An Avocado Even Jay Can Love (Week 16)

That's right! Love 'em (me) or hate 'em (Jay) we've graduated to the Avocado stage!

I'm having a really hard time imagining that there is something the size of an avocado living inside me! But I guess that accounts for the bump that is becoming more and more noticeable. Thankfully, it's looking more like a baby bump and less like I need to hit the gym! So what's going on with baby this week:

"This week your baby's limbs are much more developed, legs and arms are longer and are becoming more controlled in movement. Your baby's skeletal system is developing more as calcium is deposited onto the bones. Over the next couple of weeks your baby's weight will double."

Another website I follow said that this week the baby's ear drums are developing and he can now hear our voices. Yay! How exciting is that!! As for me... I've been a little hit or miss this week. Still can't quite get the magic amount of food in my system to stave off the nausea but avoid the indigestion. I'm still popping Zofran every few days when the nausea gets really bad and can't be very far from my TUMS but it's all manageable. I'm beginning to get some of my energy back! Yay!!!! Spending all my non-working time on the couch was about to drive me insane!!

This weekend, I was actually able to clean almost the entire downstairs. I got the kitchen cleaned and some organizing done I've been wanting to do. I picked up the dining area and arranged the table. I picked up the clutter in the living room and then vacuumed. Moved the puppy's crate into the office/craft room (and out of my living room! woohoo!), vacuumed and Jay cleaned the carpet in there with my mom's steam cleaner. It felt so nice to have just a little energy again and to have my house looking descent!

Sunday, some friends came over for a cook out to celebrate the holiday and my birthday! I still can't believe that I am 31. 30 was one of the toughest years of my life! And I was not sorry to see it go! I can only imagine how much better 31 will be. I guess sometimes it really is darkest before the dawn. Don't get me wrong, we have some serious challenges to face. I'm desperate to stay home with the baby after s/he comes and we're still not seeing how that could work financially, but I keep telling myself that we have 5 more months to work it out.

Besides nausea and indigestion, fear and anxiety have become my constant companions. I didn't realize how much they had gone away since finding the right combo of meds in December. I find my self "going backwards"... falling into old thought patterns, fighting the same demons I thought I'd conquered. It's becoming a real challenge to not be "fragile". My feelings are easily hurt. I spend a lot of time and energy trying to protect a very fragile ego. I find it all but impossible to say to myself that others' opinions are their own and do not effect me. Just because someone disagrees with me doesn't make me wrong and them right. Disagreements are not always attacks and even when they are I am in control of whether they strike me or not. Lately, I feel like a small boat on a large sea being constantly tossed around. I feel like my anchor, my sense of self, my core self esteem has been destroyed and I am at the mercy of the opinions of others. Everything feels like an attack and everything blows me off course.

BUT... as long as I can learn to manage, this course of action is so much better for my Butter Bean. S/he won't have to worry about withdrawals after birth and I will be able to breastfeed which is extremely important to me!

But I don't just want to manage! I want to THRIVE!

This is certainly not the first challenge I've faced and it by far won't be the last! I've risen to every challenge I've ever been faced with from being diagnosed with bi-polar (which I had to fight for years to even get help with!) to the love of my life being deployed overseas for 8 months. I've yet to break, and I'm not about to start now!

So, here's to Week 16! To being 31! To the best year yet! To rising to the challenges we're faced with! To my little avocado! And to learning to THRIVE! Happy Wednesday everyone! I'll post belly pics tonight or tomorrow.

Livi-Lou

Jay and I have been throwing around names for a long time. In fact, we've had our boy name picked out since before we got pregnant. If we have a boy, we want to name him McKinley Jeremiah. McKinley was my great grandfather's name on my mother's side and Jeremiah as a salute to Jay (who's real name is Jeremy). We'll probably call him Mac, but I like that he could go by Ken when he gets older if he chose to. Case closed! Yay! I love having big decisions behind me!

The girl's name has been harder. The middle name is pretty much set. My middle name is Louise as is my mom's and her mom's. Sharing it with the women in my lineage has always meant a lot to me. Well... except when I was really little and didn't like my name at all. I thought the whole thing was just too old fashioned and not at all like anyone else I knew. I wanted to change my name to something... food-like. Yes, you read that right! I desperately wanted to be Muffin, or Cookie, or Candy! Thank goodness I wasn't allowed to change it! I'd have ended up a stripper fo' sho'!!! Jay doesn't have any problems with with my middle name, Louise it is.

If I wasn't worried about elementary school yard teasing ,although we plan to homeschool our kids, I'd go with Parasadie (pronounced Pear (like the fruit)-zadie) as a first name. It's a family name on my mom's side and I've always thought it was so cool and unique. And we could call her Sadie. And of course I would call her Sadie Lou. But I'm just not sure if that would be cruel and unusual punishment for a child.

So the other day, out of no where I thought of the perfect name! Olivia! Ok, I'll fess up, we were watching Law and Order: SVU and I love detective Olivia Bensen. Jay liked it right off the bat, and the more I think about it the more I like it. I know it's in the Top 10 baby names for 2010 and my child might end up in classrooms down the line with 4 other Olivias, but hopefully not. I think it's the perfect balance of old fashioned but doesn't feel dusty or old.

But the absolute best part of it is... I can call her Livi-Lou!!! She'll hate it! It'll make it even more fun! ;-)

We won't know if we're having a boy or a girl for about 5 more weeks. And I'm pretty positive we are having a boy, but at least I'm confident now that we have both a girl's name and a boy's name that we both love and feel connected to.

Happy Friday everyone! Wishing everyone a safe and happy Holiday Weekend!

Week 15 Belly Pics

Baby Stafford is really starting to grow!

But You Can't Compare Apples and Oranges (Week 15)

Or can you...

In just 10 very short weeks (unless you were this impatient pregnant women, then it feels like a lifetime and a half!!) my little Butter Bean has grown from approximately .13 inches, or about the size of an apple seed to approximately FOUR inches, or about the size of a navel orange! How amazing is that?!?!?!

So what's up with baby this week:

"Continuing the march towards normal proportions, baby's legs now outmeasure the arms. And, finally, all four limbs have functional joints. Your fetus is squirming and wiggling like crazy down in the womb, though you probably still can't feel the movements. "

So what's going on with me:

This week was a pretty good one. I'm throwing up less, but taking more Zofran to keep the nausea at bay which causes other uncomfortable symptoms but at least it doesn't make me all anxious and worried that I'm going to need to throw up and not be able to get to a bathroom. The anxiety of which just makes me more nauseous of course! I think I'm about to figure out that it's because I'm not eating enough and often enough and not getting enough liquids. I'm trying to increase all of those. The Campbells "sippy soups" as I like to call them, the ones with the lid that you can drink instead of having to eat with a spoon have become my lifeline at work. They heat up quickly and I can eat them while I work, and I feel like I'm getting a little more substance than just pretzels or crackers.

This past weekend was awesome! I bought side tables and a coffee table off craigslist right before finding out I was pregnant. Well, needless to say I have not had the energy to sand and paint them since then, plus it's been like 400,000 degrees here... or raining, one or the other ever since. This past weekend, the temps were going to be in the mid 80's so Jay and I decided to tackle the project so that we could make the side tables stop randomly hanging out in odd places around our house. No really, one was stuck by our kitchen table in a corner and the other was in the corner in my craft room/office. I took pictures during the different stages, and plan to post that later in the week or this weekend once they have fully dried and I've put them in their rightful places. But to put everyone's mind at ease... I wore a mask while we both painted and sanded and I insisted on purchasing low odor, no VOC paint. The paint worked great other than being true to the reviews I'd read online which stated that it was watery. It took an extra coat and the coffee table which we painted black could have really used a third coat, but it's just for my house and I'm happy with it, so there!

I am solidly into maternity pants now, and so thankful for the ones my childhood BFF's sister gave me! I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have those to pull from. I'm enjoying the excuse to celebrate my expanding waist line instead of cursing it. Although I'm still keeping an eye on my weight. As of right now, and according to my scale at home, I have maintained the weight I was at when I found out I was pregnant, which means I've gained a lb since last week. As I start feeling better, which hopefully will be very soon, I will really need to start focusing on eating healthy foods. Right now I've been eating whatever sounds good and doesn't make me nauseous. A good friend told me that between 14 and 16 weeks was when she really started feeling less nauseous. Thank goodness!

Went to the psychiatrist on Friday. He said other than some heightened anxiety, he thought I seemed to be doing very well. And unfortunately heightened anxiety is a fact of life when I'm off my medication. Thankfully, I seem to be able to manage it at the moment. He doesn't see a need to see me for 6 weeks which is a good sign. He said that I might just be one of those lucky ones that find the heightened hormones from pregnancy actually help balance them out. We'll, see. Again we discussed the one week rule. Any drastic swings (up or down) that last for more than a week need to be reported to him. I did ask him about Postpartum Depression and whether I was at a higher risk because of my history. He said that because PPD is different than the chemical imbalance I have, I was at no higher risk than anyone else. But one of the positive things about having a depressive disorder is being familiar with the symptoms, I will see the signs of major depression a lot faster than someone who has never experienced it before and we already know what medication works for me. Unfortunately, that will mean I cannot breastfeed anymore which is very important to me, so we will just have to weigh the pros and cons at that time. But for now, I'm thankful for the sanity I seem to be managing to hold onto.

Jay is doing well. Settling in more and more to the idea of being a daddy. I think he's still scared out of his mind, but he's very excited too. He loves to rub my belly and talk to the baby. He always includes the baby when he tells me he loves me/us. I think he's a little jealous sometimes that I get to spend all day with the baby. I know he'll feel that way when I start feeling the baby moving more.

My next appointment with the Midwife is two weeks from Friday. It should be pretty uneventful, so Jay is going to skip it. My mom is going to come with me though, so that she can hear the heartbeat first hand. I am still very tempted to get a home doppler so I can listen to the heartbeat all the time, but I know in just a couple of weeks the baby will be moving and I'll be able to connect with him that way. Also, I've heard and the midwife confirmed that the noise from the dopplers and unltrasound machines doesn't sound good to the babies. When they get bigger you can see them moving around in the belly to get away from the doppler. So, I guess it's probably better that I don't get one.

Monday is my birthday, and I'm so excited to be sharing it with my Butter Bean, even if it means I won't be partying it up to make up for my not-so-awesome 30th birthday last year. Jay keeps asking me what I want for my birthday and I keep thinking that this little baby is by far the best gift I've ever gotten. Of course I didn't tell him that but instead told him I wanted a Very Bradley messenger bag that I can use as a diaper bag when the baby gets here, but still. ;-) Hehe. Here it is if anyone is interested. And I know you are!

That is one of Vera's newest prints titled Sittin' in a Tree and I already have the matching wallet. Still not exactly sure what we're going to do to celebrate on Monday but as my present my mom is taking me to the beach in a couple of weeks. It's just going to be a quick day trip but my childhood BFF is going with us and my bestie will meet up with us on the way down there! I can't wait! I can't think of a better gift than time spent with some of my favorite women and a look at the Atlantic ocean... and lunch in Calabash, SC home of Calabash shrimp! Woohoo! Can't wait.

Hope everyone is having a great week so far! I'll be taking a belly shot after work and will upload that later. Have a great day!

When Life Gives you a Lemon...

... You must be 14 weeks pregnant! Woohoo! I can't believe it. The time seems to have really started picking up in the last couple of weeks. Maybe that's because I'm feeling a little better, not back to "normal" by any means but better. So, what's up with the Butter Bean this week?

"This week your baby's well-defined face can also make expressions like a squint or a frown. Some babies may even start growing hair on the head or the face, such as eyebrows. If your baby is a girl her eggs will have already developed inside her ovaries. If you're having a boy, his prostate gland is developing."

This past week was very exciting! We had our second appointment with the midwife and were able to hear the Butter Bean's heartbeat (full story here), and then yesterday I SWEAR I felt the baby move. Now yes I know it might have been a gas bubble (adorable I know) or who knows what else since your entire digestive system goes wacky when you get pregnant, but it felt exactly like the experiences of other girls on my board.

Jay and I were laying on the couch and I was telling him about some of the girls having felt the baby for the first time. Now, most of them are a couple weeks further along than I am (since it's a board for girls due in Feb of 2011) or having multiples, but I swear I felt him! It was right below my belly button in the center of my stomach and felt like a cricket running across the inside of my belly. My mouth flew right open and I sat up straight! It was so incredible! I must have laid back down for a half an hour with my hands on my stomach saying, "Come on baby! Do it again!" but nothing. Oh well. All in due time. Jay told me I should probably enjoy it because pretty soon the baby will take up residence between my ribcage and my bladder and I'll be begging him to give me a break from all the moving around. :-) I can't wait!

I bought more maternity clothes this weekend. I seem to have popped out a little bump in the last few days. I can still wear my pants below the bump (although that's becoming less comfortable) but my non-maternity tops are starting to become too short and I was getting tired of fighting with them all day. So, Jay and I went to Destination Maternity and got a bunch of tops on sale. Below you will find my very first "belly shot" picture! Now it's kind of hard for me to look at it since I've been trying to camouflage a definitely-not-flat belly for a while, but I figured if I didn't start taking pictures soon then I'd never be able to see any progress so here goes! I'm sucking in as hard as I can, and have to figure out how to take a non-blurry picture one handed while sucking in for my life but trying not to look constipated because of it! Hehe. I'm taking solence in the fact that I actually lost 2 lbs in the first trimester, so any expansion has to be the baby!







Physically, I'm doing pretty well. Still have some nausea and vomiting every once in a while but thankfully I have the prescription for Zofran that my midwife gave me a few weeks back so I pop one of those if it gets too bad. I'm finding it very hard to keep down the first meal of the day on weekend days. I don't know if it's because I sleep later on weekends or eat differently or what but it seems like no matter what I do, the first thing I eat on a weekend day is going to come back up. It's kind of annoying since we are usually busy running errands or hanging with friends on the weekend. Oh well. Hopefully now that we are solidly in the second trimester it will get better.

I am getting more energy back and very excited about that! Jay and I will be sanding and painting a couple of pieces of furniture this weekend and I'm very excited about it! Looks like it's going to be the perfect weekend for it. And before anyone freaks out, I am going to get a mask and may buy ecofriendly paint (even though we have some left over from the last thing we painted and it's the right shade). Since it's not going in the baby's room I'm not too worried about it other than the actual painting part. Anything we put in the baby's room however, will be painted with low-VOC eco-friendly paint.

Looking forward, our next appointment with the midwife is on Sept. 17th. At that one we will be able to make the appointment for the anatomy scan which will (among a bunch of other things) tell us whether our Butter Bean is a McKinley Jeremiah or Olivia Louise! I can't wait!

Happy Wednesday everyone! Hope your week is going well!

I laughed so hard I cried!

Happy Tuesday! You deserve a laugh!

The most beautiful sound in the world!

We heard it! THE BABY'S HEARTBEAT! It was the most incredible sound I've ever heard and I totally cried. In fact, I tear up every time I think about the experience, but that may be due to all the lovely pregnancy hormones. I cry at anything and everything now, both good and bad. But anyway...

I have been super anxious to hear the heartbeat because other than peeing on stuff and in cups for the past few months, I've had no other confirmation that we were pregnant. I know, I know, I'm horribly impatient, but I was really beginning to worry about miscarrying since a couple of the girls on my online message board had lost their babies recently. Also at my 8ish week appt, the midwife had comment on how small my uterus felt during the internal exam. She clarified very quickly that it was appropriately small but still, I was scared to death that the baby had stopped growing.

So after Jay and I talked to the nurse and then we talked to the midwife about the questions I had accumulated over the last few weeks, she asked me if there was anything else I was worried about. I told her that I was only worried that something was wrong with the baby since I hadn't heard the heartbeat yet. She told me to jump up on the table and we'd take care of that right then.

I knew that sometimes it could take awhile to find the heartbeat even with a perfectly healthy baby. So, I was preparing myself for that. She pushed on my stomach and I asked her if she could feel my uterus since I had not been able to feel it yet. As she was pulling out the doppler she said, "It's still kind of hard to feel it, but I feel it more on this side so that's where we're going to... OH! There it is!" And there it was! Almost immediately! The most beautiful sound I've ever heard in my life! The sound of my baby's heartbeat! My little Butter Bean knew that I needed some reassurance and made sure to make himself easy to find. He's not even here yet and he's helping calm his poor neurotic mama!

Jay was able to record it on the voice recorder on his phone, and although I can text the file to people, I haven't been able to figure out how to convert it into an mpg file so I can upload it anywhere. I may have to do some more research before my next appointment so eventually I can put it up here on the blog. I am fully aware though, that Jay and I (and possibly his mom and my mom) are the only ones who really think it's as cool as it is, but still. And that didn't stop me from subjecting all my friends to the recording all weekend! Hey, that's what friends are for right, sharing in your joy even when they don't find it nearly as interesting as you do. :-)

Everything else looks good too! My records were successfully transferred from my old OB office to the Midwife's office. They went over the blood work done at my last OB appointment and the midwife said everything looked great. I'm Rh+ so that means I won't have to worry about blood type issues between me and the baby. My blood pressure was nice and low, which was a huge load off my mind seeing that I had gotten a normal reading at my psychiatrist's office (blood pressure should and had been running low the entire pregnancy) and then during a health fair at work, I got a high reading and about lost it! I'm sure those were both due to me trying to detox off my psyc meds. I'm so thankful to know that it is back to normal, for the pregnancy at least.

I'm also still doing quite well off my psyc medication. I'm not on the 6th day without the anti-depressant, which probably explains the crying issues. Hum. Anyway, I am feeling just the slightest bit of vertigo every once in a while, but nothing that disrupts my life. Hopefully, even that will go away soon. And we will be able to spend the rest of this pregnancy drug free. My midwife did say that she was not happy that my psychiatrist had taken me off the meds so quickly and made me feel like it was life or death. She said that if I need the anti-depressant especially, that she wouldn't think twice about putting me back on. That reassurance is definitely nice to know going forward but I'm really hoping to be able to get through the pregnancy without the meds, and even beyond because if I'm on them meds, it means I can't breastfeed which is very, very important to me!

I lost 2 lbs since my last appointment, but because of my weight and the fact that I just finished the first trimester they weren't too concerned. I should start putting on more weight soon though. My goal is probably around 15 lbs for the pregnancy. I hope I can stay close to that. Hopefully, I'll be able to eat more soon and that means I'll have to make sure that I'm eating good food and not just fast food and junk.

Well, Happy Monday everyone! Hope y'all had a wonderful weekend!