Bump Bound - Week 9

(Originally written 08/25/12)

I finally threw up this week!  Twice actually!  Believe it or not, its actually quite comforting and kind of exciting.  Since then though, I’ve felt fantastic.  Not really nauseous but certain smells trigger the gag reflex.  

Smells I can’t handle this week?

Fresh cut grass.  Bleh!  I can’t stand it.  

Perfume.  Seriously!  How much perfume do people need to wear?  I work in a high-rise and I swear everyone in the elevator stinks.  Even if no one is in the elevator, I can smell the people that were in there before.  They either bathed in perfume, or just came off a smoke break.  Its disgusting!

Doritos.   I walked into my co-workers office and he was eating Doritos.  BAM! The smell hit me and I nearly started gagging.  I held it in and quickly backed out of the room…..Work doesn’t know yet, so that would have probably given it away. ….Which brings me to the fact that I should probably tell work sooner rather than later.  Preferably, while I still have a job.  I have been SO moody that I have no patience for anyone.  Combined with being exhausted, I’m not the most sunny person to be around in the office.

 

My skin is starting to notice the hormones too.  Last week I was like “my skin is so clear.  This is so great”!  Pshhh I spoke too soon.  All of the sudden this week I’ve developed a tri-fecta of zits on my chest.  Sounds pretty huh?!  At least they’re not on my face yet.  Knock on wood!

We told our families the great news this week!  It was really exciting!  Everyone was so happy and it was a relief to tell people.   We really want to tell our closest friends but they are busy having their own baby right now so that will have to wait.  The downside is that we can’t tell anyone else until we tell them.  We made a promise.  But we can’t tell them for another week or two because this is their moment and we don’t want to steal their thunder.  Hopefully we can tell them soon.  Maybe once they’re home from the hospital and settled in, we’ll take them dinner and tell them that Makena will have a new playmate at the end of March.  I even made a onesie to do the telling for us when the time comes.  

 And a few others to throw her off.......

Oh and you guys.  I wanted a blizzard so badly this week.  All I want this week is ice cream.  I’m such a fatty!  I convinced my husband to stop and get me a snickers blizzard on our way home from the beach last Sunday.  I got snickers and he got cookie dough.  When the gal handed it to me it was like Christmas!  Like no joke.  I was so excited!  As we began driving down the road I took a big bite of my blizzard.  “Humph, this doesn’t taste as good as I thought it would taste.  Hun, does your blizzard taste funny?”  I say. 

He responds, “yeah, it’s a little weird.  What does yours taste like?” 

“Mine tastes like chocolate, oil and metal.”  As I take another big bite.  “Here!  Taste it!” 

“Nooooo.  I don’t want to taste it,” He says. 

“Ohhh c’mon.  Give it a try.  Its not bad, it just tastes weird.  If I die, I want you to come with me. Haha.”

“Oh, okay.”  He takes a bite.  “BLEHHHH!  That’s disgusting!  How are you eating that?  You need to stop eating that right now.  That can’t be good for you or the baby.” 

“OH CRAP!  The baby!  But I want ice cream SO BADLY!"

“Noooo.  You need to throw that away.  We’ll get you another blizzard later tonight.”  He says.

“Humph!  But its just so sad.”   And then the sulking began. 

And so, I had to throw away a brand new, full to the top, blizzard.   It was tragic!

Bump Bound - Week 8

(Originally written 08/18/12)

Baby is the size of a kidney bean!

Pictures will be every 4 weeks

 The following is the 8 week progress of baby development.  - Courtesy of babycenter.com

New this week: Webbed fingers and toes are poking out from your baby's hands and feet, his eyelids practically cover his eyes, breathing tubes extend from his throat to the branches of his developing lungs, and his "tail" is just about gone. In his brain, nerve cells are branching out to connect with one another, forming primitive neural pathways. You may be daydreaming about your baby as one sex or the other, but the external genitals still haven't developed enough to reveal whether you're having a boy or a girl......

Still no “traditional” morning sickness to speak of.  The gag reflex is still working really well though and I’m becoming a pro at dry heaving. 
  

Smells that make me gag?  Aside from cigarette smoke and perfume the only two weird things that make me gag this week are:

Hot dogs.  YUCK!  We visited my mom and step-dad this weekend and they made hot dogs for dinner.  I came out of the bedroom and ran straight to the bathroom holding my mouth.  The smell was terrible and usually I LOVE the smell of hot dogs.  Sad.

The River.  My husband and I took a walk along the Columbia River last weekend and the seaweed, fishy smell was too much to handle.  Out came the gagging and the end of our walk.

Foods I can’t get enough of?  

Lucky Charms and tomato soup.  Thankfully not together.  I really don’t have much of an appetite for anything else.  I’ve been forcing myself to eat other things but all I really want is Lucky Charms or tomato soup.   I woke up starving at 2:30 the other night and all I wanted was some cereal.  I went downstairs, got myself a bowl and climbed back in bed and ate them by headlamp.  My husband couldn’t stop laughing.   

We had our first real appointment this week.  (I say real, because it was with the normal doctor.  Not the fertility clinic).  Honestly, it was kind of lame.  We just met with the nurse, answered a lot of questions and then I gave a ton of blood and had to pee in a cup.  Exciting huh?  We did get a lot of free stuff though which I always love.  They gave us a free formula starter pack, a book/journal to keep all of our prenatal appointment paperwork and ultrasound pictures, a free reusable diaper from Cotton Babies and a cool water bottle.  It was like Christmas! 

The downside of the appointment?  They informed me that my doctor’s last day was at the end of the month.  She will be transferring to a new clinic (the one clinic in Vancouver that I have strong negative feelings about) and she’ll only be working part time.  WHAT?!?!  I’ve been seeing this doctor for over five years with the intention of her being the one to walk me through my pregnancy and deliver our baby.  I love my doctor.  She is the most down to earth, friendly doctor I have ever met.  Now what am I going to do?  I can either start over with a new doctor or I can follow her to the clinic I despise and I’m still not guaranteed that I’ll get to see her on a regular basis.  I’m totally bummed.  But at least I didn’t cry!  I almost did.  But I didn’t.  That’s progress in the hormone department!

Is it a girl or a boy?  Obviously, its too early to tell at the moment.  We don’t have a preference one way or another but both my husband and myself keep getting a strong boy vibe.   

And they start....

(Originally written 08/12/12)

Crazy pregnancy dreams are a real thing.  I’ve had a few so far where I’ve woken up like, huh?  But there are only two that I can really remember. 

The first dream, my husband and I were with our friends and a tornado ripped through town.  We were in the middle of a square dancing lesson in our living room when the tornado picked up the house with all of us in it.  All while continuing our square dancing the house blew into a football field where we landed happily and had a tailgate party. 

The second dream was even weirder.  Anyone who knows me at all knows that I am NOT into politics.  I support a good friend but that is the extent of my political interest.  So this dream really caught me off guard…..I purchased a cool coffee table at a flea market.   The next thing I know, President Obama is calling me to tell me how cool this coffee table is and that he would do anything to have it.  After hours of negotiating I told him that he could have my coffee table but he would need to make it worth my while.  He would have to fly all of my family and friends to Washington DC and allow us to have Christmas in the White House. 

What the heck does that mean?

Bump Bound - Week 7

(Originally written 08/11/12)

Raging hormones while pregnant is an understatement!   I know hormones are a necessary part of growing a healthy baby but good lord!  Never in my wildest dreams did I think they would be this rampant.  I feel like a lunatic. 

I think the biggest hormone surge I had this week was when I “lost” my husband at the mall and completely freaked out.  We were at Nordstrom’s so I could return an item at the make-up counter.  My husband swears he tapped me on the shoulder and told me he’d be “right over there” but I didn’t hear nor feel anything.  All of the sudden, I looked over my shoulder and he was gone.  I circled Nordstrom’s a couple of times (which isn’t that big) and called him five times on his cell phone.  FIVE times!  Yeah, lunatic alert.  But he was nowhere to be found.   I remembered him saying something about the new Starbucks so I left the store and looked over there.  Nope.  He wasn’t there either.  I went back to Nordstrom’s and sent him a frantic text.  At this point, I don’t know what I was thinking but I was in Full. Panic. Mode.  I mean, bat-shit crazy!   I knew getting worked up was completely irrational but it didn’t matter.  My imagination was in full gear.   I wondered if I did something to make him mad and he’d left me at the mall.  Something I might add, he would NEVER do, but it crossed my mind anyways.  I tried to remember what he was wearing in case he’d been abducted but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what color shirt he was wearing, which made it even worse.  It was literally nuts.  Really?  Someone abducted a grown man at Nordstrom’s and no one saw anything?  Then I got even madder because I knew how stupid it was that these thoughts were running through my mind.   Finally, I caught his reflection in a mirror!  Phew!  I walked up to him steaming mad yet at the same time so relieved.  I started yelling and crying all at the same time.  It. Was. Ridiculous! 

I also must note that our best friends noticed my irritability too.  We went over to their house to help them finish their nursery and I was having a VERY moody day.  They still don't know I'm pregnant and it was to the point where they were like “this is odd.  Usually we’re the ones bickering.  Its like we’ve switched places.”   Once they said that, I knew I was bad.  My poor husband.  Hopefully the crazy lady inside of me disappears in the coming weeks.