Snack Size: Experiencing Weird Symptoms In Small Doses.

And now for your viewing pleasure, 26 weeks...still an eggplant.

Nice flowery drawers, grandma. What can I say? They're comfy and comfy is what I need since Spencer seems to be pushing buttons for weird symptoms these days.

ON THE MENU

 A. My back has always been a problem (since I partially slipped a disc years ago and followed that up with a compression fraction from falling down the stairs). Add a one pound eggplant to that pressure and, well, nights have been unpleasant.

B. I can no longer regulate my body temperature. HOT is my only setting.


C. I'm guessing Spence Baby is positioned on a nerve because for a few days, my right thigh was asleep. Now it's my right thigh, forearm, and there's a dull and annoying tingle on the right side of my torso. Not painful but highly annoying.


D. A very mild heartburn seems to be present in the morning. But we were told at week 18 that the baby already had hair and rumor is babies with lots of hair cause heartburn. Tums are on my "CAN HAS" list. I'll deal.


E. Bloody noses have returned but they aren't super-soakers like before.


F. Round Ligament Pains have returned but like in the beginning, it's when I make a quick movement, when I sneeze, when I'm positioned one way for too long. They're no big deal but of course I totally FREAK because I feel like I'm ripping my guts to shreds and somehow hurting him. He gets a nice massage after I feel one of those twinges.


G. I keep having incredibly vivid dreams and they BUG ME!


H. I'm back to getting up at least once, if not twice, to empty my tank during the night. Like with the back problems, I've always had sleeping problems. So these little night time annoyances are...annoying.


I. Leg cramps a.k.a. CHARLIE HORSES! Pre-pregnancy, I told NOT handle nor tolerate Charlie Horses and they made me into a HUGE baby. I would crumble to the ground. Somehow, during my preggoness, I’ve figured out how to stop them as soon as they appear. Small victory.


* Side note: how unfair is it that clumsiness is a side effect of pregnancy??? I’ve been burdened with being a walking disaster my entire life. Does it really have to intensify while I’m responsible for protecting a little person??? Grrrrrrr.


At least I can poop. That's a small yet powerful blessing! And sure, there are a lot of things on my list but I'm not bitching (YOU'RE NOT??), just making note. All of these things affect me in small ways. They come and they're gone. I just want to have a list of things to use during guilt-trips when he's older.


Enough about me. Let's blather about him.


26 WEEKS: The nerves is his ears are way more developed so he can hear both me and Todd, which is good because I'm been chatting to him nightly and I don't want him to miss out on any of my gems. He's still practicing breathing in the amniotic fluid and he's piling on the fat so he's more pinchable and less...Skeletor. Allegedly he's more than a pound (maybe even close to 2) and over a foot long. And his testicles are making their descent. That's my little man!


As for me...I'm still supposed to be sleeping and eating, which I am, but watching "Pregnant In Heels"  (Rosie Pope is my new female celeb-crush) has me anxious to sign up for the free childbirth related classes offered by our hospital. The better prepared you are, the easier it'll be. They're free so WHY NOT? I know blood pressure can become an issue at this time which freaks me out because I've had blood pressure issues, on the low end. Hopefully that was a fluke.


And there you have it. The world according to me and Spencer!

Coasting Along: Bouncing Back As The First Trimester Starts To Wrap Up.

Even after kicking off my 12th week of pregnancy, I remain Pro-Choice. However, like I've said before, it is getting way too hard to look for pictures of what my monster looks like in utero because I'm getting a lot of shots of abortion aftermath. They are definitely not sights I want to see when I'm feeling all warm and fluffy about our baby being the size of a lime. I have a slight obsession with limes and think they're a cute fruit. These photographs I wind u seeing...not so cute. Mortifying.

Regardless...

The brain is fully developed and the placenta is on it's way. Hair buds (that's a little creepy, tooth buds, hair buds) are forming, the digestive stuff is starting to "crunch" here and there, and the vocal chords are in place. I guess the little baby beast can even cry now if it feels like it. Last night I had a dream that I was in labor and it really wasn't that bad. I'm going to keep on dreaming.

Not too much else to report at this point in time. Soon enough, the 1st trimester is going to be behind us. I'm still feeling a little wishy-washy from the nuttiness earlier this week but I overall, I feel seriously improved! I've rejoined the land of the living!! And our "official" ultrasound was moved up a week to this Thursday. I can't wait to learn more about this little monster that I'm becoming more and more attached to as the days go by!

My little lime...

Heart-Go-Throb: A Moment Of Calm In a Scary Situation.

WELCOME TO 10 WEEKS! Sorry I'm late. Some crazy shtuff has gone on in the last week so let me just get picture fun time out of the way so I can get to the good (well, maybe not so good) stuff.

The monster is this big (that's a prune, I guess):

And looks like this:

And I look like this:

About a week ago, I was starting to feel like I had turned a corner, though I was recently told that there are no corners. Just illusions of corners. Regardless, my appetite was back...you can just ask the fine people at P.F. Chang's Asian Bistro..., I had enough energy to stay up until 9:30 (!!!) and bowl with Uncle Benjamima, and the small bouts of nausea I was having had taken a hike. I was really starting to bounce back...until I wasn't.

Saturday and Sunday, I had a mind-numbing headache and while I've gotten the OK to take Tylenol, I'm very wary. I mean, at this point, I still hadn't seen a heartbeat or anything so I was a little worried. But the headache was NEVER ENDING. Grrrrrr. But I'd take a headache over what happened next.

This is all paraphrased from The Cleveland "A" cause I'm too lazy to retell the story in a more inventive way:

1/25/11: Until yesterday, I had never really fainted before. It was unexpected as I'm guessing most fainting is. I was in the shower getting ready for work and, pardon my French, blacked-the-fuck-out. I never lost consciousness but I lost vision. A few stumbles back and I cracked my melon on the shower wall. Vision back, room spinning, heart pounding, me yacking. Ultra glamorous. And ultra scary.

Went to the ER,  they asked me a battery of questions and ran a plethora of tests, including several BP tests and an EKG. The conclusion was that my blood pressure was reaaaaaally low (due to pregnancy, dehydration, and possibly the notoriously hot showers I take). My blood supply has increased and is focused around the tiny human I'm growing. Takes longer for blood to get to the brain. But that's nothing new. I was encouraged to follow up with my OB/GYN within 24 hours so here I am, waiting.  THE END.

Back to reality...

Yesterday, I went to see my OB to be on the safe side. She concluded that the black out WAS based on my low BP and possibly me coming down with something on top of it...something fluish, despite my flu shot. Blast. And I'm down 3 pounds! I want a flipping bump already! I know it'll come but I'm not exactly patient at this moment. Anyway...

The nurse tried to hear a heartbeat...nothing.

The doctor tried to hear a heartbeat...nothing.

So I get an unexpected ultrasound...and there he or she was. I was really surprised how baby-shaped it was. You expect ultrasounds to be all fuzzy with just a little blip of a heartbeat when they're that small. I mean, we weren't supposed to get our first ultrasound until the 10th (and we'll still get it, this was just to make sure the monster hadn't been affected by what I was affected by...and he or she was A-OK). So there it was, my monster and it's wiggly heartbeat. It even entertained me by doing a little backstroke maneuver. It was the first time I felt calm since Saturday.

But I was alone. I didn't expect an ultrasound. No one was there to share the cool moment.

Todd, though sad he missed it, said I shared the cool moment with the baby.

: )