Top Five of the Second Trimester

I started this several days ago and then, well, we had some plumbing issues that needed to be addressed RIGHTTHISSECOND, so it got put on hold. But, my second trimester is officially over! It seems like it was just yesterday that the first trimester was ending. Whew! Here's my top five adjectives for the second trimester, like I did with the first (in no particular order).

1. Exciting
The second trimester brought a lot more excitement! We got to hear the baby's heartbeat much stronger, and it was the same day that Ben found out that he passed the Bar, so it was a very good day. We also had two different ultrasounds done and got some awesome pictures to show off. My favorites are a picture of his foot and one of his nose and lips. They're just a glimpse of what he will look like in person, but I'm already biased.

2. Urgent
We definitely got a sense of urgency in the second trimester. We found ourselves at a point that it was crucial to start thinking ahead and be prepared (there's that Boy Scout Motto!) for when he arrives. We took some time and cleaned out Ben's office in stages, then switched his desk and computer to the guest room. It was important to make headway with it so that we could get the nursery ready. The guest room is now a mess, because even with cleaning out the office, there was still a lot of stuff that just got moved over en masse. Beyond that, I started thinking about childbirth classes and hospital prep bags and birth plans. It hit me one day that I had not given ANY of those the attention they needed!

3. Quick
Like I said earlier, it went by so fast! You'd think that the first trimester would have seemed faster because I spent 4 weeks pregnant without even knowing. But, I think keeping it a secret and the fatigue made it drag on. I fully expect the third trimester to zip by as well.

4. Eventful
Lots of stuff happened in the second trimester. We found out that we are having a boy, I took my glucose test (gah, that thing was horrible!), got stuff put on the registry and were told that my brother and his wife are having a baby, too! We also felt the baby kicking, and then stronger and stronger. So many things happened this trimester, it's hard to remember them all!

5. Definitive
For the first trimester, it was surreal. Often I couldn't believe I was pregnant and it didn't seem like it was actually happening. The second trimester put all of that to rest. The ultrasounds and heartbeats and kicking and growing belly all helped solidify it for me. There really is a tiny person in there!



I am fortunate to be able to say that this pregnancy has been relatively easy. There have been some issues--from almost constant nausea at first, to the second ultrasound when he measured large, to my periodic back pain. But, in the grand scheme of things, I know it could have been much, much worse. There have been no complications, my weight has been manageable, he is an active little guy (which is sometimes a blessing and a curse) and there is no reason to believe he won't be a healthy baby when he decides to make his arrival. I just hope that he doesn't make life too hectic once he's here. We'll do the best we can with whatever situation we are given. It will be such an adventure and I can't wait for us to start it together!

Curiouser and curiouser

We went registering this weekend. Whew! It was super overwhelming, let me tell you. Thank God we had friends of ours, the Conner-Rinehart clan (thanks again Kevin and Tim for offering your expertise, and Catherine and Christian for being great sports as the boring old people debated the merits of car seat bases!) to patiently walk around with us and be our sounding board.

I really liked registering for the wedding, so I kind of thought this would be similar, but it was a whole different beast. Fourteen different high chairs, eight of them essentially identical, three from the same brand (I'm exaggerating...slightly). Burp cloths and bibs and pacifiers, oh my, all with the same predicament, except multiply it by five. My issue was the fact that a burp cloth is a burp cloth is a burp cloth. Who cares if it has images of fire trucks or butterflies or cans of sardines on it?? It's going to be spit on. That's it's function. When we were registering for the wedding, we could look at the fourteen different types of towels and pick one because we liked it and that was that. Why do I need to like a burp cloth? You see my predicament. Now, I'm reducing this incredibly, but really there was some degree of that with everything. The high chairs I knew we needed certain things like removable tray and a seat strap and a barrier to keep the baby from sliding out the bottom, but it seemed like they ALL had those certain things!

I was Alice and Babies R Us was Wonderland. Little did I know that the seemingly innocuous act of walking through the automatic doors would be my rabbit hole. The lady at the registry desk offered me a bottle of water; "drink me." Christian, the orange-hatted two year old, spent a decent amount of time rearranging cups to his liking and pushing a popper vacuum; mad hatter indeed. Catherine, the scene-stealing second grader, all but demanded that they purchase a purple stroller for her to ride around in--her chariot; a queen of hearts without the sadism. The only thing we were missing was a cat whose smile lingered and haunted.

Anyway, it's done, or so I think. I've already added some clothes to the registry via their website. Though, I was really unimpressed with how it's handled on the website. Nearly everything was out of stock and quite a few things were online only. Also, God forbid I want something that isn't sports-themed, camo, cowboys or dinosaurs. I mean, I don't have anything against those specifically...but why can't I just have plain old plaid or polka dot or striped or even *gasp* solid colored?! Something non-gimmicky. :/ There were 125+ options shown for newborn baby boy onesies on the website and I could probably count on two hands how many didn't make me curl my lip or sigh. Heaven help us.

P.S. http://www.toysrus.com/registry/index.jsp?ab=BRU_Header:Utility2:Baby-Registry:Home-Page
Registry number 52179672

Top 5 of the First Trimester

It's hard to describe what the first trimester was like for me, so I'm going to try to sum it up in 5 adjectives, in no particular order (you can probably figure out what the order is, lol).

1. Exhausting
Physically exhausting? YES! Mentally exhausting? YES! I was tired all the time and was regularly going to bed around 9-10p. That may not seem that bad, but I was used to going to bed around 11p-12a. Even on days when I wanted to stay up later, my body was functional and upright (mostly), but I was a zombie. It was not pretty. Also, for the majority of the first trimester, we were keeping it under wraps. It was extremely hard and mentally draining to go about my day around people who didn't know as if things were just fine. I did give some indication that I wasn't operating at 100%, but I couldn't go into detail or really explain just how <100% I was. Pretending to be at around 85-90% when you're really at 60-65% is so incredibly exhausting. When we finally made it public, my exhaustion level actually got better because I didn't have to pretend anymore. How crazy is that?

2. Surreal
I've said it before here on the blog that it was really tough convincing myself I was actually pregnant for a long time. I don't know how to adequately describe it. It just didn't seem like it was really happening to me. Even now, I still have surreal moments, like being pregnant is something that happens to other people and I just see it, I'm not really experiencing it. It's hard to apply what I've seen from others to myself. I'm hoping as I start to show more and feel the baby move that it will solidify to me.

3. Uncomfortable
Oh, man was it uncomfortable! I was nauseous almost constantly unless I snacked every hour or two. Sometimes I just wished I could get sick and feel better. Beyond that, at about week 11 I felt like I was being stabbed in my left side. Well, to be fair, it started out feeling twingy like I slept in a bad position, then the next day like I had run too far and too long and I had a stitch in my side, then the third day is when it was stabby-stabby. I called the doctor and they said it was the round ligaments stretching. Stuff was getting bigger, yo! Luckily it was just that one day and then it went back to the stitch, and then to the twingy. The icing on the cake was the last week of the first trimester I got hit with one of the worst colds I can remember. I was literally knocked on my back. I couldn't take anything for it (though we ended up contacting the doctor and he suggested Sudafed, which really didn't help a whole lot, really), I was getting sick from the sinus drainage and coughing every other breath. I still have a stuffy nose almost a month later, and I'm still at times getting sick from the drainage.

4. Overwhelming
There are so many things to think about and be aware of and plan for. Ben is still struggling to find a job. We've had to get creative in our finances, both in terms of cutting things down/out of our budget, but also in figuring out how to keep our bills paid when the savings has been drained. We have been fortunate in that there have been options available to us, but it continues to be something that overwhelms us daily. We have a plan for the nursery and such, but we're in a holding pattern until we can get other things straightened out. I had a minor freak out the other day about needing to sign up for birthing classes...until I realized that I probably had several months before that needed to be something on my mind. There have been numerous conversations, from genetic testing to natural birth vs. epidural to godparents to whether we'll circumcise if it's a boy. And I know we've barely scratched the surface.

5. Exciting
It was crazy how fast it went, honestly. The first few weeks went by so slowly, but being here at 15 weeks now and knowing that ten weeks ago was when we found out...it does not seem like it has been that long. Each new experience, each trial and tribulation, each milestone we reach has been incredibly exciting. I feel blessed to be journeying through motherhood and sharing the journey with Ben.

Surreal...

Third of several posts that remained hidden until the pregnancy was announced. This was written three weeks after the pregnancy was confirmed.

I feel it's important to share this, because I got so much comfort reading other people's experiences with the same thing.

I don't feel pregnant. It is incredibly surreal. I'm having pretty minor symptoms--I'm tired all the time; my chest hurts only slightly (and only in the last couple of days); when I'm hungry, I'm starving, and when I'm starving, I'm nauseous and when I'm not starving/nauseous, I have indigestion. That's pretty much it. I'm not throwing up or peeing all the time and even though I'm three weeks past the positive pregnancy test and eight weeks along tomorrow, I would not have expected my next cycle for another couple of days. I just feel like all the things I'm feeling and the symptoms I'm having aren't enough to say "Yup, I'm pregnant!"

I kept the appointment we had made to discuss fertility options because I was terrified it wasn't real. Even though they confirmed with a test at that appointment--in addition to a second test I took the day after the first one just in case it was a false positive--and I've had an ultrasound since then, it still feels like I'm pretending that I'm pregnant. I'm avoiding the foods and stuff I'm supposed to (sometimes I forget, like two days after the positive test and the day before I had the appointment when I took a motion sickness pill before a car trip and had a freakout moment; sometimes I don't realize I'm supposed to avoid it, like feta cheese), but again it just feels like I'm pretending.

I really thought the ultrasound would help, but even though they put the word "baby" next to the dollop of abstractness I saw on the screen that blinked like Tinkerbell, it still didn't seem real. I carry the printout around with me and look at it every once in a while to remind myself that I do have something growing inside me. Sometimes it helps. Because it still feels surreal, I'm having trouble connecting to the baby. I feel protective of it and I can't wait to go through the next 32 weeks and beyond, but it's so hard to bond with a baby I am having trouble believing exists.

I've talked with other people I know who have been recently pregnant, as well as looking to the internet for strangers who shared their similar experiences, and it has been a relief to know other people have felt this way. So, I wanted to add my voice to the chorus of friends and strangers that someone else may be turning to. You're not alone and you're not crazy.

Mixed feelings

Even though a baby will be no less than a blessing, I have mixed feelings. We're having trouble with finances since Ben hasn't been able to find a job. I've been saving as much as I could spare from my paychecks since February, anticipating this scenario, but it is becoming clear it wasn't enough. I know they say that you can't wait until the "right" time to have a baby, because it will never be the "right" time, but this just seems like the wrong time.

Hopefully Ben can find a job soon, either in his field (ideally) or in something unrelated (realistically, at least for the time being) and maybe that will create a better situation to potentially bring another person into. I feel like it is selfish to want a baby now when I'm worried about how we'll support the two of us. But, I also don't want to dismiss all the effort we've put into the last year of trying. We're looking at budget options and have already made changes that will ease things a little. We make too much just on my salary to be eligible for government assistance, even if I had a baby in my arms right this second (not that I would want to, but I'm not too proud to do it if it meant being able to feed and clothe my child). We just have to keep trying to do the best we can with what we've got until things change.

Life is never easy, is it?

The next step

Well, it's done. After a week and a half of forgetting to call until the office was closed, I was able to schedule an appointment (after the Bar) to talk to the doctor about our inabilities thus far to conceive. That was a hard call to make--not because I felt like I was admitting defeat or was ashamed, but because I didn't really know how to handle the call. What I ended up saying to the person who answered the phone was that I wanted to make an appointment and that we'd been trying to conceive for over a year and wanted to speak to the doctor about it. Once the appointment was made, I asked if I would need to attend by myself or if Ben could/should attend as well. She said it was up to me. I've told Ben that I'd like it if he went with me, but I'd understand if he couldn't (I'd much prefer he go to an interview, for instance).

Now that that's taken care of, I'm not entirely sure what to expect. This is where all those people who offered listening ears and advice come in. Until now, I was doing ok on my own and with Ben. But, now I have no clue what's going to come next. Any and all advice you could give would be appreciated, whether that's helping me be prepared for what they'll talk to us about or sharing your decision making process when you went down a similar road. I know several friends who have chosen different options-- fertility treatments, hormone therapy (are those the same thing?? See I don't know! Lol), IVF, adoption, etc-- each with their levels of success. I am very open at this point to hear your pros/cons, experiences, determining factors, what have you. I may not be in the same situation exactly, but it will all help me figure out what our best course of action is for our specific situation.

So, bring it on! I need all the help I can get! :)

I think I've gone off the deep end...

I may have officially gone off the deep end. Ben and I were in a bookstore earlier this week and as I wandered around while he thumbed through some omnibi, I found myself in the "Family and Child Care" section. There were the usual What to Expect books and baby name dictionaries, and a bunch of other books, magazines and journals all revolving around having a baby. I wasn't wistful or bitter.

Here we are a full year into trying to conceive and I feel almost as hopeful as I did when we first started. Maybe I've just used up all my anxiety, or maybe I'm just optimistic that this will be our month after all, or maybe (the most likely scenario, IMO) I'm ready to make my appointment to see the doctor and find out what our options are. There's a calming sense when you know there are possibilities within your reach. I know that it will still be another month before we'll have the appointment, but I'm planning on making the call to the doctor in the next couple of weeks so that we can get in as early in August as possible. Maybe the day after the bar exam? Hahaha, just kidding! You can breathe again now, Ben. ;)

So I'm standing there staring at these books and magazines and journals. I was drawn to the pregnancy journals in a way I've never been before. In fact, as I picked them up one by one--looking at their structure and their content and weighing their merits against each other--I was was reminded of when I was planning my wedding. What you may not realize is I was planning my wedding before I was engaged, which is saying a lot since I was the one keeping our relationship at a slow pace. But, what I told Ben at the time is that if it was just the wedding, I'd get married in an instant. I needed to be ready to be married, too. That didn't stop me from dreaming about what my dress would look like and frequenting the wedding sections of bookstores looking at books on centerpieces and planning calendars.

Anyway, I digress. I felt a parallel between looking at wedding resources without a fiancé and looking at pregnancy books without a baby. And this is where I went off the deep end. I decided to buy one of the pregnancy journals. I want to not only be ready to be pregnant but also ready to have a baby. No, I may not have a baby, but I will. When I do, I will have this journal to stick ultrasounds in and pictures of my growing belly. Or, we'll adopt and I'll Frankenstein it to fit my needs. I really wanted one where both parents could journal together, but there weren't any there. I even did a search later and there doesn't seem to be any that I can find. I guess the pregnancy journal world hasn't quite caught up yet that having a baby might be a joint effort.

I chose one that had watercolor drawings of the fruits and vegetables the baby will resemble in size and pages with prompts about feelings and experiences as well as blank pages where I can just write whatever I want. Don't worry, I'll still keep this blog. This has been a way for me to keep ahead of my feelings so I don't lose track of myself, and I will need that. I held the book, cover facing me, and went to find Ben. As I walked down the aisle toward him, I began smiling bigger and bigger, even past the point of silly grin, making him suspicious of what book I had. I finally turned the book around so he could see and he laughed, rolled his eyes affectionately as he is wont to do when I go all baby crazy (as I am at times wont to do) and kissed me on my forehead. Ok, so maybe I am actually a little optimistic that this month will be our month. Maybe we both are. Aren't I always? I have to be. My optimism is what keeps me from drowning over here in the deep end. It's been such a roller coaster of a year and regardless of what this month will bring, it will be the beginning of a new phase in our lives and I don't know a better reason to be optimistic.

Uplifting

It's been an uplifting couple of days. Yesterday, a coworker I don't interact with much was talking to me about how she wants to adopt a little girl. She asked if I wanted children. I realized that she didn't know about us having tried for a year now. Oddly enough, I was ok with her question of whether I wanted children and not the question I've been plagued with (that I've talked about before) of when am I going to have children. There was an implication that it was ok if I didn't want children, and not an implication that I'm late to my own baby-having party.

Today, while talking to a teacher in a school-age classroom, she shared with me that she and her husband were trying for a baby. I told her that I knew how she felt, as we had been trying as well. I wished her good luck, as I could related to how hard it was. She said that they had just started the process. I felt a connection with her as we go about our journey at different stages. I was the one with experience in this case. I don't wish that she struggles like I do. I also have to accept that she may get pregnant before I do. For now, we are on the same journey.

After work, I spent some time at the thrift stores. While I was looking for something completely different, I found some super-cute crib bedding. Ben and I, after much going-around, decided we wanted a literary themed nursery for when we get pregnant. Boy or girl, it works! I first saw the Paddington Bear bumper pad, but then found a crib duster and curtain to match. For some reason, buying baby things was almost therapeutic. I may not have a baby now, but planning for one was reassuring.

Unfortunately, after doing a bit of research, I've found that bumper pads are not recommended for use in babies' cribs by the American Academy of Pediatrics. That's all right! I literally spent $2 on it ($4 for all three pieces), so I'm not that concerned with finding alternative uses for it. Possibly a quilt? A diaper stacker? Wall hanging? Who knows, but for $2 I'm sure I'll get my money's worth. :)

It's been an uplifting couple of days. I'm ready for more. :)

A shift in thinking

It's amazing how just the idea of having children can change how you start thinking about things.

For instance, Ben and I have been discussing getting another dog. Our dog has been with other dogs almost the whole time I've had her. We've noticed that she seems to be a little lonely since we started living by ourselves, and when other dogs come to visit she is happier. We had decided to wait until Ben had a job, so we would have extra money for a second pet. I had a thought the other day, though. If we wait until he has a job, which may be August or later, we may already be pregnant at that point (oh, Lord I hope so...) and would be faced with a new dog and shortly after a baby. The sooner we get another dog, the more time we have to get it acclimated. So, we're going to be looking at dogs to adopt soon.

Another shift in thinking was when we were buying a bed recently. We debated whether we would get another queen or get a king size instead. The things we considered were the space in our bedroom, the need of another mattress, and the possibility of little children finding their way there from bad dreams or fussy nights. We had all but settled on a king until we saw the price of king size mattresses. Holy moly. We decided that was definitely a purchase that could wait and stuck with a queen. We'll just have to get cozy on those fussy nights.

It's not just purchases that shift our thinking, though. We've talked about how our choice of words will need to change (we each have our favorite blue words), how our relationship will be different and in what ways we'll need to baby-proof the house. I'm glad we have these conversations, but I know there are things we haven't even realized need to be addressed. We'll figure it out together and I can't express how blessed I feel to have such an amazing partner in life. I'm so happy to share this journey with him, and I know he will be a fantastic father. There is no shift in thinking there at all.

Be Prepared

What kind of Eagle Scout wife would I be if I wasn't prepared?

I bought a Halloween costume for a baby I don't even have. Ben rolled his eyes affectionately at me when I showed him. Can a person roll their eyes affectionately? Sure, why not! It's a fuzzy snowman and it's practically perfect...size 0-9 months, warm for our Ohio October, unisex and best of all, less than $10.

That's not all I've got! I have a few maternity shirts hiding in my closet. I also got a toddler tuxedo and gnome costume from a friend. We've got four names chosen--two boy names and two girl names (first AND middle) in case we have two children of the same gender. I told Ben that we can have as many children as he wants, but I'm only giving birth to two. We'll see if that sticks. I've been pinning like a madwoman on Pinterest, getting all kinds of ideas for tips, tricks, birth announcement ideas and basically anything cute and baby-fied.

I even talked to my OB at my appointment this week to see how I could do my best (the Cub Scout motto!) to prepare for pregnancy. She told me prenatal vitamins ASAP, so that they're in my system during the first six to eight weeks when the baby's setting up shop. She also said that they don't typically counsel until a couple has been trying for a year, since 80% conceive within that time. Odds are in my favor! Until then, I guess I'll have to keep pinning away and amassing clothes that make Ben roll his eyes.