Monday, November 28, 2011

The first "suspicions"

This afternoon, my assistant informed me that 2 of the speech therapists asked her if I was pregnant.  Because "her belly wouldn't look like that if she was just gaining weight."  I guess this is for real for real: I have officially crossed into the realm of causing others to be suspicious, and it's not just all that Thanksgiving turkey talking.

But of course, I'm sure all that turkey helped a little.  :)

Sunday, November 27, 2011

What's been happening in the past month.....

Here I am at almost 17 weeks.....I'd say an update is long overdue right?  Ack.  The problem is I have so much I want to write about that it overwhelms me and I keep putting it off.  Now I have too much to write about so I'll have to give a slightly condensed version of what's been happening:


The NT scan:
We had the NT scan on October 31.  It was nice to get a long look at our little one.  Although I must say, I did actually get bored while the u/s tech was taking some of the measurements.  I seriously could watch the little hands and feet all day instead of looking at the brain lol!  The good thing is that they burned a DVD of the u/s so we can watch it whenever we like!  As far as screening results, everything was looking good and right on track.  The only thing abnormal was small jugular lymphatic sacs, but the doctor said that is not very significant since there are no other abnormalities, and this is something that will usually go away later on in the pregnancy.
Also.....the u/s tech asked us if we wanted to know the sex if it was possible to tell, so we said yes.  Sure enough, when we got to that part of the u/s, we could definitely see something.  I thought that 13 weeks was still a little too early to tell, but the tech and the doctor were so certain that they put "male fetus" on the report.  So now we are thinking blue and arguing over trying to pick a boy name.  ;)

The new OB:
I went for a consultation with a new OB the week after my NT scan.  DH wasn't able to come with me so I went alone.  But that's ok: for the most part it was uneventful other than getting to hear the heartbeat on the Doppler.  I'm not sure yet how I feel about this OB.  I was trying not to judge the book by its cover and let the fact that he is reeeeeally old get to me.   He was just a bit odd, but never did or said anything that made me uncomfortable.  I did ask a couple questions about his views on induction and laboring options, and his views seem in agreement with mine.  I know I still have plenty of time to switch OBs if I need to.


Now let's talk about.......


The sickness:
Well, vomiting is at a running total of 6 times so far.  Hopefully I will have no more of that.  But it usually happens in the morning when I haven't eaten enough yet and/or I get grossed out by a smell (i.e. the kitchen trash that DH didn't take out) or even just the thought of something gross.  Just the other day, I almost threw up again. I had just gotten up and hadn't eaten just yet and thought about how sick I felt that it made me gag once.......the gag made me run to the toilet and I kept gagging but fortunately I had nothing in my stomach to expel.
Also, most of my food aversions have gone away.  I am finally able to eat a little bit of cooked greens again, although I'm not back at the point where I go "Hmmm, I think I'll have a can of spinach today!"  Still a bit grossed out by smelling seafood, but really I don't like seafood anyway.  I have managed to eat tilapia one time so far, but still definitely going to limit my fish intake.
(By the way, DH and I keep arguing over whether or not mayonnaise/sauces made with mayonnaise should be safe or not.  I can't find any really conclusive answers on the internet.  Anybody know???)

Sleep:
Isn't it too early in the pregnancy to be so uncomfortable?  I did buy one of those pregnancy body pillows and I like it.  But the annoying thing is I can't sleep on one side all night.  I am always waking up with a burning pain in my hip on whichever side I'm lying on, like a pressure sore.  So then I have to turn over and try to take the whole body pillow with me, or sit up to flip the pillow and then turn over.  Sometimes I just say forget the pillow, but then I am still uncomfy.  What the heck am I going to do in the 3rd tri??? I don't know.

The belly:
For the last couple weeks, DH has been kinda obsessed with feeling my uterus.  He says it feels like a balloon.  He also says that I'm starting to "show" a little bit, and my co-workers who know about it say the same thing.  I'm still not quite sure that what they're seeing is actually a "baby bump" and not just a little plump gut, lol.  I don't plan to make any kind of "announcement" at work; I'll just let the pregnancy announce itself.  If the different pants I'm wearing haven't given it away, I'm pretty sure that once I start showing up to work in sweater dresses and leggings, people will know something's up.  (That's actually how I figured out a co-worker was last year: "Hey.....she never wears dresses to work....")  I'm also curious to see how long it will take my students to figure it out, and who will be the first one to say something.


And in other news:
We are moving!  And at the same time, we are not moving.  I originally planned to try to find a place to move into in January, and had been keeping my eye on craigslist to get an idea of what we could find.  But I really like the area we are in and don't want to move far from it because it is such a convenient location.  Right down the street from us, there is UCLA housing for grad students/families.  It looked really nice because the buildings are newer, and plus it has a playground onsite.  But, I know that with campus housing comes very long waiting lists.  Plus when I looked at the pictures online, it actually seemed like the space was smaller than what we'd like.
So I'd been looking around on craigslist, but then I noticed that our building had the "2 bedrooms" sign out front.  After going to view one other apt in the area that ended up being too small, plus a difficult parking situation,  we decided to ask our landlord about taking a look at the 2br apt in our building.....And....we....love it!  It has 1 & 1/2 bathrooms, tons of closet/storage space (including an outside storage locker, which we didn't get with this unit), newer carpet and newer tile flooring (the floor in our current kitchen looks like something from the 70s, seriously), and even a balcony with a nice view.  Of course, the cost is a bit more, but DH & I talked about it and decided we can make this work, and it will definitely be worth it.  He signed the contract last week and the landlord went ahead and gave us the keys so we can start moving stuff at our own pace.  The best part is that we literally just have to move stuff across the other side of the courtyard.  No packing.  No stairs to go up and down.  This will be the easiest move EVER.