CP's brilliant idea

While CP was off working in LA these past two weeks he had a chance to read a bit more of his book for expectant fathers.  One of the interesting things he came across is studies of babies in utero and if you play a certain song over and over, the baby will recognize it after birth.  Same thing with voices.  Obviously the baby knows my voice since it hears me every day and I would think that the baby knows CP's voice?  Then again he has been away for two weeks and so far this pregnancy I haven't been able to get CP to talk to my belly/the baby.

So CP came up with an idea that I absolutely LOVE.  To have all of the grandparents read a short baby book into some sort of device and play it for the baby every night.  That way not only will the baby recognize our voices, but also the voices of its grandparents (my parents are here and will be seeing their first grandchild a lot, but CP's parents are both in NH).  Genius and completely adorable, right?  My heart completely melted when he told me this plan this week (my mom teared up when I told her the plan).  

I just found recordable storybooks so maybe that's what we do for this little project?  Any other suggestions?  I want to get working on this soon because I'm basically down to two months before this baby is evicted!  (eekkkk!)

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This afternoon I leave for CT and I'm really excited.  Tomorrow is my first baby shower so I'm excited to see friends as well as celebrate this pregnancy.  My friends in CT went through the thick of my infertility- my fibroid/endo surgery, the unsuccessful IUIs, and all of the other crappy months that we couldn't get pregnant, so celebrate we will!  CP doesn't get in from LA until tonight so he will be meeting me out there tomorrow.  The shower is going to be a Jack & Jill shower so men are welcome which should be interesting.  And since I know my friends in CT, I also know that there is going to be plenty of alcohol (with lots of water for me of course). Either way it should be fun!!

Dreams

A lot of women tend to have very vivid dreams when they are pregnant.  I have heard quite often they are scary, like having a dream that you lost your baby in a store or something similar.

But for me, I went a full 29 weeks before having a pregnancy dream.  Or at least one that I could remember (and I remember a lot of my dreams).  So far the most prevalent theme in my dreams is CP either going off to be with another woman, or oogling another woman right in front of me.  And of course when I wake up I am furious at him.  My pregnancy book says that these dreams are basically my subconscious telling me that I am not feeling good about myself and my body.

Which honestly? Is sort of surprising and then sort of not surprising.  I mean, in NO WAY do I feel sexy while pregnant.  Especially recently because I had to ask CP to go to the store to get hemorrhoid wipes with witch hazel. There is NOTHING sexy about that request.  Even though I have only gained 14 pounds so far, I do feel big.  Most if not all of the weight is in my baby belly, but I still hate my upper arms and the cottage cheese on the back of my thighs and my butt.  The only thing that I don't miss is having to suck in my stomach-  no way to do that these days!!

Hopefully because I haven't gone crazy with eating crappy food and because I haven't gained a ton of weight it will be a bit easier to get the baby weight, IVF drug weight, and the weight that I put on because I wasn't working out/being good to myself last winter off my body, but then again I am going to be so tired from not sleeping that I know that it is going to be difficult.

I have known from the beginning of my pregnancy that CP wouldn't find my baby belly sexy (we had a discussion about it early on).  I'm okay with that.  He said that a baby belly wouldn't turn him on, but it doesn't disgust him or anything.  I'm not sure if anything has changed now that *I* have a pregnant belly, but I also know that we haven't had any *ahem* issues in the bedroom since I got pregnant.

I haven't had one of these dreams recently, so maybe they had a lot do with the fact that people weren't recognizing that I was pregnant and I was worried that people just thought that I was fat??   

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I'm happy to report that last week I did in fact have my first dream about the baby.  In my dream it was a he and he was still in my belly.  However, I had some sort of amazing body because while still pregnant, I could flip up my skin and check in on the baby.  He was a beautiful baby with dark hair and blue eyes, about the size of my hand.  I took him out of my belly and marveled in how adorable he was.  Then suddenly there was a play gym for the baby next to me and he started crawling towards it and playing on it- I was shocked that even in utero my baby could crawl!  LOL.  Eventually I put him back in my belly because I was sitting in some sort of loft and I didn't want him to fall off.

So ummm I'm not sure what this dream means, but at least it was a happy dream!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

So other than awkward run-ins at beer festivals, what have I been up to?  Well, I finally got some meds that took away my SIX DAY migraine (yes it continued into yesterday).  So as of last night I was relatively pain-free and so very thankful.  

For work I traveled down to Springfield, IL and let me tell you it is a HOTBED of activity (ha ha).  One night I went out for dinner and came across the old IL state capitol building.  Pretty no?  I liked the red roof.

When I got back from Springfield and picked up the dogs at the boarder (CP was away for work as well), I picked up Buster looking like this (see below).  Now to be fair, the boarder did tell us that he had an eye infection or something the day before, but I didn't quite expect his face to look this bad.  When I picked him up the girls working said something about him getting upset about being placed in a different cage from Koda during dinnertime and banging his face against the cage.  First of all, OUCH.  Secondly, then move him into the cage with Koda!  They don't eat each other's food.  *sigh*  

We really like the boarder though- more for the doggie daycare aspect as Buster LOVES going there, gives all of the staff members hugs, and comes back exhausted twice a week from playing with the other dogs.

I think that it probably wasn't too bad but as soon as he hurt it, he then scratched it and scratched it and made it worse.  So after my five hour drive from Springfield (which should only take 3 hours), I then had to take Buster to the vet. 

Twice a day I get to put ointment in his eye, and then pat the area with a cleaning agent.  He also gets antibiotics twice a day.  Thankfully he trusts me to do this and not hurt him (plus I'm sure it doesn't hurt that he gets some unsalted peanuts as a treat for being compliant.)

Between CP's pneumonia and now upper respiratory infection, Koda's bone tumor, and Buster smashing his face in, I would say that the rest of the NSC family is trying to steal my pregnancy thunder!  Just kidding.....but seriously, I would like to go at least a month without seeing our vet.  He is making far too much money off of us.

Here is what the area looked like as of Sunday.  More like a scab and he is being a big trooper by wearing the dreaded cone when I am not around.  Poor guy.

We still have a few things blooming in our garden which is a bit of a surprise.  When my parents replanted the front garden for us last month, they transplanted a rose bush from their house in MI that they didn't want anymore.  The bush went into complete shock, all of the leaves went brown and fell off the bush.  I was pretty sure we had lost it, but kept watering and watering.  The green leaves slowly grew back and this week, despite it not being the right weather for a rose bush to bloom, I found this flower and a dozen more starting on the plant.  I'm amazed at the comeback and can't wait to see what the plant looks like next year!!

I also thought that it was pretty late for Bee Balm to flower, but it is the first year for this plant so maybe that is why it is so late?  Either way, it's a nice splash of color at the end of September!

Finally, we ripped out some of our veggie plants (yellow wax beans, mizuna, cucumbers, yellow squash), but we still have zucchini, poblano peppers, cayenne peppers, eggplant, swiss chard, carrots, kale, and beets going.  And amazingly enough, our tomatoes are finally turning red and they are DELICIOUS.  Tomatoes with a sprinkle of salt= heaven.

But seriously, after all of the tomatoes and caprese salads that I have been eating recently, if this baby doesn't like tomatoes then I don't know what I did wrong!!

The awkwardness of running into someone you dated

Two weekends ago I agreed to be the designated driver for the Racine, WI beer festival.  CP and I headed up with some of his work friends and one of their wives.  I saw a total of two other pregnant women there and it just felt weird to be there (even though I was clearly drinking only water the whole day).  

For anyone who hasn't been to a beer festival, it is vitally important to make and wear a pretzel necklace (something that we learned by going to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver).  Not only are pretzels good for snacking on during the festival but they are a good palate-cleanser.  I wore a necklace, but realized early on that it was too hot and sunny to eat too many lest I get too swollen from the salt!!  People can go all out when making the necklaces and it is possible to get pretzel envy when faced with a necklace full of really large pretzels.  This guy took the biggest pretzel prize of the day though- our whole group had pretzel necklace envy!!

In my mind, this was the best beer brand name of the day.  CP and the rest of the crew even said that the beer was pretty good (although it was at least an hour into the festival so they may not have been tasting too much at that point!).

Funny story from the end of the festival.  There was a brass band that walked around the festival and was fairly good.  My feet got tired towards the end of the festival, so I sat down while CP went to the porta potty and others got their last beer.  One of the guys from the band came up to me and said, "Is your name Non Sequitur Chica?  Hey, it's Dave."  I immediately thought, "oh sh*t this is going to be awkward."  

You see, Dave and I went on a couple of dates when I lived in Chicago the year before I moved out west for law school. He was a nice enough guy and frankly, I was sort of bored.  I didn't date a lot that year, partly because I was out all of the time with friends having too much fun to date.  But I was still trying to get over this guy whose phone calls had started up again, so I thought, why not?  We went out on a couple of dates, but while talking to a friend one day that also knew him, I realized that I was not excited in the least bit to go on our date that night.  That's when I knew that I had to break it off.  I felt bad because he was surprised, but it was also sort of awkward because it's hard to tell someone that while they are nice enough, you just aren't that into them (plus I am super awkward with these types of conversations).  

Here I thought that I would never see the guy again and now almost 8 years later he comes up to me at the beer festival while I am clearly pregnant.  We started to make small talk when of course CP comes back from the bathroom.  One of his work friends jokes that some stranger is hitting on his pregnant wife and I just thought, this is going to go downhill.  Since I was completely sober, I thought it might be a good idea to gracefully end the conversation with Dave and instead get back to CP because he was starting to make loud jokes behind me (ahhhhh drunk husbands).  

(Before anyone freaks out, CP is NOT a hugely jealous guy but it's always hard to think completely straight when you are drunk.  Plus I don't mind him being a little protective of me.  :-)  )

We started to walk out of the festival and CP asked who the guy was.  I told him that Dave was someone that I went on a couple of dates with when I last lived in Chicago.  He wasn't extremely excited about that, but ummm, obviously I am married to YOU and I'm PREGNANT with your child so you have nothing to worry about.  LOL.  

Mostly I just felt bad for CP.  This is now the THIRD guy that I dated before meeting him that we have randomly run into.  The first two were out west- one at an NFL game (seriously?  The stadium holds THOUSANDS of people and I run into one of the two guys I dated before CP?) and one at a grocery store (I ran away from this encounter instead of talking to the guy- YES I AM 13).  Thankfully we have never run into my long term boyfriend from college or the guy from the link above that would continue to call me despite knowing that I had started to date CP.  Especially meeting the latter guy?  Might not go so well.

Have you ever run into someone you dated with your spouse right next to you?  

Pain pain and more pain

Sorry for the radio silence over here folks.  I have plenty of blog topics and things to tell you, but things have been hectic and very frustrating.

Right now I am trying to work through a migraine that has lasted for FIVE DAYS.*  Yes FIVE DAYS.  It is torture.  I have tried Tylenol, cold washcloths on my forehead, caffeine, dark rooms, exercise (this one in particular did not go well), etc.  I had a tough week last week both traveling for a speaking engagement (which went well- yay!) and then two big events on Friday (they also went well despite my migraine- yay!).  I spent most of the weekend trying to rest and yesterday I decided that I had enough.  I called the on-call doctor and explained what was going on.  She didn't think that I had anything to worry about but wanted to make sure that I didn't have pre-eclampsia, so I was once again off to Labor & Delivery.  Once I was checked to make sure that I didn't have pre-eclampsia she said that the hospital could give me something for the pain.

CP is still in LA and won't be back until next weekend so I headed out to L & D by myself.  I wasn't really too worried but was looking forward to any drugs the hospital could give me that I could take to ease the pain.  I am not a fan of taking drugs, but four days of pain was quite enough for me.  Once I got in my room I gave a urine sample, had blood taken and was hooked up to the contraction monitor (no contractions as expected) and the baby heartbeat monitor (normal heartbeat).  The nurse turned off the lights for me and closed the blinds.  My blood pressure was taken every 10 minutes and stayed consistent around 116/62.  My labs came back just fine.

I wasn't dehydrated, but the resident OB decided to put me on a saline drip while I was there anyway.  About an hour later the nurse put a drug into my IV (not sure what it was called but it started with an F or PH).  I lay down and tried to rest while I waited for the other medicine.  The pharmacy took a while, so it was almost an hour before someone came in to check on me.  I did feel a bit better and my headache had subsided somewhat, but I was pretty sure that it was only because I had laid down and closed my eyes (which always seems to help but then when I wake up the pain ratchets up again).

The resident OB decided to write it off as a tension headache and not really listen to what I was telling her (she chalked it up to me grinding my teeth even though I told her that I have a mouth guard).

Long story short, because I was feeling a bit better and I didn't have anyone to drive me home in case the other medicine made me sleepy/loopy, the resident OB sent me home with a Benadryl and another medicine that has a mix of acetaminophen and caffeine.  I took them when I got home but they didn't help much.  I'm feeling very frustrated that this is going on five days so I have called my doctor today to see if there is anything else I can take while pregnant.

I seriously hope that this is not my new normal for the next 9 weeks.....or (shuddering) even longer!!!

*I have never been officially diagnosed with migraines, but I have a lot of the classic symptoms of migraines.  They only happen once every couple of months and I can usually get rid of them by staying in a dark room with no noise for a few hours/half a day so I have never seen anyone for them.

Second trimester recap

Second trimester was a great trimester.  I started to get some of my energy back and my anxiety over the pregnancy started to lessen once I started to feel the baby around 19-20 weeks.  I was also fairly lucky to not have some of the common pregnancy issues that people have in this trimester (leg cramps, back pain, etc). However, that's not to say that I didn't have ANY pregnancy symptoms....

*Hot weather (or even semi-hot weather) led to swelling in my hands, especially on walks with Buster and my commutes to/from the train to the office.  I did my best to keep my fingers moving after they became fluid-filled, but it usually didn't make much of a difference.  I don't eat a lot of salt and I drink a ton of water but that also didn't seem to make a difference.

*At 17 weeks, I went to the doctor because my right foot/leg was swollen while my left one was fine.  Although I was worried about DVT, the pattern does seem like my right foot/leg swells more than my left.  Like my hands, my feet swell with the heat.  If it continues through the next few months I will likely wear compression running socks, but only when cooler weather comes to Chicago.  The swelling makes my ankles feel tight and overall, edema doesn't feel great, but I can deal with it.

*Early on in the second trimester I had nasal congestion for about three weeks.  I wasn't sick, but just congested every day.  During one of the weeks I even had a bloody nose three times that week.  Annoying, but totally manageable. 

*This trimester I also started to feel a hard belly after eating food or drinking water.  It was towards the top of my belly which my doctor explained was most likely my intestines and because they are getting pushed up from the baby, they will get hard because they have less room to process the food and water.  Thankfully it's not uncomfortable, it just feels kind of funny.

*I'm not sure how to explain this, but at times my uterus felt "heavy."  For those of you that have gone through fertility treatments, it feels like your heavy ovaries before retrieval, but instead the feeling is lower, towards your pelvis.  Dr. Google thinks that it is likely the growing/stretching pains.  Again, not painful just an odd feeling.

*This next one is a bit funny.  Pre-pregnancy I didn't really get hard nipples- it would have to be FREEZING COLD.  However, in the second trimester my nipples are hard and sticking out CONSTANTLY.  It will be 90 degrees and they come out to play.  Again, not painful or uncomfortable but it's a bit awkward because my left breast is slightly bigger than my right one....so in a shirt, one nipple looks lazy and falls a little lower than the other one.  CP *loves* this pregnancy symptom (seriously, he thinks it is great).  LOL.

*For about a week, my left knee started clicking.  It was a bit painful to walk when this happened, but it went away and my knee seems to be back to normal.  Is this from stretching ligaments due to pregnancy hormones?  Who knows.

*My moods have been pretty stable.  I might be a bit more cranky, but I keep waiting for the weird, laughing then suddenly I'm crying episodes.  It has only happened once so far while watching a You Tube video called "Sad Dog Diary"- one of CP's family members posted it on Facebook.  I was laughing hysterically and then suddenly I started bawling.  CP thought that I was nuts. I was psyched to finally have a pregnancy crying episode.  Just waiting on a few more....

*As you all know, I also had the bleeding episode right before Labor Day weekend.  Thankfully it seems as if it was a one-time random occurrence.  I'm sure I will talk to my OB about it next week.

*While I started to feel something different in my belly around 19 weeks, I wasn't completely certain that it was the baby kicking until closer to 20 weeks.  For a couple of weeks the baby would kick, but would suddenly become shy once CP put his hand on my belly.  He was able to see the baby kick my belly a couple of times, but didn't feel an actual kick until 27 weeks.

*The past couple of days I have felt the baby squirming around in my belly more so than kicking.  It's an odd feeling and I really would rather the kicks.  Generally I don't worry as the baby is a bit more active in the early afternoon than the morning but I did freak out last week and started poking and bouncing my belly.  I hope I didn't anger the baby too much, but whatever I did woke him/her up and I felt better.  

*Harry the Hemorrhoid is still around.  My OB advised me that he wasn't going anywhere any time soon (boooo).  I have only had one day where he has made me super uncomfortable, but so far, he hasn't invited any more friends to the party.  I have been using wipes with witch hazel on them which I would recommend if you also have a Harry in your life.  

*I seem to have sprouted a ton of light-colored hairs all over my belly.  No dark line below my belly button (yet), but the extra belly hair was surprising.

*I also have hundreds of small red dots all over my belly.  They are flat and don't itch but it looks like they are here to stay for a while.  Along with the dots I have a few things on my belly that look like blood blisters.  They are raised, but again, no idea what they are.  Something else to ask my doctor next week I guess....

Overall, it was a really great trimester. I finally look pregnant instead of fat and so far, it seems to be all in my belly.  I'm not watching what I eat, but I am definitely craving a lot of fruit and vegetables so that helps.  I'm not super interested in meat these days.  Bending over is getting much harder to do and I'm starting to get out of breath when climbing the stairs.  I continue to walk a ton, but I haven't been able to make prenatal yoga in a while.  I know these things are just going to get harder as the days tick on, but I'm ready for the third trimester.

Second trimester belly pictures

I know that people are not always a fan of belly pictures, so here is your chance to click away if you don't want to see them.  I started at 20 weeks this time because my previous post of pictures from the first half of the pregnancy went up to week 19 (see that post here).  Of course now I'm realizing that it makes more sense to do these posts in trimesters, but oh well.  :-)

20 weeks

21 weeks
(Buster tried to get into this picture)
This is the first week that I noticed that my belly was sticking out farther than my chest!

22 weeks

23 weeks

24 weeks

25 weeks

(Sadly I forgot to take a 26 week picture- especially because it looks like I made quite a jump in belly size from 25 to 27 weeks!)

27 weeks

28 weeks