Thankfulness and Respect

I know that it seems like I complain a lot about pregnancy on here.  Well, the reason for that is because those just happen to be the funny stories.  If I talked about all of the amazing parts about pregnancy I might be mesmerized, but I think most everyone else would be bored.

But I think that it is worth talking about from time to time (especially considering that we are heading into the season of thankfulness with Thanksgiving being just one month away).  First, I want to talk about respect.  Pregnancy is way harder than I ever thought it would be.  I have a ton of respect for every woman who has ever been pregnant.  It is kind of a constant physical battle.  While I had sympathy for pregnant women in the past, now I have empathy and will do everything I can to help them and make their lives easier.

Even though this has been one of the hardest things that I have ever done (and labor will catapult the difficulty into the stratosphere), it is worth it and I wouldn't trade any of it (except maybe the vomiting).  Every little battle I face I am fighting for my baby, confirming my love and showing myself that I can be a good mother.  I am also rewarded in small ways every day.  One of the greatest feelings that I have ever experienced is feeling my baby kick.  I stare at my belly every time I feel movement (which is making me less and less productive as the weeks go by and the baby kicks more and more).  I try to get Keith to stare too, but I realize that it is not as exciting to him.  As he has said, he doesn't get to feel the baby moving on the inside along with seeing the movement on the outside.  I know that not everyone gets to experience this, and I am so thankful that I am lucky enough to be able to feel my baby.  I am blessed.  And in less than 9 weeks (or so) I will get to hold my baby in my arms and feel it move around and kick on the outside.

what I most look forward to

Other than actually having a baby in my arms, what I most look forward to after childbirth is once again gaining the ability to sleep flat on my back or stomach.

Feeling first trimester preggers...again

I made a bit of a mistake today.  I was grocery shopping and came across gummy prenatal vitamins.  I have been taking gummy flintstone vitamins since my first trimester since prenatal vitamins made me throw up and chewable flintstone vitamins made me feel extremely nauseated.  I finally just accepted the fact that I would have to take gummy flintstone vitamins.

I have been doing really well with my gummy flintstone vitamins.  I only got super nauseated from them a couple of times (both times on an empty stomach), and for the last 10-15 weeks I have been able to take them on an empty stomach no problem!  It was with this logic, that gummy vitamins are safe, that I decided to purchase gummy prenatal vitamins at the store today.

Not all gummy vitamins are created equal, however.  Gummy flintstone vitamins actually don't have a very high vitamin content.  This is good and bad.  It is good because the vitamins were what was upsetting my stomach, so by taking much smaller doses throughout the day I was able to keep the vitamins down.  This is bad because the vitamins are low in vitamins, so in order to get in enough vitamins to match up to my prenatal vitamin I had to take 8 gummy vitamins in a day.  This rarely happened.  Furthermore, some vitamins in the flintstone gummies were at 50% of the RDA in just one gummy.  Other vitamins were at 12.5%.  So in order to get 100% of the vitamins at 12.5%, I would get 400% of the vitamins at 50%.  Anyone who knows about my thesis research would realize that this really bothers me - vitamins are not good at all levels.  We have 100% for a reason.  If you exceed that level by too much, the vitamins cause more harm than good, leading to bad diseases, organ damage, and sometimes death.  When I found the prenatal vitamins I was very happy to discover a mostly balanced vitamin profile.  In taking 2 gummy prenatals, I was able to get 50-100% of all of my major vitamins!  And the ones at 50% are vitamins like vitamin E (which most people do not need in supplement form) and the ones at 100% were vitamins like vitamin D (which most people need in supplements in order to meet the recommended intakes).  I was so happy to finally have a bottle of gummy vitamins with a decent vitamin profile, and I was happy to have prenatal vitamins that I would be able to take because they were gummy!

But I was wrong.  Unfortunately, within about 20 minutes of taking my new prenatal vitamins I began to feel nauseated.  It has now been 5 hours since I took my vitamins and I still feel as bad as when I first took them.  I think that I am perhaps not meant to take prenatal vitamins, and that I should try to continue through my last 9 weeks of pregnancy with Fred, Dino and Pebbles.

Gwesley

We finally decided on baby names and that it is time to share.  If we have a girl, she will be named Gwendolyn Aurelia.  If we have a boy, he will be named Wesley Rowan.  We love these names and spent hours looking through somewhere between 10 and 20 thousand names.  And in 2 1/2 weeks we will find out, at my baby shower, if we are having a little Gwen or a little Wes!  But, until then, we are having a "Gwes."

Let me introduce you to my friends Braxton and Hicks

I have been experiencing some pre-term labor.  Not that it is a big deal, as I'm pretty sure that most women experience it.  However, when it hits it interferes with my life in minor ways because I have to slow down and take better care of myself (our bodies have amazing ways of telling us when we are doing too much).

The main symptom that I have been experiencing is menstrual like cramps.  They started about 3 weeks ago on a day that I felt nauseated and allowed myself to become dehydrated.  The next time they struck was about a week or two later when I was out of the house for seven hours with no access to water.  Tonight I got really severe cramps again.  However, this time I had been laying in bed all day reading and typing for my thesis.  I had eaten two square meals already as well as one snack.  I had taken in 7 8-oz glasses of water and milk.  So for the life of me I have no idea why baby decided to revolt and cause sharp, rhythmic pain in my back and pelvis.  This time things were different than the last two times; the pain occurred every 5 to 10 minutes, or so, with no pain in between.  This has led me to believe that I may have experienced my first contractions (braxton-hicks, mind you, but contractions nonetheless).  But they didn't feel like what I thought contractions would feel like.  Because they felt different than I thought, it makes me think that I am reading too much into things.

But let's face it: it never hurts to take a break, drink a big glass of water and lay down for a little while.

Pregnancy Brain

I have been having pregnancy brain lately.  Anyone who has been pregnant know what I'm talking about.  Memory gets worse, and things that you have been doing for years somehow get jumbled up.  There is a reasonable explanation - your body is shuttling all sorts of nutrients to the growing baby, and sometimes there is not enough left over for your brain.  But I have had a couple of doozies of memory lapses recently.

For example, I went to the post office about 3 or 4 weeks ago to mail a package.  I drove all the way there and got out of the car before I realized that I didn't have the address of the person that I was going to mail the package to.  Then I forgot that I put the package in my back seat and so now this Birthday present, which was supposed to be mailed at the beginning of September will likely be hand delivered when I see her next weekend.  I am a little embarrassed, and I realize that I shouldn't be using my pregnancy as an excuse, but I'm going to because I am only going to be pregnant for 2 1/2 more months before I have to admit that sometimes I just have a bad memory and do dumb things.

Tonight I had another pregnancy brain moment.  I couldn't remember how to spell my husband's name.  I had to look him up on facebook to figure out how to spell "Keith."  I knew how to spell Keith before I met my Keith.  I have never spelled his name wrong in the 4+ years that we have been together.  Yet somehow, tonight, I couldn't remember if he spelled his name Kieth or Keith.

I think that I am also going to blame the fact that I spent a large portion of my day reading about metabolism and pharmacokinetics of Vitamin D for my thesis.  Of course, if I can't figure out how to spell my husband's name, I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to intelligently discuss vitamin and mineral metabolism with my committee.  

2nd Trimester Recap...onto the 3rd!

I would like to start by airing a grievance of mine. Why is the first trimester 14 weeks, the second trimester 14 weeks, and the third trimester is only 12 weeks? I was so excited when I was 26 weeks and 6 days pregnant that I would be starting my third trimester the next day, only to find out (upon searching the internet), that the third trimester starts at 28 weeks and I still had to wait 1 more week. I confirmed this by talking to my husband, Dr. Keith. He said he believed the reason for it only being 12 weeks was that it was originally based on age of viability (with our advancing medical technologies the age of viability is about 24 weeks now, but there is still a much better chance of survival without major long-term medical problems at 28 weeks). All that being said, I think it is unfair to call them trimesters, since trimesters suggests some sort of even division. I suppose if I go 2 weeks past my due date, however, that I will have 3 14-week trimesters.

The second trimester went much better than my first trimester. Here are some examples of how that was so:

Cravings: I started craving more real foods. While in my first trimester I was craving Twizzlers, Poptarts, McDonald's McFlurry's and french fries, Macaroni and Cheese (Kraft...with the powdered cheese), and Hot Pockets, by the end of my second trimester I was craving cereal (All Bran), Salad and Soup. I was also able to increase my water intake from 4-6 glasses a day up to about 12 or 13. All in all, a much healthier diet and one that makes this future dietitian feel much more at ease.

I started showing: I have been wanting to "show" since I was about 6 weeks pregnant. I told myself that if I would wait patiently for about 10 more weeks that my wish would come true and I would start to develop a baby bump. This, however, did not happen. When I was 22 weeks pregnant, I spent a half hour talking to someone, offhandedly mentioned that the baby is due in December, and got the response "You're pregnant!" At 23 weeks I started to look a little bit pregnant if I was wearing something form fitting. I even said to Keith at one point, "It's too bad that I don't have anyone to hide my pregnancy from because it would be a piece of cake. Like an unsupportive boss." Finally at 25 weeks I had one person venture to ask if I was pregnant (a risky move that I would not have made, but props to her for getting it right), and at 26 weeks I looked measurably bigger than the week before. However, my bump grows and shrinks from day to day, likely based on the position of the baby and how big of a lunch I eat. Here is a picture of me starting my 3rd trimester!

My weight loss finally stopped: At the end of my first trimester I had lost 11 pounds. As of a few weeks ago I had lost 20 pounds (I was so sick I hadn't eaten the day before and I was dehydrated, so I think this may have been a false low weight). I am now down about 18 pounds. Over the course of my second trimester I only lost 7 pounds and have been weight stable for a few weeks. This is good news, and I can rub it into Nurse OB's face if I run into her again. I have been able to eat more calories and eat more regularly now than I could even a month ago. I still have a really rough day about once or twice a week where I sit on the couch and rock back and forth because my nausea is so bad, but once a week is much better than all the time.

The nursery is almost done: I finished several of my art projects and hung them up in the nursery. I think it is really starting to come together. Now the only things that I need to finish for the nursery are a painting, a punch-needle project, and putting the baby's name on the wall (something I can't do until I know whether we are having a boy or a girl). I also need to organize baby clothes and baby gear, but we don't have any of those things yet, so I can feel guilt free that I haven't started on that.

Reading: I've gotten some reading done. Edit: I've gotten some TONS of reading done. While the insomnia is really annoying, it has given me time to pursue reading in the wee dark hours of the night. Early in pregnancy I read a couple of books about being pregnant. During my second trimester I began to read books about giving birth. Next on my reading list are books about raising babies and keeping marriage strong when having babies. Mixed in there are some books that I have read just for fun. I got 7 books for my birthday (1 month ago) and have already read them all. I enjoy reading so it has been nice to get through a large portion of my pile of books. Also, while reading can only prepare you so much, it does help me to feel more in control in situations that are largely out of my control.

Names: We picked out names!!! We have spent several months going through thousands of names, and last night we finally decided on a boy's name (we finalized the girl's name a couple of months ago). But no, we're still not telling. I am having two baby showers: one in Keith's hometown and one where we live. Since my mom and mother-in-law are both going to be at the second shower, we are going to reveal the sex of the baby at that shower. Keith and I don't know the sex of the baby - it is in a sealed envelope on our refrigerator (no, we haven't peeked). We are going to give it to our baker, he is going to fill the cake with either pink or blue buttercream, and we will find out with our party guests if we are having a boy or a girl when we cut the cake open. We decided that we wanted to give a little something to the guests at the first shower, however, since they don't get to find out the sex of the baby, so we are going to announce our boy and girl names at that shower (2 Sundays from now).

So, as you can see, the second trimester was much more productive and successful than my first trimester. And I'm hoping for an even more successful third trimester!

Pregnant Dreams

I had heard from several people that dreams become much more vivid and detailed when you are pregnant. This has certainly been the case. While I have had several weird dreams, there are none more disconcerting than those regarding childbirth and raising the baby after it is born. Early in pregnancy, sometime during my first trimester, I had a dream that I had just brought the baby home from the hospital. We had been home for over 2 days and I had only remembered to feed the baby twice during that time. I remember feeling super guilty in my dream for neglecting my baby and when I woke up I started to get anxious about feeding the baby once its born. While I realize that the baby would not allow itself to go for 2 days without eating (my dream baby never cried to let me know it was hungry), it still made me wonder if I was equipped to care for a newborn. Apparently, from my readings about pregnancy, dreams like this are very common during pregnancy due to the fears of the unknown. About two weeks ago I had another disturbing dream. This time it was about childbirth. I have been reading quite a bit about childbirth lately in an attempt to mentally prepare myself (however, I realize that nothing will truly prepare me for the big event). I dreamt that my water broke. I was so happy and thought "I should go pack my bag for the hospital!" Apparently something in my dream world (perhaps the unpacked hospital bag) triggered me into an awareness that I was only 26 weeks pregnant and my water had already broken. (Side note: While I was working in High Risk Maternity during my dietetics internship we had women who were 26 weeks pregnant with PPROM - premature rupture of membranes - all the time, but they had "sprung a little leak." In my dream I had full out water breakage which is very different from PPROM and most definitely means that birth is soon.) When it hit me that I was going into labor 14 weeks early I decided that I should head upstairs (I was packing my hospital bag in the basement) and tell Keith. However, when I started to walk up the stairs, the umbilical cord fell out and was dangling between my legs so I kept on tripping on it while I was climbing the stairs (it fell all the way to the floor). Not only did it fall part way out, but it was already cut (however, the fact that it was cut and that the cord was an empty lumen didn't seem to phase me in the slightest - somehow the baby was still able to receive nutrients and oxygen in dream world). Once I got to the top of the stairs, Keith cut the umbilical cord so I could walk around without tripping and we put it in a ziplock baggie and put it on ice (like you would a severed finger) to transport it to the hospital. That's the last part of the dream that I remember. Bizarre. I guess my dreams are helping me to sort through the uncertainties of the near future. By experiencing the absolute extreme, worst case scenarios by dream I might be more equipped to handle the normal, but life-changing moments to come.