17 weeks

Seems like every week I sit here and say I can't believe it is already ___ weeks, but really, time seems to be moving so fast now.  A few short weeks ago the days weren't passing so quickly, but I suppose being more comfortable with where I am now helps things along.  It doesn't seem fair that it works that way...time drags when you are anxious, and flies by when you are not (unless, of course, you are anxious/dreading something in the future, in which, time will fly then too).

So lets see...changes to report this week.  I think I'm showing a little more, but I think it is increased lack of being able to comfortably suck in what is there rather than a change in actual bump size.  I definitely notice it when I hug DH, but when I sit down I just look fat.  :(

Over the weekend I started have hip pains, probably from stretching ligaments...and yesterday I noticed soreness around my rib area, so maybe signs are pointing to popping soon?  I guess I thought I'd be seeing a little more rapid change at this point.

 And look!  My first picture here in real maternity clothes.  Other than sweats and pajamas, I think I may I have said I've scrapped the non-maternity stuff, minus one or two longer sweaters.  A few weeks ago a friend that had her little girl in November gave me a giant tub of maternity clothes, and last weekend a neighbor brought over about 3 huge storage tubs of clothes as well.  There was so much that we went through it and I picked out a few things I didn't even see the need to try on (red velvet Christmas top anyone?) and then this past Sunday I spent a few hours trying on all the stuff and starting to sort it by season.   I still haven't gone through all the pants, but it gave me a great chance to get an idea of the style of pants (full panel, mid-panel, under belly) that I like best.  For jeans I'm finding full panel works best, because you can fold them over for extra waistband support (all of them slide down anyway though).  I tried on pants from Old Navy, Motherhood Maternity, Target, Pea in A Pod, and the most comfortable waistband and the most well made ones I found are Gap, so I think I may end up buying a few pairs to keep.

R finally decided!

This morning R gave me a big hug and said he wanted to find out.  I asked him if he was sure because I knew he'd really been on the fence about knowing, and he said yes, because he wanted to be able to "talk to the baby".  It was so sweet.

So we are no longer undecided or going team green.  Two weeks from Friday we will find out whether we are having a little girl or a little boy.   As you can see, I put up a poll for fun, so I expect you all to vote!  I will, of course, announce baby's sex here, but we may decide to keep it a secret from everyone IRL.

16 weeks

It is hard to believe in just 4 weeks I will be halfway there.  Not a whole lot to report at the moment.  I think I've seen the last of my regular pants though, I tried using the bella band a friend gave me earlier this week and it just wasn't comfortable anymore (worked great last week though).  It just cut in too much at the bottom when I sat down and by the end of the day it made me feel all crampy.  So I've spent a lot of time online looking at maternity clothes, which, as I expected/heard, are expensive as hell for something you will maybe get about 2-3 months of wear out before the seasons change.  The spring/summer stuff will probably last me longer, but sweaters won't.  I think I'll take one friend's suggestion of buying some cheap non-maternity tunic sweaters from somewhere like Forever 21 (which I haven't set foot in since my college clubbing days...don't judge, I'm desperate).  Of course, that means I have to brave the mall, which I've been putting off for a while now. 
Also, in general, maternity swimsuits are the frumpiest, ugliest things I've ever seen, and I was getting really depressed until I found this website.  There are a bunch of really cute ones there, though I'm not sure how practical they all are.   I'm still just looking for now....R thinks I should wait until the end of March to buy any, because I don't know how big I'll be, but if I wait too long I won't have time to return/exchange them if they don't work. 

I started physical therapy for my back yesterday, and was quite pleased that they didn't think I'd need to see them on a continual basis.   I have a couple stretches that I can to a few times a day, and I'll go back once a week for the next two weeks and see how things are progressing.   She did tell me no more heels *cries*, so I guess I'll have to subject myself to old lady shoes until it is time for cute spring wedges/flats.

So I feel huge today...I have a feeling I'm going to carry everything out front.  Here I am at 15 weeks and yesterday at 16 weeks.  Please excuse the dry elbows and whatever that is behind my elbow at 15 weeks, I swear it isn't a giant creepy spider on the wall, but it freaked me the hell out while editing the pic.

In other exciting news, I realized yesterday that I am almost sleeping through the night now!  So I've finally hit that break period from the thousand pee trips a day.  Once we get this back pain under control I should be good to go for a while.  So nice to actually feel somewhat rested.

 

So excited...maybe a babymoon afterall!

Originally I never thought we'd bother planning a special trip before baby comes, not a big one anyway.  Once all this SCH stuff happened, I figured even small trips were out the window for a while.  Well, a long time friend called last night and invited us down to her family vacation castle (yes, it is a small castle) on St. Thomas in the end of April!   I can't wait!  It has been 3 years since we went down and I am so looking forward to visiting again.

Look at these views! (from the terrace/pool area and the sun terrace )

The nurse said as long as this SCH resolves itself there is no reason I can't fly at 28/29 weeks.  I will talk to the doctor about things more specifically at our appointment in 2 weeks.   So body & baby...work with me here...because mommy wants to go back!

3 day weekends are great...

especially when you would have to take Monday as a sick/personal day otherwise.  Nothing major, just a repeat more or less of last week.   At least it held off until yesterday, because R was out of town most of the weekend, so there were only a few hours where I was dealing with it alone.

I don't like it when R is gone because I never sleep well.  No real reason...I just don't.  Well, our idiot dog decided to compound my trouble sleeping by barking loudly at invisible intruders in the middle of the night.  So despite the fact that our alarm system was on and untriggered, I still had to get up search the house with a loaded glock for peace of mind.  Just the thing you want to do when exhausted and pregnant.  So after checking everything I went back to bed with the hall light on, because my irrational fear said that would allow me to see any approaching shadow before it got to the room (assuming I was awake...yeah, I know).  Finally around 5am, after waking up almost every hour, I turned it off and managed to sleep until 7:30 when it was time to feed the cats.
I fully expected to wake up to problems based on the stress of the night before (I kindly left out the earlier part where something I ate decided to get major revenge) but I was fine until around 9am when I starting bleeding while trying to get the dog to cooperate long enough to get his collar on and put him outside.  FYI, sciatica flares make it quite difficult to get to the bathroom quickly.  It is even more pathetic when you think the bleeding has stopped and try to get in a quick shower, only to figure out you were wrong and you are now reenacting a mini version of the shower scene from Carrie.  Anyway, I went back to bed for a few hours and it looked like things were getting better, but around noon I felt that same abdominal pressure I had before the last really big clot, but only had some heavier bleeding for a minute and that was basically it.  It is still red but back to mostly spotting.   I talked to the nurse this morning but since I just had an u/s Thursday we will wait and see (and I'm fine with that).  She did say if I ever have any type of pressure in the future I should call so they can get me into to triage.
On a more fun level, I think I am starting to pop/show for real now.  When I woke up yesterday there was definitely a difference from other mornings, and when I'm lying down my belly still looks like a little bump.  I promise to post a pic in the next few days.

15 weeks and an u/s update

I went in for a follow up u/s today just to check everything out.  Despite telling him two days ago when our appointment was, R didn't tell me until a few hours prior that there was no way he could arrange his work schedule to make it.  If he had told me that 2 days ago, or even yesterday afternoon I would have tried to schedule it tomorrow.  I know he wanted to be there, and it really turned out to be a shame he couldn't make it, because it was much longer and more intensive than any scan I've had so far...including the NT scan.

Baby is measuring 16 weeks and the tech looked at and measured the arms, legs, head and body and then looked at the heart (all four chambers present!), pointed out the stomach, lung area, bladder, and diaphragm.  She was really good at telling me what she was doing and what we were looking at.  She even turned on the 4D feature a few times.  Very cool, but honestly I had almost no idea what I was looking at.  I did see the baby open and close its mouth several times....so adorable!  Of course I kept a sharp lookout for any sign of whether it was a boy or a girl, but there was nothing that my eyes could distinguish.  Here is the better of the 2 4D pictures...the baby's arms are bent up by the head and the legs are up but I can't tell what is between them, can you?

She asked if I wanted to know what her guess was, and it damn near killed me to say no.   I did ask if she made a note of that anywhere in my file in case R decided he wanted to know before our anatomy scan and she not normally but she'd be happy to do that.  So I have a number where we can reach her and she'll call us back.  

A couple more pictures:

SCH:
Well....I can't say if it is smaller, but at least the baby is bigger than it now.  It appears to have divided (i.e. sealed itself off) into two parts, but the tech wasn't absolutely sure if the area between the two was now normal uterine tissue or just heavily clotted over.  Anyway, the section with the more active bleed area is the part next to the baby (before it was a giant L shape, below and along the anterior wall) and that appears sealed off from the area below baby, where the current bleeding is coming from.  Just to clarify, active bleeding does not mean new blood, it just means the part that isn't clotting up.  If you click on the side shot above you can see the upper section of the bleed...there is a very thin line starting at the baby's knee/leg and going across..that is the edge of the sac and the blood is above it.  So the lower part is much more clotted, but I should still expect more bleeding.  The tech also measured the baby's fluid level (which had been a nagging concern for me) and it looks great.  So the good news is this thing isn't getting any bigger or worse, just slow to make visible improvement.

At home today...

I had another small bleed last night.  Nothing compared to my past ones, but enough to keep me from falling back asleep after 4am.  Well, that and the awful headache I had all night.   So I decided to stay home and take it easy.  I called the OB when they opened and they decided to have me come in.  The heartbeat sounded great at about 150 and my cervix was closed.  They are going to bring me back in Thursday just to see how everything looks and if they can't tell what this hematoma will do next.   It will be reassuring to see our little baby again.

We talked about my headaches but unless they really start to impair my daily life they can't do too much.  They are bothersome, but not migraine level.  If they get too bad, they can give me Tylenol w/ codeine.  Normally I'd jump at the chance to rid myself of a headache, but obviously it is a last resort now.

Trying hard to care...

about work, but I just can't.  Not long term anyway, because I won't be here.  I've been here for 7 years now and I'm just burned out.  I used to love my job, but since returning from my honeymoon 3 years ago it has just gone downhill.  We've gone through two executive directors which led to a lot of trust issues and staff turnover, and the only staff member that needs to leave is that obnoxious unprofessional bitch of a secretary (who happened to be hired while I was on said honeymoon).  So while the director situation was fixed, in general the working environment just isn't the same.

I can get through my day to day stuff and even the long term deadlines that are part of set projects, but not the office wide long term decisions.  I am in charge of the technology, including any purchases and tech improvements.  Normally I'm faced with questioning from the less technologically advanced staff, I explain my reasoning, and we move forward with my original plan.  I need to meet with our grant writer tomorrow to discuss how we should allocate our most recent grant.  I've already stated 2 months ago when we submitted the proposal how it should be done, but she wants to argue about it.  Thing is, I can't tell you what will be best within the next 5 years...or even the next 2, because I won't have any part in it and I have no clue how my replacement will run things.  I should note that by the time all this stuff is approved, ordered and installed, I'll have maybe 3 months left because nothing is ever accomplished quickly when it comes to spending large chunks of money.  I can't tell her that though, because only our current director knows of my plans to leave at the moment.  I don't feel like arguing my point anymore, I'm so ready to be done and gone from here.

::bites tongue::

We made our announcements on facebook today.  Prior to unlocking my wall I did a little cleaning of my friends list and got rid of a couple people that had just been irritating me with their status updates for a while...and of course I made sure my one co-worker is still blocked from ever commenting on my page again (she is the one who said infertile people had lost sight of the true goal, a baby, and should remember adoption is always an option). 
Anyway, one of these people was still friends with R and of course noticed immediately she was no longer my friend and sent a request.  I accepted just not to cause problems.   Two hot seconds later she posts on my page "what a precious Gift from God".   It is all I can do not to respond back that my baby is a precious gift from science and God had nothing to do with it.   Yes, I thank God my baby is still here with me today, but if I'd left things in his hands there wouldn't be one at all right now.    I'm sure she meant well, but comments like that just piss me off.  Her religious status updates (in addition to the endless play by plays of everything little damn thing she did throughout the day) were the reason she was unfriended in the first place.  I'll give it a few weeks, then she is getting unfriended and blocked.

14 weeks!

I'm afraid this won't be a very exciting post.  I had my monthly OB appointment today.  I'm so thankful I bought a home doppler and was able to find and take time to listen to our little baby's heartbeat at home, because that midwife barely kept that doppler on there long enough to register a reading before whisking it away.  Pretty sure mine is better than theirs too because it was full of static.   We went over all that has happened since my last appointment, I asked a few questions about round ligament pain, which she couldn't answer for sure, and that was it.  So I walked out of there without learning anything new....except that Tyrell most definitely does not live with the woman screaming into her phone in the hallway.  Klassy.

I'm still taking weekly bump pics, but even though I feel like I'm showing, there really isn't any visible difference yet between 12 weeks and 14.

***edited to add pics - just for you Papps!! :) ***

SCH:
I made through 3 days of work without any problems.  I am supposed to call the doctor if anything changes but the midwife didn't seem too concerned today.   Overall I am beginning to feel more comfortable with it all.  I'm not like a little kid afraid to go to bed anymore, for fear of what might happen in the middle of the night while I'm sleeping.  I'm not doing anything crazy like wearing light colored pants, but I even made a quick trip to the grocery store by myself today.   This weekend I'm going to make R brave a dept store with me and look for maternity pants, because I'm down to 2 pairs of work pants and it is just too freaking cold for skirts or dresses.

Announcements have begun!

I made it to a NYE party at my friend's house and was able to tell some of my closest friends.  One of my best friends wouldn't come no matter how hard we tried to get her there, so she ended up hearing the news from her sisters and I talked to her the next day.   Everyone seemed surprised, though I had been almost positive my other best friend had figured it out, but she said she hadn't (other than some speculation from everyone on if I was drinking real drinks on a trip to Atlantic City in Nov.)
I told another long time friend on Sunday, who was totally surprised, as she didn't even know we were TTC.   And I made the announcement today at work.  This was my first day back, so I was quite pleased when I walked in and discovered the one co-worker that I despise was out sick.  Score!   So I happily shared the news with the rest of the office without having to worrying about her inappropriate belly grabbing reaction. Sometime toward the end of this week we'll unlock our Facebook pages and make some type of announcement there as well.

SCH:
Still doing pretty well.  I've made it through one day of work without incident.  We will see what tonight brings.  I don't really expect to make it through this week without some sort of problem, but I'm trying to stay optimistic.  It doesn't really help that I walked back in to work to be greeted by a giant shitstorm of deadlines, which are extra frustrating to meet when you can't actually move any file boxes yourself...or even run back and forth from the printer.  I've never been one to dictate my job to other people, but I guess I'll have to learn.