Pregnancy Update Week 24

Our little bug, growing away furiously in the womb, is going to be named Avery May. She is our daughter. We are elated.

We decided not to do a big sex/name reveal on social media. We didn’t want to make too big a deal of the sex, and we reserve the right to change the name when we meet her (although it’s unlikely we would because we are already referring to her by name).

Also, we got the more “medical” results from last week’s ultrasound. Everything looks great, and MY PLACENTA HAS MOVED! Yay!! This means the pregnancy is completely low-risk once again. I still have one more follow-up ultrasound at 28 weeks to make sure it keeps migrating upward.

I had an intake appointment with our new family doctor this week (she is really awesome), and when the nurse weighed me she said “perfect weight”. Then I said I was surprised I had only gained 8 pounds in 6 months of pregnancy, and she exclaimed, “you’re pregnant?!” My last uterine measurement by the midwife measured 2 weeks behind, but the ultrasound showed baby is right on track. I guess I just have a small abdomen to fit her in (especially in the mornings – it pops out in the evenings). That must be why the movement has been so visible on the outside already. I also got a tetanus booster this week because they are now including a pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine in with it. The whooping cough antibodies will pass on to the fetus so she will be born with a little bit of immunity to it. Great for baby, but my arm has been seriously sore for 3 days, and I was feverish, exhausted, and cranky from the vaccine. They want my wife to get one too so she doesn’t bring whooping cough home to the baby.

Preparations for Baby

• Hypnobirthing. I have gotten noticeably better at the deep relaxation exercise and at retreating into my mind. When I have a particularly stressful day, the half hour relaxation exercise really does wonders at dissolving the stress. I either fall asleep during it and get a nice nap, or I follow up with listening to positive birth affirmations while I watch my baby moving around, kicking and poking and turning.
• Completed baby shower registry. Eventually I might make a blog entry on what we registered for in case anyone wants to cross check with their own registry. It is quite exhaustive, especially for two people who did not want a lot of baby crap in their house….

Milestone Moment

• Little bug has reached the age of viability. If she were born today, she would be more likely than not to survive.
• This was a week of Firsts in terms of classic pregnancy experiences: first heart burn, first Braxton Hicks.
• Little bug got an official first and middle name!

Bodily Experiences This Week

• Heartburn. I’d never had heart burn before, and had to Google it to see what I was feeling. Eating super rich butter chicken and then bending over seemed to trigger it. Every time I bent over it got worse. Another new interesting pregnancy sensation!
• Braxton Hicks Contractions. Again, I wasn’t sure at first what I was experiencing, but upon googling it, I became pretty certain that I had my first Braxton Hicks! It felt like my vertical uterine muscles were tightening, running from the very top to the very bottom of my uterus. It stayed tight for a few hours and was actually less rhythmic and wave-like than I expected. My belly was so hard that it felt like it was going to crack open. It wasn’t painful, but was uncomfortable enough to keep me awake at night. I used relaxation breathing and eventually fell asleep while still experiencing it. It was pretty cool!
• Foot/Leg Cramps. I had a classic pregnant lady moment while walking to hypnobirthing class. I was wearing shoes that apparently no longer fit, and my foot started cramping. I found that the only way to get some relief was to take my shoes off. So I walked all the way there in my bare feet, which gave me calf cramps in both legs. It was an uncomfortable, sweaty walk. I think I got some knowing stares from women my age as I crossed intersections with my belly popping and my shoes in my hand and a pained expression on my face.
• Movement. Little bug is moving around like a fiend. She kicks and punches and turns so much that my wife and I are able to watch the movements under my skin. You can sometimes see what looks like an arm or other long body part pushing out. I can’t believe that we are already seeing so much of her poking through the belly! It is so cool.

 

Baby This Week

• Still about a foot long, 1 and 1/3 pound. About the size of an ear of corn (but good luck to me in finding corn on the cob for the bump photo this week…May isn’t exactly corn’s season). Also, my uterus is now about the size of a soccer ball.
• Skin is thickening, taking on a healthy pink hue
• Face is fully formed, complete with eyelashes, eyebrows and hair. Hair is white, though, with no pigment yet.
• Lungs are producing surfactant, a substance that will help air sacs in the lungs inflate when the first breath is taken.
• Little bug’s brain is developed enough for conscious thought and memory, so I have started reading to her. Since I have a lot of reading of my own to do, I am hitting two birds with one stone and reading my qualifying exam materials to her. She is going to be an expert on critical pedagogy.

 

*I stole the nature-themed frame around the name in the top image. I found it on Pinterest but the link to the creator was broken. I imagine it’s something you can buy customized on Etsy.

Advertisement

Pregnancy update week 20

We have reached the halfway point! A lot has happened this week in pregnancy-related news, but despite all the appointments and tasks we have done, I feel like we are no further along than last week.

The Cliffhanger 20 Week Ultrasound

This week we had our anatomy scan, and it did not go as planned! I was expecting a romanticized extended viewing of baby for both my wife and I, with only an external ultrasound so I could keep my clothes on. But it turned out that my wife was only allowed in at the very end, and we could only see the baby for a couple of minutes. I also had to strip down for an internal ultrasound, which I thought we would be done with by this far along in the pregnancy. In addition to those surprises, baby was very uncooperative. I mean VERY uncooperative. The ultrasound tech tried for 2 hours to get it to wake up and move out of its curled up position deep in my pelvis. She had me roll from side to side, go pee 3 times, do squats, and eat a bowl of candy. She essentially punched me in the stomach repeatedly, trying to shake baby awake, and tried using the internal ultrasound wand to poke it in the bum. My wife sat in the waiting room for an hour and 45 minutes not knowing what was taking so long, getting more and more worried with each passing minute. The clinic closed and she was the only one left in the waiting room. Finally, the tech gave up. The radiologist requested a follow-up in 4 weeks (AKA eternity) so they can get the rest of the pictures. However that 4 weeks from the initial appointment is already down to 3 weeks from today.

One of the images we couldn’t capture of baby was its genitals, so we still don’t know the sex with any certainty. Although, the tech did tell us what she thought she saw. I figure she must have been pretty certain if she was willing to tell us, but until we get confirmation, we can’t start calling the baby by name. We still bought a celebratory outfit* (my wife and I each bought one, actually), and since our tastes are gender neutral I can show the outfits without giving away our suspicions.

Before we went for the ultrasound we had a friend over and tried out some old wive’s tale gender prediction tests. The results were slightly in favour of boy – but we all know those tests are hogwash 😉 We have decided to reveal the sex to our loved ones before the baby is born, but we are currently trying to devise the least gender-stereoptyped way to do so while still making a fun reveal out of it. Once we have the sex confirmed and figure out the plan for a reveal, I will reveal the sex to the blog.

One thing we did learn from the ultrasound was that I have a low lying placenta. Apparently a placenta that is high enough is 3cm away from the cervix, and mine is 2.09cm away from the cervix. Not placenta previa, but will require a follow up ultrasound at 28 or 30 weeks.

We also had our 20 week midwife appointment this week. The midwives don’t want me to worry about the low lying placenta, and said that 90% of these cases resolve themselves. And even if it just moves up one cm, it won’t be considered a risk factor requiring a hospital birth; however she did warn that lower placentas usually come with more bleeding post partum… so, buy bigger adult diapers I guess? Little bug was hiding from the fetal doppler, and the midwife said it felt like it was tucked into a little ball deep in my pelvis, despite having a huge uterus to swim around in. Apparently that is its favourite place to hang out. My uterus is now slightly higher than my belly button.

Preparations for baby

• Made an Ikea trip on the weekend and bought a shoe cabinet and a cabinet for the kitchen. This is baby prep because we need more room to put the crap we already have in order to make room for baby stuff. That’s the kind of baby expense you don’t often hear about…
• Signed up for a hypnobirthing class which starts in two weeks and runs for five weeks.
• Found a family doctor to take us when we are a family of three (thanks to a fellow blogger for recommending the clinic!)
• Started a registry in-store and got lots of freebies in the welcome package

Milestone Moments 

• Got an ultrasound tech’s guess of the baby’s sex
• Felt baby kick on the outside
• Being halfway through the pregnancy is a milestone in itself!

Bodily Experiences This Week

• Hip pain and leg cramps keep waking me up through the night. My Snoogle pregnancy pillow is unfortunately not substantial enough on its own anymore, so I make it into a giant doughnut with my hip in the centre, and then I have to make a stack of pillows for my head so I am at the same height as the doughnut pillow. This alleviates a lot of the hip pain, but I can’t reach my wife from on top of my pillow fortress.
• Vivid dreams also wake me up through the night, and it really sucks when I can’t reach my wife for comforting snuggles when the dreams are stressful.
• Eyes are bigger than my stomach. I think my stomach must be compacted in there now because if my meals are a generous portion I can’t finish them. This has led to a lot of tiny containers of assorted leftovers in the fridge.
• Sinuses have been consistently congested since the first trimester, but now it is mostly just in the mornings that I need a wad of kleenexes in order to breath through my nose. Now, I just have a slight runny nose for the rest of the day.
• Movement: I think I could feel the details of a somersault movement the other day, and I have been feeling lots of movement every day this week, most days more than once. I actually googled “how often should baby sleep in the womb” because I was worried that the baby wasn’t getting enough sleep. Sounds really silly when I write it out, but it just seemed so active this week! Until of course we got to the ultrasound appointment… The stronger movements are now noticeable on the outside – now we just have to get the timing right so my wife can feel.
• Weight gain: 4.5 pounds in total this pregnancy

Baby this week

• 6.5″ and 10 oz – about the size of a cantaloupe! Our first melon comparison! As this is the week we transition to measuring from “crown to rump” to “head to toe”, baby is 10″ from head to toe, about the size of a Belgian Endive.
• If little bug is going to be born with hair on its head (it has hairy genes, so I expect so), that hair is growing now.
• Baby’s lips are plumping up

And I leave you with these adorable pictures of little bug’s face and tiny feet that I can’t wait to kiss and tickle.

 

*I sincerely hope that the patterns on these outfits will not offend anyone. I understand that the teepees mixed with the arrowheads might reflect a stereotype of First Nations peoples being “wild”. Let it be known that I have immense respect and empathy for First Nations communities in North America, and I will teach our child this same respect.

Pregnancy Update Week 17

Newborns stress me out. As I wrote in another post, my sister-in-law had her baby this week. She was kept in the hospital for a couple of days because of post-partum complications, and I went to her house to help get some things ready. One task was to take tags off of a bunch of clothes and wash them. I washed them 3 times… The first time I used a drier sheet before learning that you shouldn’t use drier sheets on baby clothes. I also panicked when I took the clothes out of the drier because I thought I had shrunk them all. I had a fit of stress and guilt and thought I had just ruined all of their baby clothes. Then I realized that baby clothes are supposed to be that small. After washing a second time to get rid of the drier sheet chemicals, I thought I could still smell fragrance from the drier sheet. So I washed them again, and then discovered that it was my sister-in-law’s baby laundry soap that put off the fragrance. I was washing the same fucking baby clothes until 1:30am.
My wife was just as crazy. We had a big ice storm the night before the baby was discharged from hospital, and my wife chipped every last piece of ice off of their 4 car driveway. She was out there with a spade for hours hacking away at it in the freezing rain. It was the most impeccable looking driveway in the whole neighbourhood. And then she salted the bare asphalt as a preventative measure. I hope some of this terror and panic wears off by the time we have our baby…

In other news, 2.5 weeks until we find out the sex.

Purchases/Hand-me-downs

• A few weeks ago a friend gave me her Snoogle pregnancy body pillow. I think I am going to try using it soon, so I bought a new pillow case for it (something about a used pillow without a case makes me not want to snuggle my face into it).

Bodily Experiences This Week

• Healthy nails. I have always had thin nails that rip and peel terribly, and I’m a nail biter to make matters worse. I’ve noticed lately that I can’t bite them anymore… they are so strong that it actually hurts my teeth! (sorry if this is gross).
• Congested and bloody nose
• Exhausted from simple tasks. The first trimester had me exhausted without even lifting a finger, but now I feel like i have the energy to do tasks like house cleaning and yard work. However, I have about half an hour to an hour of energy in me before I crap out. I get out of breath really fast, feel like I am just getting over a flu, and pushing it leads to headaches.
• Emotional wreck. I don’t know if it was all triggered by my sister-in-law’s labour and delivery or if it is just a poorly timed hormonal disturbance, but I have been entirely depressive all week. Not sleeping, crying uncontrollably many, many times a day, no appetite… This better go away by next week.

Baby This Week

• Size of a Spanish onion (still around 5″ in length from crown to rump). Little bug’s growth is happening more in the weight department now, weighing 5.9oz.
• Putting meat on its bones (bones that continue to harden).
• Developing coordination, and may be sucking its thumb.

Pregnancy Update Week 15

I had a constipation issue on the weekend… Constipation has been a minor symptom throughout the pregnancy so far, but it wasn’t causing me any real problems. I just wasn’t as “regular” as I used to be. By Sunday I realized that it had been 5 days since… you know. I also ate a lot of junk food at my sister in law’s baby shower that day. I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday in pain and feeling nauseous. My wife had to drive to the next city over to find a 24-hour pharmacy where she got me milk of magnesia, which worked wonders. Now I am back to normal and making an extra effort to consume plenty of vegetables and fibre. My stomach still turns when I see the cupcakes and chips in the cupboard leftover from the shower. Clearly my body recognizes them as the culprit of all the unpleasantness.

In other news (this time an existential symptom rather than a gross physical symptom), I have been feeling a lot less career driven since becoming pregnant. Although it may just be the emotions and fatigue of pregnancy that are making me feel this way right now, I am afraid of what it might mean for my drive and motivation after having the baby. I was in a meeting today and a friend/colleague Skyped in because she was home with her sick child. I felt so strongly in that moment that what she was doing, caring for her sick child, was so much more important than what I was doing at school. I am a bit concerned about how my demotivated feelings will affect my wife, because I think one of the things that attracted her to me in the first place was my drive and determination to be a fancy pants professor at a prestigious university. Now that I am content to half-ass my way through my PhD and create a flexible means to an income through college teaching and consulting, will she feel let down or disappointed? I’m not saying I want to switch gears completely from having a career to being a stay at home mother (although kudos to those who do), but I just care so much less about career now that our family is growing.

Hand-Me-Downs for Baby

From my PhD co-advisor:

• Pack’n’play
• Portable toddler cot for travel
• Changing pad with 2 covers
• Baby Wrappers bath towel (ties around parent’s neck)
• large hooded baby bath towel
• Moby Wrap
• Baby Einstein books, DVDs, and flash cards
• 6 books plus Baby Einstein book set
• Bottle drying rack
• Baby Bjorn plastic catch-all bib
• Plastic food tray
• Home baby proofing stuff including an oven lock
• Net feeder x2
• size 2T snow pants
• Lamaze Play & Grow Octotunes octopus toy
• Medela breast pump with bottles
• Bath toy
• Bag of pacifiers
• potty training toilet seat
• soft teddy bear
• glow worm
• And the promise of a high chair in a couple of months when her youngest is done with it

New items from sister-in-law (doubles – more like quadruples – she got from her two baby showers):

• 4 cute onesies
• 4-pack of bibs
• 2 packs of wash cloths

Our one closet that we have cleaned out in the future nursery is now packed to the brim. This is the second large hand-me-down haul we have received, and we have another one coming next month.

Movement

Little bug was kicking up a storm last night! It felt just like the first time I thought I felt it – sometime in week 12 – but was a lot stronger. It still felt more like a fluttering than a tiny human kicking me from the inside, but it was moving all over, not just in one place. My cat was sleeping pressed against my bump and at first I thought it was the cat twitching. But I soon realized it was coming from the inside. It was super cool. I also thought I felt movement a couple of other times over the last couple of weeks, but couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just tummy rumblings. Every time I have felt something I have been laying on my side in bed about to fall asleep.

Bodily Experiences This Week

• Constipation.
• Headaches. I went to bed with an ice pack on my forehead a few nights this week in an attempt to lessen the pain naturally. The pharmacist said tylenol can be constipating…
• Mucous discharge from the nether region. Disgustingly copious amounts. If I’d had this while TTC I would have been ecstatic because it would have signified one mother of an ovulation, but now I am just grossed out.
• Hip pain.
• Threw up twice this week. It seems to be more like an extra sensitive gag reflex issue than nausea induced.

Baby this week

• Little bug is the size of a navel orange at 4.5 inches long and weighing 2.5oz.
• can see light through their eyelids and will react when a light is shone through my abdomen.
• can make all kinds of facial expressions now.
• can now use fat as a source of energy.

Pregnancy update week 14: Second Trimester

We are now in the second trimester! I am really having trouble believing it…

On Monday my wife will be leaving for a 2 week business trip to Italy. It has been about a year since she had to travel for work, and I am not looking forward to the exacerbated feeling of missing her. Pregnancy will definitely make the emotions stronger. It is also really crazy to think that I will be 16 weeks pregnant when she gets home. It seems like a really big jump forward in time. She made one of her super healthy, veggie packed lasagnas so I would have healthy dinners to eat while she is gone if I don’t feel like cooking. She takes such good care of me.

My wife has been bonding with little bug every night. Sometimes she pokes it and tells it to stop giving me headaches, and most nights she will put her hand on the bump and repeat “blue eyes”, hoping that her words will have some magical exogenetic-esque effect on the baby’s eye colour.

Recap of the first trimester

• Gained 1 pound.
• Bump popped (became noticeable to outsiders) at 12 weeks.
• Only barfed twice.
• Worst symptom was extreme fatigue.
• Best symptom was boob growth.
• Had 2 ultrasounds.

Bodily Experiences This Week

• Hungry! All the time! My stomach starts grumbling an hour after I finish eating.
• Energy levels have majorly increased (although I still allow myself a rejuvenating nap every now and then).
• Headaches. Almost daily now, and some feel like migraines. Not a fan.
• Moody/angry. I have even been snapping at people in my dreams.
• Vivid dreams.
• Leg cramps when I stretch.
• Hips hurt. I spent 6 hours cleaning the house today (it was really gross) and now I can’t stand up straight without nasty pain in my hips. Any amount of exercise just makes my hips sore right now.

Baby this week

• Size of a lemon at 3.5″ and 1.5oz
• Sucking it’s thumb
• Little bug is developing its own immune system, now that mine has gotten used to it living inside me.
• Little bug is doubling in weight every week now.

 

Pregnancy update week 13

We made our announcement on social media. Our closer friends and family had been told in person, but social media made it easy to ensure that the word had been spread to more distant family members and to the friends we see less often. And let’s be honest – it felt pretty good to watch those “likes” and well wishes come flooding in.

Our 12 week ultrasound picture is absolutely adorable. My mom thinks the face looks like a girl, and I do too, actually. I don’t respond to any guesses of the sex because I don’t want to encourage the prying questions and increasingly aggressive assertions as we withhold the information right up until the baby can announce its own sex at birth. That said, I do enjoy my own personal guessing game.

The ultrasound went really well, little bug cooperated with the technician, and we were out of there in 20 minutes. And I got to keep my pants on! When the tech showed me the live video feed, I shed a few tears. I didn’t think I would get emotional in front of a stranger, but little bug was just so f’ing cute!! It lifted up an arm and turned to the side, which made it look like it was getting snuggled into a comfy position. The little head already looked kissable. Unfortunately my wife couldn’t attend this one because she couldn’t get out of work… we were both really upset about it, especially because the live video feed was so crystal clear and animated, compared to the slightly blurry printed photo that I got to bring home as a souvenir.

The other part of the screening test, in addition to the ultrasound, was blood letting (#jokingnotjoking). I took my pile of requisitions from the midwife and the fertility doctor with me to get all birds with one stone, and  they took 6 vials. It didn’t even phase me. I have definitely gotten over my fear of needles through this process of getting pregnant.

Milestone Moment

• first “pants on” ultrasound.
• Drug-free pregnancy – now completely off the progesterone, as the fully developed placenta should be meeting supply demands.

Maternity Clothes

• Old Navy finally had my size jeans in stock! They only had one pair and it had mud on the leg, but they were only $20. I bought dark wash skinny jeans with a half panel which may not fit for the duration of the pregnancy, but are just what I needed to get me through the barely showing stage. And honestly, I look forward to sneakily wearing these jeans long after pregnancy… all pants should have a stretchy waistband.
• Maternity shirts are a must now. Although I still technically fit in my pre-pregnancy shirts, they stretch in funny places and do not flatter the bulge.

Bodily Experiences This Week

• I’m feeling back to my old self this week! I have been active all day without needing to nap, and I have been running from one task to the next rather than struggling at one simple task all day. I am even getting some of my motivation back to get school work done.
• Sore hips

Baby this week

• size of a peach (3″), weighs about 1oz
• fingerprints have formed
• the head is no longer the largest proportion of the body, now at just 1/3 of the overall body size.
• The intestines formed inside the umbilical cord because of lack of room in the tiny abdomen, and are now migrating to their permanent placement inside the abdomen.
• hairy baby! Lanugo, a fine layer of hair covering the entire body, is starting to grow to keep baby warm until it starts putting on fat. My little Ewok.

Pregnancy Update Week 12

I am so excited to have made it to 12 weeks, but I will feel even better at 12 weeks 3 days when we have our next ultrasound. At our second midwife appointment yesterday they couldn’t find the heartbeat. I know that it is totally normal to not be able to hear it yet, but I still felt sad leaving that appointment. Reassuringly, though, my uterus is the right size and position for 12 weeks, so something in there has been making it grow.

Baby Names

I have contemplated long and hard whether or not I wanted to discuss baby names in the blog. I have decided that I do, because I will look back on this as a source of memories and baby name brainstorming is a memory that would be cool to keep. So here we go:

My wife and I picked a name for a future daughter years before we started seriously talking about having a kid. We loved Addison May. Over the years we didn’t waver at all from this name. And then suddenly, a new name washed over us and completely replaced our long-time passion for Addison. While at dinner with friends this past week, our friend Andy joked about us naming our kid after him. Although not intentionally naming after our friend, we both immediately became obsessed with the name Andy (or Andie) for a girl. Still with the middle name May, after my wife’s late mother’s birth month. So that’s where we stand now on the girl front.

As for naming a future boy, we are much more torn. My wife really wants the name Grayson because it brings in my last name (our kid will have my wife’s last name because it will have my genetics). While I think the name is really cute, and I appreciate the sentiment, it just doesn’t sound like my future son’s name. I can’t explain it any better than that – it’s just a feeling. So far our next best contenders are Charlie, Sawyer, Oliver, and Riley.  And just to add one more to the mix, my wife woke me up in the middle of the night last night to tell me she liked the name Avery for a boy or a girl.

Purchases

We haven’t purchased anything for our own baby this week, but we shopped our hearts out this week for my sister in law. We are throwing her baby shower in two weeks, so we bought all the decorations, game supplies, favours, and gifts this past weekend. Even though we didn’t buy stuff for ourselves when we were shopping, we made plenty of mental notes for our own registry (which, who are we kidding, is already meticulously planned out in an excel file…).

Hand-me-downs: we received a mountain of clothes and baby items from a friend. Dozens of onesies, bag of socks, shoes, snow suit, sweaters, polos, and more. We also received two winter car seat covers, a bassinet, a second baby bouncer, a wipe warmer, and more. I am working on washing everything and putting it in rubbermaid bins until we have our nursery closets set up. At this rate, we aren’t going to need to buy anything at all…

 

Bodily Experiences This Week

• Barfed again.
• Headaches.
• Dizzy.
• Extra saliva and mucous (blowing my nose all day every day). To give an example of the extremeness of this symptom, from the moment I sat down to start writing this I have accumulated 13 dirty tissues next to me.
• Fatigue came back with a vengeance this week – I felt like a zombie dragging my feet around the house, and gave in to a 3 hour nap on Saturday and two, hour long naps on Sunday. My wife and the cats napped with me because laziness is contagious. It was awesome.
• Blurry vision. I have always had perfect vision, so this is a bit of weird sensation. It’s kind of like my eyeballs are just exhausted and can’t be forced to focus anymore. It’s not constant, but I definitely notice it after a day at the computer.
• Emotional/sad. I will write more about this in a separate post when I’ve had more time to process.

Baby this week

• Since swallowing started recently, and the kidneys just started functioning, little bug is now peeing inside me. It’s just basically a continuous cycle of amniotic fluid though, from what I understand.
• Little bug has reflexes all over their body – fingers and toes are curling, eye muscles are squinting (although eyelids remain closed at all times), sucking reflexes starting
• Vocal chords are developing, getting ready to start making those piercing screams in 7 months.

 

Pregnancy Update Week 11

We got a lot more of the future nursery cleaned out, and started patching and painting one of the tiny old closets in the room that we will be installing shelves in. Soon it will store baskets full of socks, hats, onesies, and whatever else.

Some family members have started to contact me on Facebook (private messages, luckily) to say congrats. We haven’t made a public announcement yet, so clearly my mom couldn’t keep it a secret. She probably told her sister who told her kids who told our other cousins… As long as people stick to the private messages we won’t have our announcing privileges taken away from us!

I have been stressed out over my dissertation proposal which I have been trying to get off the ground for almost a year already. But when I start to get stressed about work life, I remind myself of how life is about to change so drastically, and I look forward to little bug reminding me that work is NOT my biggest worry!

I think it’s time now to add a few more categories to my weekly updates, beyond symptoms and baby development.

Purchases

• Stroller. We know how early it is, but we don’t care! We had done our research and chosen our dream stroller, and then it went on sale with $200 off. I like to push it around the house with the cat in it.

Maternity Clothes

• I got full panel maternity jeans, but they are still too big on me (but they are going to be so cute for spring!). While I’m in between regular and maternity sizes I have begrudgingly continued to use the rubber band trick, and wearing leggings when it’s not too cold (it’s -20C right now, so no leggings today!)
• I didn’t think I would be wearing maternity shirts for a good long while, but today I decided that my belly was stretching my shirt too much and it was making me self conscious, so I popped on a maternity t-shirt over top. It looks a lot better because it frames the bump instead of trying and failing to disguise it.

Bodily Experiences This Week

• Dizzy.
• Minor queasiness.
• Mild cramps, reminiscent of PMS, which I assume is my uterus stretching.
• Aching boobs.
• Food aversion to the smell of onions cooking – hits my gag reflex and completely destroys my appetite.
• Food craving: Fuzzy peaches. I have bought three bags of them over the past three weeks and they are all gone… New Goal: break my sugar addiction.
• I am SO READY to come off of the damn progesterone suppositories. I don’t know if it’s due to the meds or a pregnancy symptom, but… TMI warning… my vagina has been really sensitive lately, like it’s raw and tight, so putting the progesterone in is getting uncomfortable. And I have three capsules to put in each night. It also makes sex uncomfortable. 10 more days until I am completely off of the drug and I can’t friggin’ wait.

Baby this week

• Baby can now smell, although I can’t imagine how it could smell in a liquid environment. It is also breathing – inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid, which helps the lungs develop their capacity. Curiosities of the natural world…
• Started swallowing last week, and can now stick out its tongue.
• Hair follicles are developing all over the body
• Whole body is now sensitive to touch.
• Skin is becoming thicker and less transparent (but is still transparent enough to see the fluid inside the neck – key to the nuchal translucency screening test).
• Oh, and baby is the size of a lime, which is astounding to me.

Pregnancy Update Week 5

Happy New Year!

I wanted to wait a week to write another post because I want to do weekly pregnancy updates. But so much has happened in the last week that it’s going to be a big update today.

I called our fertility doctor to report the positive HPT. The clinic was closed until Dec 29th, so I had to wait a few days. We kept taking more home tests, and it kept getting darker and darker to the point where a super intense blue line showed up IMMEDIATELY, before I could even get the cap back on the test. Over the phone, the nurse told me to go for blood work and call back to make an appointment after I had three blood draws. I went to the blood lab today, and they said I should come back on Monday to start the blood draws, since they would be closed new year’s eve and new year’s day and it would put too long of a gap between tests if I started this week. So from the first day of my missed period, we will be waiting 10 days to get blood tests done and book our first doctor appointment! Holidays are inconvenient when you want information on a new pregnancy!

Also over the phone, our doctor started me on progesterone suppositories.  I felt it was unnecessary because this was a problem-free, natural conception. I’m skeptical of any drugs that are prescribed before the doctor has seen my blood test results – he has no idea what my progesterone levels are right now. But I am taking them anyway, until I get to talk to him about it. I guess I should be thankful that my chance of miscarriage MIGHT be reduced by using it (academic jury is still out on that one).

We also got an intake appointment with a midwife! Ontario health insurance only pays for one primary health provider at a time, so I can’t use both the fertility specialist and a midwife simultaneously. I will need to be transferred from the fertility specialist over to the midwife, which will hopefully happen in 2 weeks. The midwife appointment is Jan 21.

Even though it is very early still, I have had some symptoms surface between week 4 and 5. Some days I don’t feel different at all, but other days the symptoms will be crystal clear, like throbbing, growing boobs, and I remember that soon I will be feeding a baby with those boobs. Mind blowing.

Bodily Experiences This Week

• Excitement!!
• Bloated. It really feels like my period is a week late…
• Peeing Frequently.
• Hungry. My stomach sounds like an angry dinosaur and I am starting to feel nauseous if I stay hungry for more than a few minutes.
• Sense of Smell. Prior to pregnancy I had very little sense of smell. Even skunk spray was pretty mild to me. This week I went to the fish counter at the grocery store and for the first time I could smell fish – more like the smell of a fishing boat that just came back to harbour after a day on the ocean. Perhaps the only reason I love sushi so much is because I COULDN’T smell the raw fish smell!
• Pregnancy Gingivitis. This one is horrible… When I was a teenager I was prone to gingivitis (swelling of the gums and the roof of my mouth). Now it’s back… it hurts to eat anything other than soups and smoothies. Booking a dentist appointment is first on my list after the holidays.
• Bigger Boobs. This one is particularly exciting for me because I always wanted bigger boobs…

Baby this week

The embryo is now the size of a sesame seed, and is shaped kind of like a tadpole. It is now inside an amniotic sac. A primitive placenta and umbilical cord are developing. The heart is starting to grow, and it will begin beating and pumping blood any day now – tomorrow I guess, since they say it starts 22 days after conception.