morning, such comments felt like resistance to getting things ready for this little guy or girl. Which feels like resistance to Parenthood. There's a whole long list of things I think I need to do before we even START on the nursery and he's resistant. The list may totally be birthed out of my own neuroses, but hey, I'm the pregnant lady. I get to be neurotic.

So at 03:00, I'm lying in bed, thinking about everything that needs to be done. Thinking about my husband's resistance to doing them. Suddenly, the "WHAT THE HELL WERE WE THINKING????" panic joined in the head-games. P has pretty good sensory perception and he asked what was wrong. The tears started. Not just tears. Bawling. Loud. Messy. Ugly. Crying. P does a good job of calming me down. No, he doesn't mean to be resistant to anything. Whenever I'm ready to start doing anything in the nursery, he's ready. He thought I didn't want to do anything until we find out the sex. He understands that I need to plan and organize things to feel some sense of control and needs to remember that we handle things differently in that regard. He certainly understands the panic over what we're getting ourselves into. He needs to remember that I have that fear too and be more sensitive to how I need to deal with it. All the right things.

Finally, he turns over to go back to sleep. My sensory perception kicks in and I question what's wrong. He says he's just tired. I start bawling again. Its my fault he's tired because I've kept him awake and he has a day full of surgery and he's going to feel like crap because of me.

Oh. And it didn't help that he decided that this was the night the dogs were going to stop sleeping on our bed so periodically, a dog would jump up on the bed and try to get comfy in their usual spot only to have him make them get off. After the crying spell, Bumper jumped up and P gave up.

I ended up taking off half a day yesterday, buying some organizational things for the closet and started getting the closet in our bedroom ready for me to move my stuff out of the baby's room's closet into our room. I packed up another round of clothes that I can't wear again until after the baby is born and put them in the storage room. I also emptied an armoire that was in the baby's room and we moved it downstairs to the new spare bedroom. And I got a pedicure. All in all, a productive, but relaxing afternoon.

P admitted that the dogs were more settled sleeping on the bed than off the bed so they were back in their usually spots last night. And the entire house slept well last night.

Updates....

Surprisingly, time seems to be flying by right now. Week 15 already. I've been reading a lot about quickening and feeling Rico for the first time. I don't know if it was the power of suggestion Tuesday night because I'd been reading so much about it or what, but I was lying in bed and felt a little tap-tap-tap from the inside. It was surprising and I don't know if it was him or something else. Mom says hers was more of a flutter or rumble when she'd first feel us but some people I've read have the tap-tap feeling first. Anyway, the tap-tap-tap was right in the area where we find Rico to listen to his heartbeat so it might have been him. Nothing since then. Gotta be patient.

Morning sickness is still sticking around a bit. I'll go a few days with nothing (I even went 7 or 8!), then I'll get sick. The good part is that it doesn’t last long when it happens now.

3 weeks to my next doctor's appointment. Dr. S said we'll schedule the ultrasound then. Hopefully we'll be able to find out if he's really a him or he's a her. P doesn't seem so certain its a boy anymore--I had little girl dreams twice last week. He's a big believer in momma knowing. We'll find out next month!

Random thoughts.....

Ugh. I hope you slept better last night than I did. I was doing okay--P was on call but only had one middle of the night page and it was timed for a potty break anyway--until 3. After that potty break, the mind started racing. Nothing bad--total random stuff. How do you know how much the baby eats when you're breastfeeding? How do you know when to burp it? We need a new set of sheets for our bed. Will my mom be able to sleep on the daybed or the new sofa type bed downstairs if we have her come stay with us for a few days after the baby is born or should be not get rid of the bed that's in the spare bedroom/soon to be nursery? I need to wash the sheets on the spare bed for her to stay to dogsit Saturday night. I have to clear all the clothes off the spare bed. I need to wash the maternity clothes a friend loaned me so the dogs don't go nuts because the clothes don't smell like me. What AM I going to do with my closet once we set up the nursery? Finally P asked what was wrong and I asked the breastfeeding question. There are lines on a bottle. I know there are lines on a bottle, but there aren't lines on my boob and I don't think I’m going to magically sprout any at delivery! Ugh. I came to absolutely no resolutions about anything (of course). Hopefully I can manage to stay awake today.

Emotional rollercoaster.....

Symptom update: this week brought an improvement in morning sickness and my headaches, but the water works have started. P said about 2 words to me the other night and I started bawling.