Hospitals & Doctors

Last week we took a tour of the Longmont United Hospital. Overall, we liked the facilities and features of the maternity ward. Although we feel that Boulder may be a tad nicer, it really doesn't justify choosing an OB out in Boulder and driving 30-40 min. for each appointment.

So I chose an office here in town and had my first appointment on Monday. The OB was nice and very practical, for lack of a better word. (Unlike some of the Dr.s I've met in Boulder who are more the granola, hippie types that are big supporters of everything "natural".)

To my surprise, my first appointment was not just a meet & greet, and I actually had another ultrasound! Although I was bummed that I didn't know this would happen, so Erich wasn't there, it was nice not to waste time & $ on a get-to-know-you appointment.

The baby was moving and grooving this time! It was wiggling around, rotated a bit, and even stopped moving for a moment, then raised its left hand and waved at the camera. :) As you can see in the pictures below, their ultrasound is not quite as high quality, but the baby is completely turned around compared to last time. I guess it's enjoying the room to swim about while it's available!! The Dr. calculated the same due date exactly as we were given during the last ultrasound.

We also took another "belly shot". Alas, we missed a week, so the progression goes week 8, 9, 11. Oh well!

I think you can definitely start to see changes, especially in the upper part of my belly! Thankfully, the OB assured me that gaining 10-12 lbs. during the first trimester is normal. So given that I have just 1 week left until the 2nd trimester, I'm actually doing much better than I thought!

On a side note, the ultrasound yesterday showed me as 11 weeks 4 days pregnant, which the Dr. referred to as "11 weeks pregnant". But I notice that the countdown timer and other online pregnancy clocks & tools call it 12 weeks. Any experienced mamas know why?

Let the "Firsts" Begin!

So last week we started the first in a series of "firsts" for our little munchkin/peanut/alien what-have-you.

We took our first "belly shot" (and 2nd this week). I think you can see a bit of a difference! I seem to be losing my waistline...

Baby went to its first concert to "hear" Train at Red Rocks.... seems fitting since I walked down the aisle to a Train song and they sang that one there! (Pardon the shaky, blurry video!)

And we got baby's first photos!

We learned on Tuesday, 9/25/12, that baby was 9 weeks and 4 days old, so I guess our count was a little off, but not by much. Baby's due date is around April 25, 2013....any bets on whether it will arrive on my birthday?? Not sure yet how I feel about that one, but it's kind of fun to think that I'm pregnant over virtually the exact same time period as my mom was! :)

You want me to drink how much water???

So, we just scheduled the first ultrasound for September 25th! I was super excited about it, until I was told that I needed to drink 32 oz. of water an hour before and not use the restroom before the appointment.

Seriously???

Maybe that would be no biggie for most people; I don't know. But for me? I have the world's smallest bladder WITHOUT being pregnant.

In fact, I recently went to dinner with two of my close friends, both of whom were about 7 months pregnant. Who used the bathroom first? That's right. Me.

This should be interesting!

However, that being said, we can't wait to see the little heartbeat, which I'm told will look like a flickering pixel. How cool!

As for symptoms, no new ones really, except pregnancy brain perhaps, as I've done/said several silly things lately. But then again, that may be normal for me. Hard to say!

I've also noticed my immune system is down. I caught a cold this week already. Usually I rarely get sick, so that's a bummer. But at least it was short-lived, and I found out I can work from home with my new job in such cases. So it was nice not to have to use up a precious sick day that will soon be needed for maternity leave!

On the plus side, my bloating seems to have stabilized, and my skin has cleared up considerably since getting pregnant, which I love!

In other news, we learned this week that Erich's brother, Matt, missed his calling. He should have been a secret agent. Apparently, when Erich shared the news with him and said to keep it quiet, he thought he should tell NO ONE. Not even his wife, Peggy. So poor Peggy only learned that we were pregnant this last weekend. Whoops! :)

Symptoms? Not many!

I'm happy to report that 6 weeks into pregnancy (4 weeks along), I'm still experiencing very few symptoms. Other than mild cramping and some bloating, I really can't complain! Ok. That's not true. I can and will complain. My pants are nearly all too tight already!! Ack!

I even dived into my pre-diet "fat pants" box, and those don't seem to fit right, if they'll button at all! The humanity! It seems that my waist has bloated out while the rest of me has remained largely unchanged. My very thorough Internet research has revealed that this does in fact happen to some women, but...why me??

After consulting with several pregnant/recently pregnant friends, they all had the same advice...go to the maternity store now. Just accept it! Personally, I was thinking I should just buy bigger pants, but the voice of sanity (aka Polina & mom), pointed out that even larger pants will soon be too small.

So with a heavy <ahem> heart, I went to Motherhood Maternity and bought some jeans 'n things. Yep, that's right. My jeans now have a 12" elastic tube top instead of a proper waistband and fly.

It might not look pretty, but damn, they're comfortable!!

Well, that was easy!

Shock and awe. That's the best way to describe it.

Yesterday, Erich and I decided to go ahead and take a pregnancy test. So when I woke up Friday morning and stumbled into the bathroom, I peed into a cup and stuck the test stick in. I swear to you that before I even pulled it out I saw a plus sign on that sucker! But since the instructions say to wait 3 minutes before reading the results, I figured maybe the thing was calibrating or something. So I set it down and crawled back into bed to wait it out.

Three long minutes later, Erich and I looked at the stick together, and the plus sign was still there! OMG, I'm pregnant!

We stared at the stick for a long time, pretty much in shock. How did this happen? OK, we know how, but we figured it would take us a while to get pregnant. After all, I'm 36 and he's 42, and darn it, it's supposed to be difficult at our age! So as we lay there in bed absorbing the stick's life-changing message, we decided I should take another test, preferable from a different brand. Luckily, I just happened to have one. We then lamented the fact that I had foolishly poured all the pee out and now we had to wait until my bladder filled up again. (Of course, if you know me, you know that wasn't very long anyway.)

Test 2? Also instantly positive. OMG, I am pregnant!

I immediately called my doctor to schedule a blood test, and she booked us for a 10 AM appointment. We were pretty confident two different tests wouldn't lie, but hey, best to be sure.

We then decided to have lunch with my parents to tell them the news. We decided to tell them by framing a picture of the pregnancy tests in a "grandparents" frame. (Thankfully, the doctor's office called about 2 minutes before we met with them to confirm the results of our pregnancy tests.)

Of course, my parents were suspicious right away when I suggested a family lunch (mostly because of misunderstanding and thinking we wanted to cook for them, which would be unusual, but nonetheless, they were on to us.) So when we met up outside the restaurant, they right away told us they had a wager going as to why we were all meeting for lunch. *sigh* So much for surprises! But they were ecstatic anyway, of course!

I have to say, it's been a roller coaster these last couple weeks. So many big changes. On Thursday, 8/17, I found out I got the job I wanted the most in Adams 12 School District as a District Instructional Technology Coordinator and that not only would my commute be cut in half, but I would most likely get a raise. What a high!

Then on Sunday, 8/19, our beloved 9 years young greyhound, Bongo, passed away suddenly (the vet thinks it may have been an aneurysm or possibly massive heart failure). We were completely devastated.

While researching online to learn more about what may have happened to him, I read a woman's post about her dog who died similarly. She concluded by saying that she was comforted by the fact that her sister had a baby around the same time, so maybe the dog was being called away to watch over the baby. Although I don't really believe in such things, I thought it was a nice idea. So I started hoping I was pregnant so that maybe Bongo was doing the same or even being reincarnated up (also not something I really believe in).

Sure enough, 5 days later we find out I am. Even more bizarre, when we met with my parents, my mom, who's been referring to our unborn child as "Enzo" for over a year based on a character in the book Driving in the Rain, told us this: In the book, Enzo is a dog who belongs to a race car driver. Enzo desperately wants to be human. At the end of the book, Enzo dies and is reincarnated as his master's son.

Yeah, we both got goosebumps. Even my dad seemed a bit moved, and he's the last person you'd expect to humor such a theory. So I guess if our kid is born super fast with ADD, we'll know there's a little bit of Bongo in there! :)

It's hard to image any other 2 week span in my life that's been filled with more extreme highs and lows!

That evening, we texted Erich's parents the photo of the tests to tell them the news. We got a hold of Erich's dad, who was thrilled as well, but unfortunately his mom had just left to meet some friends, so she didn't get the news. Poor Art had to keep the news all to himself until she returned!

We also sent the photo to Erich's brother and sister. My favorite response was Maria's:

Take 2!

Yay! As of last month, baby making is a go again! The GI doc thinks gallstones are not in fact the culprit of my crazy belly pain (though I do have them). He prescribed a pain patch on a hunch that it may in fact be some sort of stomach injury (as in, I got hit in the gut and don't remember it happening). Although I'm skeptical, the pain patch seems to have worked. I haven't had any pain since I started using it! I am also on heartburn meds, but   I'm told by both the GI doc and the OB that both meds I'm taking are baby safe, and the GI doc told me we can resume our baby making plans!

So here we go again!

Hitting the Breaks

Hmmm, seems we've hit a bit of a speedbump in our baby-making plans. Two weeks ago I had a lovely 3 day, 2 night all inclusive stay at the hospital due to mysterious belly pain that I had thought was heartburn. Turned out it may be gall stones, or who the heck knows what--the symptoms are a bit mysterious. SO, now I'm on all kinds of crazy pain meds as the doc tries to figure out what's going on with me. Guess we'll have to shelve the baby-making for another month! D'oh!

On the bright side, I'm quite disappointed about this, so I guess I really do want to turn my life upside down and make a mini-human! I suppose that's good to know!