Oh that sound!
Yesterday I finally went to my first prenatal appointment. It got a little delayed because of the vacation, but it worked out good this way. If you go earlier, there's really nothing happening, but now, at 12 weeks you get to hear... the heartbeat! I will never understand this. I know how big the baby is, I know there is one in there, its presence has been very obvious to me in the last 6 weeks, I also know it has a heart that beats and what that sounds like... but then when I get to hear it... It hits me every time: THERE IS A BABY IN THERE! This whole thing is just unbelievable. It seems I could have 20 children and still I would wonder how it got there and what it's doing behind my belly button. I had the same reaction the second Veronika was pulled out of me: IT'S A BABY! The nurses all laughed... like, honey, what did you think it was?
In other news, I found out I am already 12 weeks, so from now on the nausea should be subsiding and really, I've had three good days in a row now. (Don't ask me tomorrow), I also already gained 5 pounds. The due date is mid March and the baby will (hopefully) be born here. Yes, we will find out the sex (in two months) and no, we will not tell you the name before the baby arrives.
Posted at 12:36 PM on August 31, 2005 | Comments (2)It's some kind of logic I don't get.
At the library, a lady is paying a fine. She hands me a quarter and ton of nickels. I go to drop it in the cash register when I realize the quarter is Canadian. I go back...
- I'm sorry, this is Canadian money.
- So?!
- Well, uhm, (I'm confused that I need to explain.)... we can't accept Canadian money.
- Why not? Somebody gave it to me... (She gives me a look that means something like: Someone slipped me Canadian money and I didn't notice, so I can't be held responsible!)
- (I continue on autopilot completely confused as to why I don't seem to be making sense) I am sorry, this is Canadian money.
(Meanwhile in my head I yell at her Veronika-style: CANADIAN! NO!! NO CANADIAN!!)
Posted at 12:10 PM on August 31, 2005There is not enough energy for a text
So here are some sentences:
- I am still sick. It is the beginning of week 12. God, please let it also be the beginning of the end.
- My husband cleans the kitchen better than me. I am considering leaving that job up to him indefinitely. I can be generous like that.
- Food is stupid. I'm so tired of food.
- Sleep on the other hand is wonderful. Sleep is the way to go.
- I am still sick.
- Maisy saves the day every day.
- The only thing I manage to "read" is the IKEA catalog.
- Growing children is so exhausting. Menopause is starting to sound fabulous.
- I am so sick.
Posted at 08:14 PM on August 27, 2005 | Comments (5)
"Note: every pregnancy is different!"
As with my previous pregnancy I signed up for one of those slightly lame week-by-week pregnancy email updates. It's a free service some websites will offer and you receive weekly emails that say things like "you are now in week 8, your baby looks a little bit like a frog, has a heartbeat and you might be slightly irritable...". They are harmless little emails that contain slightly more pertinent information than a babystyle catalog.
I suppose I do like to find out how big the baby is at the given week, because frankly at this early stage I mostly forget this business is about a baby in the first place. Instead I am just trying to make it through the day without hurting anyone. A weekly update for the week 10 in my world would sound something like this:
If you thought the last few weeks were bad, you better brace yourself. You are now approaching week 12, which is the peak, the top, the worst of the worst of nausea and general rotten mental and physical state. As you count down to this dreadful deadline you may experience the following:
1. Violent vomiting attacks that occur when your stomach is empty and therefore make throwing up particularly difficult and uncomfortable. (This also means you means you have missed your eating deadline, which leads to the next point...)
2. Imperative hunger every two hours, which doesn't feel anything like a good appetite, but more like a need to satiate the monster that is making your stomach curl in most exotic ways. If you fail to eat at those times, be prepared for symptoms above.
3. Specific cravings for specific foods prepared in a specific way and also paired with only specific other foods. Those foods also need to have a specific texture and create specific feeling on tongue. All these specifications will mostly be limited to one day. So what worked yesterday might create symptom number one today. You just won't know. Sorry.
4. Strong desire to maintain horizontal position at all times. If you haven't noticed by now, your body is trying to accumulate the most amount of fat in the shortest amount of time via very strange means. Part of this plan is to not waste any energy on moving. Moving therefore will appear near life-threatening to your (sadly) pregnancy-damaged mind and if all goes well you will be a big Argentinian cow by the time delivery comes along. (Sorry, no offense to the Argentines, just their cows.)
5. Oh and there is also a baby in your uterus. It's very small right now, although the head looks a little too big.
Remember, not all pregnancies are the same. For example, your pregnancy is different! Things that help other women, like accupressure, lemonade and crackers won't do anything for you. Enjoy your week!
Posted at 03:29 AM on August 20, 2005 | Comments (4)What does a vacation look like?
Lincoln put together a wonderful (and very long) photo album of our vacation. Click here and scroll down to launch the album.
Note the following:
a. My new hair cut. Sometimes awful, mostly cute.
b. I seem to pose for all pictures. That's because I'm only comfortable for about 2 seconds then I become painfully aware of camera and start with embarassing posing.
c. No kittens were killed during our trip.
The big anouncement. Round II.
Before I continue with the "enormously long text" as my brother recently called my entries, let me give you the important news of the month, so you don't have to sit through the enormous boredom of it all: I am pregnant. In fact I am almost 9 weeks pregnant and it seems so long to me that I am considering delivering in about a month. The reason for that is nausea of course, which this time seems to not hit me as hard (I AM SO NOT JINXING IT RIGHT NOW), but nevertheless I've still been constantly nauseous from about week 5 1/2 and I am ready to be done. Never will I understand why something as happy and exciting has to start with the awfullest feeling in the world.
I was "determined" not to be pregnant for my vacation, the first in 18 months, but of course, here I was with the two pink lines about 15 days before departure. It's not like I was too surprised. I am familiar with human biology, but it seems - and here I apologize to every woman, who has been struggling to get pregnant cycle after cycle - I only have to have so much as a positive thought towards a possible pregnancy and I will most certainly find myself indeed in the family way right thereafter. I know I know I am lucky and I'm not complaining, it is just sometimes a scary thought. BOOM! I'm pregnant. So then I tried to change my thinking as there is nothing one can change about a positive test and decided that being nauseous while staying at my mom's house is actually a great idea because I won't have to inhale any cooking smells and my child will be permanently entertained while I lounge on the sofa. And indeed, here I am, stuffing myself on homemade food (for those of you, who are not familiar with morning sickness, a full stomach helps ease nausea) and my daughter is blissfully at play without my supervision.
I would have told you I was pregnant the day I managed to take a good picture of the pregnancy test, but Lincoln said to wait and I did and it was very hard. I was so tempted and I wanted to share all the anxiety over when exactly I would start feeling miserable and the confusion about how it was possible to have more than one child anyway (I'm still a little convinced I will just give birth to Veronika II), but I couldn't, so now it's all coming out summed up - which my brother will thank me for I assume.
In other news: I AM ON VACATION. There are more details to this, like how Veronika feels about the beach and how I feel about Veronika on the beach, but that will have to wait, because I AM ON VACATION and this is a sacred time.
Posted at 07:59 AM on August 09, 2005 | Comments (8)