I’ve Been Kicked January 22, 2010

Sometime in the past week, my belly has grown.  It’s still not enough to put me in maternity pants (I’m still wearing my regular jeans and still need a belt, albeit on the last hole), but enough to be a little bit noticeable.  I think it must change the way I stand, because my (male) boss commented a week or so ago that I was starting to look like I had a bump under my coat.  I told him it’s mainly because it’s a maternity coat (so it cinches like an empire waist and the flows out over my belly), but it’s also because of the way I was standing (almost arched back and belly pushed out).  I don’t think I would normally stand like that!  (A story for another day is how and when I told my bosses I am pregnant.)

Earlier in the week I had a meeting with an undergraduate student who didn’t yet know I was pregnant.  I caught her eyes making a sweep over my belly and I knew in that moment that it had occurred to her.  So a few minutes later (after I’d left the office to get something and come back), I told her I was pregnant, and she indeed said that thought had occurred to her today when she was looking at me!

I think at this stage it’s helpful to tell people because otherwise, they really don’t know.  A friend of mine keeps gets congratulated on her pregnancy, and she’s not pregnant!  I remember the last time I was pregnant, looking around at women on the street and thinking that so many people really look like they could be in the earliest stages of pregnancy!  But there’s no way that all of the women with little bellies could actually have been pregnant.

I also, finally, felt the first “real” movement!  I was sitting at my desk, just after lunch, and I felt a series of definite bumps in the upper right part of my belly.  It was exciting enough that I almost got up to tell people about it, but then I decided they either wouldn’t care or would find it weird.  (The two people just outside of my office are both male and recent college grads, so I think pregnancy is probably still fairly foreign to them.)  So I just IM’d my husband instead, who was very excited to hear it.

I actually think I’ve felt movement in the past few weeks, one that even felt as early as 12 weeks.  I know that’s supposed to be too early, but what I felt then felt more like a mass turning over than a jabbing kick, so it seems reasonable to me.  Since then, I’ve felt an occasional something which seems to me to be baby movement, but it wasn’t until yesterday that it was really definite.

Oh!  And maybe I’m feeling something right now!  (I just ate breakfast.)

16 week ultrasound and consultation January 6, 2010

There’s a real baby in there!

16 week ultrasound:  On Monday morning, I had my first ultrasound. The ostensible purpose was for dating the fetus, but since we know my LMP (last menstrual period) and have some vague temperature information about when I might have ovulated, I wasn’t too my concerned about this. I don’t think my doctor was either, but she knows that dating ultrasounds are covered and that patients like them. And she probably figures it doesn’t hurt to have some confirmation about dating.

The fetus measured about two days younger than the date calculated by my LMP, but they don’t actually change the due date unless there’s a discrepancy of 10 days or more. So I’m still due on June 21 (or June 25th in my head, based on the above mentioned vague temperatures). The technician explained everything she was measuring, so we could really tell what we were looking at. The only part that threw me off was when she was apparently measuring the kidneys, but before she told me what it was, I thought we were looking at girl parts. I now have no idea what we were actually looking at, but I’m pretty sure that the perspective needed to see the kidneys is not the same as needed to tell the sex. And unfortunately, the tech said that 16 weeks is too early to tell the sex! So we still don’t know.

Here is the picture they sent us home with.

January 4, 2010 16 week ultrasound

After the ultrasound, my husband and I met with a doctor at the hospital for a consult regarding VBAC (Vaginal Birth after Cesearean) and AMA (Advanced Maternal Age).

VBAC:  My medical record shows nothing from my previous experience that they would anticipate occurring again so they say that makes me a good candidate for VBAC.  Another thing in my favor is that my labor was so short.  I got to 10 centimeters within just a few hours of the onset of labor, and the whole thing took 7 hours including the c-section.  They say that longer labors are a concern for VBACs because c-section scars may be stressed the longer the uterus is in contractions, and that short labors tend to be repeated in women.  (Yay, wouldn’t that be great?!)  They do recommend an epidural from the beginning, mainly because if I would need a repeat c-section, then I already have a needle with anesthesia already in place.  And they don’t recommend inductions, which is fine by me!  They said that usually a doctor will allow a VBAC, but if you go too far past your due date they consider a repeat c-section rather than an induction.

Of course, they also discussed the risks involved with VBAC.  They quoted the same 1% chance of uterine rupture that I’ve read about everywhere, but they further clarified that within that 1% there is about a 25% risk of maternal or fetal death.  My husband doesn’t like any odds that aren’t one in million when it comes to life and death, so I think he’s still wary about the idea of a VBAC.  But I am strongly leaning towards it.

It was really nice to have a long conversation with the doctors about this and get some personal anecdotes as well.  One of the doctors told me he’d seen only two uterine ruptures (out of hundreds of VBACs) and in both cases the women were on 5- and 7- previous c-sections!  Both women were fine in the end.  And he explained how you know if there’s been a uterine rupture:  abnormal heart tracing indicating fetal distress, baby moving back up in station, and/or pain.  In the case of the two ruptures he saw, it was abnormal heart tracing that sent the women into the operating room and they then discovered the scar had ruptured.  I asked whether there was any chance of a rupture happening undetected and what the outcome would be, and the doctor responded that the uterus would just heal itself as it contracts.  I found that sort of strange, so I ask that same question of my regular doctor the next time I see her (Jan 12).

The doctor also pointed out that the more c-sections you have, the more scars you have, and the greater likelihood you have for problems in later pregnancies (like placenta accreta).  Well, we aren’t planning to have  eight kids; we’re thinking two or three.  So maybe that’s not an issue for us, but I like that he told us about those experiences anyway.

Both of the doctors seemed to almost assume I would go with a VBAC, which I appreciated.  They said that there is a risk to consider, but also pointed out that there is also a small risk in c-sections.  They didn’t (or couldn’t) quantify that for me, though my guess is that the risk of maternal or fetal death is lower.  I read a study when I got home comparing women having elective c-sections due to breech presentation (since otherwise their pregnancies are uncomplicated and the c-sections are scheduled, and thus considered elective) to attempted vaginal births (which included those that actually ended up in emergency c-sections) and they found that the risk of severe morbidity (which doesn’t include death, but includes a bunch of other bad things like infections, hysterectomy, etc.) was significantly higher (though still extremely small) in the elective c-sections.  That is, worse things happened in the c-sections.  However, there were something like two deaths (out of over 2 million women) in the vaginal birth group and the problems they tended to have included things like uterine rupture (and these weren’t VBACs).

So personally I am leaning towards a VBAC because the pros involve things like 1) no surgery, 2) no recovery from surgery, 3) fewer medications during surgery and recovery, and 4) all the good hormones, etc. and things that happen during natural birth.  The only con is the very small risk of complications from uterine rupture.

(I will note, however, that I’m also a little scared of a vaginal delivery due to pain and possible tearing.  But I wonder if recovery from tearing could be as lengthy and hard as recovery from major abdominal surgery?  I guess it probably depends on the tear.)

AMA:  The doctors also told me a little bit about screening for genetic disorders, particularly Down’s syndrome.  They didn’t really tell me too much I didn’t already know, but again it was nice just to have the conversation.  The only screening test available to me now at 16 week is the quad test, which could then be followed up by a diagnostic amnio if we wanted.  I think they said that they will only do the quad test up to 20 or so weeks because you can’t terminate a pregnancy after 24 weeks in this state.  I was asking about whether the screening became more or less accurate (whatever that would mean for a screening) if you waited (e.g., if you were doing the screening because you wanted the information, but not because you intended to terminate the pregnancy) and they said no, it actually gets worse because then there are other hormones and things in the maternal blood that just confuse things.  I then asked what happens if you want  to terminate a pregnancy after 24 weeks and they said people go to Kansas or Nebraska where it’s legal!  I really wasn’t asking for myself – I was just curious to know what people do!  And I thought it was really interesting to observe the doctors’ demeanors – they were very straight forward and non-judgmental.  Since I wasn’t actually worrying about this being an issue for us, I felt like I shared their theoretical / academic interest in the topic.  I guess that’s an easy place to be, rather than actually faced with a choice in the very middle of a wanted pregnancy.

I’d gone into the appointment feeling like I probably wouldn’t want to test for Down’s and I left feeling the same way.  But my husband is leaning towards us getting the blood test done because he would prefer to have all the information when it’s available.  I guess that makes sense.  I think I’m more worried that we’ll get all worked up if we get test results showing a risk of 1/100 or something that is technically a “positive” screening, but still a very small risk.  So then what, we get the amnio that carries a 1/200 risk of miscarriage (or maybe it’s much lower, like 1/1600 as a recent study has suggested)?  I guess I’d want to know, but I hate the idea that the chances are good that our baby won’t have Down’s and yet we could easily suffer a month of worrying about it if the screening test suggests the possibility of Down’s.  And the screening test could be wrong – it could show us as low risk and yet the baby could still have Down’s.   Anyway, I have until my next appointment to think about this.

Queasiness is Gone! December 20, 2009

I noticed yesterday that I haven’t felt at all queasy in the past couple of days! Hooray!

I’m Ready! December 15, 2009

So I’m what – 12 or 13 weeks along now? (It’s actually 12 weeks 4 days according to my admittedly shaky estimation based on a guess about when I ovulated, and 13 weeks 2 days based on my last menstrual period.) That means I am getting very close to the second-trimester relief I am counting on!

So here I am, second trimester, ready and waiting!

I will say that this first trimester has been easier in one major way than during my previous pregnancy. I’m tired a lot of the time, but not sobbing on a regular basis from exhaustion.

But I’ve also been kind of queasy a lot of the time and I am just uninterested in a lot of foods. Also, a lot of foods don’t like me and they make me gassy and constipated. The temporary cure I’ve found is ginger ale, which makes me burp and that helps a bit. But I’m sort of hoping these digestive issues go away during the next trimester.

They will, won’t they?!

But mostly I’m just looking to regain some energy. I’m trying to be especially productive at work, but it’s hard when I always feel like I’m dragging. In the past week, I’ve actually felt more tired than I have been previously, so things seems to be going in the wrong direction. I’ve associated the new tiredness with an increase in my belly size, so I’m assuming that there’s some real growth going on in there, whether it’s of the baby itself or my uterus/placenta/whatever.

In the meantime, here I sit with my ginger ale. Waiting…

First Heartbeat December 14, 2009

Okay, enough suspense. We heard the heartbeat!

My husband and son came to the appointment, and I think my son was pretty confused about what was going on. When I was lying down and the doctor was rubbing the Doppler on my belly, he kept saying “Mommy sleeping. Mommy sleeping. …”

It was really a relief to hear the heartbeat and has suddenly made this pregnancy seem not only real, but normal. I’ve since told a couple more friends about it (over dinner that night) and when I told them, I didn’t feel like I was making up an elaborate lie or even that I was telling them “too early”. (I guess 12 weeks (or whatever) isn’t really too early to tell people, is it?)

I’ve also now broken out my maternity clothes, though this really has a lot less to do with being pregnant and more to do with the weather. I have so few warm winter clothes, but I do have some maternity sweaters from two years ago. I figured they would be huge on me, but I tried them on and it surprised me how well they fit. They are just a bit long, which is actually great because they keep me warmer that way, and I don’t think they are any longer than the current style of sweaters. I can’t believe I didn’t wear them all last year!

I didn’t even bother to try on my maternity jeans because I clearly don’t need them yet. But it’s reassuring to have them out now and ready to go, so that whenever I do need them I don’t have to dig into piles of clothes that are stored away.

As for weight gain this trimester, I’m at 7 pounds. And as I pointed out at the doctor, that’s with my boots on. She was very kind and suggested that my boots weigh “at least a pound”. I don’t remember how that compares with my last pregnancy, but I have a sense that it is less weight gain. I actually did think I’d gained less than 7 lbs in the past couple of months, because as I’ve said, I’m still wearing my regular jeans. But thinking about it now, my size smaller pants are not just tight, but actually uncomfortable to wear, so I guess I should have known I’d probably gained more than 3 or 4 pounds.

Not that I’m worrying about this! I’m just musing outloud.

Looking for Symptoms (Admist all the Symptoms) December 9, 2009

Last night I went to sleep when I was putting my 21-month old son to bed. Our current routine is to read a book together and then lie together on a bed in his room until he falls asleep and then I move him to the crib and, in theory, leave. But ever since I got pregnant, I’ve been falling asleep with him and staying there for hours. (I used to do that before I was pregnant, but would usually wake back up within half an hour and then get back up again.) It’s been really nice to be going to bed so early and I love being able to cuddle with him so long. I also love that, so far, it hasn’t seem to make him need to sleep with me all night long. Once I transfer him to the crib, he’s good there for the rest of the night. (Though sometimes he needs recuddling in the morning and that will allow him to go back to sleep for a couple more hours back in the crib.)

So last night I slept with him until about 1:30. I tried to move to my own bed, but was having some digestive issues that needed to clear themselves, and once that was done with, I decided I was hungry so I had a bowl of Heart Start cereal and some ginger ale. It was almost an hour later when I finally went to bed.

Lying in bed, my stomach felt pretty calm. Almost too calm, I thought. “Maybe I’m not really pregnant?!”, I started thinking to myself. I think it’s the combination of still comfortably wearing my regular jeans and not having even heard a heartbeat yet that made me question the possibility that maybe this pregnancy ended and I hadn’t noticed. So I started going through a mental list of things that would be strange if I weren’t still pregnant.

• Wouldn’t I have gotten my period or have had some signs of a miscarriage?
• Would I still be utterly uninterested in most foods other than pasta, egg drop soup, cereal, sushi, ginger ale, and grapefruit juice? Except for the sushi, which I love, all of the other things are just things I like but probably wouldn’t eat all day long for three months straight.
• Would I have teared up at the end of The Royal Tenenbaums last night? Who knows? Maybe?! I have no idea whether it was legitimately a tear-jerker or not.
• Would I be wanting to go to bed at 10 and struggling to get up at 7? Maybe, I like lots of sleep even though I didn’t used to get it.
• And wait, didn’t my small bras start feeling too tight?
• And didn’t I already set aside one pair of a smaller size pants that I can no longer squish myself into? Maybe I shouldn’t have been wearing them before, but they are just painful now. So what if I’m still wearing my larger pants with a belt – they have lots of room in them so it makes sense that I could still be wearing them.

So it’s not a lock tight case, but I think it’s suggestive that I’m still pregnant. It’s particularly the food issues that convince me, though the lack of a period or a miscarriage strikes me as reasonably suggestive too.

But instead of lying there in bed last night thinking about all of this, I really should have just convinced myself to fall asleep and wait less than 24 hours because I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon at 4 pm. And given that I’m 11 or 12 weeks along, I should probably expect my doctor to check for a heartbeat, right?!

A month gone by (and with it, practically the whole first trimester) December 6, 2009

What?! It’s December already? And I’m 11 or 12 weeks pregnant at this point – craziness!

I have yet to even hear a heartbeat yet, which I’m sure is my own fault for not having gone back to the doctor since the last time. I’ve been so busy, I’ve hardly had time to make a phone call, much less actually go to an appointment. But I have finally managed to schedule my appointment at the hospital for the consultation for VBAC counseling and AMA counseling (because I’ve crossed over the 35 year old threshold!). It took forever to find an appropriate time to call discretely from work and manage to catch the intake nurse, and then I still had to call back to get an actual appointment. So January 4th is when I’ll go. And I’ll get an ultrasound too.

In the meantime, I’ve almost been questioning if I’m really pregnant. It’s not because I’ve been symptomless – certainly not – but just because I haven’t had any official medical confirmation that I’m pregnant ever since my first visit, the same morning that I took my own pregnancy test at home and already knew that I was pregnant. So I’m definitely looking forward to this ultrasound and consultation next month.

I guess another reason I keep wondering if I’m pregnant is because I’m still wearing all of my regular clothes. Last time I was busting out of my pants at 8-9 weeks, and I thought second pregnancies were supposed to show even earlier. Then again, last time I was so incredibly hungry all the time and I craved red meat and orange juice – and so I had lots and lots of both. This time I am queasy (maybe not fully nauseous, but it’s still enough to be annoying and have me on the couch moaning every couple of days) and, if anything, less hungry than usual. And I’m definitely not craving red meat.

What I have been craving is relatively plain things: pasta with tomato sauce, egg drop soup, hard boiled eggs, ginger ale, and sushi. About the ginger ale – I think the carbonation in it allows me to burp and that is such a relief. About the sushi. Hm. I should say that I love sushi so much that it’s practically a “fact” about me and everyone knows it. But with my first pregnancy, I was very cautious about everything and only had one piece of sushi the whole time. (This was at a very good sushi restaurant in Brazil, and it was part of a larger plate of sushi that my husband was eating while I was having udon noodle soup.) I read up all on the risks of everything, and although sushi was admittedly something I considered borderline, I didn’t want to chance anything going wrong that would be my fault!

Once when I was complaining about missing sushi, someone told me that by the second or third child I wouldn’t be so strict and I would be doing crack. Well, I assume she was exaggerating, but it’s true that I have lifted the sushi ban this time around. From what I’ve read (and I can dig up sources if anyone is interested), the main problem with sushi is that there is a possibility of it harboring listeria if it hasn’t been stored properly, but that the risk of listeria is greater in foods like deli meats and even lox. I am not really sure what the difference is, but I’m guessing it has something to do with sushi being stored at colder temperatures or that maybe fish is a worse host for listeria (though that doesn’t explain why lox is of greater concern). Actually now that I think about it, I think it would be worth me taking the time to cull my sources and post a coherent argument. I will save that for a later post though!

I have more to say, but it’s time for bed and although I’m not flat out exhausted this pregnancy, I’m still pretty tired! So I’ll save the remaining stories for next time.

First Prenatal Visit November 3, 2009

In some ways my first prenatal visit was a boring bureaucratic task. I had to meet my doctor in a different office than usual where they do OB intakes, even though I’ve had this doctor ever since I found out I was pregnant with my first son and she is now also my son’s doctor. Since my medical history is already in their system, she really had nothing more to do than to estimate my due date based on my last menstrual period and then send me to the lab to get blood drawn. And yet I was at the doctor’s office for two hours. So yes, it felt a bit silly and formal. But it was also a big deal because it was the first official visit of what will be many visits over the next months.

My son and I arrived at the appointment early for once in my life. Because there’s a public transportation strike right now I had to walk, and since I was going to a new office location today (just a few blocks from where I usually see my doctor), I actually left myself a lot of time to get there. I had originally debated about bringing my son because I thought I might be having an exam, but I had emailed with my doctor and she told me that this was just a talking meeting. Also, I thought he needed to get the second dose of the flu shot (but it turned out he’d had the first dose too recently and so they couldn’t give him the second one yet).

My appointment started off with a nurse taking my blood pressure and then sending me to the bathroom to leave a urine sample. Then my doctor came in and asked for the date of my last menstrual period, and I actually had to look it up! I had been remembering the date that I had guessed that I ovulated, which is sort of silly since I really don’t know for that month. (Of course, after four months of charting, I get confused on the month I get pregnant.) I had been estimating the due date as June 25, 2010, but she estimated June 21.

She then asked whether I wanted to do an ultrasound. I paused and said, uh, you mean right now? No, she just meant an early one for the purposes for getting an accurate date. I paused again and said, is there any reason I wouldn’t want one? She laughed and said no, that it’s just that some people are purists and don’t see any need to peer inside any earlier than necessary. But I think I am like most people who think that the sooner I can see the baby, the better! So she wrote me a prescription (or a script or whatever they call it) for an ultrasound which I can schedule whenever I want.

Then she also wrote me out a prescription (or a script or whatever) for a VBAC consultation / AMA visit. The VBAC consultation part is a meeting with doctors who will review my previous labor and emergency c-section to assess what happened and to advise whether they recommend a repeat c-section or whether they think I can try for a VBAC. I have enough thoughts on this to write another whole post on the matter, for now I’ll just say that I really wish they offered this kind of consultation as an immediate follow-up to having had a c-section. I know I am not alone in feeling like the c-section took me completely by surprise, left me feeling really scared and nervous about the possibility of having to have a second one, and to this day, I still think about it and wonder what I did wrong (if anything) and whether they did the right thing! So finally, almost two years later I finally get to talk to someone about it.

The AMA part of the consult refers to Advanced Maternal Age, referring to the fact that I am 35. The doctors I’ll meet with will give me risk ratios for things like Down’s syndrome and discuss a bunch of diagnostic tests that I can choose to have (or choose not to have), like a blood test, an early ultrasound, and/or an amniocentesis. I think it’s fantastic that I’m actually going to be able to talk to someone about this instead of just having a bunch of pamphlets thrown at me and then asked to make some decisions. I really don’t know whether I’ll have these tests or not. I didn’t have them done with my son (and that was when I was 33 turning 34 before he was born), so I’m sort of leaning against them now. But, I honestly haven’t thought through this very much and I think that this really warrants some serious thought. So I will start to scour the internet for information and listen to what the doctors have to say and decide after that.

Next on the agenda was the flu shot. They handed me some papers to sign and I saw that they intended to give me the regular flu shot and the H1N1 flu shot. As I was distracted and talking with my doctor, I signed my name next to both of them. But then when I was left in the room for a minute by myself before getting the shot, I thought, wait, didn’t I already get the flu shot? And yes, I did, as my doctor confirmed in my records. So I’m glad one of us was paying attention!

As for the H1N1 vaccine, apparently my doctor’s office got 20 doses which they split between the two office locations, and there was only one left at the current location and I got it! I’m a little relieved, because the more I hear about the flu and particularly pregnant women getting the flu, the more concerned I was getting.

Finally, my doctor ended our appointment with some distressing (to me) news. In a few months, she is going to be leaving the practice! It’s a good move for her because she’s going to work somewhere where she doesn’t have to work nights and weekends all the time, 48 hrs at a stretch. Apparently they just don’t have enough OB doctors in this practice/hospital, so they are all stretched too far. I never would have guessed because my doctor has an incredibly warm and bubbly disposition and she is always available to me by phone or even email. But anyway, it’s gotten to be too much for her and she said that she would like to be able to have a baby one day herself, so it sounds like this is a good move for her. Of course, that means I will be finishing up this pregnancy without her and will need a new doctor for myself and for my son. I actually got kind of teary when she told me, which is probably in part because I’m already quick to cry these days. Hopefully she took that as a compliment and not as a needy/deranged patient! She told me that she can recommend a couple of people to me, one of whom I met when I was in labor last time (of course, I can’t say I got a chance to assess him with a clear mind). So we’ll see. My husband has also suggested that I could try other practices in the area and/or get a separate pediatrician for my son (and future child).

The rest of the visit was just a lot of waiting. We waited and waited for me to get blood drawn. And when they finally called me, I had to leave my son in the stroller and he started crying! He’d been fine when I was entertaining him, but when he was five feet away from me and I couldn’t move to get him, I think he just freaked out. He was tired from not having a good nap and he was almost certainly very hungry because this visit took so much longer than I’d expected. It’s also possible that he was freaked out about the needle going into my arm – maybe he remembers the couple of times he’s had blood drawn. (Both attempts failed and he was miserable and they’ve recommended I bring him to the children’s hospital because they have smaller needles, more experience with young children, etc.)

Then we waited some more for his flu shot, only to find out in the end that he’d had the first dose too recently and so they couldn’t give him this second dose. At that point I was shoving Cheerios in his hands and he was crying for more and I was just eager to go home. I have to say I am very glad he didn’t get the shot!

Then I came home, couldn’t deal with cooking dinner so late, we ordered Chinese, I made a big deal about how I didn’t want what we usually ordered and instead wanted tofu, and then when the food got here and I ate two spring rolls, I decided I was much too full for the soup or the tofu! Oh well, I guess I have dinner for tomorrow night now.

Focusing November 3, 2009

Since I’m only in the first trimester, I feel like this pregnancy should be backgrounded in everything I do. In fact, I should not only be focused on work, I should be putting in double effort because all too soon I will have to tell my bosses, and then there will be the brain fog of the third trimester, and then maternity leave of some sort. (At work, I am not under a contract and as far as I understand, my bosses’ could let me go whenever they want – though presumbly with at least 3 months notice or so.) I really thought that when I got pregnant, I would instantly snap into overdrive.

But instead, two things have happened. One is that I’ve been really focused on this pregnancy, wanting to read about it (e.g., I’m rereading the Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy) and finding myself thinking about it all the time. And I don’t know if this is nesting already, but the state of our apartment fills me with anxiety – it’s a mess now and I can only imagine how out of control it will be when this baby gets here, even though it’s still months and months away. So I’ve been trying to clean, but of course, when I clean one area, I usually just make another one messy.

The other thing that has happened is that I’ve been feeling some fatigue and nausea. It’s not enough for me to be outright sick, but it’s enough that I feel a little draggy, I want to watch tv when I get home instead of rushing around making dinner, and I keep going to bed a little early. And my digestion system has really slowed down, making me always feel a bit uncomfortable and slightly nauseous. I wouldn’t say I’m bothered by certain foods, but I am a lot less interested in food than I was last time. Last night I made macaroni and cheese for dinner and just couldn’t bring myself to eat any of it myself. Instead, lately I’ve been on an egg kick. But I supposed that just for general health reasons alone I probably shouldn’t keep eating two eggs over easy on toast for breakfast and dinner!

The idea that I should be doubling my efforts at work is still with me, but instead of acting on it I’ve just been feeling slightly guilty and anxious about it. I also feel a little bit like I’m waiting for this tired queasiness to pass. Of course, that is unrealistic thinking. Just because I feel a little under the weather and normally that would pass within a few days at most, this is quite likely to continue for at least two more months. So I think what I need to do is find a good balance between rest and work. When I’m at work, I can’t work slowly just because I’m a little tired. I need to push through and get as much done as I can, knowing that I can relax at home. (I actually should be working at home as well (because my job is one that isn’t really supposed to be done in only 40 hours a week), but for the sake of balance, I probably can get away with resting in the evening if it helps me be more productive during the day.

(Of course, I’m talking like I don’t already have a child who requires time and energy!)

But today is my day home with my son. This is in part to avoid paying child-care every single work day and also in part to give me a day home with him so I don’t have to go five days in a row without spending time with him other than in the evenings (half of which I’m supposed to be working). So I’m going to spend the rest of today reading with him, playing with him, making lunch, cleaning, etc.

Also, I have my first prenatal appointment today. My doctor says there won’t be an exam, so I’m guessing it’s just filling out some paperwork, figuring out the due date, and getting the swine flu shot (they have only 20 doses left in their office, reserved for pregnant women!). But who knows, maybe something more exciting will happen. (I’m secretly hoping to hear a heartbeat.)

Aching Belly October 29, 2009

I think I have a new pregnancy symptom to report. It’s pretty minor as pregnancy-complaints go, but it’s been hanging around for a couple of days now so I think it’s the real deal.

My stomach has been aching and gassy for a couple of days now and it doesn’t really seem to matter what I eat. Just now I let out an actual burp – something I never do! I was reading last night in What to Expect that progesterone causes your muscles to relax and that can slow digestion, so maybe that’s what’s going on. Whatever it is, it’s kind of uncomfortable and I’m hoping it passes.

Updated an hour later: Uh oh, now I feel really tired too.