22 weeks

The child is now approximately 11 inches long and weighs about a pound. Aw, a whole pound already! =)

Sea Monkey had the hiccups yesterday. I was entertained. I kept feeling something, and at first I wasn't paying any attention to it (I was too busy reading about episiotomies and FREAKING OUT because oh my goodness, reading a factual description of it just makes you cringe), but I kept feeling it, so I lifted up my book (avoiding eye-contact with the very scary drawing of an episiotomy) and saw my stomach just twitch out to the side. It made me smile. =) But then I was sad because Zach was at work and he still hasn't felt the baby yet, and he would have been able to feel this, since my stomach was jumping.

I think Sea Monkey has this obsessive thirst for stealth. S/he starts moving, so I put my hand or Zach's hand on my stomach to try and feel it and.... nothing. Little trickster.

So one of the things we've learned is that episiotomies freak me out. I'm not really sure there's anyone they WOULDN'T freak out. You're just not supposed to have tools used for cutting down there. Ugh. Gross. But midwives don't usually do them, so I'm very, very relieved. I don't know why I kept reading when I got to that part of the book. Oh well. At least I now know that having one done increases the chances of it tearing even more..........

Anyway....

At our last appointment, Val asked about my exercising habits and told us to increase our pace to walking 1 1/2 miles in 30 minutes (3 miles an hour). So, Zach, with his love of all things tecchy and nifty, found an application on his phone that would keep track of our pace and how far we're walking and everything. We've discovered that if we make a big loop around our neighborhood and go up and down every cul-de-sac, it's about 1.6 or 1.7 miles. And the application he uses can be set up to tell us our average speed and our current speed every so often, so we can keep track of stuff. We're now averaging 3.1 or 3.2 miles per hour. That means we're over-achievers. =)

So here's something kind of depressing... if Sea Monkey were born today (or any time this week), s/he would have around a 10% chance of survival. BUT if s/he hangs out for another 3 weeks (I'd be 25 weeks), his/her survival rate is 50% and if we make it to 26 weeks, the survival rate is 80%. It's 90% at 28 weeks. So we want to make it at least another 6 weeks. Preferably 17 or 18 weeks though. I'm excited to meet Sea Monkey, but not excited enough to meet him/her now... I can wait.

Belly pic (by the way, I need new batteries. We have rechargeable batteries for the camera, but they're only lasting long enough to take 3 pictures, load those pictures onto the computer, and then they die. And that's annoying.)





Oh! We have a recording of Sea Monkey's heartbeat from the last appointment that will be put up soon. =) Zach's going to edit it; it's kind of long and we (Zach, Val, and I) were talking, so Zach is editing out the un-exciting parts so you can hear the cool part. =) We'll have it posted soon.

21 weeks

I can't believe how quickly the weeks are going by. I still feel like I should be around 15 weeks, and not 21. It's crazy.

Sea Monkey weighs about 12 ounces now and is 10 1/2 inches long (carrot-size). S/he also has eyebrows and eyelids now and blinks. That's really about all the babycenter had to say on the baby's development. So... ok.

I'm feeling more movement more regularly, which is very, very exciting. The child is doing something about 4 times a day, now. =) Some of the movements have felt like pretty strong kicks, too. I keep having Zach put his hand on my stomach to try and feel Sea Monkey, but this child does not want to cooperate. Every time I put my hand on my stomach when s/he is moving, s/he stops. Little bugger.

I just ate breakfast an hour ago and I'm hungry again... that's fun. =)

Oh, on a side note- if you're following this through facebook, there's this really weird time gap between when I post updates on the blog vs. when they actually show up on facebook. The first post took between 4-5 hours to show up on facebook, the second took over a day. So... They show up there eventually, but it's always on the actual blog first. Just in case you're really antsy for updates, since I am such a thrilling person and I know you're just so excited to read my ramblings....

And belly shot:




I may be a terrible judge in comparing these shots, but when I look at this week compared to last week's, this looks a smidge smaller to me. Or maybe it's just lower. I don't know. But there you go.

20 week appointment update

Things are going beautifully. =)

Zach and I got there, did the pee thing, checked my weight, all the normal stuff. No protein in the urine (YAY!), weight is excellent (I'm now even with my pre-pregnancy weight), Zach gave me a dried apricot (I think?). There was a bowl of them on the table and he handed one to me and told me to eat it. So I did.

Went back, Val checked for the Elusive One's heartbeat aaaaaaaaand ta-da!!! There it was. It took a second, and Sea Monkey moved a couple times before we heard the heartbeat, but then Val got it. =) So Sea Monkey will not be grounded for being obstinate. Even though I'm feeling movement, it's still nice to finally have heard that heartbeat. =)

We talked about some stuff, I was wearing my wrist brace, so she asked about that (it's now recorded as a crocheting accident =) ), and then we went over my diet and exercise habits. I'm supposed to kick up my walking a little and I need to be getting more calcium. Val said Tums are an excellent source of calcium (but to take it with a full glass of water), so that works really well, since I need to take them fairly regularly for heartburn anyway.

She asked if I had been doing any reading on pregnancy, and Zach laughed. A lot. Because we just went to the library Saturday and I got an armload of books (he said I had checked out most of the library's books on pregnancy- I haven't! Not all of them.... Just... those 7 that I have. And I've checked out about 4 or 5 others before....). Pregnancy has been really interesting to me, so for the last 2 years, I've been reading a lot about it. Zach mentioned that we have Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, which I think is one of my favorite pregnancy books, and I've been reading some stuff by Dr. Sears and I've picked up a couple breastfeeding books. I like to learn more about things that are interesting to me, and pregnancy/childbirth/parenting is interesting. So I read and research. A lot. =)

I think that's about it. Blood pressure was great (104/48, I think), Val likes the way my weight has been, my belly is obviously growing, my uterus is where it should be... Things are going well. =)

Half! Way! There!!

"So, how far along are you?"
"HALF WAY!!!!!! YEEEEEEEEEAH!!!! =D =D =D"

That's all.


Well, not really. But I'm excited enough about being HALF WAY THERE that I could just hit that little "publish post" button and go on my merry way. But if you've been keeping up with this blog (at all), you've probably noticed I ramble. A lot. I can't help it (seriously, I try to keep the rambling at a minimum, but it just kind of explodes out of me). So of course there's more. I even end up deleting large paragraphs before posting. I am not this wordy in real life, so I think it's just a subconscious way of compensating for it.

Sea Monkey is now roughly the size of a banana. A banana. From head to toe. Up until now, all the measurements have been from head to butt, because babies like to curl their legs up (umm, fetal position, anyone?), but now s/he is stretching out a bit and is the size of a flipping banana. Last week SM was 6 inches head to butt, now s/he's 10 inches head to toe (this week is 6 1/2 inches head to butt). Banana size! And s/he weighs 10 1/2 ounces. We're getting close to a pound!

SM is also producing meconium, but it's hanging out in his/her bowels until s/he is born and we'll get some lovely first few diaper changes. I'm still feeling movements at least once a day, which is cool. I'm very excited for the time when there are X movements per hour. =D Even if it keeps me up at night, which doesn't really make much difference since I'm sleeping terribly anyway.

Yeah, sleep pretty much sucks. I'm either too hot, having seriously bizarre dreams that keep me utterly confused even while I'm sleeping (the other night's dream was a musical, complete with dance numbers and songs and everything), or constantly on the verge of waking up to pee but refusing to actually wake up because I'm tired and want to sleep. It's been a lovely few nights. =) AND I've had heartburn and headaches the past few days. The heartburn throws me off, though, because I had heartburn all of 5 times before being pregnant and now I've had it every day for the past few days.... but it's ok, it doesn't bother me too much. Same for headaches, but I'm used to those. I really don't mind, though, I'll take heartburn and headaches every day for the rest of the pregnancy if it means a healthy, happy baby.

I'm getting very, very, very excited for Sea Monkey to be here. I know it's going to be hard and stressful and hugely different, but I'm just so excited to take it on and get to watch my little baby growing and learning new things. And snuggles. I'm super excited for snuggle time with Sea Monkey and Zach, or watching Zach snuggle with Sea Monkey. =) Even if it means I get covered in all kinds of gross things and have to shower a couple times a day to get vomit out of my hair (or not have time to shower at all), I'm so excited. =) But we've got another 20 weeks or so to go, and if it goes anything like the first part of this pregnancy, it'll be here in what feels like a week.

Seriously, I'm so surprised I'm at the half way point already. It's surreal.

Most people are finding out the gender around now. And that would make it so much easier for me to talk about Sea Monkey, without adding in all the "s/he" and "his/her" stuff. But... we're waiting. Because we want to taunt you (which is also why we're not announcing the name). That's our whole reasoning, we just want to make you wait and your curiosity burn (not really). We're just not finding out and we're not deciding on a name until we actually see the little kid. So we have until September. Which gives me a whole lotta time to constantly change my mind on what I think this baby is (aside from a baby). All the old wive's tales say boy, and those are certainly fool-proof, but I kind of have a girl feeling. But my mommy-sense doesn't mean much; I know a lot of ladies who had been thinking one way and were wrong. Some of us need to fine-tune our mommy-sense a bit. But either way, we have until September.

In other news, we have a facebook page now. I don't remember why Zach wanted to set one up, exactly, I think it was to make it easier for family members to keep up with the pregnancy, since everybody is on facebook and then it's just there and easy for them, rather than needing to try and find the blog link... but I don't remember. But anyway, we have a facebook page. Which... you may already know, since I think this post is supposed to tie to facebook and.... automatically update there? Er... Zach??

And the HALF WAY POINT belly shot:



Not much of a week-to-week difference, but comparing this with the 18 week picture, it's a bit bigger. =) And still no weight gain, although that's probably going to change soon, since I'm supposed to be putting on weight more quickly now. But, half way there, no weight gain, and I'm still comfortable in my normal jeans. =)

The appointment that isn't

I was supposed to have an appointment tomorrow (Tuesday, 4-13), but Val had a conflict. So the appointment has been pushed back until next Tuesday (4-20). So there will be no appointment update tomorrow.

But it gives Sea Monkey another week to grow, so we darn well better be able to hear the heartbeat by then. I'll be 20 weeks and 4 days. If we still don't hear it for more than 3 seconds, Sea Monkey will be grounded for the first 3 months of life for being obstinate.

Zach's birthday (with pictures!)

First off, the 19 week bump picture, since I neglected to post it yesterday:

I didn't think there was much of a change between this week and last week, but Zach thinks it's getting big. Cool. =)
Today is Zach's birthday! We started the morning off with some (decaf) hazelnut coffee, which is pretty gourmet for us. But it was decaf, so it wasn't as amazing as regular coffee (we got decaf because of Sea Monkey). But it was still delicious. Then Zach decided he wanted to go out to eat for his birthday, so we went to HuHott (Mongolian buffet- pretty much a big stir fry place; it's delicious).

And they gave us a free s'mores platter for dessert since it was Zach's birthday.


We ended up with more graham crackers and marshmallows than we did chocolate, so we made a monster cookie with the remains.



It was pretty massive. And messy.

So after eating, we went to see How to Train Your Dragon. It was really good; I was surprised. I hadn't seen any previews for it or anything, so I wasn't sure what to expect, aside from a kid's movie, but it was good. And the dragon, Toothless, was pretty much my cat in dragon form, with similar personalities. Toothless would do something in the movie and Zach and I would look over at each other and say something like "he's like Mali!" At the end, the main character (Hiccup) was sleeping and woke up to find Toothless sniffing his face, and I've woken up with Mali sniffing my face dozens of times. So that made the movie really fun. Also, Sea Monkey was moving around quite a bit during the movie, so that was really exciting too. =)

After the movie, we went to the Shelter Gardens (the garden outside the place where Zach works) and walked around a bit. A lot of the trees are blooming (including the magnolias, which are my favorite flowering tree), so it's really pretty right now. There are a few daffodils out too. And the weather was pretty much perfect today, so it's been really nice.

So after gallivanting around the garden for a bit, we headed back home and Zach spent some time working on his bike. I don't know if I've mentioned it on here or not, but he put an engine on his bicycle. It's how he's planning on getting to and from work, since our car is not reliable (although it is working now). And it has way better gas mileage than the car, too, which is nice. He got the engine running, took it on a brief ride around our neighborhood and thoroughly enjoyed himself. =)

And then we went inside and I made his favorite cookies (peanut butter no-bakes), and now we're watching Firefly. =) So that's been our day. And I am tuckered out.

19 weeks

I currently hate my wrists. If it wouldn't be ridiculously painful and if I didn't need them and if I wouldn't look goofy and if I wouldn't regret it afterward.... I would cut them off. My arm would go from forearm to hand. And then I would have no more problems with tendinitis/carpal tunnel/whatever this stupid pain is.

I messed my wrists up about 3-4 years ago from excessive crocheting (...yep). I had to wear a brace for 3 or 4 months straight, until I could finally type a bit on the computer without wanting to stab something. From then until about a month ago, I've only had to wear the brace for maybe 2 days every so often. It would flare up, I'd put my brace on for a short time, and all better! It would happen every 3 or 4 months. There was even a time where I had no idea where my brace was because I hadn't needed it in so long. I miss that. I would love to be able to lose my brace again. I'm wearing it a couple times a week now. Something with the excessive hormones going crazy in me causes carpal tunnel in pregnant ladies, and since I'm already prone to it, it's been fantastic.

But it's ok. I've had a pretty easy pregnancy so far, and if this is my bad part, I'll take it.

So... 19 weeks today. Crazy, huh?
Babycenter's update:
"Your baby's sensory development is exploding! Her brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. Some research suggests that she may be able to hear your voice now, so don't be shy about reading aloud, talking to her, or singing a happy tune if the mood strikes you.
Your baby weighs about 8 1/2 ounces and measures 6 inches, head to bottom — about the size of a large heirloom tomato. Her arms and legs are in the right proportions to each other and the rest of her body now. Her kidneys continue to make urine and the hair on her scalp is sprouting. A waxy protective coating called the vernix caseosa is forming on her skin to prevent it from pickling in the amniotic fluid."

It also says I'm supposed to start growing rapidly in the coming weeks. Maybe I'll start looking pregnant to strangers soon! Whenever we go anywhere, I have to examine my baby-belly in whatever shirt I'm wearing to see if it looks like I'm pregnant or fat to strangers. I always ask Zach this question, and he always responds something along the lines of "I think you look pregnant. You look beautiful." Which is really very sweet and always makes me beam happily for a while. But I haven't had a single person come up to me and ask if I'm pregnant, like I hear so many other people due the same time as me talk about. It's alright, I don't like to be the center of attention, and I always feel very awkward talking to people I don't know (...or people I do know, for that matter). I'm sure that stage is coming.

Still feeling sporadic movements from Sea Monkey. A lot of things say that if you're quietly laying down, you're a lot more likely to feel something. Not for me. I've tried. Many times. But no, my child almost always only moves if there's music or a movie playing or someone talking (I'm usually listening to music quietly, so I'm sure s/he is just used to it and likes the light background music). I love the little movements though. They feel really odd, but it always makes me smile. I'm very excited for when they're more frequent. =)

And, as I am quite possibly one of the most boring people in the world, I think that's just about everything I have to say (not really; I could ramble for hours, but my wrist hurts and I'm hungry).

Appointment Tuesday.

And Zach's birthday is tomorrow!!! Happy 22nd Zach!!!!! =)

Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and somebody else.

I've been having crazy, crazy dreams. I know it's normal in pregnancy, but I wake up after some of these dreams and just kind of stare at the wall in confusion, because I have NO idea how my subconscious came up with any of that.

My dream last night started off fairly normal, I had given birth to a boy with black hair (by the way, every baby gender dream I've had has been about a boy). And then as I was holding him, all his hair fell out, the locks turned into birds which chirped and flew off, and the hair was replaced by blonde hair that just sprouted up out of nowhere. I think somebody (maybe Zach, maybe the midwife) commented on how it's fairly normal and they call it "hair explosion syndrome" and it can keep happening for the first few months but the birds only appear the first time.

After staring at my dream-kid for a while, I finally looked up and found myself in a peach-colored hotel suite. That's not where I had started out, but teleporting in dreams is fairly common for me (maybe I WILL develop a way to teleport!). So anyway, I'm in this hotel suite with my newborn son and Zach and I hear yelling close by. Then Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and some other famous actor who I can't remember the name of (he was short and loud, and made me think of Nathan Lane, but it's not him) all walk into our hotel suite. Julia Roberts was a very subdued person, very timid and came over to me immediately, quietly explained that the nameless actor was a mob boss or something and killed people, but only bad people, and Tom Hanks was sort of his accountability guy/manager (yes, the mob boss-killer had someone keeping him accountable for his actions...).

So the mob-boss was yelling and glaring at us, and then I realized I was in a kiddie pool in the hotel suite, still holding my dream-son, whose hair was orange. My dream son's orange hair was offending the mob-boss (said Julia). So I freaked out because I didn't want him to take my son and teach him how to gamble (.....because that's what you do with an orange haired child?). I hopped out of the pool and ran into a different room of the suite, put my kid into a pink frilly dress, because that's all I had, and his hair "exploded" and turned brown. Zach had stayed in the first room to make sure Mr. Mob Man wasn't going to come after us, and the midwife had just disappeared (probably teleported into a different dream). Julia Roberts had come with me and I asked her if the brown hair would be offensive to the mob guy, and she said since he (mob guy) had brown hair, it shouldn't be. So I slowly walked back into the first room, to find Bella Swan and Edward Cullen (from Twilight) hanging out on the couch next to Zach and playing Monopoly.

Mob-boss guy looked over and saw that the baby had brown hair and he was ok with it. Then he asked what the baby's name was, and I said "James." Then he gave me a very confused look, Tom Hanks sighed and started pacing, and mob-man said "it's a boy?"
I said "...yes."
"Why is he in a dress?"
"It's all I had, because Fed-ex didn't get here in time."
Then he got very upset, screamed, ran out onto the balcony and jumped off.
Tom Hanks sighed, said "Houston, we have a problem" and pulled out one of those old massive cell phones that look like toasters and called someone.
Then the cast of Firefly showed up and Julia Roberts explained that the mob guy had this huge love affair going on with Fed-ex, and hearing of it's failure just drove him over the edge (literally). I laughed at the pun, and then my baby exploded into this full grown adult with blue hair, still wearing the pink frilly dress that had grown during his explosion to fit him and ran off to join the Firefly cast in the next season of the show.

That's it. I know I'm a fairly random person to begin with, but this seems a little extreme in oddness. And so many famous people/movie references! I think it was just this huge joke my subconscious cooked up. Like "hey, you know what would be fun for aware-self?" followed by a movie-style evil laugh. Or Sea Monkey is destined for Hollywood and is just preparing me for it now.

The exploding hair syndrome thing is kind of funny, though.

19 weeks and a hopefully far more normal post tomorrow. =)

Well howdy, hip and back pain!

It's almost midnight as I'm typing this and I'm doing so only because it's almost midnight and I can't get to sleep. Boo. I'm thinking if I just ramble on enough, I may bore myself into sleepiness.

I had my first night of pregnancy-induced pain while sleeping last night! An annoying milestone, but a milestone nonetheless. I'm fairly used to sleeping on my side(s), so I was hoping spending almost my entire night on my left side wouldn't be a big issue. Well, it's not a big issue yet, but it did bother me last night. Each time I woke up to go to the bathroom, I noticed my hips were kind of sore. Not hugely annoying, I just tried to reposition my legs a bit when I settled in again, but I'd wake up for my next bathroom break and they'd be hurting again. I'm going to have to break out the old pillow-between-the-knees trick. It's mostly frustrating because I'm not supposed to sleep on my back anymore, unless I'm propped up. Zach usually gives me his pillow in the mornings to sort of snuggle with when he leaves for work, but lately I've been finding myself less snuggling with and more using it to prop myself up, so I can sleep on my back.

Anyway. I'm apparently having a bit of heartburn, which really shouldn't surprise me, since we had curry with Richard and Karen. And it was a bit spicy. Spicy in heidi-terms, which means it has a mild bit of flavor to most people. But to me, it's like ohmygoodness! I must drown the flavor with fluids now before my throat burns up!! I'm a complete wimp when it comes to spicy food. But it was tasty.

Oh, I think I've almost bored myself into possibly being able to get to sleep! I'm gonna go for it. And sleep for 2-3 hours, have a crazy dream, wake up to go to the bathroom. And rinse and repeat. And at some point get walked on by Mali, because she likes to climb over us while we're sleeping and peek down the crevice between the bed and the wall. Why? I don't know. It's unreachable, therefore she must exert every energy possible toward trying to reach it, but only while we're sleeping. And when I pick her up and put her at my feet, where she often sleeps, she must come back to peek down into the darkness (read: annoy heidi). Or steal my pillow. She does that sometimes too.

Oh well. I'm feeling pretty drowsy now, so I'm going to try and take advantage of it. Yay sleep!

The slowly changing bump

Not much difference this week; looks like it's rounding out more below my ribs...

Also, still no weight gain.

18 weeks

I had thought of something clever to say here around 4 this morning when I was on my way to the bathroom... but now I don't remember it. It's alright, it was probably some ridiculous and clearly sleep deprived statement like "HAHAHAHA, BABY!!! With feet.... and a mouth. haha!!"

SM is 5 1/2 inches long and weighs 7 ounces; and is the size of a bell pepper or baked potato. S/he can hear music, and it sounds muffled like things sound when you're under water. Wednesday I was sitting outside reading Pride and Prejudice and Sea Monkey kept moving/flipping/kicking/doing something. I'm now of the opinion that s/he will either love the outdoors, love spring time, or love Jane Austen. Because, you know, the baby can tell if I'm inside or outside, and if it's spring or not. Or if I'm reading quietly to myself. S/he knows. S/he's like Sherlock. It's elementary. (.....I'm apparently in a weird mood right now).

I was feeling some movement yesterday too, so it seems to be getting more frequent. =)

If Sea Monkey is a girl, her uterus and fallopian tubes are formed and in place, which I think means she has all the eggs she'll have for periods/reproduction (women are born with all the eggs they'll ever have; we don't produce more as we grow) which means there may be eggs that will be my grandchildren in there. And that's an odd thought.

If Sea Monkey is a boy, his stuff is there and noticeable. Still odd to think about, but not quite as odd as thinking about a girl.

My waist is thickening ever so slightly. And I'm learning the fine art of hobbit meals. You know, breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, lunch.... yep. I'm eating like a hobbit. =)

Belly pics later... maybe tonight. Or tomorrow. It'll be here eventually.

All I Want...

...is cheesy fries and a chocolate shake from Steak and Shake. Mm.