Week Six

Well not really much has changed over the last week...

Some good news I have to share though is that my headaches have calmed down a bit and are only here and there now, not ALL day long. Thank GOD. I am trying very hard not to take any sort of medicine unless absolutely necessary for the baby's sake. So far doing good with just one Tylenol last week to curb a terrible all-day headache while my sister was in town with her boyfriend. 

Speaking of that, we got to spread the news to her in the funniest way, similar to this - 
How To Announce A Pregnancy

It was HILARIOUS...especially when she looked in the oven, found a hamburger bun inside, and said, "A roll?? Why is there a ROLL in the oven??!" Then she got it. I just knew that's how she would react, no one calls rolls buns around here unless they are covered with cinnamon and icing. 

So more people know our little secret now, including my brother and father, who are both very excited to be welcoming a new addition to the family. The more people we tell, the more exciting and real everything feels. I must say it's pretty tough to feel like I'm making life inside me when I haven't even gone to the doctor's yet to get it all confirmed with a professional stamp of YesYourDefinitelyPreggers approval (they do that, right?). Seeing what's growing in my belly on a sonogram, as tiny as it may be, will surely help solidify the new excitement and wonder that is pregnancy. All we can do is wait for the next week and a half for our appointment...August 6th! 

I really cannot wait to be able to tell my friends. I have been a bit of a shut-in since we found out, and I'm starting to get a little cabin fever. I would be a bit more social but honestly, if you know me, you know I LOVE to drink beer. In the sunshine, or inside on a rainy day, or in the middle of a snowstorm, or in a desert, on a boat, a beach, etc. And it has been very nice out. Definitely good beer drinking weather.  

The few people who we regularly hang out with will definitely know something's up if they see me sitting on their patio drinking water or ginger ale instead of a delicious frosty beer. Yes, I could just lie and say I don't feel good or am on medication that can't be mixed with booze, but I'm a bad liar. Instead I'm just avoiding the awkward lying by not leaving the house to socialize right now after about four or five pm ("typical" happy hour start). I don't want to spill the beans too early. I at least want to get to our first prenatal appointment to make sure everything is fine before we tell any friends.

And that's another thing. Why is it that no one ever seemed to mention how uncomfortable the not knowing what's going on in there is in pregnancy? Of the handful of pregnant friends and associates I've had, I've only heard one speak of worrying about whether or not the baby is growing three heads or something. And that was just a couple of weeks before we found out we were expecting. Maybe they did talk about it and I was just too oblivious to notice. Or perhaps it's just me, being the typical worrisome over-thinking person that I am. Or maybe it's just one of those things people don't really like to talk about, and for good reason. 

I have to admit I'm pretty scared that something may be wrong with our little bundle. It's not like I'm getting a weird hunch that something IS wrong or something...it's more of just the fear of the unknown, like I wrote about when we first found out we were pregnant. I hate not knowing!

The more I read about testing for birth defects like Trisomy 18 and Downs Syndrome, the more scared and nervous I get. I guess I should stop doing that, huh. Damn you, internet. And according to the internet, these types of worries are very common and everyone has something to say about them. 

For me personally I just don't think I want to even get those tests done. If something is wrong with our baby I would rather not know about it until it happens, and deal with it then. But it sure would be relieving to have the screening done and get a negative result on the other hand. Hopefully our doctors will talk us through all of this. I have heard the testing process is all pretty expensive too, so that I'm sure will also be a deciding factor. 

Some more good news - we got a new bed - king size! My father's girlfriend was getting rid of it and gave it to us. Couldn't have come at a better time. As much as I love snuggling with Cody and the dogs (yes - we are crate-training failures and I don't care who knows it), it is SOOOOOO nice to also have the option of not touching at all. I can't believe we used to sleep in a full size bed in our first apartment together. Even a queen felt big after we finally upgraged to that two years ago. So the king is where it's at. It's definitely helping with the adjustment of training myself to sleep on my side, and the new mattress is much softer than our old one, which I think is helping my back.

So if you need to find me, you'll know where I'll be much of the time - especially once fall comes - snuggled up in bed, watching the new Netflix list I made specifically to get me through some of the next eight month's boring moments (or hours). Helloooooo, Lost/Grey's Anatamy/Dexter/Law & Order SVU...anyone have any other suggestions??? 





  

Week Five

My first baby purchase today from the farmer's market.
We are having a gender neutral flower child.
That is all. 

Well, it's been over a week and half now since we've learned the big news of our brand spankin' new pregnancy, and so far so good! 

The initial shock factor is still a little fresh, but it's totally real, and sinking in. I finally tossed the two pregnancy tests I took, which sat on the bathroom counter for almost a week. For whatever reason I needed to leave them out in plain view for awhile before getting them outta there. So yeah, baby time: sinking in. 

However, I think I keep forgetting we're having a baby overnight. I have been sleeping SOOOOO deliciously well (I imagine that has to do with the absence of any alcohol before bedtime). But I keep waking up each morning with a new feeling of excitement and confusion. Like when you're not really quite awake yet and you wonder if the fuzzy thoughts first on your mind are dream-related. Or are they actually real? Yeah, something like that, and yep, uh-huh. They Really. Are. Real. We made a baby.

Not much has changed symptom-wise for me so far. My boobs still ache to high heaven and I'm pretty crampy in my abdominal region...very much like my regular old PMS. I can deal with that. 

The one thing that's really quite pronounced are the mind crushing "flash" headaches I keep getting on and off. I call them flashy because they literally flash through my head, coming on so quick and then gone within seconds. They suck. 

My mood is also a little, welllllll, off to say the least. I don't know if it's the hormones or the stress of coming to terms with such a big change (I think they call this the "good kind" of stress), but I've been losing my cool very quickly. Most of what I'm pissing and moaning about is puppy/dog related, because they're constantly playing with each other. And by playing I mean frantically chasing each other all over the house, knocking things over, growling, biting, and making each other squeal, and of course backing one another underneath my computer desk whenever I'm sitting at it. And lets not forget the puppy pee and poop, ALL DAY LONG. It's everywhere. We go through a roll of paper towels every other day! So I guess this is good practice for our future eh?

So we told a few people about our little secret. First of all we made an appointment for our first prenatal visit. Since I haven't been to the doctor in years and my old family practitioner is about thirty minutes away from us we decided it'd be best to start fresh and find a new one. So we did some research and chose the practice with the most informative and updated website in our area, that participates with my insurance. It's a group practice (meaning I will have four doctors) and they were very helpful over the phone, and it's literally a five minute drive from our house to the office. I read that choosing your OB should be a very careful and choosy process but honestly I just want to go to the first appointment and see how it feels once we are there and talking to them. I really can't see ourselves sitting down and "interviewing" the doctors about their background and education and moral and ethical values. 

We have also told two close friends and our parents. Everyone is excited and they are all sworn to secrecy since it is still very early (5 weeks). My sister is coming to visit this weekend and we are going to tell her the good news right away...she is going to flip her shit. Can't wait!

  
   

Tiny Human

There's a tiny human in there  

Woah. 

Holy. Crap. 

Yeah, it's really, finally happened. It sounds so strange to even THINK the words in my head as I type this. 

A "happy little accident" is what they call it right? Or is that not right to say? Because, well, clearly some day our little 14 year old brat will stumble upon this blog, read it, and think/know that he was an accident?!!!? Oh God, listen to me. I'm insane. And yes, I am calling it a him. Don't ask me why.

I am so scared. This is the SCARIEST thing ever!

The kind of stuff that truly scares the bejesus out of me is the not knowing stuff. I am pretty much the biggest control-freak-need-to-plan-write-everything-down-list-making person I know. I hate not knowing. 

One thing I do know though, is that I pretty much knew I was pregnant before I took this test. When I woke up three days ago and realized I was just a teeny bit later than normal this month, my boobs were aching, I was crampy, and my hormones were raging out of control, I decided to take a pregnancy test, just in case. "Sure, it's probably just my period" I thought, but a little voice inside me also said that there's a big chance there would be two little lines on it. I just felt different. I was really nervous when I took it. Like, heart pounding out of my chest nervous. And while I waited for the result to develop, I took comfort in the waiting period by lying in the fetal position on the bathmat. 

I got up. Two lines! Following a mini heart attack, I showed baby daddy the test and we hugged and then had a long, happily nervous chat in bed. We said things like, "This is a good thing!" and "Everything is going to be okay," and "You have nine months to get used to it." You know, all of those things that people say when they don't know just what to say. Surprisingly they were all oddly nice to hear. It was really very reassuring to have his support and open ears and arms just to lean on right then. We stayed in bed most of the morning watching Netflix, letting it all sink in with our minds on autopilot. 

We kind of knew this was going to happen, but just didn't expect it to happen so incredibly soon.     

After all, for the last couple of months we have been "NOT Not Trying." That is the name I gave having sex and doing absolutely nothing to prevent making a tiny human. And when I said that out loud my husband laughed and said "the moment we start 'NOT Not Trying' is the second we start trying." 

We both had a good laugh and didn't speak anymore of it.

I really can't believe it only took like, um....a month or so of NOT Not Trying to actually conceive!!!

So now that the initial shock has worn off, we are beginning our journey as parents together one day at a time. 

We have googled a hundred pregnancy related things already, and put a halt on a porch painting project that I wanted to get done this week because fumes are bad and all for pregos. He is not letting me clean the cat litter due to some weird thing about how cat turds are toxic (score), and also told me not to clean the bathroom because the cleansers we use are nasty and also toxic (score again). I've been chugging water all day long and snacking a lot and inspecting my belly often to see if I can notice even the slightest change (so far, it's the same...thank god). And cleaning anything I can; it seems to distract me from processing or even thinking all the mind-blowing thoughts I seem to be having right now. 

A doctor's appointment has been made (Aug 6th), and a plan to alert the fam and close friends is in the works. It's still really early. They said I am about four weeks along, so we're keeping it very hush-hush until further notice... 

...Which is really why I felt the need to write this blog. I should probably be working on reading the huge baby books I checked out of the library yesterday or potty training the new BABY PUPPY we just got (yeah, for real - wonderful timing, haha), but I just needed to get this big news out somehow. 

And for now I will keep chugging water and snacking and scrubbing, and snuggling my boys (dog children) and telling myself that everything...will be just fine.