"the second trimester is the best!"

14 weeks today! Hard to believe that starting tomorrow I can read about what happens in Week 15 without skipping ahead. Time went so slowly at the beginning but now I feel like we are starting to pick up speed. Partially it's because yesterday marked the six-month mark before the due date. That's right. Six months. That is not that long and we have SO much to do! Also I have no idea what I even need to do. There are all these books on being pregnant and about babies, but I spent 45 minutes at Borders yesterday and couldn't find one book that told you how to get prepared. I know I need so many things but since I've never done this before, I don't even know what those things are. It seems like every day I come across some device or product that is apparently essential, but that I didn't even know existed (ex. nipple cream, bottle sanitization products, etc.).

As for the title of this post, everywhere I read and everyone I talked to kept telling me that "the second trimester is the best!" I subconsciously took this to mean that the second trimester was closer to "normal." Ha! All it means is that the symptoms are not quite as annoying as the ones before and after. I am still sleeping at least 9.5 hours a day, which I thought would get better but now am a little worried that maybe I am slightly anemic (we don't eat a lot of meat, and my typical meat intake was mostly in the form of cold cuts, which are now on the "NO" list). Don't get me wrong, I am thankful every day that I am pregnant but that doesn't mean it is *entirely* enjoyable. :)

So of all the dumb pregnancy related thoughts that have flitted through my head, one of the dumbest occurred earlier this week. As I was getting dressed one morning, I thought to myself "geez, it's like I'm getting a tiny bit bigger every single day!" Ummm....duh? Even right after I thought it, I was like "um, that's because you are, genius." Maybe I can blame this on "pregnancy brain"? :)

cruising (12w5d)

Even though I mostly started this blog as an outlet for myself, I realized this morning that I better post soon or the handful of people who actually read my blabbering might wonder what happened to me. :) Anyhow...

You're reading that correctly - 12 weeks + 5 days! Woo hoo! After hitting the 12 week mark last week, we went in for a quick appointment so we could finally hear the heartbeat. We heard it, and it was perfect, and thus I had to uphold my end of the bargain and let the secret out. It's been KILLING my parents and in-laws to keep this secret for the past two months and they were finally allowed to tell the world as of last Friday. I was happy we waited though because I called some other family members and friends over the weekend and I was actually happy to do so! (instead of cringing inside and worrying)

It was so cool how excited some of my family and friends were to hear our big news. It also made everything more real. I mean, yikes, we'll have a baby in just six months! I am typically a very Type-A organized person and there is A LOT that needs to happen relatively soon. As soon as I am done with my finals this semester, Operation Baby Prep begins in earnest. And btw, focusing on fricking school right now is practically impossible. Who cares about memorizing income tax code sections when you can contemplate buying things like this? (um, hello, puppies!! so cute!)

the (first) home stretch

I'm 11w4d today - that magic day when I hit 12 weeks is Thursday. I am really excited about reaching this milestone but also starting to get nervous again. There is part of me that is just waiting for someone to jump out and say "just kidding! you thought you'd be so lucky that this would work the first time??!? muahahahaha!" The rational part of my brain knows this is stupid. Every ultrasound has been great, at the last one at 10 weeks the little one was healthy and growing along perfectly - even moving around like crazy.

Despite all this, I can't shake this vague sense that something could be wrong and I wouldn't even know right away. I think part of the problem is that I don't know how to handle good things happening to me. I've had so many awful things happen to me in my lifetime that it's much more comfortable to deal with crisis than it is to be content with life.

To help allay my fears and hopefully allow myself to truly be excited about this, I made a technically unnecessary appointment for Friday with my doctor just to hear the heartbeat. We didn't actually get to hear it last time since it was still pretty early and I think if I hear the heartbeat once we've hit the 12 week mark, I'll feel like we're out of the woods. I thought for sure my doctor would need some reason for an extraneous appointment but apparently I didn't even need to ask - I just needed to make the appt. Thank god there have been many neurotic pregnant women before me!

In the "yes, we have progress" department - I bought my first maternity clothing this weekend. I've been wearing the same pair of low-rise jeans for the past several weeks and decided it was time. I think I actually have a bump now! It's small but it's definitely a different shape than the glorified roll of chubbiness I've been sporting for the past month. :)

No reason to worry about the heartbeat appt on Friday but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed just in case.

10w2d

We had another appointment yesterday morning and it was awesome. :) The appointment was mostly just for us to discuss different kinds of prenatal testing, and also so we could meet our actual MD (up until now, all of my contact has been with my NP). We actually didn't discuss the testing very long, as it turns out DH and I are relatively well-informed about these things already.

So then Dr. N asked if we had any more questions, and I asked if we could hear the heartbeat yet. He had the doppler thing sitting right next to him and says "sure!" (I was like, "really, that's the thing we're using to hear the heartbeat?!?" it's so primitive!! it looks like something a news reporter from 1975 would use to tape interviews with witnesses. anyhow...) And of course he couldn't find the heartbeat. He told me even before he started that if we couldn't hear it, I shouldn't panic. So then after a few minutes of not being able to find it, he again told me not to panic and that we'd do another ultrasound. It's funny but I actually wasn't panicking - I've been getting bigger and still have lots of symptoms and part of me really was sure that our embie was still okay.

The ultrasound was amazing! (it was also fantastic because we are done with the probe. yay!) Even though I couldn't immediately see the beating heart on the screen, embie was moving around A LOT. So I knew everything was okay, because tiny beings without beating hearts cannot kick like that! The tech was then able to find the heart and the rate was perfect. Dr. N came with us and told us everything looked excellent. The measurements were also perfect, measuring exactly 10w1d. I am so thankful that embie was hiding from us with the doptone so we would get to sneak a peek again. :)

I finally feel like it's okay to call our little one a baby because that is definitely a little human growing in me. Yes, reality is really starting to hit me. Up until yesterday, there was still a big part of me stuck in "this isn't really happening" mode. I'm also starting to show a tiny bit, which is exciting and scary (my brother yesterday: "you're getting fat." Me: (unamused silence) Brother: "well...umm... not really fat....you know what i mean." Me: *sigh* Clearly my brother has never been married!).

Despite the good news yesterday, I am still waiting until we hit 12 weeks to tell everyone else. This is driving my parents and in-laws crazy but it's less than two weeks away so they can suck it up. It's not even that I'm worried as much about miscarriage as I was before, it's just that I need another two weeks to get used to this whole "yup, there is a living human growing inside of me" thing.