Posts tagged ‘first trimester’
Pound for Pound
So I’m kind of freaking out about my weight gain so far. It all started out so positively. At my last appointment two and a half weeks ago I’d gained 3 pounds, which from everything I’d read was right in line with what was good for the first trimester. At that point I was just a day shy of 11 weeks, so I figured it was pretty close to the end of the first trimester and maybe I’d gain another pound or so in the next couple weeks after that.
Two days ago, earlier in the day before my doctor’s appointment, I’d even responded to a thread on the Babycenter forum from another mom-to-be worried about her early weight gain and reassured her that it sounded fine, and while I was a little worried about the coming weight gain, I was trying to avoid stressing about it by not weighing myself too often. Even at the doctor, I tried to escape without a weigh in, but in the end the nurse got me. On the scale the weight kept sliding to the right, all the way to 138. That meant not only have I gained 7 pounds since my first appointment on Nov. 14, but I’ve gained four pounds in the past two and a half weeks!
I know that later in the pregnancy this rate of a pound a week can be normal, but yowsah, I don’t think it’s supposed to start happening this early! When I bemoaned the situation to my sister today, she offered some helpful rationalizing – was I at my summer weight or my winter weight when they did the first measurement, she asked? And it’s true, I was at my more active “summer” weight – I was 2 or 3 pounds below what I usually am. So I keep telling myself that I’m only up 4 or 5 pounds from my normal weight, which sounds somehow better, but really it’s just splitting hairs because no matter where I started, I’ve gained 7 pounds in 7 weeks!
On the other hand, if I gain a pound a week for the rest of the pregnancy (theoretically, about 26 weeks), then my total would be 33 poounds, which is still in line with the 25 to 35 pounds they advise. And I know that a lot of women do gain more than 35 pounds, especially with their first. But I also know that the more I gain, the more I’ll have to lose, and starving myself on salads and water for 6 months after I have the baby will never be an option for a food lover like me.
So my plan going forward, ideally, is to try not to obsess about the weight gain and still eat when I’m hungry, but try to make sure I’m really still hungry when deciding whether I need to finish that burger and fries or slab of ribs or chunk of lasagna (hey, I eat healthy breakfasts, lunches and daytime snacks!). I’m also going to try to eat even more healthy snacks and keep fewer indulgences like candy and ice cream and chips close at hand. But the biggest thing is probably getting back on my regular exercise schedule. Keeping my heartbeat below 140 has made the elliptical a bit of a drag, but to be honest, I’d been slacking off from my usual 3-4 times a week a good two months before I found out I was pregnant, and it’s time to get back on track. I’ve been doing more Wii fit and keeping to my regular Saturday walks with my sister, so that’s a start.
Wish me luck … and bring on those carrots!
Ups and Downs
Well, yesterday was an up-and-down day. I took it pretty easy since I was off work and I was having these pains on my lower left side. I was pretty sure I’d probably just pulled something, but I wanted to avoid any heavy activity just in case. I actually did call the doctor’s office to ask them about it. I was hoping to talk to one of the nice nurses and just have her reassure me that everything was fine, but instead, new creepy doctor that I don’t like was the only one there, and he called back himself. He said I could come in and be checked out if I wanted, but they were pretty full so I might have to go to the ER. He also said I could make an appointment for tomorrow (now today).
But the thing is, I didn’t really think anything was wrong, I just wanted someone to tell me so. Plus, I get the feeling this guy is just starving for patients since he’s new to the practice, so no matter what you call about, he’ll always want to see you. Last time I called and got him, when I was just about 6 weeks and having some back pain, he told me to come in and then all he did was a quick vaginal exam (which took me off guard because what was he going to learn from that, and I’d never had a man do one, which was fine, but I wasn’t quite prepared). Then he said since it hurt when I moved and based on the location it was probably just muscular. Well, he could’ve told me that on the phone based on what I told him rather than getting all up in my private parts, couldn’t he?
The day did end on a very positive note. Andy and I exchanged our holiday stockings, a tradition we started the first year we were dating. Since I’m Jewish and he’s Methodist, we chose Dec. 23 (Festivus!) as our gift-giving day. It works out nicely because we can have the day to ourselves – there aren’t usually other family obligations for Chanukah or Christmas. His gifts for me were so cute and sweet. He had a tupperware box labeled “emergency pregnancy car kit” with all kinds of snacks and treats, plus things like kleenex and band-aids. So adorable. There was also a T-shirt he’d ordered from Cafe Press that said I and then a heart and then a picture of a burger. I loved it since I am a burger fiend! It was so hilarious. I’m totally wearing it Friday when we have our friends over.
But the last gift at the very bottom of the stocking was probably the best. I unwrapped it and saw that he’d gotten me my very own fetal Doppler so we could hear the baby’s heartbeat whenever we want throughout the rest of the pregnancy! We rushed upstairs and lubed it up (literally, using K-Y). It took awhile, and I thought at first that we weren’t going to be able to find it. First we found mine, which we could tell wasn’t the baby’s since it was so much slower. But then, very low on the right side, there it was! Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom! We sat and listened for awhile; we were so pleased with ourselves! What a great way to end our Festivus celebration. 
Decisions, Decisions
One thing I’ve learned about pregnancy so far is that it is full of decisions. How soon do I take a pregnancy test? When can we tell everyone? What doctor should we use? What should I eat and drink?
Then you have the harder questions, like what kind of prenatal testing do we want, if any?
The question of prenatal testing can be a minefield. You have to ask yourself, if I find out that something is wrong, what might I do about it? Are there situations in which we would consider termination, or is it really just about knowing what’s ahead and being prepared? For Andy and me, it’s most likely the latter, but even that was a tough call to make when we had to decide whether to do the first trimester screening that can find problems like Downs syndrome and neural tube defects.
First, I’m worried about false positives. Apparently these tests are quite accurate, but there is still a 5% chance of the results suggesting a potential problem when really, everything is fine. I can’t imagine having to go through the weeks or months of worry until the results could be confirmed or ruled out by an amnio. I’m especially nervous because my test is scheduled toward the very end of the period in which they typically do the tests, at 11 to 14 weeks. Mine will be at 13 weeks and 4 days, and I’m nervous that my results will come up abnormal, because they judge “normal” base on the typical measurements in that time period. But I guess it’s still within the normal period of time, so I shouldn’t worry, right?
My other thought was that if something is wrong, and we probably wouldn’t “do anything” about it anyway, wouldn’t it be better just to have these next several months being excited and not knowing about the challenges that lie ahead? But the logical side of me just couldn’t go with that kind of thinking. Having the time to prepare, mentally and otherwise (to the extent that you CAN prepare) for a child that is ill or a child with special needs seems to overrule the appeal of having those last few worry-free months. Giving birth to a child who has a problem and having no idea what it is or how to handle it would be so scary. Plus, from what I understand, there are some problems that could require or benefit from special preparations by the hospital before the birth, so that when the baby comes, they can provide specific kinds of care the baby needs.
So we’re having the test done on New Year’s Eve morning. On a positive note, according to the literature my doctor gave me, the test involves not just a blood test but also an ultrasound, which means we’ll get to see our little one again, and this time, he/she will actually look like a baby!!
The ultrasound brings up another – much more fun this time – decision we may have to make. From what I’ve read, it could be possible to determine the sex of the baby even this early! I haven’t even told Andy yet that this is a possibility; I’ll tell him when he gets home from work today. Apparently they can’t always tell, and it’s not always 100% accurate, but a lot of times they can get a pretty good idea! Part of me wants to hold out until 20 weeks and save the anticipation, but another part of me would love to know now. Then we could start saying “he” or “she” instead of it and start identifying with the baby on an entirely new level. Guess we’ll wait and see what happens next week …
The Cat’s Out of the Bag
Well, today I’m officially 12 weeks pregnant and it’s time to really start spreading the news – yay!
I spilled the beans at work, which I was really, really looking forward to. I told my boss first, and she immediately insisted that she already knew it. When I asked how she possibly could, she claimed that a few days before she had just looked at me and thought that I was pregnant. She’d been planning to try to confirm it by seeing if I was drinking at the office holiday party the next day (which really wasn’t a party at all but rather a handful of the staff gathering at a dive bar down the street to hang out and buy their own drinks. I passed.).
The next day I told all my other work friends, which was so much fun because a lot of them have been people that I’ve been working with and having lunch with pretty much every single day for the past 8 years. That’s the great thing about being at a job for so long – the people are so much more than co-workers. I broke the news by saying “Guess who’s pregnant?” because a couple years before, I’d gone up to one of my work friends and said that, referring to another former co-worker, and for whatever reason it’s just been a big joke among us all since then. Anyway, it’s SO nice to finally have everyone there know about the biggest thing going on in my life right now.
There are still so many more people to tell. I’ll tell Monica Monday night when we have dinner and then a bunch of the gang on Friday when they come by for our poker and Wii night. I can’t wait to tell that group, especially since they were the ones at that party the other week where I fooled everyone with my fake beers …
In other baby news, the friend who I had the baking day with the other week, who is due around Jan. 7, has been experiencing some scary complications due to a sudden onset of preeclampsia. It seems like everything’s okay so far, but they did end up inducing last night. We haven’t heard the news yet, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that everything turns out okay. It’s scary to think you can sail through pregnancy without any big issues and then have something big like this come up at the last minute. In worse news, another longtime friend recently found out that her baby, who is less than a year old, may have a genetic disorder that often leads to especially high rates of abdominal cancer in kids under 5, among other issues. What a terrible, tough thing to have to deal with after the joy of havinga new baby. The worrying never stops, does it?
We Got the Beat
So the doctor’s appointment was glorious this morning! It was short and sweet, but we got what we came for: the heartbeat.
I was getting more and more nervous as we drove the short distance to the medical building at the hospital where my doctor’s OB office is and made our way to their suite. We were the first ones there and waited for a few minutes leafing through baby and pregnancy magazines. They had multiple copies of each one, too, all nicely fanned out so that even if there were 7 moms-to-be waiting there, they could all get their dose of Baby Talk.
Anyway, first up was my weight (I asked if I could take my boots off – every ounce counts!), and I was very happy with the gain – 3 pounds, just about right. They say 2-4 pounds is normal for the first trimester, so I can even gain one more in the next week or two and stay on track (not that the world will end if I gain 2 or 3 … I’m just glad all my eating hasn’t already driven me beyond the normal range). Next was blood pressure, which she said was excellent, and then she brought out the Doppler.
At first I’d mistaken it for the kind of thermometer that they stick into your ear and then see the reading on the attached display. But she rubbed a bit of lubricant or some sort of smooth, cool liquid on my lower abdomen and then started moving the sensor part of the machine over me. I was nervous because a) we didn’t hear anything at first and b) the nurse was fairly cavalier as we got started, telling us that it’s common not to hear the heartbeat this early, which made me think I’d have a slim shot at an ultrasound to confirm the heartbeat if we didn’t get it through the Doppler.
But all of a sudden it rang out loud and clear–thwump! thuwmp! thwump! thwump!
It sounded so fast, like the baby was all hopped up on caffeine or had just finished a run (hah – unlikely for any child of mine). But of course it’s normal for a baby at this stage to have such a fast heartbeat. It was 176 beats per minute, up quite a bit from our first appointment, where I think it was 136. Andy and I smiled these huge grins and listened some more, and then I started laughing because I was so happy and amazed, and we couldn’t hear the baby anymore since my stomach was shaking so much.
As we walked back to our cars, Andy told me that he hadn’t quite processed the heartbeat when it first started, but he was watching me and he said I looked so concerned, and then all of a sudden my face just lit up and he knew what the sound was. He said he’ll never forget what my face looked like – I said I wished I’d seen it!
It was hard to stop smiling the rest of the day. I shared the news, calling my mom and sister, texting Shelly and emailing Laurie and my aunt. I was bursting with excitement, wanting to tell everyone at the office my secret! But I was good and kept it in. I’ve been hoping to hold out til after New Year’s, but now I’m thinking maybe I’ll do it next Friday before I take my holiday week off.
So anyway, it was a great start to the weekend … Now I get to just look forward to telling two of my oldest friends on Sunday. Yay!
Feeling Lucky
Not that we’re out of the woods with our own pregnancy, as it seems like there are always so many things that can go wrong (which of course I’m not focusing on, right?), but I feel like I know so many people who have had trouble or are having trouble conceiving that I just feel incredibly lucky right now.
It just seems so unfair that so many couples who want kids so, so badly have to go through so many challenges and setbacks while there are so many unwanted children in the world or even just families that already have a few kids and didn’t mean to get pregnant with another but did. Which is great, and many of them are happy about it, but I know if I were a person who spent months and months or even years and years trying to get pregnant without success, it would be so hard to think about.
Meanwhile, I am SO glad I have my next doctor’s appointment tomorrow. I’ve been doing really well about the whole worrying thing, but for the past few days I’ve been falling of the wagon, so to speak. I’ve been having all sorts of various pains and pressures, and I ended up calling my doctor yesterday after having these recurring sharp pains in my lower left abdomen during the afternoon while I was at work.
Once again, I have to say, they were great when I called. The nurse asked all sorts of questions — Have I been constipated? Do I have a fever? Am I bleeding? Is the pain on one side or across my abdomen? Is the pain constant? — and my answer was pretty much no to all of them (except a bit of the first one – agh!). She said she’d talk to the doctor and when she did, she said the doctor wasn’t concerned and that I should take some Tylenol for the pain if I wanted to (I didn’t) and go home after work and relax with my feet up.
Of course, all this was going on while I was supposed to be doing a phone interview with the beverage director of this restaurant group out in Boulder who was going to tell me all about bourbon. He was so interesting to talk to about it that it made me actually want to try some of these bourbon cocktails they’re making out there, which of course I won’t be able to do for a long, long time. But the point is that I had to get off the phone with him twice during the interview when I saw the doctor’s office calling me back because you know how it is – when they call, you’ve got to answer or else who knows when you’ll hear back! Anyway, I felt kind of rude but whatever. The beverage guy was nice about it.
Anyway, after reading on the baby forums about another girl who was having the same problem and had an ultrasound to determine what was wrong and it was just constipation, now I’m convinced that my pains were due to the same cause, which is a lovely thought, but better than thinking that something’s wrong. Still, I’m really relieved I’m going to the doctor tomorrow either way. It’s been way to long since I’ve had any verification that this baby is still developing as he/she should be. I know they’re going to try to listen for the heartbeat and I’m nervous that they won’t hear one (which I understand from all my baby surfing is very common – the Doppler often can’t pick up the heartbeat until anywhere from 10-16 weeks, it seems). If they don’t hear one I really want them to do any ultrasound so I can see for sure that everything’s OK, which is what Becca said happened to her with both her girls. But some of the girls on the boards seem to go and not hear a heartbeat and then just have to wait. Agh! That would not be pretty.
Holiday Cheer
Today my editor, who is nine-plus months pregnant, found out that she’s going to be induced on Wednesday, a couple of weeks early. I’m not really clear on exactly why (I didn’t want to get too personal with the questions) but she’s been going to the doctor a lot lately and they started her having weekly ultrasounds recently because they were concerned that the baby wasn’t moving around enough (though she said she thought the baby was moving around just fine from her vantage point!).
Anyway, she’s had an amazing attitude around the office for the past few months, even in the last throes of her pregnancy. I know she’s been getting more and more exhausted, but she hasn’t been complaining or seemed sluggish or anything at all. I think it partly may be because she was already four or five months pregnant when she started the job, and I think she’s felt a little odd about starting and then taking maternity leave and so hasn’t wanted to make a big deal out of the pregnancy. But still, she’s a trouper.
Yesterday I had a similar experience with another pregnant friend. We had a girls’ baking day over at the friend’s house whose baby shower I went to the other week. She’s a few weeks behind my editor, due in early January, but she’s still nearing the end of the long haul. We were slaving away in the kitchen (we made lemon meringue pie, chocolate truffles and frosted cut-out sugar cookies) for six hours, and not a complaint from her either.
It’s people like these two ladies – both of whom are great and whom I admire – who I’m afraid are just going to make me look bad when I get to that tough third trimester. I know – who’s to say how I’ll feel and how I’ll act, and maybe I’ll be able to put on a happy face at work and around friends and then come home and collapse and complain to my close friends and family (and who knows – maybe that’s what the others are doing, too!). But I just don’t feel highly optimistic that I’ll be Super Pregnant Gal, plowing through work and cooking and house projects and everything else while stumbling under the weight of Alien Baby taking over my body! I guess it all remains to be seen …
Meanwhile, I know I haven’t kept up at all with the whole idea of ending each post with a weight update. Frankly, while I know I’m getting thicker around the middle (love those rubber bands to extend the waistband of my pants!) I have no idea how much I’ve actually gained. I don’t own a scale and so have no way to weigh myself. I never do in general, keeping track of my weight only by how well my clothes fit and how my weight changes when I go to the doctor. I thought about buying a scale, but Shelly suggested against it when I brought it up, pointing out that I’d probably just become obsessed with how much I am or am not gaining, and she’s probably right. I’ll be going to the doctor every month, and she’ll tell me if I’m on track. And if I notice that I seem to be growing wider at an alarming rate, well, then I guess I’ll just have to lay off the Christmas cookies for awhile.
Back to My Worrying
Well, on the bright side, in the last few days I haven’t been feeling as tired, and my extremely sore boobs are feeling a whole lot less sore. So of course it’s freaking me out. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t want to have terrible morning sickness. I see all the posts on the forums from the girls who do and it sounds horrible. But I also know that a lot of other girls get nervous too when symptoms start decreasing. I mean, how am I supposed to know there’s still a little one growing and developing in there?? And I’m not going for the doctor for another week and a half! Agh. Guess I just have to think positive. Worrying because I feel pretty good just sounds plain silly, doesn’t it?
A Glimpse into the Future
Today we made the trek all the way out to Geneva, Ill., to visit some friends and their two-month-old baby. Yep, hopefully that will be us in another 10 months – sitting at home watching football on a Sunday afternoon with our little one sleeping peacefully between us on the couch.
Steve and Deanna’s baby was actually born 6 weeks early, so there were some scary moments for them early on, something I definitely hope we don’t have to go through. She was diagnosed at around 20 weeks with placenta previa and ended up on bed rest later in the pregnancy, and that contributed to the early delivery. But little Kady is now healthy and happy – just a bit on the small side at about 7 pounds. They said she wakes up about every four hours, so they’ve even managed to get some sleep in the last couple of months (although I’m sure the first week or two was a bit more harried). Because she was born so early, they’ve pretty much had to keep her at home so far, so being cooped up has been a little hard. But I think that happens pretty much no matter what, right, that feeling of being pent up in the house with the baby in those early weeks and months.
We also found out through them that another old friend of Andy’s is about 20 weeks pregnant, so her baby will be about 3 months older than ours. Too bad we don’t really see her very often – or really, Steve and Deanna either, since they live so far from us (it’s an hour away in no traffic). So while it’s great that I do have a handful of friends who are pregnant or who just had babies, none of them are close by or people I see very often. Still, it’s kind of nice to be going through these big life changes at the same time as other people we know. It’s funny, because these days people are having kids at all sorts of different times in their lives – after college, in the mid 20s, or like us, in their early 30s. It seems almost odd that so many people we know have chosen the same timeline as us.
On a different topic, I was really tired when we got back home around 4 pm, and a nap was sounding really good. I already had plans for later on tonight to make some soup with Shelly and potentially my sister too, and I also wanted to make some salad to take to work for lunch this week. The thought of it all was making me even more tired, but instead of lying down, I made myself hop on the elliptical for 40 minutes. Yay, me! And it worked. Not only did I feel slightly (only very slightly) about the pizza and chips I ate for lunch over at Steve and Deanna’s, but I actually did feel like I had more energy afterward.
Now the turkey stock is simmering on the stove (we’re making it into turkey posole to have with turkey quesadillas for dinner – gotta love leftovers!) and the salads are made, and I can spend most of the rest of the night relaxing and watching the Bears (hopefully) win. I do enjoy Sundays (too bad they lead to Mondays, though).
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