A bump-- finally! (I think...) and movement (definitely)

I think I'm starting to finally show a little bump. As usual, I've been a little slow on this one. My clothes almost all still fit, and no one at work who I haven't told has even looked at me sideways.

Twice in my life, I have felt like I could feel things happening with my body that I had never felt before. One was during the 2007 ALCS, Red Sox great comeback vs. the Indians, when I swear I could actually feel the blood coursing through my veins (talk about high blood pressure). The second time was today.

I've been eating and/or hungry almost non-stop since Friday afternoon. This morning, we went out to the garden early, trying to beat the heat. When we got back, my belly was aching a little. Not like a food poisoning belly ache. Like a-- I've done too many exercises with my lower abs-- belly ache. Except that I haven't exercised in the past 3 days. This was honestly a brand-new feeling I've never had in my life. I think that I am actually feeling the gentle tug of my lower abs expanding as my belly grows. Lots of people say they popped overnight. Is it my time? I hope so. I'm over 4 months, and you still wouldn't be able to tell anything was different unless you see me every day.

The baby has also started moving. It's pretty exciting. She has been pretty active. I can feel both the "butterflies" feeling where she seems to be just swimming around in there, and also distinct punches and kicks, possibly headbutts. I have heard that babies tend to be more active when the mother is resting or sedentary, and to move less when she is active around because the mother's movement lulls them. This seems about right for our little one. She is very active when I am sitting in my chair at work all day not moving, but less active when I'm in the garden or otherwise active. This weekend, she hasn't been moving very much at all. I think she's concentrating on growing. But she did raise her fist on Friday night after Youk's walk-off home run in the 11th, and had a couple of kicks during yesterday's game. She may be Youk's youngest fan, since it always seems to be when he's doing something that she goes nuts.

VH is very cute. Every time I tell him she's moving, he puts his hand on my belly. He really, really wants to feel something and is so jealous that I get to feel it and he doesn't. He says he wants to get kicked too. :) So I've been putting on the pocket fetal doppler more often so he can at least hear her heart beat, and assure him that eventually, he'll be able to feel it too. At that point, I'll probably be wishing she would stop!

And by the way, no we haven't found out the sex. We just keep calling her "she".

Short people get pregnant too!

You've seen quite a few posts on here about how I want to be a stylish pregnant woman and mommy, they way I haven't been before. Well, over the last two weeks I have made my first couple of shopping excursions for maternity clothes. It seems that being a stylish mama if you are under 5 feet tall is just as difficult as being a stylish young petite not-pregnant woman. Apparently, the maternity clothes-makers are even less aware that there are short pregnant women!

On lots of blogs, and from other people, I hear about how women pass maternity clothes back and forth. That's something I don't think I'm going to be able to do-- I've never really been able to share or trade clothes with my friends because I am so much shorter. I did inherit a blouse from a friend who is even tinier than me (yes, there are people who are tinier than me, and I am not even talking about a "little person"). She said it was a blouse she hardly wears because it makes her look pregnant, so she thought it might work. I was able to wear it a couple of times but of course, my chest expanded much earlier than my belly, so anything with buttons has become a problem.

The fortunate thing is that my belly still isn't very visible. This, combined with the fact that most of my pants were too big for me to begin with, means that I am having no trouble with my pants (yet). I did buy two "bella band" devices. These are basically just bands of lycra that you put around your waist. You can wear your pre-pregnancy pants without buttoning or zippering them, and you put the lycra on top so they don't fall down, they lay flat, and no one can see that they are unzipped. It's a cool concept. I got one knock-off from Motherhood Maternity ("one size fits most") and one from Target "from the makers of the original Bella Band", which actually came S-M-L. I like the concept but I'm not sure if it's going to work for me. The bands are so wide that they are literally like a tube top on me-- they go from my chest all the way down to my hips. I know that once my belly starts to get bigger, it will take up some of that fabric, but I am afraid that once my belly gets big enough to take up enough fabric that I won't be able to wear the pre-pregnancy pants anymore anyway! But we'll see...

From the recently pregnant on here, any suggestions?

The upsides to this: this is a temporary state, at least. And really, it's not NEARLY as complicated as trying to buy baby stuff! We've been shopping for that recently too and it makes my head spin.

Second Trimester Style

In part, I am excited for the belly because it will be proof to the world that I really am pregnant. So many times I have wanted to ask a perfectly fit 20-something man if he would be willing to give me his seat on the metro because I think I might collapse from exhaustion at any moment, but I haven't because I am sure he would think I was totally lame and if I say I'm pregnant, no one would believe me.

The other reason for wanting the belly-- New Clothes! I haven't bought new clothes in a very long time. Mostly because I am too cheap. But recently, it's been because I know I won't be able to wear them for very long so it doesn't seem like a great investment. Once I have a belly, I will have a NEED for new clothes and then the expense will be justified. Can't wait.

Even though I am totally not stylish normally, I am hoping to use this life-changing event to become the modern and stylish woman I have always wanted to be, starting with pretty maternity clothes. I have been following this blog of a woman who appears to be about my age, who's been blogging about her style for 5 years. Got pregnant last spring, had a baby in January, so now she has a LOT of posts about maternity and nursing fashion. If you're interested, you can check out a guest post she did here. She's good-- she's how I found out that Old Navy carries petites online. Her regular blog is here.

Leaving the first trimester...

I am celebrating the last week of my first trimester. This is another bizarre artefact of the way pregnancy weeks are counted, since they count from before conception. So you would think that the first trimester would be 12 weeks or approximately 3 months (hence, "trimester"). Well, you would be wrong. The first trimester is actually 14 weeks. The last two I think are only 12 weeks. So at 13 weeks and one day, I am on my way to Trimester #2 and looking forward to it.

It's amazing, it's like someone plugged my electricity back in. I have noticed that in the past week or so, I am much less tired. I had a work trip to North Carolina last week, one to Atlanta this week, and one to Cincinnati next week, but I am no where near as tired as I would have expected to be 3 or 4 weeks ago when I was sleeping all weekend, every weekend. My mood is better although I do get emotional all of a sudden and for absolutely no reason. This has only happened a few times and seems to be linked to being overtired. The good part is that it has not unintentionally misdirected at VH, yet. :) I'm sure that time will come sooner than either of us wants it to.

My stomach has been a little bit perkier and more receptive to different kinds of food (I even had chicken for lunch today!), and I am usually able to concentrate a bit better than I have been in the past few weeks. So, overall, this second trimester thing could be good. Wooly Bear, I know you are suffering but it gives you something to look forward to very soon.

And now, a Baby Status Update: We used the home fetal doppler last night to listen to the heartbeat. She's still in there but was hiding. I guess maybe she was resting when we were bothering her. According to BabyCenter.com, she's a whole 3inches at this point! No wonder my belly started to pop a little. She has fingerprints and can pee. I've been trying to figure out the logistics of the last part because they didn't cover that one in my reproductive health classes in grad school. I need to get myself a book...

Why do I call her "she" all the time?

A reader (can't believe anyone actually reads this) recently reminded me that I had said I would write about why I-- and actually, both of us-- always refer to the baby as a girl. This could be a VERY dangerous habit for us to get into. I did at one point apologize to the fetus, in case it turns out to be a boy. I don't think he'll hold it against me. I haven't bought anything baby-pink for him to wear yet, so it's not that bad.

It all started a LONG time ago, a few years ago when we started talking about the "someday" when we would have kids. I don't know why, but I and everyone around us just had this hunch that our first child would be a girl. We've stuck to it. And when I came out of my friend the MD's bathroom in January, holding the piece of white plastic with the line through it, one of the first thing out of VH's mouth was a girl's name. (NB: We had messed around for a couple of years throwing different girl baby names out there. The one he threw out kind of came out of nowhere. It may end up being the baby's name, just because that's weird and maybe it some sort of fate acting. But we have by no means decided on a name. I don't believe in choosing the baby's name until you've seen the baby.)

Lately, VH has been less inclined to call it a girl. Maybe he's starting to doubt our initial instinct, or maybe he's just trying not to assume, I'm not sure. But my whole family still refers to it as a girl, and my mom told me that my gramma hasn't been so certain about the sex of a baby since a second cousin of mine was born 40-something years ago-- and she was right then. I am trying to be better about being gender neutral but I haven't been too successful.

This Saturday I have another monthly appointment. I will be 17 weeks. I think they are going to give me the referral for the 16-20 week ultrasound. That is the first time they can tell the sex of the baby. They can't always tell. The baby has to be cooperating and willing to show them what they need to see. But we will have to decide very soon whether we want to know. This is still up in the air. Thoughts, opinions, advice? Take this opportunity, because on this topic, I haven't really been asking too many opinions!

NOTE: I started this post on 3/16 but finished it on 4/14-- it still posted under the original date so sorry for the lack of chronological order!

12 1/2 Weeks

When I get the pictures off my camera (probably tonight), I will send an update of what my belly looks like. Can't really tell anything yet when I have clothes on but it kind of looks a little like maybe I ate too much. I have noticed that just in the past week, I can't suck it in as much as I've always been able to. There's just a little round area that won't go in. So I guess that's the baby. Maybe no one really cares about whether I have a baby bump yet but I know that when my friends were pregnant, their bellies fascinated me. I tried not to let on but am not really good at faking. My first friend who had a baby never sent me a single picture of herself pregnant, even though I asked for them. I'm sure it's just because it wasn't really that huge a deal, I really hope it wasn't because she felt badly about her baby belly. I never had the guts to ask her. Since I was around My Friend The MD a lot when she was pregnant, I never had to ask for a picture and she even let me touch the belly on occasion. I think that for me, it's visual proof that there is a living being inside there and it makes it more real. It's very hard for me to really "feel pregnant" when I don't really look much different. But anyway, you can go back to my first post and compare my body at 5 weeks with my body at 12 1/2 weeks. Some of the change I think is just flab since I have been so tired over the past few weeks I have done very little exercise.

I got a picture!

I did decide to have the nuchal translucency screen. It is a non-invasive test where they measure this space that shows up behind the baby's neck on the ultrasound. You can see it, it looks like a little pouch shaped like a banana. Apparently, this is a little sac behind the baby's neck that is filled with fluid. Babies with certain chromosomal abnormalities (including Down Syndrome) have more fluid than babies who do not. It is a screen, not a diagnostic test, which means that you can show more fluid, which means you are at higher risk, but they can't actually tell if your baby has a chromosomal abnormality without doing an invasive diagnostic test. We are both fortunate to not have any close family history of chromosomal abnormalities, so we are low risk. They combine the fluid measurement with a blood test to check for the levels of two hormones; together, the two test results can determine an elevated risk.

In addition to this, they take pictures of the baby and measure the baby's growth, which helps them pin down fetal age and due date. They also make a visual check for the heartbeat and listen to it to determine the heart rate. They do an internal and external ultrasound and take internal pictures of the ovaries and measure the cervix. I think all of this stuff is really cool, but then again, I have a degree in reproductive health, so I'm probably pretty abnormal.

We are not concerned about really knowing about chromosomal problems or other types of screens, just like we probably will ask to not be told the baby's sex. We are not people who feel the need to use all the technology just because it's there--nature will take it's course and there are some things we will just find out when the baby is born. But, that said, there were two reasons I decided to do this test. First, I wanted a picture, which is really stupid and an irresponsible use of healthcare dollars. But I wanted one. Secondly, I am hoping that seeing the baby on the screen, knowing she's in there, and knowing that her growth is progressing as it should will help the nightmares go away. Hearing the heartbeat worked for about three nights. I'm hoping to get a week out of this one!

The growth is fine, exactly 12 weeks which is exactly what the original dating said. Heart rate 167, which she said is normal. The baby was moving around so much it was incredible. I know I'm not supposed to feel her moving yet but I swear, every once in a while at night, when I'm just lying still in bed, I can feel things happening. This confirmed that for me-- she is dancing to her own music in there! The technician had trouble getting pictures because she was moving so much. The nuchal translucency looks good, she said, but we won't really know elevated risk until they get the blood test back. Overall, this was a great experience, completely non-invasive (although the internal exam was a little intimidating-- explaining why would be TMI but anyone who has had it knows what I am talking about) and low-risk (unlike amnioscentisis), and I have a picture!