Kevin's been away on a business trip for almost a month now, and he won't be home for a couple more weeks. I've been enjoying having the house to myself and being able to set my own schedule, especially as my sleeping and eating habits veer around almost constantly. It's been nice to not worry about accommodating someone else through all that. I eat when I'm hungry, sleep when I'm tired, clean when I have the energy, and watch hours of TV when I don't.
I miss Kevin, of course. It gets lonely sometimes, and the 6 hour time difference doesn't help. But I'm also pretty independent. Besides which, nothing can be worse than the never-ending summer he spent in Alabama. At least this trip has a definite end date.
The quiet life means that there isn't a lot to report. I went to a couple of local book sales and stocked up my to-read stack. I went on a tour of the White House with my college's alumni group. I celebrated Sarah's birthday with brunch and sunshine. And last weekend my dad flew out for a visit. In fact, I haven't had a weekend without plans since Kevin left, although those plans have mostly been minimal.
Next weekend I'm heading up to NYC to visit friends and see Hamilton (we got tickets for our anniversary). Then I'm taking a weekend off to clean my house and lounge around before Kevin gets back and my mom comes to visit. I anticipate life getting very busy in the next few months, what with the baby coming and our hopes of buying a new home before the baby arrives. So I've been enjoying the time to just relax and not really think too hard about the future. It's been a nice, quite, relaxing Spring.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Sunday, April 17, 2016
First Trimester Wrap Up
Not that my pregnancy has been hard so far. I've had no morning sickness, and only one morning of nausea. I came close to fainting a couple of times, but I was always able to sit down and recover. Even my dreaded aversion to eggs ended up lasting less than a month.
It was funny, actually, how the aversions and cravings came and went. I learned early not to buy anything in bulk. I'd find something I liked one week, but then my tastes would change and I couldn't stand to eat it the next. I still have a few half finished things in my fridge (seltzer, yogurt) that I'm hoping to develop a taste for before they spoil.
At this point, though, I'm mostly just eating everything in sight. I've got a decent routine down at work, and I'm bringing extra food to fill in the holes in the day. Cereal and fruit have become my go-tos, though I still spring for the occasional breakfast sandwich, or go out for a second full meal in the afternoon. Weekends are easier, because I can just graze all day long. And with Kevin away on business, there are always plenty of leftovers in the fridge.
My fatigue is finally starting to go away, too. I'm still going to bed a little earlier than I did pre-pregnancy, but that's mostly because I can't rely on caffeine to wake me up in the morning. So I really need to make sure I get a solid eight hours of sleep every night.
As for new symptoms, the most annoying one so far is my sore butt. By the end of every day it feels like I've done ten sets of squats or climbed a mountain or something. I'm having trouble figuring out what this is on the internet. There's a lot of talk of nerve pain in the butt and thighs, which is described as sharp, but nothing about sore muscles. I almost wonder if it could be related to walking so much more than normal - with Kevin gone I'm walking Kina twice a day instead of once - but the pain is getting worse rather than better. I just hope it doesn't last too much longer.
There's a lot of good news, too. We're starting to get some test results back. We know that the kid doesn't have Cystic Fibrosis - I'm not a carrier. And my first trimester screen went well. Everything looks excellent and I'm super low risk for all of the genetic disorders they screen for: Down's Syndrome, trisomy 13, and trisomy 18. So no more tests on that front, and it looks like smooth sailing for the time being.
The best part of that screen was the ultrasound. I didn't react very strongly to hearing the kid's heart beat, but I did tear up a little when I saw the kid. Ultrasounds are often fuzzy. When I see one on Facebook, I often have to squint for a while to figure out what I'm looking at. But from the second the tech brought up the image, I was able to make out my kid. It was so cool to see a little humanoid inside of me. I also got some cool pictures to take home.
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| A good image of the kid's head |
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| I like this one because the kid looks like a demon |
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Early Pregnancy: Ten Weeks!
Written 3/30/16
I'm officially a quarter of the way through the pregnancy, and things continue to be weird. On the one hand, it feels like I've been pregnant forever. All I do anymore is eat and sleep. On the other hand, I barely feel pregnant at all, mostly because my body isn't really changing. I've gained some weight, but not a lot. And most people (especially people at work) have no idea. I'm looking forward to hitting the second trimester for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I suspect that this will finally start to feel real.
I'm also eager to put this fatigue behind me. It's getting better. Lately I can go two or three days on a mere 8 hours of sleep a night and I feel normal. But then I crash hard. Yesterday I spent the last couple hours at work fighting the desire for a nap. The exhaustion inevitably brought on a headache (and I can't even take Advil), which landed me in bed by 7:30. I would have been there earlier, but I had to wait for Connor to come over after his class to scoop the litter box. Which I still find absurd and silly. Maybe I'll get better at asking for help in the coming months. Or maybe I'll still feel silly, but I'll suck it up and do it anyway.
Other than feeling more awake generally, if not constantly, my favorite part about week 10 came from my pregnancy app. It's common to have a tracker that tells you how big the embryo/fetus is throughout the pregnancy, usually in terms of fruit. But I found a nerdier one that's more aligned with my interests and knowledge. So this week kicked off with this notification:
I'm pretty excited to have a lego-sized person inside of me. It's also officially a fetus now, which is a nice milestone to hit. Though it's still more than half head.
I'm hoping that this increase in energy will translate into a renewed motivation to write. (It seems to be working at the moment). I've completely abandoned my blog recently because I've been too tired to write. But everything says that should be ending soon, and I'll be able to get back to my normal life for a few months. I may even have a surplus of energy, which I'm really hoping for. So long as the insomnia stays away for as long as possible.
I'm officially a quarter of the way through the pregnancy, and things continue to be weird. On the one hand, it feels like I've been pregnant forever. All I do anymore is eat and sleep. On the other hand, I barely feel pregnant at all, mostly because my body isn't really changing. I've gained some weight, but not a lot. And most people (especially people at work) have no idea. I'm looking forward to hitting the second trimester for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I suspect that this will finally start to feel real.
I'm also eager to put this fatigue behind me. It's getting better. Lately I can go two or three days on a mere 8 hours of sleep a night and I feel normal. But then I crash hard. Yesterday I spent the last couple hours at work fighting the desire for a nap. The exhaustion inevitably brought on a headache (and I can't even take Advil), which landed me in bed by 7:30. I would have been there earlier, but I had to wait for Connor to come over after his class to scoop the litter box. Which I still find absurd and silly. Maybe I'll get better at asking for help in the coming months. Or maybe I'll still feel silly, but I'll suck it up and do it anyway.
Other than feeling more awake generally, if not constantly, my favorite part about week 10 came from my pregnancy app. It's common to have a tracker that tells you how big the embryo/fetus is throughout the pregnancy, usually in terms of fruit. But I found a nerdier one that's more aligned with my interests and knowledge. So this week kicked off with this notification:
I'm pretty excited to have a lego-sized person inside of me. It's also officially a fetus now, which is a nice milestone to hit. Though it's still more than half head.
I'm hoping that this increase in energy will translate into a renewed motivation to write. (It seems to be working at the moment). I've completely abandoned my blog recently because I've been too tired to write. But everything says that should be ending soon, and I'll be able to get back to my normal life for a few months. I may even have a surplus of energy, which I'm really hoping for. So long as the insomnia stays away for as long as possible.
Friday, April 15, 2016
Early Pregnancy: The First Appointment
Written 3/14/16
It's a relief to have the first doctor's appointment behind me. Mostly because it feels like it wiped away some of the uncertainty I'd been feeling.
First off, I didn't actually feel pregnant for the first several weeks. Sure, I was sleeping all the time and steadily growing hungrier. But there was no morning sickness to speak of and my one day of nausea could probably have been chalked up to over-heating slightly on the metro while I was heading to work. Between the lack of symptoms and my lack of a really conclusive pregnancy test (I had two faint positives followed by two tests where the control line didn't even show up) my only real hint that I was pregnant was my lack of period. It was one big lack.
I also didn't entirely know what to expect from the first doctor's appointment. My regular gynecologist is in the process of retiring, which means he's no longer working as an obstetrician. He referred me to two other practices, and I did a fair amount of online research before picking one. I made the appointment, but I didn't think to ask any questions at the time. And then the internet started feeding me all sorts of conflicting information. I had no idea whether they would do an ultrasound or a blood test. Whether they'd find or even look for a heartbeat. Whether there'd be any physical examination at all or if this would just be a meet and greet and a chance to ask questions.
It turned out that I landed with a group of OBs who do everything, which ended up being a relief. The more information the better, as far as I'm concerned. We went over both mine and Kevin's family history, and then I got a trans-vaginal ultrasound, which was not at all traumatic for me, though I can see how it could be. It was exciting to get to see the kid and it's heartbeat, although the heartbeat is still weird to me. At 7 weeks, 3 days, the embryo doesn't even have a heart or a brain. It was what will eventually become heart chambers, and those are spasming at a rate of about 150 beats per minutes. Still, that's called the heartbeat and after the doctor finds out, the chance of miscarriage drops from 20% to 3%, which is heartening.
We got our first baby pictures and went over the dos and don'ts. I'm absolutely not allowed to scopp cat litter, which will be interesting when Kevin's in Hawaii for 6 weeks. I may just invest in some rubber gloves and a pumice stone, because it seems silly to ask someone to come over and empty the litter box for me.
Then I got blood drawn, and that's being sent out for all sorts of tests. They're even doing an additional level of tests because Kevin's uncle had cystic fibrosis and why not check to see if I'm a carrier. I also got a referral for a first trimester genetic screening. At that point I'll get more blood drawn and have an ultrasound that will determine the likelihood that the kid has Down's Syndrome, trisomy 18 and all sorts of other things that I may have learned about in 10th grade biology. Part of me feels like this is overkill, but a bigger part of me would rather know. And I'm happy to put myself in the hands of trained professionals.
I still don't feel very pregnant, but the ultrasound picture on the fridge is a nice reminder that I do have a parasite growing in my uterus. For the next few weeks I'll mostly just be hoping that I don't miscarry. Then I've got another round of doctor's appointments. This whole thing is a lot of waiting around punctuated with floods of information. It's nice to have time to absorb everything, but it's also already hard to wait. Maybe it will get easier when I pass into the second trimester and I can be a bit freer with telling people about the pregnancy. And when my belly actually starts growing.
In the meantime, I'll continue to eat and sleep more than I've ever ate or slept before in my life.
It's a relief to have the first doctor's appointment behind me. Mostly because it feels like it wiped away some of the uncertainty I'd been feeling.
First off, I didn't actually feel pregnant for the first several weeks. Sure, I was sleeping all the time and steadily growing hungrier. But there was no morning sickness to speak of and my one day of nausea could probably have been chalked up to over-heating slightly on the metro while I was heading to work. Between the lack of symptoms and my lack of a really conclusive pregnancy test (I had two faint positives followed by two tests where the control line didn't even show up) my only real hint that I was pregnant was my lack of period. It was one big lack.
I also didn't entirely know what to expect from the first doctor's appointment. My regular gynecologist is in the process of retiring, which means he's no longer working as an obstetrician. He referred me to two other practices, and I did a fair amount of online research before picking one. I made the appointment, but I didn't think to ask any questions at the time. And then the internet started feeding me all sorts of conflicting information. I had no idea whether they would do an ultrasound or a blood test. Whether they'd find or even look for a heartbeat. Whether there'd be any physical examination at all or if this would just be a meet and greet and a chance to ask questions.
It turned out that I landed with a group of OBs who do everything, which ended up being a relief. The more information the better, as far as I'm concerned. We went over both mine and Kevin's family history, and then I got a trans-vaginal ultrasound, which was not at all traumatic for me, though I can see how it could be. It was exciting to get to see the kid and it's heartbeat, although the heartbeat is still weird to me. At 7 weeks, 3 days, the embryo doesn't even have a heart or a brain. It was what will eventually become heart chambers, and those are spasming at a rate of about 150 beats per minutes. Still, that's called the heartbeat and after the doctor finds out, the chance of miscarriage drops from 20% to 3%, which is heartening.
We got our first baby pictures and went over the dos and don'ts. I'm absolutely not allowed to scopp cat litter, which will be interesting when Kevin's in Hawaii for 6 weeks. I may just invest in some rubber gloves and a pumice stone, because it seems silly to ask someone to come over and empty the litter box for me.
Then I got blood drawn, and that's being sent out for all sorts of tests. They're even doing an additional level of tests because Kevin's uncle had cystic fibrosis and why not check to see if I'm a carrier. I also got a referral for a first trimester genetic screening. At that point I'll get more blood drawn and have an ultrasound that will determine the likelihood that the kid has Down's Syndrome, trisomy 18 and all sorts of other things that I may have learned about in 10th grade biology. Part of me feels like this is overkill, but a bigger part of me would rather know. And I'm happy to put myself in the hands of trained professionals.
I still don't feel very pregnant, but the ultrasound picture on the fridge is a nice reminder that I do have a parasite growing in my uterus. For the next few weeks I'll mostly just be hoping that I don't miscarry. Then I've got another round of doctor's appointments. This whole thing is a lot of waiting around punctuated with floods of information. It's nice to have time to absorb everything, but it's also already hard to wait. Maybe it will get easier when I pass into the second trimester and I can be a bit freer with telling people about the pregnancy. And when my belly actually starts growing.
In the meantime, I'll continue to eat and sleep more than I've ever ate or slept before in my life.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Early Pregnancy: Hunger
Written 3/8/2016
I'm up to four meals a day.
I knew I'd be eating more. It's that old joke: eating for two. But everything I read said you're not actually eating that much more. Only about 300 additional calories in the first trimester, which is practically nothing. I certainly didn't expect to be adding an additional meal. But it turns out that I've become completely unable to go six hours between meals, like I did pre-pregnancy. I'm hard pressed to go four hours, which leads to an extra meal.
Instead of breakfast (7 AM), lunch (12:30 PM), dinner (6:30 PM), my schedule now includes a meal at 10:30 or 11 and a second one around 3 in the afternoon. And even then I'm starving by the time dinner rolls around. Although my meals have been smaller. The simple fact is that I just can't eat as much in a single sitting. I get full much more quickly. So I probably am only eating 300 extra calories. I guess the uterus starts pushing on the stomach (and the bladder and everything else), which makes it smaller.
This actually started a couple of weeks ago. On the train home from work I was suddenly hit by such a strong sense of hunger that I was almost worried I'd faint during the walk home. Instead of the meal I'd planned to cook that night, I barely had the patience to heat up leftovers. And so I learned that I needed to start planning around my new appetite better.
The problem with this is that I'm not a snacker. I eat three meals a day, and that's all I eat (unless I'm continuously grazing at a party or something). But I've had to start buying snack foods, like granola bars and yogurt. I've had to remember that I have those snacks, so that when I get hungry I'm not just flopping around in misery. Even harder is remembering to take those snacks to work. And I'm honestly a little surprised that none of my coworkers have commented on the fact that my eating schedule has shifted so dramatically.
I'm also figuring out smaller meals. Peanut butter and apple sandwiches are fast becoming a staple. As are quesadillas, stuffed with onions or spinach or whatever veggies happen to be in the fridge. I'm trying to get into yogurt, but it just doesn't sit in my stomach right. Smoothies, however, seem to be working. Maybe because they have less dairy?
This has been the biggest and most deliberate change in my life since I found out I was pregnant. I'm hoping it calms down somewhat in the coming months, though I'm not terribly optimistic about that happening. It's more likely that I'll be eating 6 meals a day by the time this is all over with. I'm mostly worried about how this will affect me during travel. We're going to NYC in April and Las Vegas in June, and it's harder to find healthy snack food on the road. I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed for some decent sandwich places.
I'm up to four meals a day.
I knew I'd be eating more. It's that old joke: eating for two. But everything I read said you're not actually eating that much more. Only about 300 additional calories in the first trimester, which is practically nothing. I certainly didn't expect to be adding an additional meal. But it turns out that I've become completely unable to go six hours between meals, like I did pre-pregnancy. I'm hard pressed to go four hours, which leads to an extra meal.
Instead of breakfast (7 AM), lunch (12:30 PM), dinner (6:30 PM), my schedule now includes a meal at 10:30 or 11 and a second one around 3 in the afternoon. And even then I'm starving by the time dinner rolls around. Although my meals have been smaller. The simple fact is that I just can't eat as much in a single sitting. I get full much more quickly. So I probably am only eating 300 extra calories. I guess the uterus starts pushing on the stomach (and the bladder and everything else), which makes it smaller.
This actually started a couple of weeks ago. On the train home from work I was suddenly hit by such a strong sense of hunger that I was almost worried I'd faint during the walk home. Instead of the meal I'd planned to cook that night, I barely had the patience to heat up leftovers. And so I learned that I needed to start planning around my new appetite better.
The problem with this is that I'm not a snacker. I eat three meals a day, and that's all I eat (unless I'm continuously grazing at a party or something). But I've had to start buying snack foods, like granola bars and yogurt. I've had to remember that I have those snacks, so that when I get hungry I'm not just flopping around in misery. Even harder is remembering to take those snacks to work. And I'm honestly a little surprised that none of my coworkers have commented on the fact that my eating schedule has shifted so dramatically.
I'm also figuring out smaller meals. Peanut butter and apple sandwiches are fast becoming a staple. As are quesadillas, stuffed with onions or spinach or whatever veggies happen to be in the fridge. I'm trying to get into yogurt, but it just doesn't sit in my stomach right. Smoothies, however, seem to be working. Maybe because they have less dairy?
This has been the biggest and most deliberate change in my life since I found out I was pregnant. I'm hoping it calms down somewhat in the coming months, though I'm not terribly optimistic about that happening. It's more likely that I'll be eating 6 meals a day by the time this is all over with. I'm mostly worried about how this will affect me during travel. We're going to NYC in April and Las Vegas in June, and it's harder to find healthy snack food on the road. I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed for some decent sandwich places.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Early Pregnancy: Exhaustion
Written 3/3/2015
It figures that the week the fatigue really hit me was also the week we had a house guest. And a house guest that we weren't entirely prepared to tell about the pregnancy at that.
The exhaustion began last weekend. I got over 10 hours of sleep on Friday night and close to 10 more on Saturday night. But I was still dragging all day on Sunday and ended up taking a mid-afternoon nap. I'm not prone to naps, and I was worried that it would make it hard for me to get to sleep that night. It turns out that it didn't impact my sleep at all.
Thus began a week when I was sleeping more than usual, close to nine hours a night. But I was having a hard time waking up in the morning, and I was dragging my butt through work. I'd almost managed to kick my caffeine habit completely at this point. I was down to a single cup of green tea a day. With my new found exhaustion, I was right back to my pre-pregnancy caffeine intake. At least I never really drank that much caffeine to begin with, preferring tea to coffee.
I did my best to pass this off as somewhat normal to my cousin. But between the early bedtimes, my refusal to drink any alcohol at all (she even bought a special bottle of wine as a thank you for letting her stay; I felt really bad when I didn't drink any), and constantly running to the bathroom, I'm surprised she didn't say anything about me being pregnant. Connor eventually did at his birthday dinner, but he accepted that I was on a diet. Somehow.
After a week of this, I was starting to wonder if it might be worth taking a sick day, just to stay in bed and sleep. I was at least planning to get a lot of sleep in over the weekend. But then I miraculously woke up refreshed one morning. I even woke up a couple of minutes before my alarm clock, which had become pretty standard for me. It's a nice sign that I'm getting enough sleep and I was so glad to get back to this routine.
Of course, my sleep is probably going to be all over the place for the rest of the pregnancy. I'm sure there will be more bouts of exhaustion, and theoretically insomnia will kick in at some point in the second trimester. As pregnancy symptoms go it isn't terrible - at least I haven't puked yet - but it's been the most annoying one so far. I hate feeling tired all the time.
It figures that the week the fatigue really hit me was also the week we had a house guest. And a house guest that we weren't entirely prepared to tell about the pregnancy at that.
The exhaustion began last weekend. I got over 10 hours of sleep on Friday night and close to 10 more on Saturday night. But I was still dragging all day on Sunday and ended up taking a mid-afternoon nap. I'm not prone to naps, and I was worried that it would make it hard for me to get to sleep that night. It turns out that it didn't impact my sleep at all.
Thus began a week when I was sleeping more than usual, close to nine hours a night. But I was having a hard time waking up in the morning, and I was dragging my butt through work. I'd almost managed to kick my caffeine habit completely at this point. I was down to a single cup of green tea a day. With my new found exhaustion, I was right back to my pre-pregnancy caffeine intake. At least I never really drank that much caffeine to begin with, preferring tea to coffee.
I did my best to pass this off as somewhat normal to my cousin. But between the early bedtimes, my refusal to drink any alcohol at all (she even bought a special bottle of wine as a thank you for letting her stay; I felt really bad when I didn't drink any), and constantly running to the bathroom, I'm surprised she didn't say anything about me being pregnant. Connor eventually did at his birthday dinner, but he accepted that I was on a diet. Somehow.
After a week of this, I was starting to wonder if it might be worth taking a sick day, just to stay in bed and sleep. I was at least planning to get a lot of sleep in over the weekend. But then I miraculously woke up refreshed one morning. I even woke up a couple of minutes before my alarm clock, which had become pretty standard for me. It's a nice sign that I'm getting enough sleep and I was so glad to get back to this routine.
Of course, my sleep is probably going to be all over the place for the rest of the pregnancy. I'm sure there will be more bouts of exhaustion, and theoretically insomnia will kick in at some point in the second trimester. As pregnancy symptoms go it isn't terrible - at least I haven't puked yet - but it's been the most annoying one so far. I hate feeling tired all the time.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Early Pregnancy: Food Aversions
Written 2/24/16
This morning my body finally decided to start acting pregnant. I shouldn't say finally. I'm still only 6 weeks pregnant. I've known for less than two weeks. This is all very early. But up until this morning, I was exhibiting exactly zero of the early pregnancy symptoms the books and the internet and other women and my doctor said I should already be experiencing. No morning sickness or nausea. No breast tenderness. No fatigue. I was starting to wonder if I was really pregnant.
And it's not like I wanted to be nauseous or tired or in pain. But I was starting to wonder if I was actually pregnant. Sure, my period was12 days late. Sure, I'd taken two pregnancy tests and both had come up positive. Albeit faintly; I'm supposed to take a third later this week to really confirm things. But here I was changing my diet and doing all sorts of research and nothing really seemed to be changing.
That all changed this morning.
Well I suppose it actually changed last night. On my way home from work, I was suddenly hit by an overwhelming feeling of hunger. I had to scrap my plans to make dinner, because I couldn't wait the half hour it would have taken to cook. Thank god for leftovers.
I was, I'll admit, testy. Hunger is not something I deal with well. But after a few bites of reheated lasagna, I was back to normal. Minus some cramping, which could honestly be from the cheese in the lasagna. My lactaid pills are not always foolproof.
This morning I still had the cramps and my whole lower back ached. While I was laying in bed waiting for my alarm to go off I did some googling. It turns out that minor cramping is normal, it's when you start bleeding that you have to go to the doctor. And the lower back pain, something I've dealt with most of my life and which has finally gone away since we bought the Sleep Number mattress, is going to be with me for the entire pregnancy. I should really get back into yoga; I bet it would help.
But the real surprise came over breakfast. I scrambled some eggs with onion, cottage cheese (for extra protein, and because we had some leftover from making the lasagna) and spinach (my doctor said more leafy greens). I took about two bites, and then I just couldn't eat anymore. I could barely look at it. Nausea isn't really the right word. The eggs didn't make me feel sick. I just could not bring myself to take another bite of them.
This isn't really something I expected. I'd heard about food cravings and aversions, sure. But cravings are the side of that that gets played up. My biggest concern was that I would suddenly develop a taste for pickles, because there's no way I'd live something like that down. I didn't expect to be unable to eat one of my breakfast staples.
After Kevin finished my eggs, I spent the rest of the day feeling nauseous off and on. It turns out eggs is one of the more common food aversions, after the things you aren't supposed to be consuming (coffee, alcohol). I don't know why this is, and I don't think anyone else does either. All I know is that it's disorienting to suddenly feel this way about a food I've eaten regularly for years. It has me anxious about what else I'll suddenly start hating. On the bright side, it should go away once the pregnancy is over. A year from now I'll be back to cheesy scrambled eggs. In the meantime, I need to try not to think too much about them.
This morning my body finally decided to start acting pregnant. I shouldn't say finally. I'm still only 6 weeks pregnant. I've known for less than two weeks. This is all very early. But up until this morning, I was exhibiting exactly zero of the early pregnancy symptoms the books and the internet and other women and my doctor said I should already be experiencing. No morning sickness or nausea. No breast tenderness. No fatigue. I was starting to wonder if I was really pregnant.
And it's not like I wanted to be nauseous or tired or in pain. But I was starting to wonder if I was actually pregnant. Sure, my period was12 days late. Sure, I'd taken two pregnancy tests and both had come up positive. Albeit faintly; I'm supposed to take a third later this week to really confirm things. But here I was changing my diet and doing all sorts of research and nothing really seemed to be changing.
That all changed this morning.
Well I suppose it actually changed last night. On my way home from work, I was suddenly hit by an overwhelming feeling of hunger. I had to scrap my plans to make dinner, because I couldn't wait the half hour it would have taken to cook. Thank god for leftovers.
I was, I'll admit, testy. Hunger is not something I deal with well. But after a few bites of reheated lasagna, I was back to normal. Minus some cramping, which could honestly be from the cheese in the lasagna. My lactaid pills are not always foolproof.
This morning I still had the cramps and my whole lower back ached. While I was laying in bed waiting for my alarm to go off I did some googling. It turns out that minor cramping is normal, it's when you start bleeding that you have to go to the doctor. And the lower back pain, something I've dealt with most of my life and which has finally gone away since we bought the Sleep Number mattress, is going to be with me for the entire pregnancy. I should really get back into yoga; I bet it would help.
But the real surprise came over breakfast. I scrambled some eggs with onion, cottage cheese (for extra protein, and because we had some leftover from making the lasagna) and spinach (my doctor said more leafy greens). I took about two bites, and then I just couldn't eat anymore. I could barely look at it. Nausea isn't really the right word. The eggs didn't make me feel sick. I just could not bring myself to take another bite of them.
This isn't really something I expected. I'd heard about food cravings and aversions, sure. But cravings are the side of that that gets played up. My biggest concern was that I would suddenly develop a taste for pickles, because there's no way I'd live something like that down. I didn't expect to be unable to eat one of my breakfast staples.
After Kevin finished my eggs, I spent the rest of the day feeling nauseous off and on. It turns out eggs is one of the more common food aversions, after the things you aren't supposed to be consuming (coffee, alcohol). I don't know why this is, and I don't think anyone else does either. All I know is that it's disorienting to suddenly feel this way about a food I've eaten regularly for years. It has me anxious about what else I'll suddenly start hating. On the bright side, it should go away once the pregnancy is over. A year from now I'll be back to cheesy scrambled eggs. In the meantime, I need to try not to think too much about them.
Monday, April 11, 2016
I'm Pregnant!
The main reason for taking this blog private is to announce that I'm pregnant. We're keeping it off Facebook for another month or so, but I need this outlet or I'll burst. Especially with Kevin off in Hawaii.
Honestly, I was planning to do this before the kid came, one way or another. Trying to figure out what sort of digital life we want for the kid is complicated. It's less of an issue for Kevin, as he posts nothing at all on social media. But I do. It's going to be a challenge to find the balance between keeping distant friends and family informed and refraining from any pictures or stories that will later embarrass the kid. Especially since the internet is forever.
The good news is that we have a few more months to figure that out. In the meantime, this blog could get a little pregnancy-focused. Especially in the next few days. I've got five posts the I wrote in the past couple of months but have refrained from posting this far. Those will go up this week, mostly so I can look back and remember what things were like early on.
As for now, I'm currently 12 weeks along. I had my second appointment last week, during which I got to hear the baby's heartbeat. It was neat, but I wasn't as moved as many people seem to be. I still hardly feel pregnant, especially since I haven't gained any weight for the past month. It's actually weird. For the past five years I've had to try really hard to avoid gaining weight. Then I switch into eating constantly and wanting to gain weight and it's suddenly become difficult. I'm sure that won't last much longer though.
This week I have the first trimester screen, which is a newer test. They do an ultrasound and a blood test to determine the kid's risk factor for Down's Syndrome and some other genetic disorders. If it's high enough I go through another test in the second trimester. But since that test carries a risk of miscarriage, they use this early screen to lower the number of women who take it.
The pregnancy is also the reason this blog has been so sparse these last few weeks. While I haven't suffered from any morning sickness (lucky me!), I have been utterly exhausted. It's beginning to pass now, but for a while there I was sleeping close to ten hours a night. This left little time for anything other than eating and going to work, and the blog suffered.
That's about to change, though. My energy is returning, and I have a ton of things to talk about. Most of them are pregnancy related (sorry to those of you who aren't interested). I'm sure I'll find other things to talk about in the coming weeks, though. Life is continuing to happen, and it's only going to happen moreso as the year goes on. I'm very excited!
Honestly, I was planning to do this before the kid came, one way or another. Trying to figure out what sort of digital life we want for the kid is complicated. It's less of an issue for Kevin, as he posts nothing at all on social media. But I do. It's going to be a challenge to find the balance between keeping distant friends and family informed and refraining from any pictures or stories that will later embarrass the kid. Especially since the internet is forever.
The good news is that we have a few more months to figure that out. In the meantime, this blog could get a little pregnancy-focused. Especially in the next few days. I've got five posts the I wrote in the past couple of months but have refrained from posting this far. Those will go up this week, mostly so I can look back and remember what things were like early on.
As for now, I'm currently 12 weeks along. I had my second appointment last week, during which I got to hear the baby's heartbeat. It was neat, but I wasn't as moved as many people seem to be. I still hardly feel pregnant, especially since I haven't gained any weight for the past month. It's actually weird. For the past five years I've had to try really hard to avoid gaining weight. Then I switch into eating constantly and wanting to gain weight and it's suddenly become difficult. I'm sure that won't last much longer though.
This week I have the first trimester screen, which is a newer test. They do an ultrasound and a blood test to determine the kid's risk factor for Down's Syndrome and some other genetic disorders. If it's high enough I go through another test in the second trimester. But since that test carries a risk of miscarriage, they use this early screen to lower the number of women who take it.
The pregnancy is also the reason this blog has been so sparse these last few weeks. While I haven't suffered from any morning sickness (lucky me!), I have been utterly exhausted. It's beginning to pass now, but for a while there I was sleeping close to ten hours a night. This left little time for anything other than eating and going to work, and the blog suffered.
That's about to change, though. My energy is returning, and I have a ton of things to talk about. Most of them are pregnancy related (sorry to those of you who aren't interested). I'm sure I'll find other things to talk about in the coming weeks, though. Life is continuing to happen, and it's only going to happen moreso as the year goes on. I'm very excited!
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Making the Blog Private
Hi everyone.
I've decided to go ahead and make this blog private. My book blog and writing blog will still be public, but this one is going behind a wall. If you'd like to continue reading, it's an easy, 2-step process:
I'm planning to transition all of this this weekend, after which new posts will start going up again.
I've decided to go ahead and make this blog private. My book blog and writing blog will still be public, but this one is going behind a wall. If you'd like to continue reading, it's an easy, 2-step process:
- Sign up for a google account
- Tell me what your google user ID is
I'm planning to transition all of this this weekend, after which new posts will start going up again.
Friday, April 1, 2016
Leaving Vermont
While our weekend in Vermont was fun-filled and relaxing, the trip home was not. A snow storm hit Baltimore, which resulted in quite the adventure for us.
We set off for the three hour drive to the Boston airport in two cars: four people plus snowboarding gear in a van with Kevin and I following in an Elantra. Google pointed us to what should have been the fastest route. But we were quickly thwarted by a closed road. We pulled off to get gas and directions to the airport and elected to head south to the highway instead of trusting to the back roads.
It wasn't long before we reached the highway. And shortly after that we got the message that our flight had been canceled due to snow in Baltimore. We pulled off to get lunch and figure out what to do.
By the time we were looking up flights, the soonest available ones were three days out. None of us could afford to miss that much work, so we decided to try and drive. It's only eight hours from Boston to DC under normal circumstances, and we were sure this plan would get us home sooner and cheaper than attempting to find another flight. Next came a series of phone calls as we attempted to change our car rental reservations to carry out these plans.
The end result was that Jen and Steve drove the van and all the gear back to Boston, where they already had a flight for the following morning. Kevin attempted to find something bigger or better suited to the snow than the Elantra, but we had no luck with the next three Enterprise locations on our route. So Sarah and Zach joined us in the dinky car.
It was as we were attempting to get back on the highway that we realized Vermont didn't want to let us go. The on ramp was under construction and we got sent on a detour through some back roads in pursuit of the next highway on-ramp. We did eventually make it, and we all cheered when we finally crossed into Massachusetts, certain that the journey would be easy-going from then.
In Connecticut, I took over driving from Kevin. The weather had been up to then, and I was still naively confident that we might make it home that night. Then it started snowing, and I was sure we would at least be able to make it past New York City and get an early start the next morning. Then it got worse and worse. Somehow I survived one of the more harrowing driving experiences of my life, going 10 miles an hour and refusing to change lanes. We eventually found a place where I could pull of and let Kevin take over. But we only made it one more mile before we found a hotel and stopped for the night in Yonkers.
The next morning it was almost like the storm had never happened. The weather had warmed up enough that the snow had turned to rain. The roads had been plowed. We waited for the sun to come up fully, to make sure that the parking lot was clear, then hit the road again.
Kevin took the first driving shift and got us through New York and into New Jersey. After a couple of hours we switched so he could take a nap and, once again, I got hit with awful weather. This time it was rain instead of snow, so it wasn't as bad, but visibility was nearly non-existent. It didn't let up until shortly before we got to Baltimore and found our car at the airport.
We eventually made it home about 18 hours after we had planned to, safe and sound and with almost no evidence of the snow that had thrown such a wrench in our plans. Vermont wasn't able to keep us there permanently. And now there's enough distance that I can look back on this trip and see an adventure and a good story, rather than the most stressful drive of my life.
We set off for the three hour drive to the Boston airport in two cars: four people plus snowboarding gear in a van with Kevin and I following in an Elantra. Google pointed us to what should have been the fastest route. But we were quickly thwarted by a closed road. We pulled off to get gas and directions to the airport and elected to head south to the highway instead of trusting to the back roads.
It wasn't long before we reached the highway. And shortly after that we got the message that our flight had been canceled due to snow in Baltimore. We pulled off to get lunch and figure out what to do.
By the time we were looking up flights, the soonest available ones were three days out. None of us could afford to miss that much work, so we decided to try and drive. It's only eight hours from Boston to DC under normal circumstances, and we were sure this plan would get us home sooner and cheaper than attempting to find another flight. Next came a series of phone calls as we attempted to change our car rental reservations to carry out these plans.
The end result was that Jen and Steve drove the van and all the gear back to Boston, where they already had a flight for the following morning. Kevin attempted to find something bigger or better suited to the snow than the Elantra, but we had no luck with the next three Enterprise locations on our route. So Sarah and Zach joined us in the dinky car.
It was as we were attempting to get back on the highway that we realized Vermont didn't want to let us go. The on ramp was under construction and we got sent on a detour through some back roads in pursuit of the next highway on-ramp. We did eventually make it, and we all cheered when we finally crossed into Massachusetts, certain that the journey would be easy-going from then.
In Connecticut, I took over driving from Kevin. The weather had been up to then, and I was still naively confident that we might make it home that night. Then it started snowing, and I was sure we would at least be able to make it past New York City and get an early start the next morning. Then it got worse and worse. Somehow I survived one of the more harrowing driving experiences of my life, going 10 miles an hour and refusing to change lanes. We eventually found a place where I could pull of and let Kevin take over. But we only made it one more mile before we found a hotel and stopped for the night in Yonkers.
The next morning it was almost like the storm had never happened. The weather had warmed up enough that the snow had turned to rain. The roads had been plowed. We waited for the sun to come up fully, to make sure that the parking lot was clear, then hit the road again.
Kevin took the first driving shift and got us through New York and into New Jersey. After a couple of hours we switched so he could take a nap and, once again, I got hit with awful weather. This time it was rain instead of snow, so it wasn't as bad, but visibility was nearly non-existent. It didn't let up until shortly before we got to Baltimore and found our car at the airport.
We eventually made it home about 18 hours after we had planned to, safe and sound and with almost no evidence of the snow that had thrown such a wrench in our plans. Vermont wasn't able to keep us there permanently. And now there's enough distance that I can look back on this trip and see an adventure and a good story, rather than the most stressful drive of my life.
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