A few weeks ago, I had my first official pregnancy visit with my OB/GYN. An intern saw me first and tried to find the heartbeat with no success. A while later, the doctor came in and was able to find it relatively quickly. It was pretty amazing to hear the fast thumping of another little heart inside me, but even after that... it all still seemed so surreal.
I talked with him about my constant nausea and vomiting and got his "OK" to discontinue my prenatal vitamins for a while to see if that helped. (I've lost over ten pounds since I became pregnant thanks to all of the sickness.) I tried checking into the chewable Flintstone vitamins, but they have gelatin in them as well as a host of different sweeteners that I'd rather stay away from. I'll have to look into vegan brands, but I really don't have much extra money right now with not having a paycheck over the summer. Not taking the vitamins seems to have helped a bit. I'm not nauseous all day long like I had been for weeks on end. Now I'm actually fairly alright for a day or two, although the smell of most foods still repulses me and I'm not able to eat very much.
This past Thursday, we went in for my first ultrasound. I layed back on the examining chair and the doctor/nurse told me to watch the screen on top of the cabinet in front of me. For a while, all that we could see was just black-and-white fuzziness, but then... I reached out and grasped Dave's hand. There was our little one floating around in his little fluid-filled coccoon! My heart swelled as I watched it moving around - the tiny hands and skeletal head. The nurse needed to get three pictures at specific angles, but Baby T wanted nothing to do with that - already a combination of Dave's stubborness and my shyness. No matter which way I rolled or how many times the nurse went back and forth over my belly with the magical ultrasound wand thingy, the baby turned away or shielded its face from her view. It took a good thirty minutes or more to get the pictures that she needed. We had brought in a DVD and she inserted it into the machine as soon as she began, so we have a recording of the entire "show". Seeing all of this for so long made my pregnancy seem much more real, but it seems like the full impact won't truly set in until my belly actually starts to grow.
I'm about 12 weeks along right now - nearing the end of my first trimester. I hope the nausea goes away soon so that I can start eating normally again. Although I still don't even want to imagine the smells right now, I miss cooking so much! I miss my healthy foods - my veggies, my black bean burritos, my berries, and my grains! I miss my comfort foods - my homemade goodies, my vegan ice cream, my vegan chocolate chips, and chocolate almond milk! (I know, I know... almond milk isn't "food", but it is a "comfort" thing for me!) I miss eating... period!
I won't have another doctor's appointment for about another month, and I'm hoping to start gaining at least a little weight back by then. It would be nice to not gain more than twenty pounds from where I'm at right now and only have about ten pounds to lose after the baby's born (to be back to my original pre-pregnancy weight, anyway). That's about as much weight as they say you should gain over the course of a pregnancy. I'm wondering how the whole losing weight bit will factor into that.
I've always loved looking at mommy-tummies growing month-by-month, but I likely won't be placing any of those on here... at least not until maybe the seventh month or so. I've never been happy with my belly anyway and since I haven't grown at all since finding out, I haven't bothered to snap any pictures yet. It'd be nice to have one or two nice black-and-whites at different stages, though. Maybe in a few months.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Welcome to the Blog for Baby T
On Mother's Day, I took the first home pregnancy test that told me my life was about to change. Dave didn't know if he could trust something that told you anything that important just by "peeing on a stick". I took another one two days later and told him, "Well, I'm still pregnant." He was elated and couldn't wait to tell everyone, but he still wasn't 100% satisfied until I got the official result from a doctor.
After holding off for fifteen years (mostly at my insistence trying to wait for "the right time"), we'd been trying for a few months... and it happened pretty quickly. We're probably the only couple in our group of friends to have children so late in life, but I like to think that gives us a bit of an edge in some ways. Now I just have to hope that everything goes alright with my pregnancy and that we have a healthy baby.
Eating hasn't been an easy thing. The first few weeks (before I knew) weren't a problem, but this last month I've been nauseous all day long. I've finally started forcing myself to eat, and I think it's actually helping. I've read that the nausea generally goes away after the first trimester for most women but that it lingers throughout the pregnancy for some women. I'm just crossing my fingers that I'm in the former camp.
My mom's been waiting for this for years - dropping hints and reminding me that there will never be a "perfect time". She's already been out hunting for cribs and is wanting to take me out soon to start looking for maternity clothes. At just a little over two months along and with the nausea causing me to lose over five pounds over the last two weeks, I'm not showing in the slightest yet. I know it won't be too long, but I really don't want to think about maternity clothes right now.
Aside from the nausea and constantly feeling exhausted, I'm not feeling any different yet. I know you're really not supposed to at this point, but for some reason I always thought that I'd know and that I would feel different. It's going to happen eventually (feeling and seeing the changes and raising this new life), but now I'm not sure if I'm ready for it.
It's scary thinking about adding a little human to our lives. We've always managed to scrape by and take care of ourselves and our animals one way or another, but this is truly going to be a drastic change. Not that we didn't think about that or realize it beforehand... just that it's different when you know it's actually going to happen. If that makes any sense. I always pictured myself as a parent someday, but I was starting to grow accustomed to the idea of Dave and I just being a happily married couple without kids. Now the uncertainty has been setting in, and I've been wondering about our future and the baby's. Life happens, and I'm sure we'll just deal with everything as it comes... but it's hard to stop stressing about something so life altering.
In other thoughts, I think I need to get Dave to watch some more Super Nanny episodes. :P
After holding off for fifteen years (mostly at my insistence trying to wait for "the right time"), we'd been trying for a few months... and it happened pretty quickly. We're probably the only couple in our group of friends to have children so late in life, but I like to think that gives us a bit of an edge in some ways. Now I just have to hope that everything goes alright with my pregnancy and that we have a healthy baby.
Eating hasn't been an easy thing. The first few weeks (before I knew) weren't a problem, but this last month I've been nauseous all day long. I've finally started forcing myself to eat, and I think it's actually helping. I've read that the nausea generally goes away after the first trimester for most women but that it lingers throughout the pregnancy for some women. I'm just crossing my fingers that I'm in the former camp.
My mom's been waiting for this for years - dropping hints and reminding me that there will never be a "perfect time". She's already been out hunting for cribs and is wanting to take me out soon to start looking for maternity clothes. At just a little over two months along and with the nausea causing me to lose over five pounds over the last two weeks, I'm not showing in the slightest yet. I know it won't be too long, but I really don't want to think about maternity clothes right now.
Aside from the nausea and constantly feeling exhausted, I'm not feeling any different yet. I know you're really not supposed to at this point, but for some reason I always thought that I'd know and that I would feel different. It's going to happen eventually (feeling and seeing the changes and raising this new life), but now I'm not sure if I'm ready for it.
It's scary thinking about adding a little human to our lives. We've always managed to scrape by and take care of ourselves and our animals one way or another, but this is truly going to be a drastic change. Not that we didn't think about that or realize it beforehand... just that it's different when you know it's actually going to happen. If that makes any sense. I always pictured myself as a parent someday, but I was starting to grow accustomed to the idea of Dave and I just being a happily married couple without kids. Now the uncertainty has been setting in, and I've been wondering about our future and the baby's. Life happens, and I'm sure we'll just deal with everything as it comes... but it's hard to stop stressing about something so life altering.
In other thoughts, I think I need to get Dave to watch some more Super Nanny episodes. :P
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