All Pregnant and Nowhere To Go

I had another appointment on Thursday. This had to be the most aggravating appointment yet. I was scheduled to be seen at 2:45pm and arrived right on time. We sat in the almost filled-to-capacity waiting room... and sat... and sat... and sat. I went up to the front desk and mentioned my appointment time and the fact that it was already 3:30. The receptionist took a look at my doctor's patient tray and responded that there was one patient ahead of me and then the doctor would see me. WTF?!?! What's the point of scheduling an appointment time if there's STILL going to be another person before me FORTY-FIVE minutes AFTER I'm already supposed to be SEEN! UUUURGH! Finally, about ten minutes later, a nurse calls me back. She takes my blood pressure, my weight, and then leads me down the hall to the doctor's office... where she tells me... you guessed it... that there's one person ahead of me and then the doctor would be with me. FUCK! So, we wait... and wait... and wait... and wait. About twenty minutes later, the doctor comes in, checks out the baby's heartbeat, feels where my uterus if, tells me it's right where it should be, and asks me if I have any questions. And that was it. The entire visit with the doctor and the nurse took a total of about fifteen minutes, yet we were at the clinic for an hour and forty-five minutes!!!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Sigh.

It was cool to hear the heartbeat again and to hear the muffled static noise which the doctor said was the baby kicking. I still haven't felt anything yet myself, but that may be a few more weeks anyway. In three weeks, I go in for the (possible) gender-determining ultrasound. I'm excited, but...


Dave and I are really getting nervous about our living situation with the baby coming. We've decided that the best thing to do for now would be to save up our money and look for a place to rent for a few years until our credit scores improve. (Did I already write about this in my last entry?) As much as people try to convince me that I need to just stay here since I have insurance with the school and already have a relationship established with these doctors... it's just not an option. There's nowhere up here for the baby. My dad decided last night that he needs the office for all of his stuff and furniture that he's already started buying for when we move out, so we had to move all of our stored stuff and my crafty materials out of there and move it into our bedroom and into the family room (taking up even *more* of the dogs' already limited Dad-imposed confined space). So our little bedroom now has a queen bed, a dresser, a small side table, four bookcases (of varying heights), and a couple of Rubbermaid storage boxes in it. There's not enough space in our bedroom even for a bassinet let alone a crib. No, staying here is NOT an option.

If I quit my job and move down there in, say, November... hmm... or if I start my maternity leave at the beginning of December, I'll still be covered by my insurance until the baby's born. And then I guess... I don't know. I won't have a job down there and we won't be able to afford to keep up with insurance payments along with rent and the other bills on one income. I could try to apply for state assistance, but I don't know anything about that as far as medical stuff goes. Does Dave make too much for us to qualify? Does the state cover kids under 18 if the parents don't have insurance through their work (which Dave doesn't)? Will I be able to earn Unemployment due to moving out of the area? Does the state expect new mothers to start looking for employment immediately after giving birth? What am I going to do about child care if I have to work?

I'm still waking up throughout the night and unable to fall back to sleep for over an hour most times. And now, these questions and possible scenarios start playing through my head every time I wake up. A friend proposed the idea that maybe some (or much) of my nausea all of this time has been spurred by all of this worry and stress of the unknown. There's so much uncertainty in my life right now. I know we'll figure something out in time and we'll make it work somehow. We always do. It's just all so frustrating and panic-inducing right now.

*Here's where I remind myself to breathe.*

Blah blah blah...

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Well, the day after my last post, the sickness came back. Not full force mind you but enough to let me know that I'm not "over the hump" yet. If I ever *will* be. Grrr. Generally, I'll have a few good-eating days and then be nauseous and sick the next and then queasy for another day or two. Other days, like today, I'll be feeling fine all day and then get sick out of nowhere. I was actually feeling so good today, that I was considering taking the dogs for a walk for the first time since I've been pregnant. Ugh. Not any more. It's really quite annoying.


I have my next doctor's appointment on Thursday. Not sure what to expect with this one. The appointment scheduler just said it would be with an OB, but she didn't have any idea what might be discussed or anything. It's too early for the gender-determining ultrasound, so that's not it. Maybe it's for the screening tests to rule out possible birth defects? If it is, though, I read that the "triple screen" or "quad screen" has a high rate of giving false positives.

"The triple screen test is the least invasive of all prenatal tests, but it has a high rate of false positives, which incorrectly indicate risk in healthy pregnancies, resulting in weeks of anxiety while further tests are evaluated. Between 96 and 98 percent of women who first receive a positive triple screen result will go on to have normal babies, making the risks of this test emotional rather than physical."

So, I'm not sure I'm up for that. According to several sites I've looked at, the quad screen is performed between the 16th to 18th week of pregnancy, and I'll be about 15 1/2 on Thursday. I'll have to talk it over with Dave and a few others and see what they think. One of my friends in Seattle had this done and they had her worrying for weeks that her baby was going to be born with a cleft palate and numerous other types of deformities or physical/mental disabilities... but he turned out completely healthy and happy. I really don't think I want all of that stress and anxiety. I mean, if the initial results were more accurate and didn't require additional blood work or other procedures and days/weeks of waiting, I'd feel more secure with it. It would be nice to be a little more mentally prepared for a child with special needs than to find out the day it's born, but... I don't know.


I went out for coffee with my mom over the weekend. Unbeknowst to me, it was all part of her plan to get me to create a baby registry and to buy me "appropriate" maternity clothes. My brother was all excited when he first learned I was pregnant and wanted me to register somewhere so he could get started on spoiling his little niece or nephew. So, I registered and then scouted out some clothes. I didn't actually find too many things that were specifically labeled as maternity wear (save for a pair of khakis with the preggo waist thingy, a nice blouse/shirt with long-sleeves and an empire waist, and two plain v-neck t-shirts)... mainly I just bought things in my normal pre-pregnancy size (since I've lost so much weight and am almost down a size) or one size larger than that. I'm sure once my belly starts growing and winter is on its way, I'll be out looking once again. For now, though, I think I'm all set.


The initial excitement of being pregnant is over. This is starting to seem like it's going to be an incredibly looooong wait. Six more months. Sigh. Well, at least I'm not an elephant, right? Twenty-two months is much too long of a commitment to being sick, tired, and excessively rotund.

It Feels So Good To Eat Again! Now If Only I Could Get a Good Night's Sleep!

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Today marks Day 5 of almost normal eating! I'm not sure if this is just a temporary reprieve or if my all-day-long morning sickness is finally bidding me "farewell" for now... but I'm happy whatever the case may be! I've missed eating food so much! Well, that is, I've missed eating food and having it actually TASTE good and having it actually stay in my stomach for the most part. I've actually been eating a fairly typical breakfast, lunch, and dinner and then eating a light snack in between there somewhere. Food is good.

For now, I'm giving all of the credit to Jolly Ranchers and Blow Pops (from Charms!). Yep, I credit artificially colored and flavored sugary candies with calming my pregnancy nausea. And yes, I've researched and supposedly they're both vegan. I read a few places that sucking on hard candies can help the nausea, so I decided to give it a shot. I'd heard about Preggo Pops, but then I found out that they're kinda pricey and essentially nothing more than naturally flavored/sweetened lollipops. I generally avoid candy and super sugary stuff and especially have since the nausea started... but the nausea just happened to go away shortly after Dave bought me a bag of Jolly Ranchers. Oh, but I only like the cherry and watermelon flavors... so Dave gets the rest.

My mind is sort of at a lull in thinking baby thoughts. I've always been fairly pudgy... and with having lost almost twenty pounds... I really can't tell if I have a "baby bump" or not. I definitely don't need to worry about buying any maternity clothes right now since my prepregnancy clothes are fitting even better than before. My mom and I have already been baby shopping, so I have a bunch of cute little onesies and newborn clothes as well as a few other things. I don't even know where I'll be living when the baby's born, so there's no nursery or special area to "set up". I have another check-up appointment next week, but the gender-determining ultrasound won't be until another week or two after that. Everything's just kind of "meh".

My back has been starting to hurt lately, but I have no one here to massage it. I'm trying to sleep on my left side as much as possible (like the baby doctors all recommend), but my left hip feels like it's all bruised and sore. I try to sleep with it slightly angled or put a whole pillow under my hip to help a little, and I guess it works halfway decent. Like a lot of other mommies, I've been having very vivid dreams that wake me up in the middle of the night... and then I can't fall back to sleep for an hour or so afterward. So I end up sleeping in for about two or three hours more than usual in the morning.

The prospects of obtaining any kind of loan for a house are starting to look slim. School (work) starts in just over a month, and I'm really not looking forward to going back to work while being pregnant. I really wasn't wanting to be back there period, but it doesn't look like there's going to be much of a choice now once again. Don't get me wrong, I have great co-workers and the kids aren't too bad (sometimes)... I just want to be with my husband! And I don't know how I'm going to manage getting up early for work in the morning if those crazy dreams keep up. I'll have to start going to bed at 8 o'clock or something! Urgh!

Hopefully Dave and I will be able to save up enough money after I start work again to have enough for first/last/deposit on a place to rent by at least October or November. We don't want to have to essentially throw our money away every month, but I think we're going to have to for another year or two until we can get our credit reports polished up. I cannot be a single mom... no... I refuse to be a single mom when I have a husband who's so incredibly excited to be a father.

I guess that's all for now. I think mood swings have officially started. Fun fun.

...and the days drag on

being constantly nauseous is really getting on my nerves. some days i can't even drink water without it coming right back up. i'm so dehydrated that my lips are dry and cracking/peeling. i want to just grab a big, tall glass of ice water and chug it down, but i know that would be a BIG mistake. i can't focus on much for very long anymore - books, tv, the computer screen - and don't have the strength or energy to do anything more than the basics when it comes to doing anything around the house. the dogs need a walk, but i can't do much more than give them a sympathetic look and pet their fur for a while.

i was supposed to meet up with my co-workers from school today for lunch, but i hadn't been able to keep anything down all morning. not that i had to go there and force myself to actually eat anything, but i'd been getting sick all morning and didn't want to risk being sick while trying to get out of the house for a while.

the weather's been so beautiful lately - sunny, cool, no humidity -, but i don't have the stomach to sit outside and enjoy it. this all really sucks. the days drag on, and it seems like the nausea will never go away. i swear... whoever finds a cure for "morning sickness" is going to be a billionaire.

Will the Sickness Ever End?

I'm just about at the end of my first trimester - the point at which the nausea is supposed to start subsiding... for most women. I sit around hoping that I won't end up being among the small subset of women who are sick throughout their entire pregnancy. I try to think positive, but that's pretty hard to do when one can't even drink water or tea without puking. I'm starting to rethink the whole prenatal-vitamins-causing-sickness idea and will probably start on them again soon. It seemed to be helping for a while, but now it seems like the baby just truly doesn't like anything. And it's likely best that the baby get some nutrition with the vitamin instead of virtually none at all. The only thing with that is trying to find a time of day when I won't end up losing the vitamin directly to the toilet as well.

With school out for the summer, I'm temporarily unemployed and thus without a paycheck. It's a good thing that the school year ended when it did since that's when the nausea started becoming an issue, but it's going to be rough trying to make it through an entire summer with bills to pay and with my bank account quickly dwindling. I applied for a position at a child care center, but I'm not sure if my body would even be able to tolerate a full work day again at the moment. The sickness used to be mainly in the evening, but now it's extremely random.

I always had this idea that I would be very "Earth Momma"-ish whenever I got pregnant. That I would love almost every minute of it (until the last few months) and be "in tune" with the baby. It all seems so silly now. I hope, though, that eventually my pregnancy becomes something a little more joyous than all of these trips to the bathroom are proving to be.