And Mango Was Its Name-o... (Week 19)





Sorry for the lack of a post Wednesday. It was a bad bipolar day and one where I knew the best thing to do was just batten down the hatches and get through. Thankfully, I was right and the storm lifted, leaving clear skies as far as the eye can see right now.

Well, here we are folks! 19 weeks down, 21-ish to go! As usual, I can't believe it! Next week will be the half way mark. I feel like this month has just flown by, but I've been a lot busier this month then the past couple. I'm sure that has contributed. Plus I'm feeling better! Woohoo! Haven't had to take the anti-nausea medicine once this week! And getting more energy too. So what's up with baby this week:

"Many of your baby's senses are developing as specialized areas in the brain are being designated for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. Millions of motor neurons are continuing to develop in your baby's brain allowing more controlled and conscious movement."

I'm definitely feeling the movement more. For a while it was just flutters, which feel like there is a fishy swimming around in side of your and brushing up against the sides of the tank. I now know what it would feel like to be a gold fish bowl, in case I'm ever reincarnated as one. ;-) In the last couple of days I've felt more pops or kicks. If I didn't know there was a little one in there, I'd chalk it up to a muscle twitch. Until yesterday morning, they were so sporadic that I was always left wondering, "Was that a kick?". But this morning, I kept feeling it in the same place. I even put my hand over the area and was able to feel the twitch. My Besties, who is a few weeks ahead of me, says that very soon it'll change and I won't be left wondering if that was/wasn't a kick. I can't wait for Jay to be able to feel a kick. Sometimes I feel really selfish being the only one who gets to experience all this fun stuff. Half the time he spend the evening sitting on the couch watching Netflix with his hand on my stomach. I don't know if he's just waiting to feel something or if he wants the baby to know that he's there too. Either way it's adorable!

How am I doing? I've been struggling emotionally the last couple of days, ending with a really horrible day Wednesday. But thankfully it seems to have passed. Being unmediated isn't fun. When I first went off my meds I wondered if I'd realize I didn't need them. Sometimes you wonder if the medicine makes things better or worse, but I am very much looking forward to the time in my life when I can go back on the meds! Right now I'm living in a constant state of heightened anxiety. I heard the best description the other day on the show House MD. House was telling his good friend not to worry and made the comment, "I know your emotional default is set to "worried", but try not to". That's me to a "T". I can always find something to worry about. I was talking to my Childhood BFF and my mom about some of my fears of childbirth while we were driving to the beach a couple of weekends ago and my mom was shocked at my seemingly endless list of things I was worried about. I think part of it is the curse of being raised in the information age. Google and I have quite the love/hate relationship! I'm also a part of an online community of pregnant women and having access to hundred of other pregnant women and their stories opens up all kinds of experiences.

We have women who have been through infertility treatments, miscarriages early in pregnancy, and losses late in pregnancy. Before this, I'm not sure I'd never met anyone IRL (in real life... I spend too much time on message boards) who had ever miscarried, that I knew of. It would have never crossed my mind to even be worried about that as a possibility. Like I said, information can be a double edged sword. Within the last three weeks, three girls on my February 2011 message board have gone in for their anatomy scans (usually done somewhere between 18 and 20ish weeks) and have found out that their little ones had either already passed or would not survive outside of the womb. The heartbreak I experienced for these women was overwhelming. I have no idea how I would survive something like that. And it made me very apprehensive of our scan today. But I have to trust that I'm strong enough to deal with whatever life throws at me. And it's not like it's going to stop after the scan, or even when the baby is born. Then there's SIDS, stranger danger, household accidents, car accidents... if I let my life revolve around fear, there will be no joy.

So, I am constantly trying to take the new experiences I'm coming across, file them under unexplainable bad things that happen in this world, and press on. And enjoy this pregnancy! TODAY we have our big anatomy scan, and I'm actually excited about it! This will be the first ultrasound we've had the entire pregnancy. I can just hear the chorus of "Well, in my day we didn't get any ultrasounds at all!" But these days some women get multiple. Depending on the care provider, the insurance company, the type of pregnancy (high vs. low risk), how consistent the mother's cycle was pre-pregnancy, and the types of genetic testing the couple choose to have, the mother could have had multiple ultrasounds. Well, seeing that we are (THANKFULLY!!!) having a run-of-the-mill, vanilla, low-risk pregnancy and we decided to decline the genetic testing, this will be the first time we get to see the little one! If he/she cooperates, we should be able to find out if we have a little boy or a little girl floating around inside here, but the scan is about so much more. They will do a lot of measurements and look for the chambers in the heart, all the organs, etc. Basically a good scan to make sure everything is developing where and how it's supposed to. Thankfully, my Midwife practice does the scans in house so we'll be able to talk with our midwife right after the scan and find out the results. AND from what they said on the phone yesterday, they should tape it and give it to us on a CD!

I'm nervous and can't wait at the same time! T-5 hours. I'm sure everything is fine. Really... :-/

Keep us in your thoughts today, and I'll post an update with the gender as soon as I have the opportunity. Tonight we are going to dinner to celebrate Jay's birthday which was Wednesday so I might not be able to get on until later. Have a wonderful Friday everyone, and a safe and relaxing weekend!