21 weeks, 1 day - Baby Fun Fact #1

Baby Fact #1: Baby gets quiet with the sound of my voice.

It's so cool. No matter how active little 'Nik is, as soon as I start talking, she calms down and is still until after I'm done. I've noticed that she's super active during my work meetings, but I hadn't given it too much thought. Yesterday, my friend, Megan (who is due 13 weeks ahead of me), said that her husband has been reading the same story to their baby every night. They read somewhere that the baby can hear it and when it's born, it can recognize it and that may help soothe it when it's fussing. So, anyway, last night 'Nik was going crazy while I was lying in bed reading to myself. Remembering what Megan had said, I put down my book and picked up "Guess How Much I Love You." As soon as I started reading, she stopped moving all together. No more Krav Maga. No more Kung Fu. Just still and silent. Until about 10 minutes after I stopped reading when she started up again. And then it all made sense! When I was trying to get Matt to feel her moving around, I first told him that she's moving a lot and asked if he wanted to try to feel. Then of course, she stopped moving all together. Until about 10 minutes later, after we'd been laying quietly, watching a movie when she started up again. And I never speak in my morning work meetings, so it would make sense that she's moving all around then, too. How neat! I don't know if it's the vibrations of my vocal chords or if she can actually hear the sound of my voice, but I just think it's so so neat that she gets all quiet every time I speak. :) I wonder how long THAT will last...

20 weeks, 0 days - Belly pic!

Hooray! We're 1/2 way there! I can't believe we've come this far! And, as you can see, the belly seems to be picking up steam. I'm still able to wear some of my normal clothes to work, which is fabulous because the maternity clothes are just too big yet. But I think it won't be long now before the belly picks up steam and people start noticing without me telling them.

Also, this week, the baby is as long as a banana. A banana! I mean, that's HUGE! I can't believe it's that big!!

I can't believe there's something that huge inside me and some of my pants still fit. Aren't our bodies amazing?

19 weeks, 5 days - Pregnancy Pilates

I'll be the first one to admit that I haven't been exactly "good" about working out up until now. It's something I regularly feel guilty about when I talk to my coworker, Mika, as she's still running 1/2 marathons. I really meant to get in good shape before I got pregnant, but it just didn't really work out that way and now, it's too late to start something like a couch to 5k program. Having said that, this weekend, I WAY overdid it. It was beautiful out, so I decided to get started on my gardening. I weeded and mulched the entire back garden, planted some pots for my steps, picked up copious amounts of sticks that fell out of the rubbish tree over the winter, mowed and edged the lawn, and took a couple of walks. Not to mention I went to Lowe's three times, hauled 9 bags of mulch from my car to various gardens, babysat for the neighbor, and went through all of my skinny clothes and replaced them with fat ones. I woke up on Sunday morning and then again on Monday morning so stiff and sore that I could hardly move. My hamstrings, butt, and lower back just ache ache ache from all the squats and bending over I did while gardening. That made me start to freak out that I'm losing all the strength in my core since I haven't been doing pilates or crunches or anything since I got pregnant. Not freak out freak out, but still, I wasn't thrilled with the idea that I was losing all the strength out of my core right when I'd need it most. Sooo... I bought some DVDs! I'm so proud of myself for it. It's just a small thing, but it's a small thing that I can take control of and not feel like I'm behind or... well, out of control on. I got _Pilates During Pregnancy_ and _The Perfect Pregnancy Workout_, both of which are rated as really difficult. Which is good. I hate when you get a video and master it within a week. I'm looking forward to doing some core strengthening exercises to make sure my back doesn't get too weak in the weeks to come. So yay! And the best part is that I paid for them with my cash back bonus from my credit card, so they were pretty much free. Hooray for taking control and not feeling out of control!! :)

19 weeks, 0 days - My First Maternity Clothes

(sigh) Well, it's happened. I'm officially too fat for normal human clothes. We had a client meeting today and I was supposed wear a suit for it. I pulled one out of my closet only to realize that I'd already worn the pants earlier this week. So, I pulled out another one. While I could get the pants on, I couldn't get them even CLOSE to buttoned. That was a failure before it even started. Fortunately, both my dear sister and Matt's dear sister gifted me with Be-bands, so I was able to make my pants stay up even though they're hanging wide open (for those of you who don't know the term, a Be-band is essentially a tube top that you put around the top of your pants to keep them from falling down when you're too fat to button them). Blerg. I thought I was going to be so excited for this point. Turns out, fat still feels fat, regardless of the reason.

Amy gave me two huge bags of maternity clothes which are going to prove to be an absolute God-send. She worked almost right up until her due date with Brooklyn, so she had a whole bunch of really fantastic work clothes that she gave me. I'm a bit skeptical that I'm going to be able to fit into any pants that Amy Terlizzi ever wore once I'm even fatter, but hopefully, the majority of my weight will stick to the belly because they fit ok now. Not the same as they did on Amy, but they're fine. She also gave me a big bag of cutesy summer clothes because she had Carter in August. Not sure how the size small shorty shorts are going to work on my hamhock thighs, but again, we'll see. She gave me so so so many nice things; it's sure to save me a ton of money. And now, I can go to the expensive store that I want to go to and get a few nice pieces and not feel guilty about it, since I know I don't have to buy very much else. Thank you, Amy! I appreciate it soooo much!! :)

18 weeks, 5 days - It's Alive!

Remember the post where I said I wasn't sure if I felt our little Sputnik (or Nik as Matt and I have started calling it) moving or if it was just muscle spasms/twitching? Well, I'm sure: it's Sputnik. And boy, is he/she moving! My books say that babies in utero frequently are most active at night because your daily activities rock them to sleep, but this little dude seems to really hate my morning work meeting. Holy Moses! It makes it really really hard to concentrate when there's a tap dance going on in your belly. And right now, it's a very gentle feeling; I can't imagine what it's going to be like when I'm big and fat and Nik is much stronger. Aye-yay-yay! Matt was able to feel it move over the weekend, so that was fun. I was surprised that he was able to feel it because all but a few pokes and prods have been very gentle thus far. But I was thinking to myself last night about how fun this part of pregnancy is, really. I mean, you start showing, you feel the baby move, you can find out the gender if you want, you get a good picture of it... those are a lot of pretty awesome milestones to hit all within a few weeks of each other!

18 weeks, 2 days - Belly pic!

Ok, so I'm not actually posting this on the day it says, but that's the day I took the photo so I thought I'd be accurate with the timeline of the photo if not the blog. So there you have it.

17 weeks, 6 days - "Well, That's Bigger Than I Would Have Expected..."

As you may recall from a posting a few weeks ago, I had a doctor's appointment this morning, not because I needed one, but because my doctor wanted to calm my anxiety. So, instead of waiting the normal four weeks between appointments, she had me come in after two. I went in this morning, expecting no more than to have my weight and blood pressure taken, to listen to the heart beat, to schedule my next appointment and then to go home. That's not quite the way it worked out.

I saw Dr. Elliot for the first time in quite awhile and he was just as I remembered him: warm and friendly and just all around wonderful. He had me lay on the table and he felt my tummy, which Dr. Lashgari hadn't done yet. My books say that this is a regular thing they do and say that it's to measure the top of your uterus. He pressed around for a minute and then said, "well, that's bigger than I would have expected." I told him that I thought the same thing because my books said it was supposed to end about two inches below my belly button but in actuality, it was almost all the way there. He smiled and said that I clearly know what I'm doing. That felt nice. He then proceeded to tell me that we were "going to take a look to make sure there's only one in there cooking." I'm sorry? What did you say? Yes, that's right. My uterus was SO big that he thought I MIGHT BE HAVING TWINS!!! I'm not. Don't worry. I did have a short moment of panic as he was squirting the gel on my tummy and I was waiting for him to pull up the picture. Yikes. I'm scared enough about one but two? Egads.

Anyway, long story short, baby does be BIG. I'm not calling it Blob anymore because I got to see a baby today! And it looks like a baby! I saw a head a neck and knees and an eyeball and a spine. I didn't get pictures or anything because it was the doctor doing it and he was just looking for two babies as opposed to the sonogram tech doing it for real. But what a fun surprise! Apparently, the baby's giant Sputnik-sized head is measuring about a week ahead of where it's expected to be. So, I think I'll start calling it Sputnik. So, anyway, Sputnik was laying on his/her back, kind of like he/she was lounging at the beach. On his/her back, knees bent, chilling. Which is funny to me. All the pictures I've seen of babies at this point have their legs all wrapped up around their heads and what not. This kid has so much room to stretch out in my gigantic uterus that he/she is hardly mashed up at all. Funny.

So, what else? Details. Giant head. Heartbeat 160. Measuring 18 weeks, 5 days. Everything looks great. A week ahead doesn't SOUND that huge to me, but Dr. Elliot seemed so surprised by how big my uterus was that I'm not sure what to think. I'm still barely barely showing and my weight is right on track, so it's weird to hear that it's "so big." I'm a little worried about the baby measuring big this early because with big babies comes a greater risk of gestational diabetes and, as you may recall from my last appointment, the doctor already told me that I'm at increased risk because of type I running in my family. So now I'm at double increased risk, I guess.

Next appointment, April 2nd, 10:15 am. That's the proper mid-pregnancy sonogram, so we'll get pictures at that one. Hooray!

17 weeks, 5 days - Twitching or Blob-vement?

As anyone who has had a baby before knows, feeling your baby kick or move for the first time is what we're all really waiting for. Especially if you're just barely showing and don't exactly feel pregnant. As such, I am one of those people. I try laying in bed every night, focusing closely on the movement in my belly, trying to feel something that doesn't result in a toot. A couple of nights ago, I felt a twitch in my uterus. But only once. Was it the baby? I have no idea. Since then, I've felt it again about once a day. It's in around the same spot every time but not exactly the same spot. I'm trying to remember if I felt twitching in my uterus or abdomen previously but of course, I have no idea. I checked my book and it said that the movements can feel like anything from butterflies to bubbles popping to gas to twitching. So it's possible, but there's no telling. The fact that I only feel it once a day makes me think that it's not blob-vement (that's fetal movement from our blob) because I have to think if it WAS blob-vement, I'd feel it more frequently. But I have no idea. And the stupid books really offer no help. I'm trying to be patient, but it's just so darn hard.

I have another dr. appt. tomorrow. I think it will be a super quick in and out, since the only reason she scheduled it was because I was anxious. I think we'll listen to the heartbeat and then be done with it. But we'll see.

17 weeks, 0 days - "Ooh! You have a pooch!"

Of the many phrases I wish no one would ever say to me again, "Ooh! You have a pooch!" definitely ranks toward the top. That is what my boss so pleasantly pronounced yesterday, much to my chagrin. I did not react well. My initial gut response was to shout out, "I sure do, but it's not nearly as big as yours yet!" Fortunately, the vocal filter kicked in as I remembered that it was, in fact, my boss who said it and just smiled in agreement. Really though, folks, acceptable terms are "bump," "baby bump," "you're showing," "little belly," and other terms of endearment such as these. Pooch? Not so much.

Having said that, I was hardly able to button my pants up over my pooch this morning. I was shocked. Apparently, I haven't worn work pants in a minute. I guess I've been doing the skirt/dress thing for awhile now. So as far as I'm concerned, I went from nothing to about busting out of my pants in 2 days. Weird. Stevie and Eric got me a Be-band which I think I might have to start using before too long, but not until I get some maternity shirts because the shirts I have now aren't long enough to cover it. Matt is coming up a week from tomorrow for his nephew's baptism and he's going to bring with him some of Amy's old maternity clothes; hopefully there will be some tops I can use in there. If not, I guess I'll have to hit some consignment shops. I'd like to have some clothes before I'm unable to fit into my normal stuff, after all. How embarrassing would it be to have to call in sick to work because I'm too fat to wear anything?