Five Months Pregnant

Okay, so I'm actually now six months pregnant, but I figured I should try to remember something about the fifth month of pregnancy and keep my blog chronological. One thing is I had a lot more energy (the second trimester IS somewhat magical) - and so Mark and I were busy getting things done/organized - and hence the Blogging got put on the back burner. We finished our laundry room (okay - it's really a laundry closet). You can't really tell from this picture, but we painted the inside a rather bold yellow, replaced the plywood behind the machines that was loosely attached to the brick exterior with insulation and drywall, re-cut a dryer vent in the wall so that the dryer would actually fit all the way in the closet (it used to vent to the attic through the wall), put up two cabinets above the machine, put up a shelf to the left of the washer to hold laundry soap and put up various hooks, etc. to hold brooms, flyswatters,etc. Perhaps that seems a little more impressive now? :)

Along the home improvement lines, we also put up shelves in one closet, transforming it into a linen closet, and put up shelves in another closet to fit more of our "stuff" in there (we also put up shelves in our Guest room closet to hold a bunch of percussion music, accessories, but that will appear in month 6 entry). Here we are busy working (and yes, I helped!)

The final product:

Health:

I had a little scare regarding my health - but it turns out me & Ziggaroni are okay. I've had weird, and sometimes very pronounced, pains under my ribcage on the right side for the past few months. I have seen just the Nurse Practitioner for the last two months because my doctor was on maternity leave, and she isn't the world's greatest listener, so she sort of blew me off. When I finally told my doctor about it again, she said it could be my gall bladder, so had me give some blood to check enzyme levels and scheduled an ultrasound of my gall bladder. I went online to read about gallbladder issues, and I had a few of the symptoms! It made me really mad that the NP kept blowing me off. Anyways, the ultrasound was fine, but my blood tests came back with high enzyme levels, so she had me take the test again, and they went even higher. I guess she was getting a bit concerned (although she didn't let me on until after everything was back to normal), but I guessed something wasn't right when her office called, and asked if I could come back the same day to have my blood pressure checked and give more blood. Everything was back down to normal, and she doesn't know why it was high, but thought it may be some sort of viral thing that resolved itself. The good part is I got to see Ziggy again, since she ordered a growth ultrasound to be sure he was okay. He is, and is currently 65% weight for his age. A big boy! Hopefully he doesn't get too much higher on the percentile ranking before I have to push him out. :) It was neat to see him again, since he looks a lot less like Skeletor and a lot more like a baby. I could see his lips, his nostrils, fingers, etc. I could even see him blink his eyes! And it was cool, because I would be able to feel him move, and see what that movement actually was on the screen. Speaking of which, I don't know that I have mentioned that I can feel him move now (called "quickening"), but I can. Unfortunately, I don't really remember exactly when it started. It was hard in the beginning to differentiate him moving from my stomach growling, or just other normal intestinal movement. But he's really strong now (esp in 6 months) - and it's fun to feel him party inside of me. Mark can feel him now too - actually, it wasn't long after I was confident that it was really him moving and not just my digestive system that Mark could also feel him move when he put his hand on my belly. In fact, the two of them had some "alone" time the other night while I was sleeping. Mark put his arm around me, and felt Ziggy kick. He says he kicked for sometime, and Mark enjoyed getting to enjoy this by himself while I slept, since I get to enjoy Ziggy by myself for quite some time. I thought that was rather cute.

Birthing:

Wow, some hard decisions to make came this month as we started to think about our birth plan. A friend of ours used Bradley, and it sounded promising after a discussion with her and her husband. It's basically the "new Lamaze" if you want to have a natural childbirth - but focuses much more on deep relaxation rather than breathing to get through the labor contractions. It's also called Husband-coached childbirth, since the dad has a lot of duties in helping the mom relax, etc. I think Mark likes that part of it, so that he'll be busy too, and not just feel helpless standing there watching. We're actually signed up for a class (8 weeks, 3 hours each Sunday night) which starts tomorrow. The hard part for us is deciding if we have the right doctor. We actually really like my doctor, and I trust her quite a bit, but she's not this big hippie, natural-birth doctor. From our conversations, it seems she uses interventions only as appropriate (ie not routine), so I'm comfortable with that. It's just sort of hard reading all the Bradley stuff and not getting freaked out that my doctor may make an episiotomy or recommend inducing, or things like that, and it not actually be necessary. Of course anyone who has enough passion to write a book about natural childbirth is likely to be a bit extremist (doctors are evil - don't let them steal your childbirth experience!), so I struggle a bit to balance out what I actually think about the natural method. Basically, I just really want to avoid a C-section, and at least trying for a natural birth seems to be a good way to go to achieve that. But I also don't like how the extremist mindset makes you feel like a failure if you choose an epidural, or God-forbid end up with a c-section. A doctor-friend of mine pointed out that while, yes, our bodies are designed to be able to handle childbirth without intervention, women died a lot during birth before modern medicine, so interventions are sometimes necessary. Sigh. After our appointment yesterday, Mark and I think we're going to stick with our doctor, but I'm still a little nervous that this Bradley class is going to make me paranoid that she's going to intervene when it's not really necessary. So any of you thinking about having a baby anytime soon - I recommend figuring out what kind of birth you want to have, THEN choosing your doctor.

The interesting thing about birth is that I'm not as nervous now as I thought I would be. I'm actually excited to go through the experience, and a bit eager to meet this little guy whose bouncing around inside of me. That being said, I'm also enjoying lots of sleep (usually around 9 hours or so a night), organizing our house and still maintaining control of my life.

And finally, here are the 5-month pictures (except these are really the 5 1/2 month pictures, since our camera broke):

Pictures of Ziggy

As you may remember, I had my 20-week ultrasound a couple of weeks ago, so here are some recent ultrasound pictures of our boy. I'm guessing that this is the last ultrasound we'll have, so the next time you get to see him may be after he's born! Although, I have to warn you, the scan of these are not so good - since our harddrive crashed on Christmas day, I don't have very good scanning software now. AND our camera is broken, so I can't post (or even take) my 5-month pregnancy picture either (and today is the actual 5-month mark, so I'm rather dissapointed - since every other picture I have taken ON the day) ;)

To help you see him in this picture - his head is on the left, and the white dots toward the bottom are his spine. This is a side profile.

In this next picture, he had his hand on his eye. I was a little worried that he was going to poke his eyes and hurt himself (because he kept doing this), but I suppose there's nothing I can do about it. And I don't know that I have ever heard of a baby being born with self-inflicted injuries. If you have, don't tell me. :)

I also have a picture of his foot - from underneath - it looks like a little footprint. Very cute, but it doesn't show up at all on the scan.

I'll post another update when we can get another pregnancy picture taken. Also, we have made very good progress on one of our house projects - the laundry room (well, laundry closet really). Between last weekend and this week, we installed new drywall (there was just brick and plywood behind the machines themselves) painted it (yellow on the wall, white behind the machines) cut a new dryer vent, and put up two cabinets! Yeah! It looks really good. I would not have thought that having a neat, clean, newly painted laundry area would make such a big difference, but it does. I'll take pictures of that too, someday...

But right now, I need to hit the inbox again (how does it overfill again so quickly?), then go to the grocery store to get something yummy for dinner and a movie. Mark is on a ski trip with friends in Breckenridge with some friends this weekend, so it's up to me to entertain myself. It also means that I don't have to leave the house (I'm becoming more and more of a homebody! :) But I already miss him, and I'm ready for him to come home! :( Don't worry, he comes home Monday night, so you don't have to feel too sorry for me.

Hope you are all well!

Four Months Pregnant

It's been a while since I posted an update. So here goes...

I'm now 19 weeks pregnant. Next week is the half-way point, and Mark is off Friday night so we are going to go out to dinner to celebrate. The second trimester IS proving to be a happier and more magical place. I have MUCH more energy (some days even rival pre-pregnancy energy) - the nausea is gone, and the mood swings are more infrequent and less severe.

With all this magical newfound second trimesterism, though, comes the aches and pains of pregnancy. I don't actually feel all that pregnant, although I am into maternity clothes (not the huge tent kind yet, but I found items that are supposed to grow with you that I'm wearing now, as only a few of my former items of clothing fit anymore). Yesterday, however, I DID feel very pregnant, as I took a brisk walk with Will while Mark took a short run, and it wore me out. Now this wasn't even that aggressive of a walk, but it felt like so much effort while I was doing it!! And then I got home with all sorts of plans for the afternoon, but no energy to do them. I made it through the first few items I intended to get done, but by about 5 PM I was on the couch, exhausted. I pretty much stayed there until bed.

The other discomfort I've got is achy ribs. I thought this was strange - whoever heard of your ribs aching? It started out as back pain - but I thought it was in a rather unusual place - the middle of my back, not my lower back. And then I started noticing that when I laid on one side, the bottom of my rib cage would ache, so I would switch sides until the other side ached. And then I figured out that part of my back that hurt was probably where my rib cage attached to it (my own non-medical theory). I've had one friend who also experienced ribcage pain during pregnancy, so I guess I'm not the first case. But it is a bit weird.

Also, I think I've got a bit more estrogen working through my body - as on New Year's eve and day I decided that I wanted to bake. And I didn't just bake a little - I made 2 batches of brownies and 2 batches of cookies, including homemade frosting to go on the cookies! Now I admit, there were a few things prompting me to do all this baking: First, we got a kitchen aid mixer for Christmas (wonderful - highly recommend if you don't have one), I also got new cookie sheets, and I had 2 boxes of bakers chocolate that were about to expire. Truthfully, I think it's the bakers chocolate that put me over the edge. I have issues with throwing away food - so my OCD-self felt the need to use it all up. From this experiment, though, I have come to the conclusion that cookies/brownies made with bakers chocolate are better than those made with cocoa powder. The peanut butter drizzled brownies were the best of my baking efforts - remind me to make some for you the next time I see you.

We've also got a bit of the nesting going on - however, that's not really new to me. I've always been a bit of a homebody. And I LOVE to organize. If I could make a living organizing things, I'd be there in a heartbeat. We bought one of those closetmaid systems for one of our hall closets, which I turned into a linen closet. FUN FUN! Now I just need to organize the other hall closet, move Mark's percussion stuff from his current music office into it's own closet, move our study into his old music office, paint the old study (new baby's room), tear out the wallpaper and paint the hall bath and remove the sunroom from the back or our house and convert it to a patio- and then we'll be all done with the projects that we had intended to complete before Ziggy arrives. Oh, and I forgot to mention, finish up just a few items in our kitchen, cut a new vent hole for our dryer, and put up two cabinets above our dryer. Four and half months to get this all done - no sweat, right? :)

Anyways, hopefully that provides a bit of an update. Next Monday we go in for the 20-week ultrasound - so be looking for more pictures of skeletor soon!

And, of course here are my four-month pictures:

Love to you all!

Drumroll, please....

It appears that little Ziggy is ... a BOY!!

So, as you know if you've been reading this blog, WE'VE known with 90% probability that he would be a he for several weeks now from the blood screening test. But I wasn't totally believing it for a couple of reasons. First, I was pretty sure he was a girl (guess my intuition's off a bit), and secondly, 10% is a lot of room for error, at least I think.

But we're having a boy. And I can reveal to you one aspect of male behavior already. We went in for the ultrasound, and the technician said "well, I can't really see what it is, because the hand is covering it." She tapped my belly with the ultrasound wand a few times (he didn't want to let go of that thing!), but finally he revealed his jewels for us. So I can prove that a boy's fascination with his tool begins as young as 13-weeks of gestational age. :)

So it's probably a good thing that Ziggy is a boy - since I think Ziggy is more of a boy's name anyways. :) Just kidding, we will be giving him a different name when he's born (and we've already selected one). But I have to admit, he's just so Ziggy to me - it's hard to imagine calling him anything else. Although one new name did come to mind during our ultrasound. After the technician was finished showing us Ziggy's jewels (which are, btw, well photographed - perhaps I can use them in the future to embarass him when he's girlfriend is over?) she showed us some face shots. Now, you have to understand that an ultrasound doesn't show much detail - so we're looking straight on to a very skull-looking object (ie you can see the eye sockets, but now the eyes), then he started opening and closing his mouth. The technician was acting like that was very cute. All I could think of was "Skeletor" (from He-man I think?)

Here he is! This view is looking at him from above. You'll see his head, with his legs sticking out - and also his nice little boy parts. :)

Our own Skeletor!

We hope you all have a very merry Christmas/Hannukah!

A Good Day to Be Me

So yesterday was a really good day. Because THREE good things happened.

1. I don't have to go to Milan! Now I know for most sane people that does NOT sound like a good thing - but for me, it is an overjoying thing - so much so, that I called Mark when I found out and he said he hadn't heard me quite that giddy in a long time. There are quite a few reasons I don't want to go. First, it takes a heck of a long time to get there. And while my doctor assures me it is safe to do so, I am at increased risk of DVT - so I worry about that. And I also worry about something going wrong with the baby while I am there, and I'd have to find my way to a hospital and explain to a doctor in Italian, etc. Secondly, I still get feeling pretty miserable if I don't get enough sleep (which is about 9 hours per night for me now), and I don't constantly keep my stomach in the half-full state. I'm going to be working while I'm there, so I wouldn't have all day to wander from store to restaurant every time I thought I needed to eat something. Thirdly, the first two days I'd be there, I'd basically be on my own because the guy I'd be working with is tied up in meetings (we planned this trip a while ago before he knew of these, I guess) - so I'd be sitting at some table on my laptop all day long - which won't be ergonomically correct (I'm still sensitive to that) and frankly wouldn't have that much to work on - since I need this guy's input on the stuff I"m working on for him, and most of my normal work now is training my replacements (since I'm headed to a new job in a couple of weeks). Also, it's cold there and I don't have many clothes that would fit - so packing would be a hassle (I already hate packing for trips) - and I'd have to get laundry done while I was there. And finally, I really think traveling alone for business is NO fun - you don't have the luxury of getting lost, you have to find everything yourself (I'm awful with getting oriented in a new place), eat by yourself, and if you decide to go sightseeing, that's by yourself too. I'm a bit of an extrovert (wink), so all this doing stuff by yourself is no fun. Oh and finally (I know I already said that), I'd lose half of my weekend, as I'd have to leave Sunday (tomorrow) morning

Now that I've explained why I don't want to go in excruciating detail, I'll tell you how I got out of it. I've been working with this guy via conference call/ Netmeeting for the last couple of weeks, and have gotten a good amount of the work done. With his meeting on Monday/Tuesday, we'd only have two days together in the office - so I explained that it seemed like a lot of travel and cost (he has to pay for my airfare etc, plus I bill my hours to him as well - it's ExxonMobil funny money, but they take it very seriously nonetheless), and I felt confident I could complete the work remotely. He thought about it for a moment and then agreed! Yippee!!!! This was by far the best part of my day.

2. I gave a 4-minute speech to my entire division (a couple hundred people) during our year-end luncheon. And it went well!! I was asked to talk about my work on one of our recent safety initiatives and how it related to the objectives of the division. I'd been working on the speech for about a week, and pretty much could recite it in my sleep - which is necessary, because my brain pretty much turns off during public speaking. I got good comments afterwards, and people said I looked natural and calm (neither of which I felt - I hoped they couldn't see my hand shaking violently). On top of that, I had to speak into a handheld microphone - so it was something else I had to pay attention to with my non functioning brain. So yeah- that's done!! There were only two downers with the speech - one, the VP who I was supposed to "impress" was late, so he didn't hear the speech. And secondly, I got a hard question at the end - meaning I had no idea how to answer it (there were about 8 of us who gave speeches, followed by a Q&A) - and it wasn't fair, because nobody else got questions, except the VP - and I was the least tenured speaker. hmph! I was sitting next to the SH&E manager, and he offered to answer the question, which I quite happily accepted. So he stood up and began answering the question, to which the VP harassed him that I was supposed to answer the question. So I stood up and pretty much said I didn't know the answer, but perhaps Ray (the SHE manager) would like to field the question - to which everyone laughed (okay laughing - I know they all felt bad for me so they weren't laughing AT me). So Ray spent a couple of moments giving me an answer to recite back (which was totally obvious that's what was going on) - so I said "Let me see if I can repeat this accurately" (more laughter) and repeated his answer. I got a round of applause after I sat back down - so hopefully I didn't look like too much of a moron. But it stinks, because I nailed my speech, but then had to end on that note. Oh well. Still a good part of my day.

3. It's our division's custom to go home following the luncheon (not too many - actually ANY other customs like that) - so I got home at about 3 PM yesterday. Yeah!!! Our house is a pigsty (still haven't managed to do much productive once I get home from work) - so while Mark hung Christmas lights (yeah!) - I did a gazillion dishes while listening to Christmas music and drinking apple cider. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon (beats sitting behind my desk - AND I got to start the weekend with a clean kitchen).

So anyways, I thought I would share with you the joys that happened on Friday.

And finally, I am now officially in the second trimester - which all sources I can find promise to be a happy and magical place. So I am expecting the next three months to be full of bliss! I'll let you know how it goes! :)

Oh - one more thing - we've decided to go through the last round of genetic testing - which will take place a week from Monday - and it includes an ultrasound where we'll hopefully get to confirm Ziggy's gender. So once we see what kind of plumbing this baby has, we'll share the news! Think good thoughts about Ziggy's brain and spinal cord - because that's what this testing is for. :)

Have a great weekend!

Comments Fixed

Okay, so I finally figured out that my settings were set to only allow G-mail users to post comments. Now, I think anyone should be able to - so please let me know if you are reading my blog! I know I'm mostly writing it for myself, but I'd love to know if anyone besides Lara is reading it! :) Thanks for being a consistent reader, Lara!

Third Month of Pregnancy

I haven't updated my blog in a long time, and a lot has happened since my last post, so I'll try to remember all the items of interest over the last two weeks:

Mark's Audition
First, non-pregnancy related, Mark made it to the finals of the Chicago Symphony audition! He actually had to play three rounds to get there. First, he played the pre-lims (per previous post), then he played the semi-finals, and was asked to come back after he played and play a couple of more excerpts. From there he was passed on to the finals. Now, he didn't win the job, but he did amazingly well. There were a handful of people who were passed immediately to the final round without auditioning (principles from other major orchestras and such). Of the folks who had to start out in the prelims (about 100-120 people), only two made it to the actual final round to compete against those automatically pushed to the finals - one of whom was Mark! As you can tell, I'm rather proud. :)

Work
So in my last entry I mentioned that I was going to tell my boss - and I did end up telling him that Monday. I wanted to go to lunch, and tell him in a less sterile environment - so I asked if he was free for lunch that week, because there was something that I wanted to talk with him about. He wasn't, and then like two hours later his admin called me to his office to have the conversation! It made it feel like I was going to talk to him about an assignment, or get him to review some work or something. He was sitting at his desk, and I sat in the chair across from him. Not the way I wanted to tell him, but it went fine. He was really surprised, but I think he knew he needed to act happy - although later he sort of warned me not to "throw him another curve ball." He was kidding - but I think it reveals how unused to accommodating pregnant women ExxonMobil management is.

So the part I was most worried about looked like it would come true for the next few days. I had told him because I didn't want to travel to dangerous parts of the world while pregnant, or while having a newborn - and it was good I told him, because the job he was lining up for me was in Angola and would require travel there. But then he sort of made references like I could just stay in my current job. I am SO bored with my current job, so that was the last thing I wanted to hear. He said he would go ahead and talk to the group I would have been moving to, but didn't think they would want someone who can't travel. But lo-and-behold, it worked out after all! I had an interview with my new manager that Friday - and later that day he gave the thumbs up to hire me. It was sort of funny, because I was trying to dress to look as un-pregnant as possible, so that he would still want me for the job. It was weird - I almost felt like I should apologize for being pregnant. The project I'll be working on doesn't require travel yet, because the actual construction is a ways off. And if it does, Randy promised to find someone to travel in my place. So starting January 1, I'll have a new job!! Yeah! I'll be the safety advisor for the Africa Deepwater Gas Gathering Project - Angola Block 15. :)

I am a little nervous how the whole maternity leave will work out. I get 11 weeks leave (not actually maternity leave, it's disability leave, and the amount of time you get is based on your tenure with the company), but by company policy, I can take a 6 month unpaid leave of absence, and work part-time for up to 2 years. Being able to use these policies is up to manager discretion, though, so whether I can actually use them is still TBD.

Ziggy's Gender
We actually know with 90% accuracy whether we're having a boy or girl! But because it's only 90% accurate, we've only told our parents. We'll let the rest of you know when we actually see what kind of plumbing Ziggy has. The reason we found out is that we went ahead and did the genetic screening test that checks for chromosomal abnormalities - and since they test the baby's DNA through the mom's blood for that, they throw in a gender test for free. All the tests came out good - although I don't know if I'd actually go through those tests again the next time - because of the follow-up tests you have to have if something comes out looking abnormal. The first round of tests just included a blood test and an ultrasound.

So, yes that was ultrasound number 3 for Ziggy, and the ripe young age of 11 weeks! They looked at the thickness of the back of his/her skull, and then spent a while making Ziggy dance for us. It was really quite amazing. I had read that the baby is busy swimming around in there, but still I always imagined he/she just sat there. So during the ultrasound Ziggy was moving a little, but what I thought was neat, was when the technician would tap on my belly with the ultrasound want (yes, this was an on-the-belly ultrasound - SO much nicer!), Ziggy would sort of kick/jump. It made him/her seem so much more human since he/she reacted to "someone jumping in her pool" (that was how the technician put it).





Big Fat Mamma
Just kidding. I don't actually feel that fat. But I'm having great fun watching my belly grow! The frustrating part is definitely the clothes, though! I tried to get maternity clothes, but my belly's just not big enough. A few weeks ago, I got a pair of pants that are a size larger, but most pants that are big enough to fit my belly, look frumpy on the rest of me. I went shopping on Saturday with a friend who is due 6 days before me, and at least got a couple of bras (Thanks Christina for recommending A Woman's Work!), and then I went later to JC Penneys and found a couple of 0-9 month pants that actually fit! I got a pair of work pants and a pair of jeans. The jeans have a band of stretchy cotton at the top - and are SOOOO comfortable. It's nice not having to close them with a rubberband. In fact, I think they should make the banded pants for non-pregnant people too!! So, I'm feeling much less stressed out about clothes now. It's seriously tough to find anything to fit in this in-between stage!

So here's a picture of me at 3-months. I love having a little belly to show now - even if it means I only have two outfits that fit!