POP!

About a week ago I noticed I was significantly larger then the previous week. Normal, yes for pregnancy - not so much for someone who, at the time was only barely over 10 weeks.

Forgive the terrible photo, I had to take it myself - but as you can see from the 2 photos below - the 8 week photo I'm a little "bump-ish" and then in this photo I am 10 wks 3 days...so 2 weeks later and POP!


I'm now 11 weeks, and hoping that things taper off a bit. If I keep growing at this rate I won't be able to fit through my front door by the time the baby is due!

The Belly

Just so that everyone can keep up with my weight gain (haha), I'm going to to start posting the belly photos....watch me grow!

Here's photo number one at 4 weeks - since we were trying to conceive we knew on the first possible day that we were expecting...
And here I am at 8 weeks - they say you pop out sooner if this is your 2nd or 3rd pregnancy. Apparently so.....

When Ignorance is Bliss, Try a Little Logic.

I don't claim to be the smartest person in the world. I happen to know him, he lives in Denmark and is currently studying in Liverpool....and him I am not....:0) Sorry I realize that may only be funny and/or cute to a small group of people...

Anyway, like I was saying, I don't claim to be. I don't claim to know everything about everything, but I would like to think I know a little something about a lot of stuff. For instance, I know there isn't any risk to my unborn child if I have an ultrasound. I know this, based on logic. I can logically state that if there was a significant chance of it, my doctor and the millions of other doctors around the worlds wouldn't do hundreds of them a day. And because I have never once heard of a deformed baby being born and the cause being it's routine 20 week ultrasound.

Logic.

Why do I bring something like this up. Because I host a board of pregnant woman, and today one reminded me of this couple I met in birthing class 5 years ago, when I was pregnant with Paige. It wasn't her, per say that reminded me of them more of the whirling mind of mine that remembered this couple in a strange "8 Degrees of Kevin Bacon" kind of way.

This couple was the "Green" couple, and back then when green wasn't the new black...it was just annoying. She sat there sipping her wheat gluten shake while he tapped his obnoxiously clean penny loafers on the carpet. Blah. I remember joking with Paige's dad that they were probably all normal in public but that the scarf on her neck was covering up asphyxiation marks from weird sex fantasies.

I thought this until they asked the teacher a question, and pretty much staged a coup, yes....a coup about a typical medical device they would refuse to use. When we were touring the birthing center, we were shown the Uterian Contraction Monitor that they attach to your tummy to read contractions during labor. This couple started off slowly by asking questions about the radioactive waves that could harm the baby. WHAT!? There's no radio active waves!

The doctor showing us around assured them there was no harm possible to the baby with this contraption. They went on to state they would not use it in the hospital, nor ultra sounds or even the fetal doppler to detect a heart beat. All non evasive ways of determining the heath of the baby and when it's coming....things of that nature.

I think at this point the doctor was flabergasted and was left with only one thing to say, to which I wanted to applaud. He told them if they didn't want to use current, up-to-date and state of the art equipment for the birth of their child, they should seek out delivering at home with a doula or mid-wife because delivering at the hospital could only get "so low tech".

The couples response about floored me. They stated they didn't want to take the chance of delivering at home and there being a problem with the baby and it needing to go to the NICU. Apparently medical equipment can only harm the baby before it was born. And might I point out, had they had any of the routine things done like ultrasounds and heartbeat detection they would KNOW if there was a problem and they could have prepared for it....LOGIC!

Ignorance. It apparently can stem solely from not taking the 15 minutes to research something on that wonderful thing called the internet or asking a medical professional. Hear one thing, see it on the cover of a tabloid and WALL AH! It's the newest craze.

So after that story I ask you to PLEASE, for the sake of all things human when you hear something, research it before jumping on the bandwagon! And by research I mean, read opposing studies too, not just one...thats not research...that's called believing everything you read.

Honestly, I think that if I actually have to read one more hocus pocus study that the amount of rain fall in your area can be linked to Autism, or that an ultrasound can harm your baby, or that jumping up and down or frequent movement will give the unborn baby, Shaken Baby Syndrome - I might scream. Back it up with cold hard medical facts and studies and I'll believe it. Until then I will logically keep listening to my doctor, and trust in the medical profession as a whole. Hell, I didn't go to school for this. Why go if I'm not going to listen to them?

So Far This Season!

I have been busy, making a wedding invite and holiday cards for friends and family. Here's are a few of the holiday cards I have whipped up for them :0)

For Cally & Nick and sweetie pie, little Cooper.

For my wonderful new inlaws :0)

For the Beautiful Jen who helped so much with my wedding!

And yours could be next! I'm having such fun with it this year! And even though I'm extra busy with the baby,being sick (fun!), BabyZone hosting and creating, and the house....it's still so much fun!

First Impressions.

On Saturday I wasn't feeling well, and not in a pregnant kind of way. I was sure I was getting strep. Something all the other members of the family managed to dodge when Paige brought it home from pre-k.

I had an eye doctors appointment that morning I wasn't going to miss, because Alex's was right after mine and if I rescheduled one he would want me to do both and I wasn't waiting another month for a Saturday appointment there. Luckily they didn't dilate my eyes, because I'm early on in the pregnancy so one of us was able to drive when we were through. Alex on the other hands looked rather humorous trying to read the prices on the frames in the lobby, I often had to go up and help him as he brought it closer, then further away from his face...squinting. Poor guy.

We zipped off to a local Minute Clinic when we'd both picked out glasses, to find out what was wrong with me. Medically...not mentally.

I didn't think about it at the time, but Alex and I must have been quite the sight. His eyes were dilated to "cartoon character" levels and I looked like I had track marks on my arm from all the blood thats been drawn from me over the past 2 months. I even remember for not particular reason telling the nurse, while she took my blood pressure, how I was surprised I was always bruised on that arm and not my other, laughing about it and yapping away. Just like a druggie would do when trying to cover something up.

I'm sure they were extra pleased to find out the addicts were pregnant.

I don't think I'll be going back there any time soon.

The Strep Test by the way, was positive...but I'm getting better!

The Holter Monitor

I called the nurse the other day to see if the heart palpitations I was having were normal, expecting a yes as the answer.

I didn't get so lucky.

Even though my sister, an expert in heart conditions in my book....okay so she didn't go to medical school but she had surgery and that makes her pretty smart to me......said that she remembered the same thing in her pregnancy and all the girls I asked on Baby Zone said it was normal...I was feeling good about things.

They had me come in, were a little perturbed that I couldn't make it in that day and said it was really important. I didn't have a car! I wasn't hoofing it to Stillwater for crying out loud! Made sure to freak me out by telling me if I was short of breath or losing consciousness I needed to be seen asap.

So I did what any responsable parent would do - taught my 4 year old how to dial 911 and hoped she wouldn't need it. Luckily she didn't, because even though I posted the number by the phone, in quizzing her through out the day she consistently got the number wrong.

So I ended up going in the next day as promised, which was actually yesterday (you keeping up?) and the doc decided to hook me up to this Holtor Monitor for 24 hours. No big deal, other then I feel a bit like the back side of our entertainment center with all these wires, and they had to sand paper the areas where the 5 connectors went on my body.

They also did blood tests, and as I didn't get a call yesterday I'm confident that means nothing was standing out as a huge issue...fingers crossed.

I have to return the monitor to the clinic today and hopefully will have info back in a week or so...I'll keep you all updated!

Olive You!

I'm officially 9 weeks along! My little "Bean" has graduated from embryo to fetus and looks a lot more like a human then a small tadpole.

It's roughly the size of a medium green olive. Maybe I should change the baby's pet name from "Mr Bean" to "Olive" :0)

I have also found my two new food cravings....mmmmm food! I had fried pickles at Hooters today, could totally eat those day after day!!! And my tummy calmer is apple cinnamon instant oatmeal...;0) Don't think I will ever eat them together but you never know...hahaha !

Hopefully with this new found tummy calmer and the momentous occasion of my first trimester being over I will find more time to blog, about more things then just my pregnancy!

Useless.

Is it just me, or are baby names books totally useless? I picked one up last night that has 60,000 name in it.

60,000.

You would think that from that I would be having some luck...but it turns out that at least 75% of the names in the book are either Japanese, Korean, Chinese, or Vietnamese. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against those cultures it's just that since I am an all American white girl, of mostly Irish decent I'm probably not going to name my child Hyun Mi.

On each of the pages of this book, I have found maybe 2 names that don't fall into those categories. I have to scroll the page, looking at it's origin before even reading the name.

Luckily the book was only $5.99, yet I must admit I am still disappointed. If there is a wonderful Asian woman out there, pregnant with out a clue what to name their child, I have a great book for you! And I'm happy to ship it to you!