Day 94: Pregnancy by Numbers

1: The number of times I get up to pee in the middle of the night
2: The amount of times I dry-heave daily
3: The number of months I have been pregnant
4: The number of times I get confused/forget what I am doing each day
5: The number of meals I eat daily
6: The number of months I have left
7: The number of stairs I can climb before getting winded
8: The length of the baby in cm’s
9: The number of pounds I have put on thus far!!!

Day 91: Good Riddance!

The first trimester is officially over!! While it’s strange to say that we are one third of the way through this pregnancy, it’s nice to know that “the switch” is to go off soon. Supposedly there is this switch that goes off one morning and will change me back to the person I was a few months ago, plus a few pounds. I anxiously await the arrival of this magic lever, but I must admit that I am feeling a lot better already. I don’t throw up very often, I don’t get nauseous at the tiniest hint of a food smell, and most importantly I am no longer constipated. I hope you all appreciate how awesome that is. I am not feeling 100% as I still need a lot of sleep and some smells still bother me, but I am so grateful to know that at least for the next 13 weeks my life will be a little easier.

I have been on the East Coast for weeks now, and it has been quite a roller coaster ride out here. I had a conference in Mass. where I was so hot and sweaty in my non-air-conditioned dorm room I thought I was going to die, not to mention the fact that I was hiding the pregnancy, so running to the communal bathroom to throw up was a little uncomfortable. I was in Boston visiting dear friends and chilling out. I went to DC to work at a lab for two weeks, and they surprised me by telling me they expected me to give a talk, which I was not at all prepared for. Around then Aaron’s grandmother passed away and he flew in to DC, so I moved my stuff to Maryland and we stayed at his mom’s house for a week helping out and stuffing our faces. I finished working in DC and am now in New Jersey staying with my mom and trying to see as much of my family as I can while I am here for two days.

I have to admit that while it was fun to keep the pregnancy a secret for a few months, it has been nice to talk to our families about it and see how excited they are for us. It makes the whole thing a lot more real and even more exciting. So it is officially out now. It is no longer a secret, as you can tell from my last photo! I await the second trimester and I long to get my California lifestyle back.

Week 13 Photo

NPR Recommendation

I’m sure many of you have heard some of these this week.  NPR has been airing a week-long series on adoption in America.  If you have some time, it’s worth a listen.

Day 89: Warning, Spoilers Below

Maybe it’s just part of ‘expecting,’ or maybe it’s just our personalities, but patience, when it comes to good news, isn’t really something we have an abundance of. Despite every home pregnancy test telling her to wait a few more days, Anat still felt the need to meaninglessly pee on a plastic stick a few days early. And despite all of the warnings about telling people too early, we still found it impossible to keep our mouths completely shut, and ultimately started leaking the big news as if this kid’s name was Valerie Plame. So in keeping with tradition, I got a little excited on my lunch break today and read ahead to see what week 13 would bring us in terms of the baby’s development:

Your baby’s intestines are migrating from the umbilical cord into his or her abdomen. The villi are also forming in the intestines, and these help in peristaltic movements and digestion. The liver begins to secrete bile and the pancreas is even secreting insulin! All twenty teeth have formed and are waiting under the gums, while your baby has begun to practice swallowing by taking in the surrounding amniotic fluid and pass it back in his urine.

Not bad for a 3 month old! Not even a day of school and s/he’s already moving around intestines. Speaking of patience, our weekly update also told us that, “it would be possible now to determine the baby’s sex by looking at the genitals if we could only get close enough.” Despite our lack of patience, neither of has expressed any real interest in knowing the gender of the baby. We’re not adamantly against knowing, we just haven’t really cared. I mean sure, it is really important to know whether we need to buy a pink or blue Frisbee, but I figure we’ll have a few weeks before we work on the kid’s inside-out flick. That said, if anyone has a hunch (or a preference) leave a comment and we’ll see what we can do.

Week 12 Photo

Week 11 Photo

Baby K (11 weeks) meets Baby Z (29 weeks)

Day 73: Mother

I am on the East Coast for a conference this week. While I could spend the next four paragraphs complaining about the heat, humidity, and lack of air conditioning, I realize that you East Coasters won’t feel bad for me so I won’t.

My cousin’s one week-old baby girl had heart surgery today. My mom was scared to tell me that there had been a problem with the baby due to my “condition,” but thankfully her very logical husband realized that I am an adult. I thought about it when I found out, researched it on the web and found out that while this is not a good situation it can be solved by modern medicine. But then last night when I found out that she was having surgery, I started to think about it as a mom and not as a googler or a scientist. I couldn’t sleep. I don’t want to make this situation about me at all, because it isn’t. I am extremely happy to say that Ilana is out of surgery and doing very well. I only bring it up because it made me realize that I see things differently these days. I don’t exactly know when this happened, but I seem to be more sensitive to children and I think about things now as if that kid was mine. I can see now why my mom did not want to tell me, not that I agree, just that I understand.

It is very strange to know that I am changing. It’s not just my body and hormones, its my brain as well. I think differently. I worry about different things and I don’t worry about others. I am only one quarter through my pregnancy and I can feel and see changes. I have no idea what the future will bring, but I know that it will be different. That is not something that I have dealt with very often. A new job, car, apartment, maybe. But knowing that your life is changing daily and that you cannot predict how it will change, is different. I would love to say that it is exciting, and on some levels it is, but it is also scary. I truly believe that this is the best decision Aaron and I have made, and I could not be happier knowing that I have a baby inside me, but some days reality kicks in a little bit and I realize how different my life is today than it was a few months ago. I don’t miss alcohol, coffee, or anything of the sort (except maybe spicy tuna rolls), and I love that my belly is growing, I honestly don’t mind the weight (yet). I just need to get used to the fact that things are changing, and more quickly than I had imagined. Shouldn’t be too hard?!?

Week 10 Photo

Day 69: Crazy

…as in I’m crazy.

Our dear friend Michael once gave Aaron some advice, “No matter how cool you think she is, don’t forget that they are all crazy.” And it was so, at least in our relationship, once a month. Every 28 days my hormones would kick in and I would undoubtedly say something stupid, mean, or sarcastic, and then I would cry.

And then I got pregnant and that 28 day rule flew out the window. I am crazy now ALL THE TIME! I cry about everything and I have no “is this going to come out the wrong way” checker. It’s really a very interesting time. While I can say that it has been three days since I last threw up, I can only claim to 6 hours since I last cried. The question then becomes, how to deal with this and/or stop it. I don’t know. Everywhere I look it tells me that this is just the way it is and that people should understand. Really? Is that really the case. Do we really believe that every day there are thousands of pregnant women around the world yelling and crying, and people just understand. I don’t think so. There must be something else.

The secret? We only yell at our husbands. Yup. That’s it right there. For some reason as soon as he walks into the room the hormones rage and the feelings come out. Does he say something to trigger this, no, of course not. He is an innocent bystander, more than that, he is the one cooking, cleaning, and exerting the most patience. Then what is going on? This time I really don’t know. I’ve learned not to talk until I have practiced what I am going to say four times, not to look him straight in the eye at the risk of making an obnoxious face, and of course to blog when all else seems to fail. Let’s hope it helps.

Day 65: Baby K’s First Ultimate Game

Aaron had a frisbee game last night against a team with a friend on it, so the friends girlfriend and I decided to go watch the game. Usually, Aaron is hesitant to let me go to his games because the last time I went I brought a 6-pack and heckled a little too much. But I promised no drinking this time! When I got home from work I was hungry, so I quickly made a chik patty (fake chicken) with some melted Muenster on it. I ate it and we were off.

On the way to the game we had to drive about 25 minutes to the valley, and the whole ride I was totally uncomfortable. I felt nauseous and sick, but I didn’t want to say anything to Aaron. I figured it would go away as usual. When we got there, I asked if he minded going to a local restaurant (a place called Amber’s Chicken and Donuts) and getting me a soda to settle my stomach — I was scared of the smell on the inside, so I didn’t want to chance it. As Aaron got out of the car to get me a soda, I could feel my stomach churning. I quickly opened the door to the car and threw up all over the parking lot. It was long and it hurt. Two people walked by at some point and I felt ridiculous. Thankfully I felt a million times better after that and proceeded to watch Aaron’s frisbee game. It’s amazing how much better you feel after throwing up.

To those of you that I will see on my East Coast adventure this month, I apologize in advance if I throw up near or on, you or your house. It seems my morning sickness is pretending to get better, and really only getting less frequent but more intense.

UPDATE:  I noticed this morning that I had red dots all over my face — broken blood vessels from my experience the night before!

Week 9 Photo