Week Thirteen

At thirteen and a half weeks, I’m officially in my second trimester. The second trimester is often referred to as “the honeymoon stage” because your sickness usually completely disappears, you have much more energy, and you’re not too big that you’re incredibly uncomfortable to sleep. I have definitely been looking forward to the start of this trimester and I hope that it doesn’t go too quickly.

 

So what’s on my 2^nd trimester agenda? Well, a lot, actually! To start things off I have a NT scan scheduled for 1/31/2011. NT stands for Nuchal Translucency and basically it’s a scan to check for potential abnormalities such as down’s syndrome. Initially I wasn’t going to get the NT scan, but after thinking about it, I decided that a) I want to be prepared and knowledgeable should my baby have a potential abnormality and b) because I’m greedy and I just really want to get another ultrasound. I’m going to include these results and photos in my week 14 entry, even though I will be getting the NT scan done at the conclusion of my 13^th week.

 

After this, my next regular OB visit is set at 16 weeks on 2/16/2011, then a few weeks following that I will have my “big” ultrasound where the anatomy may be revealed. Hopefully we can get a pretty definite answer on the sex of the baby so we can start planning out the last month and a half of the second trimester. If things go as planned and we know the sex, Glen and I will be busy shopping, putting together baby’s nursery, picking out names, and possibly even starting a gift registry with Babies R Us. I’m also looking forward to sporting a cute baby bump and shopping for maternity clothes.

 

I don’t have too much to share other than I’m starting to feel like a normal person, and my bloat has gone way down, leaving me with a miniscule little bump (which in all reality, is probably just my uterus). 1 trimester down, and I’ve gained 3 pounds, which is right on track for my ultimate desired weight gain.

 

Everyone seemed to enjoy my week 12 post about my maternity top, so I thought I’d share week 13’s maternity purchase. I had a credit from a previous purchase I made at Ann Taylor Loft, which I was able to finally use on a sweet Summer-y maternity dress. My intent is to wear this to some upcoming weddings, one in Late April and the other in early June. 

 

 

 

 

Also, to update you all on my work happenings, my title change and status change to “exempt” are officially going into effect for the next payroll. No more worrying about taking my paid time off or working extra long hours to try to make up for lost time for lengthy appointments. 

 

I hope you enjoy the week 13 peach photos. I was feeling silly this week!

 

 

Week 13: Peach

Average size: 2.9 inches, .81 oz.

 

Your fetus is forming teeth and vocal cords... savor this, their non-functional phase. Baby is approaching normal proportions, with a head now only one third the size of the body. Intestines are in the process of moving from the umbilical cord to baby's tummy. (Much more convenient.)

 

 

 

Week Twelve

Wow! I can’t believe I’m 12 weeks already! This is quite a milestone.Why is it a milestone? Well, "they say" (not sure who "they" is but whatever) that the chance of miscarriage drops significantly to less than 2% after week twelve.

This has been a pretty good week for me both in real-life and in pregnancy world. Let me start with the pregnancy stuff. One very big change in pregnancy world is that my morning sickness is dissipating. I still get waves of nausea throughout the day, especially if I’m hungry, but it’s a huge improvement from weeks prior. I’m definitely still feeling fatigue, especially in the afternoons around 2:00pm, but I feel so much better now that I’m not nauseous all day. My pants are getting tighter as the weeks go by and I’ve started to unbutton them the entire way and wear longer shirts this week. I wouldn’t say they are too tight, I would say that it’s just uncomfortable how they fit around my rapidly growing waist. It’s hard to believe that in another 8 weeks, I’ll have a definite baby bump and I’ll know the sex of our little sweetie.

I started browsing maternity tops this week and found one that I really love! I found it on the Motherhood Maternity website. Again, I’m not too keen on most maternity clothes because a lot of them remind me of tents so when I find something I actually like, I’ll probably pick it up as long as it’s within what I’m willing to spend. The shirt that I really love is dark purple and more fitted. It’s also something I would wear in real-life without a baby belly which really appealed to me. I went to two different Motherhood stores in the Harrisburg Area and couldn’t find it at either so I ended up ordering it online. I posted a photo for those that are curious. Ha, a day after I wrote this blog entry, all sizes were sold out with the exception of XL. I'm so glad I jumped on the small's while they were still available!

 See, isn't it cute?    

This is also the week that Glen and I got to share the big news with some of our closest friends. My good friend, Emily, arranged a girls night at a new sushi grill which was a golden opportunity to share the news with the girls. Glen then got the guys together for wings and told them our news. Everyone seemed really excited for us and we both had a great time. I really wanted to let my closest friends know a few weeks ago and I was pretty stuck on wanting to tell them in person but I never had the opportunity until now. I feel like a weight has been lifted from me in a way, because we can be a little bit more open about it and we know that we have a lot of love and support from everyone.

The one not-so glamorous side of this week is that I have a bacterial infection (BV) which I needed to be placed on antibiotics. The antibiotics leave me with an awful metallic taste in my mouth and they are hard to swallow. The metal taste usually goes away within 2 hours, but those two hours are brutal! I just try to hide the taste by eating loads of Skittles.The bad thing about BV is that if untreated, it can cause miscarriage in the 2nd trimester and pre-term labor, so I'm taking my yucky meds as directed.

So my non-pregnancy news includes a nice new raise in salary! I found out this week that my position was slightly underpaid and the company decided to make the salary for my position more competitive in the market by bumping me up a pay grade. To go along with this, my supervisor is trying to get my title changed along with changing me to an Exempt status in a few months. What this could mean is that I would get paid a flat weekly salary instead of being paid hourly. The benefit to this is that I am not required to work a set amount of hours, so when I have doctor appointments, I can leave for them and come back without taking vacation or making my hours up. Right now, I’m either using vacation or I’m flexing my time and working longer days on days that I don’t have appointments. This is manageable, but honestly, it would be so much easier if I was made exempt.

All in all, this was a pretty wonderful week. 

 Week 12: Plum

Average size: 2.1 in, .49 oz

As you move into the second trimester, baby shifts into the growth and maturation stage. After weeks in the critical development stage, almost all of baby's systems are fully formed. 

Week Eleven

This week I had two OB/GYN appointments. The first appointment was on 01/13/2011 with the OB nurse, Pam. Pam was super nice and sincere. She asked me a lot of questions about my medical history and family history, as well as Glen’s. She then went over a couple of materials and tried to calculate my due date, although wasn’t successful due to my cycles being irregular. I had some blood work done, my weight checked, and got to pee in a cup (which I always seem to miss and get my hand, doh!) The nurse then went over foods that I couldn’t have such as fish high in mercury, soft cheeses, and deli/processed meats. I don’t know if I’m really craving these items, or if I just want them because someone tells me I can’t have them, but I would just LOVE to bite into a turkey sub or have some sushi! My new sushi substitute these days is a simple cucumber roll with extra ginger. The roll helps curb my craving and the ginger on top eases my nausea.

My second OB appointment was on 01/14/2011 with nurse Bristol and nurse practitioner, Amy Stauffer. Bristol was wearing Hannah Montana scrubs, which made me giggle. Amy Stauffer was extremely nice. She answered all of my questions and gave me a list of over the counter drugs that I’m allowed to take as well as some tips for morning sickness. I can’t wait to go home and review all of the pregnancy materials.

Amy did a couple tests and gave me a ultra sound “just for fun”. At first nothing showed up on the screen, then as she slowly moved to the left we finally saw the baby. It was hanging out on the very far left of my uterus, she also said the baby was positioned “up front” (whatever that means). I couldn’t believe my eyes! My baby looked like a baby for the first time ever! The little arms and legs were waiving around and it was positioned head pointed down. She took a few photos for me and checked the heartbeat. I was pleasantly surprised to hear the heart rate at 180 bpm. Amy said that it was a very strong heartbeat which indicates a strong baby. Our little sweetie is measuring 39 mm, which is about 1.54 inches-just perfect! Amy then confirmed that the baby is measuring 11 weeks and 2 days! This is a little ahead of schedule giving me an official due date of August 4^th, 2011.

Glen didn’t get to go to the appointment because he was home sick with the stomach flu, but he was really excited to see the photos and said “Wow, it looks like a baby!” and “I can’t wait to hold it”. We are both really excited to be parents!

 

Week 11: Lime

Average size: 1.6 inches, .25 oz.

Your fetus currently enjoys a 1:1 ratio between body and head, and has skin so transparent that blood vessels show right through. But, fingers and toes are no longer webbed, and hair follicles, tooth buds and nail beds are forming -- setting up a significantly more attractive future.

11 week/2 day Ultrasound Photo

Week Ten

This week was definitely my most “interesting” week so far. Monday morning I was severely throwing up everything I ate. Initially, I thought it was a bad morning sickness day, but as the day went on and vomiting increased (both in size and frequency) I concluded that something else was wrong. I ended up going home at 2:30pm (remember that I had been at work since 7am and vomiting since 6am). Once I got home, I had a fever and couldn’t get warm. I had 7 blankets on me and was shivering! With every sip of water I took, ten times that amount came back up seconds later. I ended up taking it easy and resting as best as I could. My so-called rest was really tossing and turning so much that I formed one giant dread-lock in my hair. I ended up combing that out two days later and losing a ton of hair…oops!

 

On top of all of the stomach bug sickness, I also caught a head cold. The cold itself was tolerable, but the headache that came with it was brutal. It felt like I had drank a bottle of vodka the night before and I was experiencing a hangover headache. I gave in and finally took a Tylenol.

 

Thursday morning I woke up to my nose running. When I went to blow my nose, I discovered that it was gushing blood. I probably haven’t had an actual nose bleed for 20 years. I actually didn’t even know what to do because it’s been so long. I ended up stuffing a wad of tissues up there until it subsided. So, when I say I had an interesting week in pregnancy, I mean that it was pretty terrible. Even with all of that, I’m still in good spirits!

 

I’m really looking forward to the end of this week! I have two OB appointments, one with the ob nurse, and another with a nurse practitioner. I’m eager to hear the heartbeat and to be assured that my little sweetheart is doing just fine.

 

 

Week 10: Prune

Average size: 1.2 inches, .14 oz.

 

With bones and cartilage starting to form and vital organs beginning to function, baby is making major progress. Body length will almost double in the next three weeks, and arm joints are now working. (Soon, legs will too.)

 

Week Nine

Happy New year!

I had made plans with one of my best friends to have Chinese and exchange gifts at her house. She has a beautiful, comfy house with a nice roaring fire. We ordered our food and opened gifts. She got me my very first maternity outfit and it’s really cute! When I think of maternity clothes, I typically think of decorative tents with bows and lace. This outfit was really modern and super comfortable, something that I would wear when I wasn’t pregnant if it would fit! Maternity jeans are extremely comfortable! These have a low waist band, not one of those super long, go up to your boobs, bands that I think would be uncomfortable.

Because we had such a laid back New Years Eve, We decided to have people over for pork, sauerkraut and board games the next night. We made homemade strawberry ice cream that was out of this world and played a fantastic game of Apples to Apples.

I felt really good this night…strangely good. Actually I didn’t remember feeling sick the day before. Then, I started to panic. Where did my symptoms go? Where is my constant vomiting? On Thursday of last week, I remember feeling sharp pain in my lower abdomen, almost like I had to go number 2 but with no success. I was so uncomfortable, that I left work early and laid in bed most of the day. I called a nurse and she thought that it may be constipation. So, now, I feel great, I’m not even tired, and I had this pain on Thursday-oh no. What if something is wrong with the baby. I finished out week 8 in a little bit of a panic but knew that I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it if it was bad news. This isn’t the best way to start out a new year.

Sure enough, two days later, just days into week nine, I felt the nausea come back and with a vengeance. I haven’t been this sick for quite some time. Although happy to feel at ease with the pregnancy, I’m feeling pretty rough and I know that I can’t look good. I’m just trying to drink fluids and stay optimistic. This will be over soon!

 

Week 9: Green Olive

Your little embryo has now officially graduated to fetus-hood. Adding to the excitement, a Doppler ultrasound device might be able to pick up the beating heart. With basic physical structures in place and increasingly distinct facial features, baby is kind of starting to look like... well... a baby!