10 week ultrasound

So I went to the hospital on Monday to have my ultrasound. I swear, this was one of the best experiences I've had. And I think, just based on this, I will never, ever listen to anyone who ever says anything negative about an experience they've had. Let me tell you why...

Firstly, the whole drinking water thing. Maybe I'm just lucky or maybe not. But I really didn't have that much trouble drinking the 1 litre of water they asked me to. I simply grabbed a 1L Nalgene bottle (those things are great) and filled it up. Got in the car with John and sipped the water all the way to the hospital (we live about a 20 min drive away). I started drinking around 9:15am (u/s was at 10am) and I finished just as we checked in to the u/s department. And there was a method to my madness and it did work because the tech even commented on how nice and full my bladder looks. So a word to the wise - don't start drinking the water till about 45-60min before the u/s and take it easy. I had no discomfort during the u/s and didn't have to rush to find a bathroom till about 20 minutes after the fact. So life was good!

And I have to say how wonderful the tech was. She was super nice and tried to point out the baby's features on the u/s. She said that everything looked normal and gave us an update on the babe and the EDD according to the u/s. No horror stories...

So I have to say, if all my experiences with this pregnancy will be this positive... YAY!!! Let's do it again. LOL!!

I'm happy though - I'm going to give birth at the same hospital that I had this u/s done at and so far, I've had only positive experiences there. The last time I was there was in 2004 for my breast reduction and I had the same, wonderful experience. So I'm feeling pretty pumped about all of this.

10 week ultrasound

30mm CRL

heartrate = 172

Back to Basics....

I think it's amazing how we seem to revert back to the basics when we're pregnant... Or maybe it's just me. But it seems like my life is now revolving around eating, sleeping and pooping. Seriously. Maybe not in that order. But I'm taking pleasure out of all three. Hmmm... I wonder what Freud would have to say about that? Stuck in my oral and anal stages of development.

I had a ridiculous hotdog craving today at work... starting at 9am!! I had a staff meeting that lasted about 2 hours and all I could think about through the whole thing was that I needed to have a hotdog or two for lunch. Luckily I did find a restaurant across from work that sells yummy hotdogs so I was able to satisfy that craving. How bizarre.

What to write... It's been busy crazy hectic at work these last few days. One of my good friends and coworkers is sick with some norwalk-like virus thingy so she's been gone for the last two days and I've been covering her caseload. Luckily she's very organized and it's been pretty easy to do coverage for her... but I'm still behind in my casenotes now and I do have to enter two or three more before the end of the week. Gawd I hate paperwork sometimes. Even better, there's another coworker who's... odd... I think that's the nicest way to put it. Anyways, I "caught" her in a lie on Tuesday but I can't confront her about her lie because I know the truth from a third source... but she has now lost any credibility that she had left with me. Oh the drama... sometimes I just can't stand working with primarily women. Other days it's great. What can you do eh.

On the baby front, I'm starting to feel much better - still don't feel like I can eat pizza or drink coffee but other than that, I think my food aversions are going away. I actually had a MacDonald's cheeseburger yesterday... to be honest though, even thinking of that now is kind of making me queasy. I'm starting to have cravings for really salty things like french fries and yes, pickles. Oh the joys.

** ** ** TMI Alert ** ** **

And I felt so constipated the other day... I'm back to normal again today but geez, that was such not a good feeling. I'm going to have to make sure I eat enough fruit and drink enough water every day. I'm not impressed by how much my bowels have slowed down - not to mean I'm not regular but just how much the consistency has changed. Yup it's much more thicker and tarry. Sorry dear reader but it's true. It's just weird - I wonder how long this lasts.

Oh so tired.... It seems like my nausea is finally letting up (yayness!!) and is being replaced by sleepiness. I'm so happy that the nausea is letting up. This is so wonderful. The thought of pizza is becoming less yucky by the day - so I might actually be able to eat it in the next 2 weeks. I don't seem to be developing anymore food aversions. I'm still totally disgusted by some odors - I put the garbage out over the weekend and actually ended up puking and (yes, this is gross) DH's farts made me gag too. LOL But other than that, I'm doing a bit better.

Of course this makes me all neurotically worried that there's something wrong with the baby (because I'm not as sick as I was before) but common sense is telling me that's just me being crazy. I did step on the scale this evening and got a whopping 158 lbs! I'm usually 150 lb in the morning first thing and maybe 155 lb at the end of the day. So now I'm curious to see what I'll weight tomorrow morning first thing. I can't believe I tipped the scales at 158! Yikes.

My first two Bella Bands came in the post the other day and I'm loving them - I truly can't do my pants up without getting a muffin top so I'm loving these bands. I got another parcel notice today too so I'm hoping this is my third Bella Band... then I'll be set. :)

So I'm getting all excited because this time next week I'll have had my first ultrasound and hopefully an u/s picture of the babe!!! I really can't believe it. Honestly, this pregnancy is still a bit surreal for me and I can't wait to have something concrete in my hands... after that I'll be waiting with bated breath for the first movements and the u/s that will hopefully reveal boy or girl!

And here are some pictures of our first two "babies." Aren't they the sweetest? The tabby's name is Twix and she's about 5 and the black & white DMH is Cloud and she's maybe 2....

I suck so bad at keeping this regularly updated... but I'm trying my best. Honest! :)

Work has kept me ridiculously busy and I feel like there are not enough hours in the day. And the sleepiness is now hitting me and I'm feeling perpetually tired. Tired and hungry. Tired, hungry and nauseous. It seems like I'm rotating between those feelings - or even better - experiencing two or more simultaneously! The fun doesn't stop.

I've been able to stomach eating a larger variety of food now - I've had my first Wendy's burger the other day - Tuesday I think it was - since my BFP. It was quite exciting to keep that down. I know, small pleasures. But let me tell you - the mere mention of pizza still makes my stomach CHURN like there is no tomorrow. Oh and I've developed another interesting little thing - I'm dry heaving / gagging more often now than I did before. I have no idea where THAT's coming from. Fantastic.

In other excitement - my cellphone was stolen from my office almost two weeks ago. I thought I had pregnancy brain and had misplaced it but one of my friends saw me put my cellphone into my filing cabinent at work. So I let it go all last week in the hopes that someone would be nice enough and return it. No such luck. So DH bought me a new cellphone on Wednesday.

Well, I got a phonecall yesterday from one of my friends who said some lady called her to say she has found a cellphone and could she identify the number. Sure enough it was my phone. Long story short, SOMEHOW, my cellphone ended up in the shredding at work (I'm positive I didn't put it there) and got picked up and shipped out to a city 2 hours away that does our shredding. They obviously couldn't shred the phone and were nice enough to bring it back. Sad part is, now I have two phones. LOL Oh well. I was more worried about the family pictures and the telephone numbers I had saved on the phone. So I'm glad to have the phone back nonetheless. I just wish they would've called 48 hours sooner. Would've saved me a few $$.

DH has bought some primer for the nursery and I think part of the weekend project will be to sand and prime the nursery - I can't believe we're already starting on this!

Here are some pics of the nursery as it is right now... the beginnings of the reno:

Yeah, I know, it doesn't look the greatest yet by any means. But we do have a few more months to work on it!!

Anyways... I'm VERY tired so I think it's off to bed for me.

And so the shopping frenzy begins... My jeans that I wore to work on Friday (yay dressdown days!) were too tight in the morning when I put them on and so I had to use an elastic band to close them up. I could have buttoned them if I really wanted to but it was way too uncomfortable and I looked like a squished muffin top. Seriously. So I went to Old Navy today and bought my first maternity clothes. Yikes! A pair of jeans which are uber comfy, a pair of grey pants which seem somewhat casual but I can get away with wearing them at work on non-dressdown days and two tops. All the clothes look quite cute and I can so get used to wearing maternity clothes! :) Now the question is... is it too early to be buying mat clothes at 7 weeks??? Seriously?

On another note... talked to the excited parents tonight. Apparently they're going to come down "for a few weeks" (my mother's words) when the baby is born to help out. This should be good and helpful... I wonder what it'll truly be like? And where are we going to put them up. The "extra room" which was going to be the "spare room" is now the nursery. The upstairs is DH's computer / toy room. I guess we can put a bed up there - but we need a bed big enough and comfortable enough... Thank goodness we still have 7.5 months! LOL

It's got to be the hormones...

Today was an okay day for the majority... went to work even though I had absolutely no motivation to do so. My manager has obviously already spread the good news as I had tonnes of coworkers congratulating me all day long. I'll admit it - it was really nice to be the centre of attention. Yup, I liked it. LOL

Got most of my work done today but I'm still behind on about two files' worth of paperwork. And I had a client tell me today that I don't know what their life is like because I don't stick needles in my arm. Jeez.... all I could think for a second was, well thank gawd for that. Anyways...

Got home and DH was playing WoW online (lucky bugger still had this week off work). I'm starving by this time and have had a BAD nachoes craving all day. I still can't even think of some foods without having my stomach turn (pizza is one of them and even just saying pizza makes me feel nauseous) so I was so happy and excited to be craving something like nachoes. Well for some reason this turned into a huge issue as DH wanted pizza and I tried to explain to him why I can't eat pizza... He actually seemed poopy in the pants because I didn't want (more like COULDN'T) to eat pizza. Ugh.... so this turned into a cryfest for me. How silly now that I look back but it was pretty important.

I guess the good news is that I got my nachoes. LOL

The MW left a message yesterday and I'm going on January 28 for my dating ultrasound. Can't wait... but I'm not looking forward to drinking all that water beforehand. I just hope I can make it without having to pee.

Oh and my jeans were too tight today for work. How sad is that?? I had to loop a rubber band around the button hole and my button so I could close it up. I'm so not impressed that the Bella Bands I ordered off EBay aren't here yet. And I'm not impressed that my pants are getting too tight... but it's kind of exciting too I guess. =)

Doctor vs. Midwife

And I think I can now rant about why I love my MW better than my doctor already. I went to my doctor on the 7th and saw the MW on the 9th. Both were very nice to me but you can so see the difference in their scope of practice.

Doctor's Appt
- showed up at 1:20 for a 1:30pm appointment
- clinic was full and backed up so I wasn't seen till 2:15pm and initially it was by a nurse
- peed in a cup and was asked for my LMP date
- told her it was Nov 17 but that I didn't ovulate at CD 14, weird cycle, I'm chartin so I know this, etc etc... didn't listen to me and said it doesn't matter
- saw the doctor, had a Pap (not fun), had an internal to see if a vaginal birth is feasible (even more uncomfortable), asked about my LMP... told him the same thing about CD 14... he at least gave me the courtesy of pretending to listen but didn't note anything down on my chart except that I'm at 7.5 weeks
- asked me if he had ordered bloodwork yet, I said no, so I got a requisition and then told me to see another nurse about the triple screen (I had no idea at the time what that meant)
- so I saw the other nurse about the triple screen and she made a note on my requisition and handed me some reading literature (which now I know is a bit outdated)

I went and got my bloodwork done on the 8th. Six viles of blood and a urine test later.... ugh.

Midwife Appointment on the 9th
- Showed up at 3:55pm for 4pm appointment
- was given a tour of the clinic right away, explained where everything is, how the lending library works (books and dvds!!)
- asked to test my own urine before each appt (for glucose) and let my MW know if there's any deviation from the norm - was shown where the testing strips are and how to do it
- met my MW and sat and talked for 45 minutes about Midwifery care, etc.
- asked about LMP, explained about the whole O on CD 23 not CD 14 thing - she asked if I had my charts with me (of course I did!) and she LOVED them... asked which program I used to track and apologized for getting excited over charts
- had a good laugh as we both seem to be anally retentive in a good way
- agreed to schedule a dating ultrasound so we could find out if my due date is Aug 24 or Sep 2

Some things I already love about my MW:
- talked to me about all the testing that will be coming up in the near future (like the triple screen which is actually called IPS) and is giving me all the information so I can make an informed decision on whether or not to get it done
- giving me statistical information so I can make a decision on where to have the birth (the two hospitals I was considering have much more differences between them than I thought - one has a 38% c-section rate!!!!!!!!)
- the MW will come out to my house (yes, you read that right) when I first go into labour to see how far I'm dilated to save me a trip to the hospital
- I have her pager number so I can call her anytime
- I've been assigned a MW team so I will always have 2 MWs at the birth guaranteed. I get to meet the rest of my team at my 3rd visit

And I'm sure the list goes on....

Telling Ppl at Work

Yikes! It's been a while. My bad. I was back to work on January 2nd... did not want to go back and it was so hard not to share the PG news with everyone (that I like) at work. But I held out. There were only a few people that I told: my friend Kristin who I told during the Xmas break over MSN because she's been super excited for this to happen; to my friend Kandy who kind of guessed the second day back at work that I was; and Kandy passed the news on to my friend Carol (with my ok) who was still on holidays.

SO I had my doctor's appointment on the 7th and because it's so unlike me to miss work, my friend Pearl came to me the next day with a huge grin on her face and said, so what's the news? So I just had to tell her. LOL

I told my manager today and had a wonderful reaction. I wish every PG woman who has to tell her supervisor that she's pregnant has the same reaction as I did. I got a squeal and a huge congrats and we talked about her experiences with her pregnancies. And I got the "just tell me when you have an appointment, no worries..." Which is a nice relief. And she asked if the news was public and I said that it is now, so she doesn't have to keep it secret... so I'm relieved. Now I can talk about it with my friends and not have to whisper. LOL