13 weeks 3 days: The End of the first Tri

Thank God the almighty that today it here. Thank him for blessing us with this healthy baby, and a pregnancy that has been medically picture perfect.

Today is the day I have been waiting for since my graduation from the RE, for longer really but for the last few weeks, today the last day of June, has consumed my thoughts. Because it isn’t just the last day of June it is also the very last day of the first trimester!

My week in review: EXCELLENT. My panic attacks decreased this weekend and I went three days without one. That is great news. I love my doppler and it should receive all the credit for my new upbeat attitude. Because of it I felt confident to not only tell my grandparents (father’s side) that I am pg but also some family friends (father’s side again). For those of you wondering if this means my dad knows, well I don’t know. I haven’t told him but I am sure my grandparents will, I have decided not to care if he knows. Tomorrow my mom and I will call her mom and tell her too. I can’t wait to do this! I am really excited about it. Partly because if we are having a girl then the baby will receive Grandma’s middle name as her middle name. R has yet to set up dinner plans with his dad to tell him, which is fine. I kinda want to get it over with or decide not to tell for a while. I don’t like the fear this whole unknown gives me but I am dealing with it by ignoring the issue.

The baby this week is the size of a peach or a shrimp. It is funny when I think of these two foods they seem remarkably different in size. So I bought one of each, and they are quite similar in size. Baby’s organs and veins are visible through the skin and if the baby is a girl she now has ALL her eggs for reproducing. I hope they are of good quality and she has good fertility like her auntie and grandma. Genitalia have also formed so an ultrasound might reveal the gender!

And since it has been weeks since you saw some fun pics here is a brand new belly pic and some baby related pics too.



Gemma (R's little queen) in the sling:










Issabella (my princess) in the Baby Katan I bought with Shannon on Sunday:

In case you are wondering both girls are NOT declawed and while they do let me occasionally love them, give affection and kisses, getting them into the sling/carriers was not easy. However it did prove to me that I could put a wiggly infant in each by myself.

Auntie Shannon

I don't think I have ever devoted a whole post to Shannon and by golly it is time.

Shannon is my BFF, for those of you who don't speak tween that stands for Best Friend Forever. For many people this title is reserved for only those they have known since High School or if they are luck diapers, but Shannon and I have only known each other for 4 years. However I am confidant we will be BFFs for years to come. WHY? because we are insanely alike!

Compare our political views, our childhoods, our outlook on life and values and you will see we are really the same person. Sometimes R jokes that married my opposite and have my twin as my BFF. This is very true.

Today shopping with Shannon she accompanied me to Lullaby Lane ( an upscale baby everything store and Babies R Us, both levels of hell for an infertile with their abundant baby bumps but tolerable for those of us lucky to graduate from the RE to mommy hood. We spent the whole day together just us. We gave advice to the mommy next to us in line at the baby store who seemed shocked when I mentioned we both had nannied for twins. We found lots of cute must haves for my little one, including a Katan carrier which I LOVE and bought. It was a fun relaxing day. I get to be myself around Shannon and I hope she gets to be herself around me. Like always today we lost track of time and as I left I found myself wishing as I often do that we lived closer or their was more time in the day.

So thanks Shannon for the great day. Your going to be a wonderful honorary auntie to this baby, and a wonderful mommy yourself one day.

FEAR!

Short story: Baby fine and doing well, but I am still freaking out about telling.

So the time has come to tell R's parents. As previously mentioned I really don't want to do this. Last night R and I had a serious talk about some stuff and then he wanted to know about when he should set up a dinner with his dad and the wife to tell. I told him "how about when I hit 20 weeks?" I was only half serious, but if he would go for waiting longer I would totally take him up on it.

I feel fine about the pg until it comes to telling his family. They are just so unsupportive of everything we do. If something did go wrong, God forbid, would they be able to be there for us? Would they understand? Would they even care? My answers to these quesions are no, which makes me really sad for R. His family is so distant from our lives that I wonder: if we didn't tell, would they even noice?

I told R last night that I will never be okay with telling them, that we just have to do it. That he needs to stop asking if I will be okay and he needs to set up the date to tell them. I will go with but he needs to be the one to tell and to answer questions.

I have decided to pray for strenght in the mean time. Help from above should get me through this, no matter what thier reaction is. So next week we will take the plunge. And I am sure between now and then you will here more on this subject.

Not Out Yet

I promise this will be a post too but A Journey of a Lifetime if you would PLEASE email me a kittylove516 at yahoo dot com I can answer your questions about IF resources online. My favorite one of which is on thenest.com and called the t-ttc board. Okay now my real post.



Over and over people keep asking me if we are 'out' yet about the pg. It seems that once you hit 12 weeks everyone expects that you will give up the goods and tell everyone. Most days and I really do mean MOST days as in 5/7 I feel okay telling the whole world. That is as long as I can do it one person at a time. But news such as this doesn't travel like that, it travels like wild fire. So while R and I have made leaps and bounds in telling people, D and B R's best man and wife found out on Sunday, my maternal grandmother will find out this week people such as, oh R's PARENTS still don't know.



To be honest this is not at all R's fault, but it isn't entirely mine either. R's parents are divorced, and his mom can't and his dad won't keep secrets. So they have made it to the bottom of the pile for who knows about the pg. And since telling them amounts to telling around 50 people I am very hesitant about doing so. It isn't about still being scared of losing the baby, our risk at the moment is somewhere around 3% and in a week it goes down to 2% but never does go down much further than that. It is about having that many people find out at once and their reactions.



To be fair R's mom is going to be thrilled, just today she mentioned to R how she longs to be a grandmother. I know she will be happy for us. R is even worried she will be so excited upon hearing the news she will jump up and down and hurt herself, a realistic fear given her feet have had three surgeries in two years and are getting another in November. Nope who I really don't want to tell is R's dad, Pete.



Pete's reaction to our news of engagement was less than thrilled. We had dated a year and half, R was 30 years old and he had a good job but new. Somehow though the news of our engagement was shocking. We told Pete and his third wife and they sat across the table stunned. I finally said "I'm not pg, if that is what you are thinking" They both laughed nervously before launching into a funny story about a friend. It was a good 5-10 minutes before either said congratulations. And before they said that they asked where my ring was, it was getting sized we told them and they told us it didn't seem official till I had a ring. Weeks later ring on finger they saw us and told us they were happy, but I don't think R or I ever really believed them.



Because of our past experience R and I are a little hesitant about telling them. It isn't that we don't want them to know but that we don't want them to rain on our parade. We are beyond thrilled to be pg. For them not to be happy for us would break R's heart, and mine too. So we keep waiting, me trying to avoid my husband's heart breaking without telling him that is what I am worried about, R trying to understand my need for secrecy just a little longer.

Side note: I wrote this in the am but didn't post because I got bussy. Then around 1 I started cramping. The got bad, I mean REALLY bad but no spotting. I called the Dr and they wanted me to come in. It was the sameDr I saw for my dizzyness. As soon as he saw me he said "lets just do an u/s". My kind of Dr! Baby looked great h/b strong andmy cervix is still nice and closed. Whoo hoo. However when the cramping started I was so thankful R's parents didn't know yet. We might be pushing back telling another week. We will see what the rest of this week brings.

12 Weeks and NT scan

NT scan went GREAT! Baby looks healthy and the measurement was 1.2 and 1.0 mm so well within normal! Our scan person was kinda rude to us. I explained I was nervous and she told me I had a long pg ahead of me if I kept it up. ummmm thanks? But I didn't ask your opinion.Baby was face up at first but then quickly moved. She looked a little like an alien but don't mention that to R because he immediately gets a picture of the movie Aliens where it pops out of the belly. She laid face down for the rest of the scan, perfect for getting the measurement not so great for getting cute pictures. I asked the lady about trying to see the face agian and she tried for a quick second but gave up since baby decided to cover her face with her hand. She is just like her daddy, and doesn't like getting pictures taken. She better grow out of that fast because I am a HUGE picture taker. R commented that baby is like me, sleeping on her tummy. Heartbeat was in the 160s today again. So everything looks good! For the first time since getting pg I felt happy and unworried for 48 hours straight. It was amazing feeling that good about the pg. Of course now I am back to my worry but that is why we ordered the doppler.

I ordered the doppler on Friday and it should arrive by next Friday just in time to be 13 week. If I don’t get it by Friday I will be convincing Ava to let me use hers on Saturday night when we visit. I am so excited to visit Ava and her hubby, they are wonderful people and Ava has the heart of an angel.

It is amazing to me that I have found a group of non-pety, supportive women such as Ava. I mean if you had told me in high school that the people I would find the most understanding of me were people I met online I would have called you a lier. Back then my life was filled with girls who were mean for laughs, who tortured the girls who weren’t as cool as them. I am so thankful for my nesties, particularly those on the t-ttc board. I wish there was a way I could help them with their dream to be a mom. And lately R and I have been talking about egg donation, and depending on how long it takes for number two it might be actually possible for me to do that. I need to think about it more and research it but I have a feeling it is in the cards for us. I just can’t imagine not paying this gift forward and unless we win the lotto giving people money for treatment isn’t going to be feasible for us.

Today baby is the size of a plum and weighs .50 of an ounce. She has every organ although not fully developed. Her intestines which grew so fast the last few weeks are now moving from the umbilical cord into her body cavity. In the last three weeks baby has also doubled her size.

Last weekend and tomorrow

Tomorrow is the day I have been counting down to for three weeks now. It is finally under 24 hours away and to say I am nervous is an understatment. Of course all of you by now are used to my worried rants. I would love to promise to be better once I hit 13w 3d but somehow I just know I will continue to worry past then. I am sorry to all my non-pg blog readers who put up with me. I remeber how frustrating it was to read blogs where women worried all the time and I thought "Don't you have a clue how lucky you are?"The answer is that yes I am lucky, not to mention eternally graitful for this, but being thankful only seems to worry me more. IF takes the rosie colored glasses off of you, and I think that transformation might be permanite.

The visitors this weekend went okay. Not great but not awful, at least I didn't kill anyone nor did I worry about my pg the whole time. It was rough sharing my house and husband with a woman who was obviously competing with me. I couldn't quite figure out why she felt the need to one up me the whole time but both her husband and mine commented about her behavior. At least I know I wasn't being sensitive because of the hormones, and she lives a 12 hour drive away so I don't have to deal with her often.

One moment this weekend I have felt the need to share has to do with shoping for a pg journal. I am using this blog at the momment to track things but would really like a journal too. So R and I have been on a quest for one. I found one I liked but it wanted belly pics from 1 week pg. I don't have those and so it is out. Then this weekend while in Monteray I found one I liked. I actually LOVED it. Only as I picked up the copy a second time I was paralized. Fear overwealmed me. I couldn't speak, or walk and tears were comming. I put down the book and nearly ran out of the store. R followed and after a few moments of tears and holding I exsplained that I still can't do that, it is to soon but that maybe in a few weeks I will buy it. He was understanding and we moved on. If he was a mind reader he would have snuck back without me noticing bought the book and hid it till I reached 13weeks 3days. But he is not and I know that. I also know that he didn't go back to get it because he didn't leave my side the rest of the day. I think he was afraid of me having another episode again.

Speaking of episodes I am having panic attacks again. I used to get them all the time in high school but they were mostly under control till 9-11 then they resurfaced and with the help of meds and relaxation teqniqes I learned to conqure them agian. They are back again. I have one a week at this point. Most are small, mild but some of them are larger. Almost all of them require me to get a hug or physical comfort of some kind to ground me. Thank god for good friends, a wonderful mom and R. I have been luck so far as to have someone around I trust to calm me down. I will be talking to my OB/midwife at my next appt about them. I would really rather not go back on drugs so I am hoping something herbal is safe.

That concludes this post, I will try to update tomorrow after the NT scan. I really would love to post a happy post tomorrow.

11 Weeks

I am 11 weeks today! That means 6 days till the NT scan and just two more weeks three days till the end of the first trimester. I am hoping some of this time will fly by. After all Sandra and Steve, R’s very good friends, are visiting this weekend. After much discussion about what Sunday is, R and I have decided to ignore the day completely. This will be great since S&S don’t have children and they won’t mind us ignoring the day.

This week has been busy preparing the house for S&S arrival and taking care of my niece and nephew. My mom and I were sole caregivers to the two of them for the week. Thankfully the family is all reunited back in CA now.

Baby this week is the size of a large lime, or about 1.75 inches. “This is a rapid growth stage, and your baby's length and weight will likely double in the next three weeks. At this point, the head is almost half the size of the body, but that will change in the weeks to come. Your baby's head also begins to "uncurl" as the chin lifts and the head rolls backwards towards the spine, allowing the neck to better develop and grow. Now there are fingernails! The genitalia are also developing during this time frame, though the sex of your baby is still a secret.” (from babyfit.com)

Tag seems to be the game to play.

I have been tagged. Yes again! And yes I still love it. This time I was tagged by both Team Killion and Mary.

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tag people and posts their names, then go to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. What was I doing ten years ago? I was 16 then. I would have been taking finals this week and have gotten my license last month. I would be looking forward to the summer with friends, and working as a full time nanny to two beautiful girls, whose mother was a Bitch.

2. Five things on my to do list for today: Clean the apt, Vacuum, Change sheets on bed, laundry, make DH do dinner since he didn't help at all with cleaning the house!

3. Snacks I enjoy right now: cereal bars, ice cream, blueberries, flavored water, just about all foods sound good right now to be honest.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: Buy a house with an in law unit so I could watch my mom more carefully. Help couples I know finance IF treatments, and adoption costs. Donate money to some really great SF children's orgs.

5. Places I have lived: Bay Area California, and that is IT!

6. People I want to know more about: Patty, LoLo Smith, Mrs Moreno, andNorCalSuperwife. Thanks girls for playing!

Today didn't go as planned

I woke up today feeling about the same as most mornings except shortly after I had breakfast I felt dizzy. And not just a little dizzy, really dizzy. I sat down and tried to relax. Stood up and then... tunnel vision. I have fainted about half a dozen times so I know what tunnel vision means. It means I am going to faint. I sat down about as fast as I could to insure I didn't fall down. I am home alone so falling isn't good.

I laid down for an hour maybe more and then crawled to the phone. I called the help line spoke to the nurse and the soonest they could get me in 4pm. CRAP but okay. Only R has the car and even if I had it I couldn't drive like this. So my sis (who is in town now BTW) calls a few moments later to see about me going to the park. We agreed I shouldn't go but she could take me to my appt.

I am fine all afternoon, still a little faintish but not like the morning. Once I go back they take my blood pressure. Now I am a big girl, I get that but my blood pressure has always been good. around 110/70 normally. Today it was 78/60. "Ummm no, take it again" she says "its right, this is why you are so dizzy" Me: "What was it last Friday?" Her: 90/65 Me: But I was in the middle of a panic attack!! How is that possible?

Well once my Dr is there they explain that low blood pressure is normal in early pg. I couldn't believe THIS was normal. But after much reassurance from the Dr it is.

He did an u/s just to reassure me and bean looks good, heart rate above 150 but no accurate measurement. Have I mentioned their u/s machine SUCKS?

So the plan is to increase my salt intake, just a little. I eat an almost no added salt diet, I don't cook with it, I use salt free butter, and now because I am pg I am not eating 'junk food" my salt intake is down to about none. I am also to drink more water, as in about 8 oz an hour.

I hope tomorrow is a better day, but I am just thankful things are better tonight.

10 Weeks!

Double Digits!! I am finally in the double digits, ya baby! Everyone keeps commenting how fast the weeks are flying by, um not for me. For me they seem to drag on and on. I am so happy to finally only have two weeks till I have my NT Scan and then another week until the second trimester!!

This week I noticed I have been more depressed. I have battled depression all my life. About 2 years ago DH and I were getting married. I talked to my Dr and we decided that after the wedding (July) I would go off my depression med. Our theory being to see if I still needed them BEFORE I got pg. I went off and was fine, for a while, until maybe January or February of this year. Look back to that time and you will see one depressed blogger. But I dragged myself out of it. This week and last I have felt pretty down in the dumps and last night I finally figured out why. Do you know what the next holiday is? If you said Father’s Day you would be correct. Okay so it isn’t a ‘real’ holiday but in our country it gets more air time than Cesar Chavez day does.

So where was I? Oh yes Father’s day. This may be my most hated day of the year. My father is still alive but we don’t talk much, um okay we haven’t spoken in 5 years almost now. It was and still is my choice to not have contact with him. We actually live in the same town, with the same zip code and use the same store to get all our food from. I can tell a few of you might be confused, if we live so close then why don’t we speak? Because he is an asshole, and that is me being nice about the situation. I could call him an abusive passive aggressive jerk whose needs to make others feel as small as possible in order to live with himself but I won’t, oops maybe I just did.

So he and I don’t talk and I don’t want to talk but a piece of me would love a real father. Yep, I know it is sick to be 26 years old and still need a father figure but I didn’t get it growing up and so I have always been envious of people who do have a good father. God did in many ways give me other people to make up for him, my mom, my two wonderful grandmothers, a youth minister who I looked up to as a dad in High School. But I am selfish, I want more. I want my linage not to come from such a heartless, mean cruel person.

But at least now that I realize I am depressed because of Father’s Day I can deal with it and move on. After all knowing you have a problem is half the battle, right?

Happier Things:

BABY THIS WEEK: Baby is the size of a small plum or kumquat! About 1.25-1.75 inches and now is big enough to be weighed (about 5 grams)! This week signals the end of the "embryonic stage" and the start of the "fetal period." And with it comes rapid growth spurts. The good news is that the critical stage of development is over, and there is very little risk of developing congenital malformations from this point on.

I am also happy to announce that while I do still have the gift of morning sickness in the afternoons I am beginning to handle it without to much complaint. Go me! I have two great tricks water and lifesavers, it seems as long as I keep swallowing I don't gag. I have heard m/s starts getting 'better' around this time in pg. OH nope not for me. I actually have more intense queasiness and gagging than a week ago. But keep my glass full of water and I will be fine.

Pictures

Our first u/s pics at 6w 3days.

Our 2nd u/s pics at 8 weeks:

First Belly Pic:

Most Recent Belly Pic:

(I still can't tell)

R and I telling my good friend Liz. My mom took the pics she said " on the count of three everyone say Ariel's Pregnat" and Liz standing right next to me goes ohhhhhh, before she fliped out hugging both of us. Her reaction was priceless. I am so gald we got it on film!

Tagged/Meme

I know I promised pictures today but R forgot the u/s pics at home today AGAIN! I am going to put them in the car tonight so he can't forget them again. So the pictures will be delayed another day or so. If you want to blame someone blame R.



So I decided to do another meme since Natalie said to do it if we want.



A - Attached or Single: Attached

B - Best Friend(s): Shannon

C - Cake or Pie: Cake

D - Day of Choice: Saturday

E - Essential Item: highlights

F - Favorite Color(s): yellow

G - Gummy Bears or Worms: Gummy worms

H - Hometown: Lafayette, CA

I - Indulgence(s): Chocolate, baby clothing

J - January or July: July. I like the warm weather.

K - Kids: little bean (if that counts)

L - Life is incomplete without: love.

M - Marriage Date: July 8th, 2006

N - Number of Siblings: 1 younger sister

O - Oranges or Apples: Apples

P- Phobias or Fears: neddles and failure

Q - Quote:

R- Ring size: 8

S - Season: Summer.

T- Tag 3 Friends: The people I tag never seem to do it any way. So if you want to do this then do otherwise I am just going to let me be it.

U - Unknown fact about me: I used to bite my nails but when i started PNV (over 2 years ago now) I stoped because they are now strong and don't break as often.

V - Very favorite stores: Lane Bryant

W - Worst Habit: Obsesing

X-ray or Ultrasound: Ultrasound… because X-rays aren't good while pg and I would love to see bean again.

Y - Your Favorite Food(s): soft cheese and french bread

Z - Zodiac: Taurus

One down, Two to go

We told Pop (R's ex-step-dad) last night. R had been very worried about his reaction. Pop doesn't have any biological children and wasn't a part of R and his brother's lives until they were in Elementary school so his contact with babies is very little. A few times he is at family get-togethers and my niece and nephew will be there. He is kind to them but doesn't go out of his way to be with them. This made R worry that he would stop being a part of our lives once the baby comes. R and Pop are very close and I am close to Pop to so I didn't see that happening. His reaction was of excitement. He doesn't really get overly excited about anything but he smiled and kept saying congratulations to us. He talked about telling his mom and I told him that was fine but that he needed to not tell people who know R's family or mine since we aren't "out" yet. he wanted to know why we hadn't told R's bio parents yet and we explained it was early and they would tell extended family and we just aren't ready for that yet. His response "oh, you mean we are still in the danger zone" you could tell he was scared for us. I told him yes but that the baby has been fine so far and there is no reason to think this pg won't continue as normal. That seemed to make him feel better. At the end of the night R told me he was so glad to get to tell someone on his side. I feel bad we can't tell his parents yet.

Why aren't we telling his parents you might ask. Well his mom is a lot like me and can't keep a secret, and his dad simply WON'T keep it a secret. R's mom would be so excited (she is the last of 7 siblings to be a grandparent and is the 3rd oldest) that she would tell the world. I am not ready for the world to know and neither is R so we are waiting till after 12 maybe even after 14 before we say anything to her. R's dad would tell his siblings not out of excitement but just because he likes telling other people's news. We will be asking him not to say anything to people till 48 hours after we tell him so that WE can tell siblings, grandparents and other people we want to hear it from us. BUT more than likely he will still be on the phone to people before that telling them. He has a hard time respecting the wishes of other people.

As worried about telling Pop as R was I am much more concerned about telling R's dad, P. When R and I announced we were getting married P's reaction was silence. It took me telling him I wasn't pg to get a response and then the response we got was "oh, good". It wasn't till the end of dinner he told R congrats. P has his own timetable of how things should be done. In his mind R should be a homeowner before a husband, and have a retirement plan (and enough money to retire the next day) before a father. We aren't exactly following his ideal path and P isn't to happy with us because of it. With the market the way it is we just can't afford a house I would want to live in for the next 10 years. And who at 33 and 26 have a large enough retirement fund to retire tomorrow? I think that just isn't realistic!

So I am expecting not the greatest response from P. For R's sake I am hoping I am wrong but I have a feeling I won't be. I wish parents could just be happy for their children, after all a baby is a wonderful thing, and it isn't like we aren't married or this wasn't planned. Shit we paid money for this! How much more planned can you get? Oh well, it isn't worth worrying over to much till we hit 14 weeks and it is time to tell.