Pregnancy

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Whopper Headaches

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

For the past maybe two weeks I have been experiencing some whopper headaches.  I have sinus issues so I’m use to dealing with the occasional mega-sinus headache, but these new headaches aren’t the same.  They are these horrid things that seem to radiate from the base of my skull and wrap up and around my head even effecting the area behind my ears.

Unfortunately, the pregnancy books all say headaches are a normal and a frequent complaint of pregnancy.  So am I having a normal pregnancy headache or some other kind of headache.  I wish the books described the pain women have felt during these pregnancy headaches so I knew.  I’ve tried to stayed away from all medicines (except my thyroid prescription) during this pregnancy, except for now having taken my sixth dose of Tylenol in 13 weeks.  I feel bad taking even Tylenol, but it sort of takes some of the edge off these headaches.

So for now, I’ve just started tracking when I get them and what I did or did not do to get rid of them.  The midwife was interested in knowing about the headaches, but wasn’t overly concerned…of course, I wasn’t overly concerned and I find that with medical professionals sometimes personal concern makes them concerned.

Sick Day

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

Yesterday morning I thought I had a mild case of quickie food poisoning caused by a suspicious orange.  Right after Dave left in the morning, I’d eaten an orange that was a bit on the dry side, but wasn’t bad tasting or anything, just not yummy.  An hour later I totally got sick.  Ya know that Seinfeld episode where he talks about not vomiting for like 15 years?  Well, let’s just say I WAS working on year 14!  After that little yuckiness, I felt fine and went to the midwife’s office.  Then I got home and got to be sick for the whole rest of the day.  Even water wouldn’t stay down.  Dave brought home some ginger ale (that stuff is gross without having an upset stomach), but I have to admit it actually was the only thing that stayed down all day.

Today however, I have been absolutely fine.  Either it was the orange or I had an eight-hour stomach bug which also did not cause a fever.  So weird.  I’m just not a stomach sick type of person so my guts must be more sensitive being pregnant.

But I have a new found respect for all those pregnant gals with morning sickness.  Holy cow, if I had to be like yesterday for like 12 weeks, I’m not sure I’d live through that.  Argh!

Baby Doing Great!

Monday, January 12th, 2009

I had an appointment this morning with my midwife.  I haven’t gained any weight!  (In my case, that’s a good thing.)  I had a minor few moments of concern though because the midwife couldn’t hear the baby’s heartbeat.  She said, “oh, come on baby” in a concerned voice, then promptly said, “oh, don’t worry, we’ll find it.”  Well, we ended up doing a sonogram because the Doppler just wasn’t finding the heartbeat.  Then with the sonogram, baby wasn’t moving, wasn’t moving, and still wasn’t moving.  FINALLY, babe made a little jump and started moving around.  Gave his/her momma a fright.  The midwife said, “well, that’s strange, I’ve never seen a baby sleeping with “his” legs straight out like that.”  But the baby looks great, bumping and thumping around just fine…after we woke him/her up.  Apparently, baby was just chillin’ and floatin’.  Kind of funny.  My midwife said that at 16 weeks it won’t be as difficult to hear the heartbeat because the baby will be much bigger and higher in my abdomen, so we shouldn’t need to do another sonogram until the 20th week when I go see a perinatologist to make sure all of baby’s parts are in order and functioning properly.  Thus far, baby looks great and altogether normal on the two sonograms I’ve had so far though.

Ice, Ice, Ice

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

The ground is absolutely covered with at least an inch and in some places considerably more ICE.  The temp got high enough yesterday that the ice melted off the bushes, trees, power lines (at least around us), but then all that water on the ground froze overnight.

I don’t have anything pressing to do outside today, but I really did want to go to Bible Study.  But I have to think intelligently about that…I’m pregnant and really don’t want to fall on my fanny and the Bible Study is entirely made up of old ladies who probably also will not wish to fall on their fannies either.  So will we even have Bible Study today???  And do I have the leader’s telephone number?  NOPE!  Gotta rectify that little fact.  I will wait to see how the weather looks in a few hours and decide, I guess.

Yesterday I had a good day sewing.  I started and completed a little curtain for the bathroom.  I mended two substantially ripped clothing items for Dave.  And I finished two little doily things I told my mother-in-law I’d finish like back in May.  I got frustrated with the machine and never finished that project thus the multi-month hideous from sewing.  I have five more doily things to finish for her and then all my sewing projects that were in queue will be complete.  And I will feel totally free to begin working on baby projects like the homemade fabric-based toys I want to make for those baby’s first few months.

Yucky Weather Day Here

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

The heavens are sending down freezing rain today.  It started overnight so by the time we got up there was 1/10th of an inch of ice covering everything.  That didn’t sound like much until Dave went to scrap his windshield after letting the truck run for 15 minutes and ended up breaking the ice scrapper.  And all I can hear outside is the sound of little tiny pellets of rain/snow hitting the windows and the roof.

So it is an inside day today!  No running errands for me.  Hmmm, a whole day and zillions of little projects all calling my name and me with a bad case of the lazyies.  I am recovering, slowly, from the first trimester tireds, but every once and while I’m still pretty beat.

The other day I started a list of mini-projects and bigger projects that I really need to be working on while I can, before the baby is here.  Oh, good golly.  Does anyone ever actually have their home & belongings in tip-top organizational shape?  That project list just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger as I walked from room to room.  My mother might be coming out for a week or so after the baby comes and I have this inner compulsion to have everything “perfect” before she gets here.  Thankfully, I’m blessed with a lazy gene which occasionally trumps my “gotta have everything perfect” gene because otherwise I’d drive myself crazy.

So to get back to today.  I could sew the bathroom curtain that I’ve been meaning to tend too for like a year because I’ve had the material that long.  And I have been meaning to get the sewing machine set up in a semi-permanent location here in the office so it is available for me to sew little baby projects.  Plus, there is a hallway curtain that has been needing attention also.

Last night I made yummy hamburgers.  I have a tendency to turn hamburgers into hockey pucks when I cook them on the stove top, but this time I did good!  I used a fatter hamburger (80/20 vs 90/10), then put in 3 tablespoons of horseradish and 1 tablespoon of worcestershire sauce.  And I flattened about an inch  of the center of the hamburgers so they wouldn’t get thick in the middle, as they tend to do during cooking.  They were so juicy, tasty and didn’t even resemble hockey pucks.  We had those with broccoli and “American fries”.

I’m dilly-dallying sitting here on the computer so I am going to get off and get busy doing something.

12 Days Left in the First Trimester!

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

Wow!  Only 12 days left of my first trimester!  I’m pretty excited about that.  Thus far, pregnancy agrees with me and I’m still feeling pretty awesome, aside from being pretty frequently tired.

It is really neat to think that this is our last New Year’s Eve by ourselves.  Next year, we’ll have a little baby, yeah!

Tired & Dave’s Real Birthday

Friday, December 19th, 2008

I’m tired.  The first trimester tireds have hit me hard.  No morning sickness, just tired.  I slept like 10 hours last night and am tired already.  And it is a weird tired.  I don’t feel like I could necessarily fall asleep, it’s like I need to just lay down and sit still.

Today is also Dave’s 40th birthday.  And he’s on cloud nine because we are supposed to get tons of snow this afternoon and overnight.  I’m baking him a cake, fixing enchiladas (one of his favorites) and have a few little presents to give him this evening.   One of the books I bought him is still not here, but I’m hopeful that it will arrive with this afternoon’s mail.

The enchiladas I make are pretty easy.  I brown hamburger and a small onion, pour in one can of enchilada sauce (yellow can, forgot the brand).  Then I layer small corn tortillas on the bottom of a 9×12 baking pan, put on a layer of the meat sauce, a layer of Mexican cheeses, layer of corn tortillas and repeat.  Then I pour another whole can of enchilada sauce over the whole thing and top with a layer of cheese.  Bake until the top is golden brown (or darker) and very yummy.  I use to actually roll the meat sauce in the corn tortillas, but then it dawned on me that turning it into a lasagna of sorts was easier and tastes exactly the same.  And Dave loves it.  I usually use the hot enchilada sauce and several jalapenos in the meat mixture too.

Our Baby!!

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

Mostly At Home Today

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

So today I need to finish getting caught up with unpacking and laundry from our trip.  Mount Dirty Laundry that once was our hamper needs to be emptied before it takes over the bedroom.

I slept nine hours last night and have only been up an hour, yet I find that I could easily go back to sleep.  A nap might just be in the plans today.  Yesterday I was reading that our little one is the size of a raspberry this week and working his/her way up to blueberry by next week.  Well, little raspberry is thankfully not making me have morning sickness, but is making me awfully tired today.

Last night, I made the chocolate chip cookie recipe from the back of the Hershey’s morsels bag and they were pretty awesome.  I’d become bored with the Toll House recipe so it was good to try a different one.  The ingredients seemed either identical or awfully close, but somehow they turned out tasting better than the other recipe.  Could have been the 1/4 cup of cocoa powder I put in the dough at the very end too…

Okay, I’m tired.  Must go get load of laundry in washer before falling asleep…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

ANNOUNCEMENT!!

Monday, December 1st, 2008

We are expecting our first baby July, 2009!!!

I’ve been wanting to update our blog with our news, but it couldn’t be done until after some keys family members had been told in person (namely our parents).

I think it is a pretty interesting story (with an awesome ending), so I’ll repeat it here even though I’ve pretty much told everyone that reads this blog already.

So November 14th, we had an appointment with our reproductive endocrinologist (he’s mentioned a few times in other posts).  He told us that my one centimeter-sized polyp located on the lining of my uterus had to be removed or I was not going to get pregnant.  He also said that I would have to take contraceptive pills for the several weeks leading up to the surgery in order to thin the lining of my uterus to make removing the polyp easier.  When I balked at taking The Pill, because it utterly goes against our decision to follow our faith values, he actually said, “well, I could call it something else if you want me too.” EEK!!…

So the appointment didn’t get any better when Dave & I really questioned the importance of removing this polyp and were unwilling to make the decision right there in front of him, but said repeatedly that we would have to discuss it first.  Then he proceeded to say, “you do your research to find a doctor you can trust.  And then, you do as you are told.” Oh, good golly…

Oh, and he declared definitively that I have PCOS (hmmm, and yet I don’t have symptoms traditionally associated with PCOS except for one, being heavy), hypothyroidism (which my midwife discovered) and this one centimeter sized polyp which he said WILL make it impossible for a baby to implant in my uterus (unless of course he removes it).

We told the doctor I was late and my temps were still elevated.  But he made it very clear that I couldn’t be pregnant, didn’t offer to even contemplate a quick pregnancy test and then proceeded to leave us in the incapable hands of a medical student to discuss further the surgery.  Said medical student then proceeded to explain that during the surgery the polyp would be snipped away and then they would conduct a D&C to scrap away additional uterine lining for analysis and just to make sure they got the whole polyp.

Dave & I left in what I guess could be considered a fog of dismay.  That doctor was so utterly and completely disrespectful of our faith values and was so mean about making awful assumptions based on our being overweight.    So enough of dippy doctor dude.

The next day, Saturday, I awoke with a still elevated temperature and now eight days late.  After about an hour of indecision, Dave finally convinced me to do a pregnancy test.  I think at that time I had actually become afraid of pregnancy tests.  We had used many over the course of two years and none of them had happy endings.  Plus, I was still down about the meeting with dippy doctor the day before.  But Dave prevailed.  I used the test and brought it into our computer room (aka baby’s future room), set it on the desk and we sat casually glancing down waiting for “Not Pregnant or Pregnant” to show up on the digital results screen.   Suddenly the word Pregnant appeared!  I was in shock, a little, I think.  Dave was too, and then he jokingly said, “where’s the Not?”  What an awesome moment in our lives!!  No matter what happens to my mental faculties later in life, I hope I will always remember the moment I found out God graced us with this new life.

So the whole while that we were sitting in dippy doctor’s office the day before I was PREGNANT!!  God is awesome!

Monday morning I called that doctor’s office and asked that all the blood test results and such be sent over to my midwife’s office and asked that they cancel the surgery (which we’d never actually agreed to do yet anyway).  I called the midwife who thankfully took mercy upon my soul and saw me for 15 minutes in the early afternoon.  The doctor had gotten me freaked out about the polyp and my newly pregnant brain was inventing all sorts of ways it was going to cause problems for a baby.  She had blood drawn to conduct an HCG hormone level test and ordered another to be conducted two days later.  My levels more than doubled…exactly like they were supposed too.  So the midwife was comfortable saying things looked pretty good.  WHEW!

So here we are 7 weeks 2 days pregnant!  I’m not experiencing any morning sickness yet.  The past couple of days I’ve been slightly tired and about once a night I have indigestion/heartburn issues.  But aside from that I feel pretty great.  I don’t “feel pregnant”, or really any different physically and that scares me because my brain can make all sorts of stuff up when unoccupied. i realize I need to just be grateful that I’m still feeling well, but still…  Oh, and I’ve noticed that thinking about some foods can make me slightly grossed out.  And certain textures like a ripe banana and a glob of mayo in a sandwich can turn me off eating immediately.

Since I was desperately interested in finding anything I could about what it felt like being pregnant in the early days and I couldn’t find any non-generic answers, I will be blogging about that topic frequently.  So if ya don’t like reading about such stuff…tough…who knows how many times I get to do this pregnancy thing (which thus far is pretty totally awesome) so I’m going to talk about it and write about it lots!!

Just reading & imagining about the raspberry-sized little person developing inside me right now, whose heart is actually beating already, is so incredible.