18w, 3d - 19w,4d to go.

I am officially nesting.

I think the instinct kicked in before Christmas, but I was too sick for the first half of this "vacation" to do anything about it. (I got 9 days off work for the holiday - my Christmas "bonus" from the company.) So yesterday, finally feeling better, I kicked it into high gear and started working on the nursery.

Now, the room where the nursery will be has served many purposes over the year and a half we have lived here. It's been a storage room, a closet, a dumping ground for randomness, and an office. The office has been deconstructed, leaving just the piles of mess behind. It was so bad, at one point we just closed the door so we wouldn't have to look at it anymore.

But, yesterday, I went in there and dug in, digging through the mess and throwing way all sorts of stuff. I got about half done. By this, I mean I picked up everything I determined to be trash, threw it away, and shoved everything else on one side of the room, so it looks half clean.

I then spent about 45 minutes and about six gallons of carpet cleaner getting stains and stickyness out of the carpet. (At one point, when the room was an office, and when Rudy was a kitten, he pulled a huge glass of orange juice off my desk, and we had no steam cleaner at the time to clean it up, so it left the carpet stained and sticky.) That half of the room looks phenomenal now. The carpet looks as if it had never been touched. It is incredible.

The other half of the room still looks like a bomb hit it, but at least I feel better about it.

We also put together the toy chest that we got for Christmas from the baby's great-grandma, and threw a bunch of toys in it (mostly toys that had been mine, but that I'm passing onto the baby - including my Lolly and Bear Bear - my first doll and teddy bear. I just hope the little guy/girl takes good care of them so he/she can pass them down to my grandbabies.) So, one part of the room officially looks like a baby's room.

The rest of the room, in theory, should not take too much time or effort. The biggest part of it all is going to be the closet. The baby is getting a very large walk-in closet that has served as a hiding place for my dirty little secret - I am the world's worst pack-rat. I cannot bear to part with anything, so the whole weeding out what we literally DON'T need and keeping what we DO need has been difficult. But, I've made progress. At one point, the closet was so full that you had to shove really hard to get the door open. It's not that way anymore.

I imagine that sometime within the next month (Yes, month), that room should start to look habitable again. I had a goal of having it done in nine days, but that just didn't work out.

I took some "before" pictures of the nursery to compare and contrast to the "after" pictures, but I'll save everything for when the job is actually done. (Minus all the furniture, but we'll save taking pictures of that for the days leading up to baby jellybean's arrival.)

That's the latest and greatest in baby news from here. Hope everyone's Christmas and New Years are fantastic!

16w6d - 23w1d to go

Kick, kick, kick!

That is what has been going on all morning - more when I sit down (I think the baby likes it when I move around and gets mad when I'm sitting)! He/she is in there just going pop, pop, poppoppoppoppoppoppoppoppoppoppop. It is a WAY weird feeling but very cool all at the same time. Very different from the subtle movements I had been feeling.

Things are still going well, otherwise. I could complain about the horrible sciatic pain and headaches I've been having, but I won't. I'm just happy the little one is happy and healthy in there.

Speaking of that, we were out and about this weekend and came across two amazing new moms! The first was Scott's co-worker's wife, who had a baby girl two weeks ago and was at the company Christmas party dancing up a storm! I haven't even had the baby yet and I sure didn't feel like dancing (my being an idiot and wearing high heels to the party sure didn't help in that respect). All I could think when I watched her dancing was - WOW! I sure hope that I feel that good two weeks after having the baby! She looked fantastic and was out having a good time - they even stayed later than we did!

The next day, we're out and about doing our Christmas shopping, when we ran into Cristy (our wedding photographer/friend) and her family...including her brand new baby girl, Camdyn, who was just over 24 hours old at that point. Wow again! I think that's so brave and amazing to go through birth and still be strong enough to get up and do what you need to do the next day. The baby is beautiful, and Cristy looked amazing. Congrats and kudos to the whole family!! I hope to be that strong for my family and child.

That's the news report from here - lunch is over, and I've got a meeting to attend to so I am going to stop here.

16w1d - 23w6d to go

16 week appointment - DONE!

My appointment today was with nurse Diane again. She's so wonderful and upbeat, I always leave there feeling excited, even on days like today where I wake up not feeling so hot, and run into closed roads and overturned vehicles that make me 20 minutes late for my appointment (and, they still saw me on time - I waited literally three minutes in the lobby).

Baby's heartbeat was SO strong today! Even Diane remarked something like, "Wow, that's really good!" She didn't comment today on the exact heart rate but since she said it was strong, I'm not worried.

Only problem today was (again) the blood pressure...at first take it was 149/89. So they took it FOUR MORE TIMES. The last two were at the end of my appointment - Diane made me sit in a quiet room with a magazine and just "chill" just in case it was because I was worked up over the traffic and running late (which was true). After resting for about five minutes and just taking some deep breaths, it was down to a much closer to normal 133/79 (they took it once in each arm). Still a tad high, but much improved. I am going to step it up with the diet/exercise, though, just because I really want to avoid the preeclampsia (plus, high blood pressure is no good anyway!)

We also went over my lab results from the six vials of blood they took last time! Everything came out good EXCEPT...I have no immunity to varicella (chicken pox). I've never had it, but I had been exposed many, many times in childhood. She warned me to stay clear of anyone who MIGHT get chicken pox since it's dangerous in adulthood to begin with - even worse when you're pregnant. I imagine the baby will get the vaccine and so will I after he/she is born.

So....what's next? The next appointment is the "big ultrasound" - the 20 week anatomy examination and 3d view of the baby! I am so excited - I get to see my little baby's face in four weeks! I'll get to see his/her cute little chubby cheeks and button nose and all around adorableness! This would also be where, if we wanted, we could find out if the baby is a boy or a girl...but we're not finding out. Just getting to see cute little chubby cheekers is exciting enough for me!

Well, my 2pm appointment is early, so I'm out!

15w1d - 24w6d to go!

Got a call back from Cheryl (the genetic counselor) at Dr. Fuentes' office today.

She actually left me a voicemail last night about my first trimester screening results. I tried to give her a call back about three minutes after her call, but got the office's answering service. (The answering service lady was quite rude, by the way!) But, I wasn't too concerned, Cheryl's voicemail said that it was good news!

And it was!
Down's Syndrome risk: less than 1 in 10,000
Edward's Syndrome risk: less than 1 in 10,000

Both of these, she says, is the best score you can get on the tests. I've got a healthy little guy (or girl)! Next step will be getting the AFP test done at my next appointment (next week) which tests for Spina Bifida.

Let's hope that is good news, too!

14w6d - 25w1d to go!

In other somewhat related news, the daddy-to-be just sent me a lovely bouquet of flowers (forgive my somewhat messy desk, and the crappy cell phone quality picture).


Also, I posted the following in my personal journal the other day, but I thought it would be a good post for the baby journal as well.

Things I have learned about pregnancy (in the first trimester):

- Chances are, you know your body better than your doctor - but still, keep an open mind.

- Nothing beats a doctor who will take time to answer your many questions and concerns. If he/she rushes you out with unanswered questions, find a new doctor. You (and/or your insurance) are paying them to take care of you and your baby.

- Never, ever, ever, ever ever ever ever ever EVER google the word "miscarriage". And I mean never. Not even if you have the worst pain imaginable and you're certain the end is near. If you're worried, call your doctor, and assume the best until told otherwise. It happens, and it's painfully sad, but the odds are in your favor.

- Along those lines, take caution with pregnancy message boards. In some respects, they are full of women with great advice, but also, they are full of women with well-intentioned bad advice. They also have a larger percentage of women with "problem pregnancies" which makes it seem like the odds of having a healthy pregnancy are less than they are in the general population. (Misery loves company!)

- Whether or not your pregnancy was planned, people will ask you the dreaded "Was it planned?" question. Get over it now so you won't be offended when someone does ask.

- Also, whether or not your pregnancy was planned, you will question yourself over and over again if your decision to have a baby was the right one. It doesn't mean you're going to be a bad parent - it means that you're a human being with human emotions. It's normal to be nervous about something that is life changing. (Nobody questions a nervous bride - why question a nervous mom-to-be?)

- Some days will be worse than others. Your pregnancy symptoms will wax and wane on a daily basis and it doesn't mean anything is wrong. (Again, if you're nervous - CALL YOUR DOCTOR. Google = bad in these instances.)

- Don't believe everything you read in pregnancy books. You might get morning sickness. You might not (I didn't). You might gain 10 pounds in the first five weeks, you might lose 20 (I didn't). The only normal pregnancy symptom is a growing embryo/fetus. Everything else varies from woman to woman, and pregnancy to pregnancy. (I fully expected to be a vomiting nut case - I never threw up.)

- Keep the emotions of the father-to-be in mind, but don't expect his to be the same as yours. It's normal for men to be ambivalent/indifferent until they see evidence of the baby (when they feel it kick, or when it's actually born). So don't freak out on the daddy-to-be if he doesn't cry over a cute pair of baby booties.

- Tell your family and your employer whenever YOU'RE ready. If you want to wait until 2nd trimester, go for it. If you don't, tell sooner. We told our families at four weeks and our bosses at five weeks. I can't imagine if I had waited longer to tell my employer - it's been great and everyone has been understanding (it's like having a third family!) Only you know what's right for your situation.

- Some days you will really wish that you weren't pregnant. Not that it's a miserable experience, but sometimes the baby seems like a parasite (it is!). Sometimes you will just want your body back and not share it with this other growing human. Again, this is normal. (But also normal if you never feel this way).

- Take all advice you get with a grain of salt (even mine, on this list!) Every woman's experience is different - and every woman's experience may vary with each pregnancy.

- Don't rush it, because you may never get to go through it again. :) (This may be a blessing or a curse! It's up to you!)