Now in the produce aisle…it’s a zucchini

Sept. 15: The last week has flown by in a very calm way, and I was really shocked to see an update from BabyCenter.com in my inbox yesterday telling me that I am now 19 weeks pregnant.
A little over a week now until I have my ultrasound appointment, and I’m feeling increasingly pregnant.  These days when I bend over, I’ve started to make an inadvertent “oof” grunt.  I also found this morning that it was uncomfortable to bring my knee up to my chest to tie my boots.
Mentally, I think I’m also making a switch.  I spent much of yesterday ogling baby clothes…an activity that hadn’t seemed that pertinent in past weeks.
Last night I almost woke Bryan up, because the baby’s normal soft “blip”-like kicks had become little thumps, and I thought I could even feel them from the outside.  Still not particularly showing, though, except for a little bump and looking rather thick around the middle:)

Week 19 Update from BabyCenter.com

Your baby weighs about 8 1/2 ounces,
and he measures 6 inches, head to bottom — about the length of a small zucchini. The hair on his scalp is sprouting. If your baby is a girl, she already has 6 million eggs in her ovaries. This is a crucial time for sensory development: Your baby’s brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. He may be able to hear you as you talk. Research shows that he’s learning to distinguish your voice from others, and he’ll soon show a preference for it. Let Dad get in on the act, too — encourage him to talk to your baby.

Moving around

Sept. 11: I had my third prenatal visit this afternoon.  I actually had it scheduled yesterday, but I totally spaced the appointment.  Good thing I’m not in charge of anything really important right now…I think my brain needs a break!
Dr. Flannery said that everything looked good.  She found the heartbeat right away, and the little one’s heart was pounding away at about 160 beats/minute.  Dr. Flannery thought that it was in the midst of a really active session…which would make sense since I felt it “plip” inside of me a couple times while I was in the waiting room.
I scheduled an ultrasound for Tuesday, September 25…two weeks from today.  Bryan and I are so excited for that appointment.  We’re looking forward to getting a glimpse of the little one inside and hoping to learn the gender.  Hard to believe that in two weeks, the pregnancy will be around it’s half-way point!

I’ve got a sweet potato!

Sept. 9: I can’t say that I’ve focused a lot on my pregnancy the last couple weeks, but in the mornings when I first wake up, I do so enjoy lying quietly in bed, spending a few moments focusing on and sending love to this little being who is growing inside of me.  I continue to feel faint bubble-burst like movements every few days.  It’s also been nice to know that we have something to look forward to as we move past the sadness of the last several weeks.
I should have an ultrasound sometime this month, so hopefully at that point we’ll find out the gender and get a little peak at the “teeny tiny” as we currently call him/her.

The BabyCenter.com update for Week 18 is as follows:

Head to bottom, your baby is approximately 5 1/2 inches long
(about the length of a large sweet potato), and she weighs almost 7 ounces. She’s busy flexing her arms and legs — movements that you’ll likely start noticing more and more. Myelin (a protective covering) is beginning to form around her nerves, a process that will continue for a year after she’s born. If you’re having a girl, her uterus and fallopian tubes are formed and in place. If your baby is a boy, his genitals are noticeable, though he may hide them from you during an ultrasound.

Onion or uterine parasite?

Sept. 1: I’m now at 17 weeks of pregnancy, and there have been quite a few times in the last week that I felt a little bubble-like sensation.  I’m pretty sure it’s the little one starting to say hello.  This has been a really easy pregnancy thus-far.  Andrew seems to enjoy saying good morning to the “teeny tiny” in Mama’s belly, and he’s doing a lot of baby roll-playing these days.
I have my next prenatal appointment in a couple weeks.  Not particulary showing yet, but I seem to remember that it was just after week 20 that I really “popped” with Andrew.  This little person is keeping me hungry and happy.  I am enjoying this part of pregnancy where things are pretty low-key.  One of my neighbors is due any moment.  The anticipation!

Here’s the Week 17 Update from Babycenter.com:

Your baby weighs about 5 ounces now,
and he’s around 5 inches long — about the size of a large onion. The umbilical cord, his lifeline to the placenta, is growing stronger and thicker. Your baby can move his joints, and his skeleton — until now, rubbery cartilage — is starting to harden into bone.
Some of it will remain cartilage for years after he’s born. A newborn’s skeleton has 300 parts (a combination of bone and cartilage). As your child grows, some of these parts harden and fuse together. By the time your baby reaches adulthood, he’ll have just 206 bones.

Because we could all use a laugh

Sept. 1: This Onion article, Woman Overjoyed by Giant Uterine Parasite has given us a lot of laughter in the last few days.  Thought you would enjoy it too.

Woman Overjoyed By Giant Uterine Parasite

August 27, 2007 |

Issue 43•35

NEW BRIGHTON, MN—Immediately following a physician’s examination for her menstrual cessation, 37-year-old events planner Janice Crowley told reporters Tuesday that she is “ecstatic” with her diagnosis of a rapidly growing intrauterine parasite.

“I’m so happy!” Crowley said of the golf ball–sized, nutrient-sapping organism embedded deep in the wall of her uterus. “I
was beginning to think this would never happen to me.”

Crowley’s condition is common and well-documented, with millions of women between the ages of 12 and 50 diagnosed every year. Studies have shown that while the disorder strikes without prejudice across racial, ethnic, and class lines, it bears a very high correlation with the consumption of alcohol at the time of infection. Although there is a low-cost daily medication available that can prevent the harmful symbiote with 99 percent efficacy, many women inexplicably choose not to use it.

Symptoms of potential uterine blight are wide-ranging and can include nausea, vomiting, constipation, irritability, emotional instability, swollen or tender breasts, massive weight gain, severe loss of bone density, fatigue, insomnia, excessive flatulence, hemorrhoids, vaginal tearing, and involuntary defecation.

“I can’t wait to tell my parents!” said Crowley, who added that she is reasonably certain she contracted the parasite while on a romantic Caribbean cruise with her husband in May, most likely during a brief sojourn in the Virgin Islands.

“I think it must have happened in that little seaside villa on St. Thomas,” said Crowley in an attempt to pinpoint precisely how long ago her endoparasitic ailment began. “Or maybe the night we went to that secluded beach on Tortola.”

Crowley has reportedly refused a simple inexpensive outpatient procedure that would completely rid her of the detrimental organism in about an hour, effectively sparing her from the host of complications that will burden her and her family for the rest of their lives.

“We’re thinking of naming [the parasite] either Robert or Lisa,” Crowley said. “I just couldn’t be more excited!”

Among the many signs that Crowley’s condition is deteriorating rapidly is a frequent compulsion to consume foods in unorthodox and often revolting combinations.

“For some reason I can’t stop eating olives dipped in chocolate cake frosting,” Crowley said cheerfully. “And the other day I just had to have sardines with butter and jam. Crazy!”

In what will likely be the most painful experience of her life, Crowley will eventually require hospitalization in order to remove the giant entity. There is at least a 15 percent chance doctors will be forced to cut the parasite directly from her abdomen, a procedure that would result in severe trauma and scarring. If Crowley survives the operation, she will have to cope with the minimum 18 additional years of emotional and financial drain that is typically associated with this parasite, as well as irrevocable harm to her toned and relatively youthful body, This includes scarring to her breasts and stomach, and a series of visibly pronounced veins along her thighs and groin.

“Just think, in a couple of months I’ll be able to feel it kicking,” Crowley said of the creature that will soon be writhing restlessly inside her, increasingly and disproportionately robbing her of her strength and stamina. “It’s truly a miracle.”

Though Crowley is otherwise healthy, the fact that she is in her late 30s makes it much more likely that the parasite has already split and multiplied within her womb.

It’s an avocado!

Aug. 24: The baby-on-the-way is growing in leaps and bounds.  Last week, they told me it was 2.5 oz, and this week (week 16), it added a whole additional ounce.  I’ve been feeling really good for the last month or so.  Actually, my regular jeans fit me again.  They didn’t fit well starting at about week 8, but then a couple weeks back, I think that things moved up, so at least temporarily, I can wear my pants even with belts again.  Not for long, I bet!  My appetite has picked up, and I’m consuming lots of calories for this little one to grow on:)

Here’s the update from BabyCenter.com
At 4 1/2 inches long (head to bottom) and 3 1/2 ounces, your baby is about the size of an avocado.
In the next three weeks, she’ll go through a tremendous growth spurt, doubling her weight and adding inches to her length. The patterning of her scalp has begun, though her hair isn’t recognizable yet. Although closed, her eyes are moving (slowly), and she’s even started growing toenails. Her fingernails and toenails will continue to grow, so don’t be surprised if she needs them trimmed soon after birth.

There’s a heartbeat inside!

August 14: I had my second prenatal appointment this afternoon, and I got to hear the wee one’s heart beat.  Click hear, and you can hear it too. Baby’s hearts beat is about 150 times per minute.  I’m fourteen weeks into the pregnancy, and so far, everything is going well:)

Here’s the week 14 update from Babycenter.com

Welcome to your second trimester! This is a big milestone because it marks the end of a critical development period.
All the basic structures of your baby’s body are formed now. Head to bottom, your baby is just 3 1/2 inches long — about the length of a lemon — and weighs about 1 1/2 ounces. She’s starting to develop an ultrafine, downy covering of hair all over her body called lanugo.
Thanks to brain impulses, her little facial muscles are getting a
workout as she squints, frowns, and grimaces. She can grasp now, too, and she may be able to suck her thumb.

New baby on the way?

June 6: I’m not going to publish this until we make our news public, but it appears that Andrew may be a big brother!   I took a pregnancy test on Thursday, and it came back negative.  However, when I tried it again on Sunday, June 3, there it was.  A faint blue plus on the pregnancy test.  In a stunned state, I said, “Oh my god!”  Andrew then jumped around on the bed proclaiming, “Oh, my god! Oh, my god!”  Good thing I hadn’t exclaimed anything more colorful!

The rest of our day was a great one.  We went on a trip out to Blue Mounds/Cave of the Mounds, to Mount Horeb (where I poked around in a bookstore for books on siblings and having a second child), and then over to the Mustard Museum.  I’ve been a little surpised how this new develoment has created within me a new, fierce wave of love and devotion for Andrew.  I find myself even more tender and loving toward him, and I think he’s just the best little person around.

Starting a new pregnancy is really different this time.  I still have feelings of disbelief and shock and find myself saying things to bryan like, “apparently we’re going to have a new baby.  ha!”  It just seems so odd that everything feels just the same as it was last week, but a little plus on some random stick that I bought at Walgreens foretells some major changes on the way.  This time, however, I have seen and felt first hand how a pregnancy progresses.  If it’s at all like last time, I’ll have zero symptoms until late July.

According to my caluclations, the baby’s due date is February 3 or Feb. 8 (depending on how I calculated it).  That’s just not too far away!  At this point, I think we’re going to wait until we’re close to 12 weeks before sharing out news.  I just made my first appointment with my doctor for July 3  Now that I’ve gotten used to the idea for a few days, I sort of want to start telling people.  But last time, I really enojyed (especially in retrospect) having that period when it was just a secret between me and Bryan.  A wonderful little secret.

Amidst my flood of thoughts, I have several fears.  What if this pregnancy terminates?  It happens a lot of the time. How do I tell Heather about this?  She so wants a baby…    Then there are more practical concerns.  We were supposed to go skiing with Bryan’s family in February.  Gosh darn it!  I don’t think that will happen!  I wonder if we should tell them earlier so they can change plans.  And then there’s my concern about February in general.  That’s a cold, illness-prone month for a baby to be born.  I don’t think I’ll get out walking much like I could with Andrew.  Oh well!

I’ve also started sending out feelers to the baby.  I feel like a mama whale singing down into the deep waters for her little one.  “Hello! Is anyone there?”  I felt Andrew’s presence so strongly while he lived inside of me.  It took a while, though.  I mean, at this point, the baby is just mostly a bundle of cells.  Maybe by late this summer, I’ll start to get a sense for who this new little person is.  It feels good to open up my heart to the new little wonder growing in my belly.  There’s a channel of love and contentment that’s started flowing from me to the wee one.  Now, no bigger than a sesame seed, I hope it already feels loved.

So that’s my update.  Big news!  Big changes!  What a wonderful time.
~Althea