Must have popcorn

I ordered a book and some flash cards on how to teach your infant to sign.
Some friends of mine taught their little girl how to sign and it was very
helpful for them to know what the baby wanted before she was able to tell
them what was wrong and why she was crying. She's getting ready to go to
school later this year, and she's just a dream when we babysit for them.
She gets bored with us because we didn't have any fun projects lined up for
her to do, but she's just so smart and well-spoken. So, hopefully, this kit
will help us out when our little one arrives.

In other news, I'm craving potato chips and particular brand of spicy
popcorn. I think I'm going to have to stop at the store on the way home and
pick up a back of that popcorn or I'll die!

My godmother thinks it will be a boy. She didn't break out her tarot cards
or anything, but she's got good intuition. (Yeah, my family are pretty much
a bunch of hippies.)

****

palpitations

Woah! I just had a few heart palpitations. Crazy. I googled it and
apparently it's just one of those things that happens (like passing out)
during pregnancy and is nothing to worry about. Still, though, what a weird
sensation.

****

It's Facebook Official

I wanted to tell all of my good friends in person before sharing the news on
Facebook, so I made a special attempt to have lunch with my buddy who has a
3 month old who I don't see very often anymore. I kept trying to slip my
news into the conversation without just having to blurt it out, but there
wasn't a good time, or the baby was sleeping and I didn't want her to squeal
really loud and upset the baby. Basically, she talked a lot about herself
and the baby and every other inconsequential thing, and I found it hard to
steer the conversation towards myself.

So in the end, she had to find out on Facebook with the rest of my
acquaintances who didn't warrant telling in person or at least in an instant
message conversation.

There were lots of congratulatory comments and "likes". Very few people
were really surprised. We're people of a certain age who were recently
married, so I think it was expected that we'd be starting a family sooner
rather than later. My co-workers who found out on Facebook stopped by my
desk today to give their congratulations in person. I love my job! The
people are so great. I mean, it's boring, but the bosses are nice and
they're pretty lax, so I can't complain.

I filled out my FMLA paperwork today. Felt a little odd about it since I'm
not planning on coming back to work after the baby comes, but I filled it
out anyway. They'll be issuing my "Stork" parking pass soon so I can park
in the front row of reserved spaces. Someone on the BabyCenter group chided
me on wanting to park closer when I mentioned that my company offered these.
I'm like, "just because I have the options to park closer to the building,
doesn't mean I will. Geeze!" But I'll be damned certain to park there if
we have a snowstorm and the parking lot turns into an ice rink. People are
so judgy sometimes. It's like this person immediately jumped to the
assumption that I would park as close to the building as possible to avoid
walking while pregnant. Au contrare, I've actually been making myself walk
more since I found out I was pregnant, because, well, duh, it's healthy to
get some cardio every day. Anyway, that lady just ticked me off with her
snide comment.

Feels good to have the cat out of the bag, so to speak!

****

Videos?

Signed up for Bradley classes at Babyology with a woman who also offers doula services (though she's kind of pricey).  I have considered hiring a doula, but I was going to wait to see how my husband does in the Bradley classes.  If I feel like he isn't going to be able to provide the support I'll need, then I'll likely hire a doula.  There's a kind of hippy lady that I think I'd like that has a really reasonable fee and will take video if you ask her to.  I know, the video thing is probably not something a lot of people want to do and I wouldn't want one if the camera were pointed up my whowho with a crowd of blue gowns standing around yelling at me to push while I'm trapped up in the stirrups all sweaty and uncomfortable, but we are tentatively planning a natural water birth and I am planning on wearing a long shirt through delivery (the hospital lets you wear your own clothes), so I feel like I'd be comfortable with the camera recording the birth so long as the angle is from my back.  And I'd like some shots of us laboring together.  Ideally I'd like it if I could use my Nikon and do some shots with the focus coming in and out because I'd like to cut them together with a song for like a 3 and a half minute montage of labor and delivery, but finding someone who can operate the camera that I want to be in the room with us is iffy.  I have a good friend who's a photog and I could probably hire her, and cut the video myself (I went to school for videography, though I've never done it professionally since I went down the graphic design path instead), but she's youngish and doesn't want to have kids, so she might be freaked out about the idea of being IN the delivery room.  It's an intimidating prospect, I know.  And she works full time, so it may not work with her schedule.  I just downloaded an album the other day and hear the song "We Are Fine" by Sharon Von Etten and immediately had a vision of a labor montage in a brightly lit, sunny birthing suite.  Would be nice if I could make it happen.  I could definitely do it on my own, but I'll be otherwise occupied, so perhaps I can have others operate the camera and see what kind of footage I end up with.  I'm rusty, but I'm actually a pretty good editor.

Protein Intake

So, I have been considering taking Bradley Method classes to prepare for birth and I purchased the book "Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way". In the chapter covering prenatal nutrition, it recommends that pregnant mothers eat 80-100 grams of protein per day. There's a convenient glossary in the back of the book that lists grams of proteins for different foods, so I thought about what I ate today and about what I typically eat and did the math. I get nowhere near that much protein! I mean, I've been taking my prental vitamins like a good little mamma, and I even have a Carnation breakfast drink on most mornings, but that doesn't help me on my protein tally. I had done quite a bit of research on how to eat for pregnancy before we even started trying, so I'm completely take aback by this recommendation. I hear so much about folic acid and DHA, but hadn't really been away of the need for so much protein.

P.S. - Apparently, cottage cheese and powdered milk are fantastic sources of protein. I already have some powdered milk in the house, perhaps I should use it to make my morning breakfast shake instead of regular milk. And I'll definitely have to pick up some cottage cheese since I love it anyway.

Girl?

Visited with my in-laws tonight.  When I walked in the door, my mother-in-law said, "Hi there, little mama!"  She's a good foot shorter than me and I've got at least a hundred pounds on her, so I quipped back, "No, YOU'RE the little mama!"   I played the heartbeat recording for them a few times.  My mother-in-law is predicting a girl because she says 170 is fast.

I'm soooo tempted to order a fetal doppler off of eBay!  I keep listening to the recording of the baby over and over like a junkie!

I told my boss right after our appointment yesterday.  I knew she'd be really excited for us, so I didn't hesitate for a second.  But after I posted the story on the baby boards, everyone was all up in arms about how you shouldn't tell too early for fear of reprisals.  I know that won't happen at my current workplace, but I can see why some people have those concerns.

Now we'll have to decide if I'm going to be a stay-at-home mom. Telling my boss that I won't be coming back after the baby will be WAY harder than telling her I'm expecting. I left the company a few years ago for better pay at a high stress job that ended after some poor communication with management led to a toxic situation. That day I went home, posted to my Facebook wall that I'd been canned and she replied that she'd have me back at my old job in a heartbeat, so back I went. I gave up a bit of pay, but actually take home more since I don't have union dues anymore, and it's so much less stress that it's totally worth it! Can't grow a baby and be stressed all day every day!

Also, I co-manage an account with a guy whose wife is due about a week before me! I guess we'll be training a backup in the event that we're both out of the office at the same time.

We heard the heartbeat!!!

Had my first appointment with the midwives today. I saw the trainee, which I think is great because this area needs more midwives. Poor thing had a hard time finding my cervix, which didn't surprise me because I can never get to it either. She confirmed exactly where I suspected my uterus was, and they also confirmed what I'd calculated my due date to be. I told them that I hadn't had any real morning sickness and they sort of shrugged.

After a harrowing minute of searching, the trainee finally found the heartbeat!!! They didn't tell me the heart rate, so I counted a ten second interval from the recording my husband took and figured the beats per minute to be 174.




Afterwards, when I was heading out to the lab to get my bloodwork done, my primary midwife said, "nice strong heartbeat. Sometimes when they say they haven't had any symptoms I think oh we're not going to find a heartbeat, but thankfully I'm wrong most of the time I think that."

In other news, they took blood out of my hand since they couldn't find a good vein in the crook of my elbow. Owie! My hand hurts. It's all purple and swollen.

The front office has to put a call in to the insurance company, but the bill from their office will either be $220 or nothing depending on it our copay portion subtracts from out $1000 deductible or not.  Lab will bill separately as will the hospital, but so far we're right on target with the baby budget :)  And I've got a crib, changing table, high chair, stroller and car seat picked out already on a Target registry.  The big ticket items will run us just over $500 and I'll leave the smaller stuff to the baby shower attendees.

200 days to go!

According to one of my smartphone apps, I have 200 days to go until Baby
Time! I'm sure this is horribly inaccurate, but all the same, it feels like
a milestone to me. I can't wait for tomorrow so I can hear the baby and
finally get some reassurance that all is well. I really want an ultrasound,
but I know I probably don't need one. I have a lot of anxiety around the
idea of it being twins, but I'm sure the midwife will be able to tell just
by a physical examination if she needs to order an ultrasound to "diagnose"
twins. Besides, there is some scant research that indicates ultrasounds are
irritating to fetuses and may even be detrimental to cell development.
There's not a lot of research on the effects of ultrasounds, which is weird
since their so standard. You would think the medical community would have
thoroughly vetted the risks to make sure they don't outweigh the benefits
before making it standard practice to give everyone an ultrasound. Makes me
a little leery of the whole obstetrics community. They should be able to
tell me that ultrasounds are proven 100% safe, and they can't. The best
they can say is that "we assume ultrasounds are safe but no one has studied
the effects". Hmph!

Anyway, tomorrow is baby doctor time! FINALLY! I'm so anxious. I'll bet I
have a terrible time getting to sleep tonight, which would suck because
tomorrow is going to be a long day. I have an early appointment with the
midwife, straight to work, straight from work to the funeral home for the
service for my youngest uncle's long-time domestic partner - for all intents
and purposes, we'll say my aunt who died unexpectedly the other day. It's
very sad, but I really haven't been able to think much about it because I'm
so focused on the appointment to see my midwife. I'm sure after we get some
piece of mind, I'll be able to really feel the full impact of her death.

I will probably tell my boss tomorrow if all goes well at my appointment. I
was also looking forward to spilling the beans on Facebook, but I have a
couple of other good friends that would like to hear first hand. I have
plans to do lunch with one of them this Saturday and I'm sure if I catch the
other online, she'll be thrilled and not too sad not to be told face to
face. So I guess I can wait to do a FB announcement until after Saturday.
It's just really hard to be patient. I hate waiting!

****

Thoughts on "The Business of Being Born"

I just got done watching "The Business of Being Born" and was glad to see the home birth perspective, but unconvinced that I needed to change my own birth plan. I have to say, I wanted more of a cohesive narrative. They show many women in labor at their homes, but there isn't much introduction of them and no background information is given on why they made the decision to labor at home. Well, some of the women explain their reasoning, but not by any means all. I think it would have been better to feature three or four women and follow them through their pregnancies, having one or two end up in home births, one end in an uncomplicated vaginal delivery and one end in cessarian and then let the viewer draw his/her own conclusions about which experience was the most positive instead of having a succession of interviewees make the claim that home birth is the safest and best option. I just think it was a bit heavy handed with it's message. That being said, it had good information in it or at least enough information that it gives you good leads on what to research in greater depth on your own.

My husband was messing around with his computer in the room while I watched the movie and at one point he commented on a delivery scene. "Why is she naked?" he asked. I shrugged and said, "beacuse she's in labor and maybe that's how she feels most comfortable." He said, "Well, I don't see why she has to be naked." Now, I'm kind of a walk around the house naked on occasion type of person, so I don't consider wanting to be naked during labor and delivery to be unusual at all. I told him that if he had a problem with that, then we could implant him with my uterus and he can take over and deliver the baby himself. "Oh, right," I said, "you can't do that. So why don't you just let me do whatever helps get me through this, even if it means I find hospital gowns to be uncomfortable and want to go naked." I think he thought I was just being hormonal, but he needs to get used to the idea of being supportive during the process and also knowing what to expect and what is going to be expected of him. I get the impression he thinks he's just going to play sudoku on his phone between contractions while I'll presumably behave in a manner similar to every sitcom labor he's ever seen, and the nurses and midwife will take care of everything else.

He also said "gross" when one of the babies was delivered in the movie. I said, "Sorry, it's a gross process, so don't wear any clothes that day that you would mind getting icky."
He went to bed before the end of the movie, which was fine since he was busy with his tech stuff and I put it on for me to watch, so it wasn't like a let's sit down and watch this together and then discuss it type of night. It's on Netflix so if he wants to watch it, he can. I wish he would have watched more or seemed more interested in the parts he did watch, but it took him awhile to get used to the idea of ditching contraception, so maybe he'll come around to realizing that labor is an intense and dynamic process in his own time. I'm certain that the Bradley Method classes I'm considering will go a long way towards managing his expectations of what labor will be like, which is part of the reason I find them so appealling. It's a 12 week course, so he'll have plenty of time to wrap his head around what his role will be and we'll both have lots of practice with relaxation techniques that will help with the pain.

1 week

Had to go out shopping for a new/more comfortable bra last night and ended
up in a 42D, up from a 40C. Yikes! And I met my girlfriend who has two
toddler boys for dinner and told her my news. She was super excited and we
talked for a few hours about husbands and pregnancy and crafts. Good times!

Only one week left until my first prenatal appointment! I'm going to tell
the midwife about how I've been feeling the baby intermittently. A lot of
people say it's physiologically impossible, but I beg to differ! Gosh, I
hope I get to see an ultrasound just to put my mind at ease about the whole
twins thing. And I'll be really interested in finding out what the fees are
going to be so I can plan accordingly.

The husband is out tonight giving a lecture to a bunch of computer nerds, so
I'm going to whip up some falafel and perhaps pop some sriracha popcorn and
load up my DVR'd episodes of Downton Abbey. Ahhh. Relaxing.

****

Quickening?

Last night I was lying in bed and felt a little flutter in just above my pubic bone. It went on for awhile and felt like a muscle spasm, like an eye twitch. Holy crap, could that be the baby?!

Also, I can feel my uterus a few inches above my pubic bone. I'm really hoping that these early symptoms aren't an indication of twins. Goodness!

I had my first fully caffeinated Coke since I learned I was pregnant today at lunch. I wasn't feeling particularly tired or like I really needed the caffeine, I just wanted a little treat.

Getting bigger

Well, I definitely need to go out and get a new bra. My boobs aren't too
noticeably bigger, but they're definitely creeping towards D cup territory.
Just 9 more days until I get in to see my midwife for the first time. Can't
wait!!! I know we'll get to hear the baby's heartbeat on the doppler, but I
don't think they'll do an ultrasound this time. I'm pretty sure they just
do one ultrasound at 20 weeks when we'll get to find out the gender. That
should be sometime around our 2nd wedding anniversary. I wish we could see
the baby at our first visit, though, because it'd be great to put my mind at
ease about the whole possibility of having twins. I'm definitely starting
to show, and I'm thinking that it's still a little early at 10 weeks to be
showing. But we'll see what the midwife has to say about that.

****

Telling

So even though we haven't had our first appointment yet, I've been anxious to start telling people. I caught my friends who live in a different city last night and I told them, but told them to keep a lid on it. When my co-worker/neighbor/friend told me the other day that she was 10 weeks, I returned her confidence. That's exciting that we're just a few weeks apart! My mom told someone I used to go to high school with, but we're not really friends anymore, so no biggie, I guess. She sent me a nice note of congratulations on Facebook.

I've got plans with friends tomorrow, a Super Bowl party on Sunday, and meeting the girls for pizza and beers on Tuesday, so I'm sure I'll spill the beans then. Hopefully my first appointment in a couple of weeks goes well. I want to tell my good friends personally before splashing the news on Facebook and I plan on doing that at 12 weeks, a week after my first prenatal visit with the midwife. So one week doesn't give me much time to make the rounds and tell everyone in person, so I thought I'd get a jump start on it.

And I SWEAR I'm starting to show, so I'll have to tell my boss soon.

Strange Conversation with My Uncle

A family friend died recently and I stopped by the funeral home this morning to pay my respects.  I was talking to my mom and uncle when my uncle asked, "So do you have any doctor's confirmation of the pregnancy yet or do you still just think you are pregnant?"  I was a little wierded out that he would even bring it up, but I told him that I didn't have an appointment for another couple of weeks, but that I was pretty sure about the pregnancy and didn't need to go to the doctor and pee in a cup when I could pee on a stick at home and get the same result.  I didn't mention it at the time, but the fact that I've missed two periods, my boobs fell like they're trying to make a bid for secession from my chest, and my stomach churns any time I'm foolish enough to let it get too empty is enough confirmation for me.  So yeah, I'm pretty certain I'm pregnant.  He just kind of looked at me funny and said, "well, don't you have to get a confirmation?"  I was like, "no, that would be a waste of money and the midwife's valuable time."  He still seemed confused and I wasn't sure if he couldn't believe that a woman would know she was pregnant without having a doctor tell her she was or what.  Finally, he said "I thought you had to have the doctor confirm it.  Every time my step-daughter gets knocked up she has to go get confirmation."  Knowing his step daughter, I'm fairly certain the reason she has to get early confirmation is because she's on Medicaid and they need a doctor's referral to an OB or something.  I'm still not sure what he was so confused about, and now I'm confused by the whole conversation.