IT'S A BOY!!!!!! (16 weeks)

Today we went to a private ultrasound place, Baby's Bungalow, all the way in North Tonawanda (yes the drive sucked) and saw the baby! The tech had trouble at first seeing in between the legs, and baby was being difficult AS USUAL and not cooperating. Then she said the umbilical cord was in the way but a second later she goes "well, can you tell what it is??" There looked like there was a penis... although I thought she had just said it was umbilical cord, so I said "is it a boy??" She said yep! it's a boy! She went on to take a few other crotch shots just to be sure. We also got to see hte baby in 4D and he was moving around SO much, she said he was a very active baby. My placenta, I learned, is on the front (anterior) section of my uterus and usually that inhibits you feeling movement earlier on, but she said with how active this baby is she is not surprised I feel him move so much!

We are super excited, but both a little in shock because we both kinda thought it was a girl. And Eric actually wanted a girl. I didn't care either way, but I had girl vibes. Before I got pregnant though I always KNEW I'd had a boy. That's why I was confused that I was getting girl vibes...because it threw off my little boy vision that I've always had. Well vibes are wrong lol and my premonition was right! And so was Eric's mom... everyone else who guessed beforehand said "girl," except for her! Early on she had a dream it was a boy... Uma, I will believe all your dreams from now on lol.

Here are the 6 pictures we got, I could have paid $10 more and gotten a DVD of the ultrasound. Eric was like you dont want to get it? I said no... but now I kinda wish I had!

This profile looks like Eric to me. He says the head isn't even developed enough, and no.

Looks like the baby is looking in a mirror... don't know what that's about lol

Heart rate was 138 BPM, lowest it's been and definitely in the "boy" range!

We went to Target after and bought 2 cute little boyish onesies. On a side note... UGH. Target has like 90% girl baby clothes and like NO boy baby clothes. Also, god forbid they have a size large maternity shorts. GOD FORBID. Target, you suck. Also, I bought a belly band and bought a size medium/large... and it's too big. I need the small/medium. One more thing to return lol. I have a running tab of returns at Target.

We had a girl's name picked out. That I LOVE. No clue on a boy's name, I seriously don't love anything for a boy. I think I may just have to accept that I will never *love* a boy's name. Sigh.

In other news... I was offered a job I REALLY want today. I cannot believe they picked me out of all their other candidates! I go July 16th to meet with the people who will give me the contract details (and pay, and benny details...) so I won't say anything more till then in case it falls through. I am seriously excited about this and cannot believe I may have this job. Terrible timing though lol, but I seriously cannot pass this up... I'm in denial that they even chose me!

Tomorrow we have a meeting with the mortgage broker. The broker called me today (while I was frantically driving, of course) and said that he had received the amended contract from our attorney so we should be good to go with the mortgage shit now. Have to bring all kinds of financial documents... that was fun finding them all tonight. I am a somewhat unorganized person, which does not bode well for finding W-2s from 2 years ago and bank statements from a few months ago. (some of this is not my fault - I live out of a bedroom at my mom's, with Eric Goggin thrown in there too. I have NO room to put anything! Now you see what we want to get into this house ASAP!) Anyway I think our mortgage interest rate will FINALLY be locked in. Now the "fun" mortgage rigmarole begins!

My "official" 4 month picture :)

On the eve of knowing

It is 2am and I am so nervous about our ultrasound tomorrow! I am excited, but also nervous. This is the last 14 hours of not knowing if we will have a son or daughter... still just a generic baby. idk why I feel nervous I just do! Eric said he does too. Our ultrasound appt is at 4pm, seems crazy that we will now know what the sex is. Seems like a big step. Some people choose not find out and be "surprised" but really, it's a surprise wheather you find our at 16 weeks or 20 weeks or birth. Eventually you DO find out no matter how long you wait, or don't wait, and it's exciting at whatever time that it. I actually like this finding out earlier... it splits up the excitement lol, and drags more exciting times out during the pregnancy.

The baby is moving SO much right now. I hope it moves tomorrow and doesn't keep it's legs crossed. However if the legs are crossed, pretty sure that means it's a girl.

I have started to get anxiety about giving birth. People like to tell you their horror stories which doesn't help.  I'm nervous of having bitchy nurses (i AM a nurse... and i know there are many bitchy nurses out there lol) and about having a doctor who is stupid and won't listen. I am scared of the pain too... but most of my fear really is about potential incompetence of the healthcare team. Because i KNOW they do stupid things all the time and ignore patients. I'm scared I'll want to walk around and they'll yell at me to stay in bed. I'm scared of having a C-section.. because I just have this feeling that's what I'll end up with. I have a smaller pelvis and it's my 1st and first babies usually take longer... and the current medical practice (which I don't agree with)  is to cut off labor after a certain time and just cut the baby out. Lastly,  I'm scared of being in chronic pain after the baby is born too for one reason or another, because I know that can also happen. I can deal with the short term pain of labor and birth... but thinking that I'll have pain that lasts for years and years... makes me terrified.

And PS. I am extremely stressed about buying this house. Right now I am waiting to hear that the seller signed the amendment to the contract. My mortgage broker needs that in order to lock in our interest rate... which meanwhile is climbing. UGH. I called the attorney today and had to leave a message... and asked him to please fax the contract to the broker when he gets it back from the seller's attorney. UGH UGH. I just want this all over with. Like nao.

15 weeks

So I have really popped out. I never took a "3 month" pic... at 12 weeks I had Eric take one and he is a terible photographer. I looked bigger than I really was, i looked greasy, I had a gross looking hair across my forehead, and it was just bad. Well now as I approach 4 months, I wish I had kept that pic because I looked skinny compared to now! And I can't suck it in like you can with regular fat. It just stays like that no matter how hard I try. First pic is at 9 weeks for comparison. Second one is (obviously) from today, at 15 weeks 2 days.

  

9 weeks

Yes, I took this in the bathroom at work.

Baby is the size of a navel orange or an avocado (which kind of avocado??) depending on what website you use. It's somewhere between 4-5 inches long. I get confused on how they measure fetuses by fruit because the fruit they use are round balls and my baby is human shaped. So is baby that size from crown-rump or is that the total size? I assume crown-rump, and we are just supposed to ignore that they have legs in the fetus-fruit measurement comparisons. 

House stuff is redic. I have to go to the attorney's tomorrow to sign a new contract which will include a seller concession (which doesn't sound like what it really is... since the seller isn't paying shit, it's just money added onto my loan amt to cover some closing costs). Then that gets faxed to seller's attorney for seller to sign. Then idk what. We have to meet with the mortgage broker soon... he said we can't until the contract is final or something. Ugh it is SO confusing!! This is causing me SO much stress I can't even tell you.

Feeling the baby move like crazy tonight. Still doesn't feel a lot like kicks, more like the the baby is doing log rolls in there. Those probably ARE kicks but I just don't know what that feels like yet, so I call them log rolls lol.

Pelvis pain is much better... still there but not as horrendously painful. All I know is after feeling that pain, I pretty much will never be able to make it through labor.

I have a drs appt this Friday. We'll hear the baby's heartbeat and make the ultrasound appt for the anatomy scan/finding out the sex!! Ah i can't wait. I still think it's a girl... I also have old wives tale symptoms: getting big all over vs just a little round ball stomach, getting uglier in the face (because girls take away their mothers beauty ya know LOL), breaking out, craving sweet things, etc. But who knows could still be a boy! lol

Talkin' bout the pelvis

So there is a pregnancy symptom no one ever warned me about (thanks a lot people!) About 2 days ago after a long shift at work, my pelvis started to hurt. Specifically the front. Specifically it feels like someone hit me hard in the front of my pelvis and now I have a huge bruise. Thanks to Dr. Google, I found out it is most likely my pubic symphysis spreading out. Some say the pain is normal, some say it's NOT normal but still common.

Explanation: this is gonna hurt, A LOT

I actually called my doctor's today and was impressed that they did not brush me off as a nervous pregnant lady. The NP I talked to said she's not very concerned since when I lay down it does feel a lot better. She said since it seems to be positional (since it gets better when i lay down) that it's not super concerning.  I have an appt next week and they will probably give me a pregnancy support band or girdle. Oh boy. If a pregnancy girdle doesn't sound like the sexiest thing ever, then I don't know what is. And also possibly sending me to PT. I youtubed a few PT exercises to do for this condition and they DO help. The NP also told me to rest. I am a nurse. I work on my feet, running around CONSTANTLY for 9 hours a day. There is no rest. 

 I was told by the OB before that I have a somewhat narrow pelvis so it's probably doing what it needs to do to make room for a human head to fit through. But I hope this doesn't break my entire pelvis because really, that DOES happen. Like it really does.

So that's my warning that no one told me about. Your crotch might hurt really bad. Like someone took a baseball bat to the front of it. I'm not even exaggerating.

I told my nurse managers at work today that I am pregnant. So secret is totally out. They took it very well and were excited for me. 

Tomorrow is our home inspection. 9am. Hopefully the inspector doesn't find out the house is gonna collapse soon or something crazy. I should get to bed since it's 1:15am, but dammit I didn't get home from work until 12:30. Actually I got home from work at 12 but I found the freaken med cart keys in my pocket, so I had to turn around and drive all the way back. At least Eric drove back with me. but still. 

14 weeks

Today we put an offer in on a house. The house wasn't listed yet, we found out about it from a neighbor. So by the seller not listing it, that saves them the 6% realtor fee which makes the cost of the house cheaper for us. My offer is what he had said he wanted and since it's already low (actually I was going to offer about 5K higher than what he said he wanted... lol ok!) They have to respond by Thursday. Then I need an inspection, THEN the scary part... trying to get the actual mortgage. The attorny originally put down a closing date of 7/30 but I called him and was like actually lets push it out 2 weeks to 8/13. Just makes me feel more comfortable. 

As I was signing my name and initials to the offer I started to feel very nauseous. At first I thought it was because I hadn't really eaten and I was ya know, pregnant. But then I realized. I was so close to puking because I was so nervous!! I still feel kinda pukey. I just wannt move in and have it be all over with. It's scary too not having a realtor hold your hand through the process. We had/have a realtor while we were still house hunting... and I think she's annoyed/concerned now. It's a weird situation. Because we don't really need her anymore nor will she really get paid now... 

Eric's mom called me today and after chatting with her and then handing the phone off to eric, I laid in bed to listen to the convo. I then fell asleep amist all kinds of noise and light. I slept from like 5-8:15pm! 1 day off this week and I spend half of it sleeping!

Kristen and i drove by the house tonight (after I woke up from my nap, discovered my phone was completely dead, I basically just showed up on her doorstep), We were going to just peek in the windows since it's empty. But there was a painter there. So we knocked and he let us in. On a side note: he was extremely friendly, and awesome and looked like a painter. If it was the 1980s he would have had white overalls on. He acted like it was totally normal to have 2 girls and a random baby in glittery pink shoes and pajamas show up at the door of a random house at 9pm.
 So anyway, I got to look at it again, and get Kristen's approval :) Tomorrow Eric and I are going to look at it before I go to work, the neighbor (who I also know - she's the one who told us about the house) has a house key to the house. Lol Eric hasn't even seen it yet. Hell, I just saw it yesterday morning and put the offer in today! The house is in Gates, no more details yet in case everything falls through and I'm sad lol.

In other news, I've decided to live in a bubble. I was reading about how to protect yourself from toxins while pregnant. Lol it was a hilarious article. Keep your windows closed and get an air purifier. Don't pump your own gas. Contact EPA guides for everything. Don't use any cosmetics. Etc etc. Oh shut up already, the world is full of toxins. Don't swim in sewage, eat lead paint chips, or breathe in lots of smoke. You and the baby will survive. 

14 weeks pregnant today. Kristen and I were looking online and baby is the size of a lemon. I felt it rolling around a lot in there tonight. The feelings are more intense now but still totally random. According to online pregnancy articles I shouldn't be feeling anything till like 18 weeks. Um. No. Many of the other women (and me) have been feeling things for weeks. No, not real kicks, but feeling "something."


According to them, all us pregnant woman should *just* be starting to show. Yea right! Most of the women in my online pregnancy group started popping out way early.  Even at like 8 weeks I have a definate belly. I haven't been able to wear my poorl "skinny" jeans since like, the minute I found out I was pregnant. My size 8s that I worked hard to fit into (i had just bought FOUR pairs of Gap jeans about 2 weeks before finding out, btw) are sitting in my closet quietly crying over never being worn.I've pushed them to the dark recesses where I don't have to look at them. I have one pair of jeans that fit, That should probably be called one pair of "jean" that fits, since it's just singulur. They're my old "fat" jeans and I have to rubber band those. I don't wanna talk about it. (Kristen gave me a big tub of maternity clothes tonight though...yay!)
 So yea... all these pregnancy articles are lame and lie.

13 weeks ( and 5 days) & 2nd ultrasound

We had our 1st trimester/NT screen last Monday (6/10) I was 12 weeks, 6 days. I was so nervous. Hadn't seen the baby since it was just a blob. What if it had no brain? Was missing a limb? Has a big NT? (NT=nuchal translucency, a little space at the back of the baby's neck. Anything over like, 3.5cm can possibly indicate Down Syndrome).

Eric and my mom came to it. When they first put the probe on you, they look at your ovaries. big whoop, get to the good part!! Anyway, the baby's measurements were perfect!! NT measurement was 1.5cm or something like that, which is fine. Was 7.12 cm and was measuring exactly 12w6d like it should. It had all it's arms and legs. And a brain. And a beating heart. IT was moving around SO much!! It was kicking and jumping around. Everytime the tech pressed to try and get a profile shot for the NT measurement, it would turn away - very disagreeable baby lol. A few times it gulped, but it looked like it was talking to us. She showed up a "bottom up" view to show us the legs (saw the little bones in there) and there was nothing in the crotch area. Possible girl? Who knows... i can't stand the wait to see what the sex is!

Here are the pictures we got. The chin looks long, because it's actually the hand on the far side. So its the chin and hand but just looks like a long chin... I think it makes the profile look like the old pedophile man from Family Guy LOL. The one with the heartbeat, I love because it was how the entire ultrasound went... baby kept turning it's back on us lol and I like that it looks like its waving to us as it turns away.

My exhaustion has returned!! Wth! Its like all the exhaustion I felt at the beginning of the 1st semester has reared it's annoying head again at the start of the 2nd. I was feeling so good for a few weeks! Well, in addition to FEELING exhausted, when I go to bed, I toss and turn forever! Its torture. I was told to take Unisom + Vitamin B6 (thanks Kristen for your cast off Unisoms!) and it worked really well last night. All it is is the antihistamine that's in Nyquil, nothing crazy, really.

No one tells you that growing a human being is pretty much the same thing as having a human parasite inside of you. Sucking your energy.

We now have a bumbo chair + tray (thanks to kristen scoring an awesome deal!), an eddie bauer cradle (thanks to my mom scoring an awesome deal), and a carseat and one of those table seats that hang off the table for my mom's house that my mom got for free. We went to Babies R Us on Thursday to scope out baby stuff. I've also been researching strollers a bit too, I think we're gonna get a travel system so we can click the infant car seat into that too. And I think I decided on the crib I want :)

Spent and hour tonight after work throwing baby names around with eric, my mom, and sister. No luck. We have a girl's name, but still totally stumped on a boy name.

House hunting is still stressful!

12 weeks

Felt good to hit 12 weeks (Which was actually 3 day ago). The risk of of misarriage goes down, it used to be considered the start of the 2nd semester, although that's up for debate now as some doctors and website now say 13 weeks or 14 weeks. Whatever. It's still good.

We were supposed to have an ultrasound today. The NT (nuchal transluceny) test, which screens for down syndrome. I don't care about that, I just want to see the baby. But I had an interview today at approximately the same time... so now our ultrasound is Monday. I'll be 12 weeks, 6 days. I cannot wait, although, I am nervous. What if they see something wrong. Ultrasounds are like that. They are awesome and amazing because you get to see your baby. But terrifying at the same time, because they may show something wrong.

Are you a parent while your pregnant? I mean, I already sacrifice. The first purchase I was going to make as a nurse was to buy a new computer. But with a baby on the way, and a house to buy for the baby to live in, hundreds of extra dollars are not exactly lying around. So I still have a laptop that is slow, that doesn't have a battery, and a power cord that falls out causing the computer to suddenly shut off. Another example, I love drinking some beers on a summer night. I mean love it. No beers to be drunk this summer though. I had to stop taking just about every medication. I have some intense ankle pain for months now, and can't get an xray like a normal person would. All sacrifices for my kid. But then again I don't even know what my kid looks like and I don't have to oversee them on a daily basis...since I know exactly where they are (my belly) and what they're doing (gestating). So yes, pregnancy is a strange in between land.

We go house hunting on Saturday. Eric is excited but it just gives me anxiety.

Well I must go nap. I was up early for the interview (for a job i'd really love but clearly, timing is bad) and have to work in 3 hours. Work work work.