Thoughts on motherhood after two months

Holy crap, has it been two months?  Jeez.  Life with Miles is fun, crazy, wonderful and exhausting.  It’s amazing how much my life has changed.  It’s so much fun watching him grow and develop and every day it seems like he does something new.

Yesterday he had his shots and he was so upset I felt like my heart was breaking.  After they injected him, he turned to me and gave me a look like why did you let them hurt me?  He was miserable all last night and even after he fell asleep on my lap he was whimpering in his sleep with this super sad look on his face.  Poor little guy.

One of the major issues we’ve had is breastfeeding.  He wasn’t able to latch on right from the start and I visited a lactation consultant at two weeks to see if she could help.  She said that I was doing everything right but that he just wasn’t figuring it out for whatever reason.  I got a nipple shield to help and it did work to a certain extent, but I’d nurse him for an hour and he’d still be hungry afterwards because he wasn’t getting enough.  I’d end up having to pump and feed him a bottle.  Then finally around 7 weeks he just seemed to figure it out.  It took like a week for my milk to regulate itself to his appetite, but things have been great since.  I can’t fully express how relieved this makes me.  I was just about to give up, figuring it was just never going to work out.  I’m so glad I persevered.

It’s so amazing how much you can love someone you just met two months ago, isn’t it?  I can’t imagine my life without him in it.  I love watching him sleep and I just want to wake him up to watch him smile his wonderful smile at me.  Though I don’t actually wake him up, because I desperately need those few hours so I can get dressed and eat.

I go back to work part time this month and then full time the beginning of the year.  I’m actually looking forward to going to work just to get away for a couple of hours, but it’s going to be so hard when I’m there 8 hours a day and only see my baby in the evening.  I can’t bring myself to even really think about it because it makes me so sad.

G. has been helpful but I can’t help but wish he could help even more.  He’s great with changing diapers, but when he’s home I’d like some time for me while he sits with Miles, and that’s just not happening.  I’ve gone shopping a couple of times, leaving Miles with him and they did fine, but I feel like I’m still home alone with him at night.  Like last night, Miles was screaming because of his shots and didn’t want to nurse, so I went to pump and asked G. to change Miles’ diaper.  I came back after pumping and the diaper was still wet.  I said, “Wow, he peed already?”  And G. said what and I said, “Well, you just changed him and he peed already.”  He said, “No, I thought you wanted me to wait for you to get done pumping before I changed him.”  Even though I had specifically told him to change him while I pumped.  It’s a little thing, I know, but it’s just frustrating.

Oh, and it bothers me when I ask him to sit with Miles while I do something and he’ll sit next to the baby and watch TV.  Miles will be awake, staring up at G., jabbering away at him and G. is not even paying attention.  To me, I mean for him to interact with Miles.  If I wanted him to be ignored, I’d put him in his swing.  I guess I just expect that since G.’s away from Miles all day, he’d want to talk and play with him when he’s home.  It’s silly, I know.

Well, Miles is starting to wake up, so I’d better stop there.  Hopefully I’ll have more time soon!  And at least I’ll have my lunch hour when I go back to work.  (Don’t want to think about that!)  Here are some of his two month pics:

Welcome baby Miles!

He’s a boy!  Miles was born at 2:56 a.m. on Tuesday, September 22.  He weighed 7 lb., 1 oz. and was 19.25 inches long.  And of course G. and I think he’s just the cutest baby ever. 

Miles at 12 hours old

So I was expecting Miles’ birth to take a couple of days, because of what the doctors had told me due to this being my first and me not being dilated.  What actually happened was a super fast labor and delivery.

I was admitted to the hospital at 6:00 on Monday night and we waited for the doctor to come by to insert the cervidil.  She was in the middle of a delivery, so it was 9:00 by the time she stopped by and the cervidil was inserted.  They told me to expect some mild cramping and gave me an Ambien to help me sleep through the night.  The doctor on call on Tuesday would then stop by the next morning to remove the cervidil and see how things were going.

“Mild cramping” is a major understatement.  The cervidil sent me into full-on labor.  Within 20 minutes, my contractions were a minute and a half apart and I was throwing up and having diarrhea.  Finally around 11:00 the doctor stopped by and said that she’d been watching my monitor and that she wanted to remove the cervidil to try to slow down the contractions.  She checked me and found that I was 2 cm dilated.  At this point I was just trying to remember to breathe through the contractions, and it was so hard.  Only having that minute and a half made it nearly impossible to get on top of them or to do anything.

Around midnight they decided to give me a half of a dose of Stadol to try to slow down the contractions because they hadn’t slowed at all.  The Stadol caused the baby’s heart rate to drop slightly and it also caused me to be super loopy.  I guess my eyes were rolling around in my head.  And it did slow my contractions to two whole minutes apart.  I’m not sure that the Stadol did much for the pain though it did cause me to relax through the contractions more, which is good, I guess.  Around 12:30 my water broke and I was checked and told I was 3 cm dilated.

At this point, I have no idea what I did for the next two hours other than try to get through the pain.  The Stadol only lasted about an hour and my contractions were getting more and more painful.  I wasn’t really watching the clock, I was just trying to get through each contraction, but it was around 2:30 a.m. that I finally decided I needed more pain medication.  The nurse went to get the doctor to have me checked to see if I was to 5 cm yet so I could have an intrathecal.  I was apparently apologizing to G. a lot about being a wimp because I was still thinking that I had hours and hours left to go and I couldn’t imagine how the contractions could get any more painful.

The doctor came in to check me and said, “You won’t believe this, but you’re at 8 cm.  These contractions are the most painful that you’ll have.”  She told me I couldn’t have an intrathecal since I was so close, but that I could have another half-dose of Stadol.  I was ok with that, thinking I could deal if they didn’t get worse, but as she was leaving the room I had another contraction and told the nurse that I needed to push.  The nurse decided to check me and said, “You’re at 10!” and she literally ran from the room to get the doctor.

I remember telling G. at this point that I had to push and I started to, pushing through the contractions even though one of the nurses was telling me to wait for the doctor.  She came back into the room with three or four other nurses and told me that it was fine to push through my contractions while they got things set up.

After 10 minutes or less of pushing, Miles was brought into the world.  I got to feel his head and they were telling me how they could see his hair.  One of the nurses said, “It’s a boy!”  I’d forgotten that we didn’t know what we were having, and really at that point I didn’t even care.

Almost immediately after he was born, as my system started to relax, the full effect of the Ambien hit me and I was pretty out of it.  I barely remember calling my parents and I kept falling asleep watching Miles being given his bath, though I kept trying to watch.  By the time he was placed in the bassinet next to me it was 5:30 in the morning.  We were able to sleep about an hour and a half before the nurses were back in, checking vitals and all of that.  I think G. and I each only got that hour and a half of sleep the entire day.

We finally chose the name Miles somewhere around early afternoon.  I read off the list of names we’d liked and Miles just seemed to fit him the best.  He’s such a cutie and I already can’t believe that he’s only been with us for 5 days.

T minus 81 hours (and counting)

I’m being induced Monday night.  Holy crap.

For some reason I was thinking it would be later in the week, since I know they like to make sure you’re at least 39 weeks, which I will be on Tuesday.  I guess I thought they’d want to add a few days on for safety.

While I was at my appointment and hooked up to the non-stress test, I had a contraction, and was 60% effaced and a centimeter dilated.  The doctor was hopeful that the cervadil they’ll insert to ripen my cervix might get things started because of that.  So maybe I won’t need pitocin, which would be great.

But still, Monday night.  They’re going to insert the cervadil, give me a sleeping pill and put me to bed, so at least I’ll probably get some sleep, unlike if they had me stay at home and come in early on Tuesday.

Only a few days left until we meet our baby!  I’m excited, nervous, happy and scared.

The countdown starts

So I found out last Thursday that I will be induced next week, after all.  The doctor I had talked to before who told me no didn’t really know my whole medical history and, not that this is a bad thing, she used to be a midwife and tends to take a more natural approach to things.  So maybe she just figured they wouldn’t be inducing me.

Well, on Thursday I saw the doctor who started me on the Lovenox and progesterone and all of that and he was writing me a prescription for heparin because I’m supposed to be switching over to it before I deliver.  So he was saying, “Well, I’ll write the prescription for a month even though you won’t need it that long.”  I had been assuming I would just go late, so I said, “Why won’t I need it that long?”  And he answered, “Well, we’ll be inducing you at 39 weeks.”  Needless to say, I was surprised.

Not a bad surprised, just not what I was expecting.  So I’ve had to readjust my mental plan of how the birth is going to go.  Another doctor I saw afterwards was telling me that it will probably take a few days because they’ll attempt to dilate me first but that she doesn’t imagine that it will work because of it being early and because it’s my first delivery.  So the next day they’ll try that again and give me Pitocin.  If that doesn’t work, they’ll try to break my water and see how things go from there.

I haven’t wanted a C section at all, but I’ve had to mentally prepare myself for that eventuality.  Not that an induction means I’ll need one, but it’s more likely, especially if things are going slow and if the baby gets stressed.  I’ve been having weekly non-stress tests since 32 weeks and while the doctors have said the baby is fine, they’ve also said that his/her heart isn’t as reactive as they would like it to be during the tests.

We finally, finally have the nursery mostly ready.  We still need to get replacement parts for the crib (I called and apparently the ones I thought we needed aren’t what we need, so the company needs me to make exact measurements and send in pictures to try to figure out what parts we need), but we do have a bassinet, so at least there’s a place for the baby to sleep.

I find out this Thursday what day next week I’ll be induced.  So I could have a week left or a week and a half and I’m trying to get prepared.  I’ve started packing my bag, I washed and folded and put away all the baby’s clothes, I’ve started stocking up the freezer and I bought tons of diapers and wipes.  Oh, and we also got the car seat base installed in the car.

I still can’t believe we’re going to have a new little someone in our house.  I’m so excited and nervous and scared and thrilled.  G. and I have started doing “the last time we do XX before the baby’s born” things.  Like going out for dinner, going to the movies, that sort of thing.  This next weekend will be our last weekend on our own.  How weird and wonderful.

35 weeks

Things done:

• Nursery painted
• Crib and changing table moved into nursery
• Bouncy seat, bassinet and high chair assembled
• Childbirth prep classes almost complete
• Breastfeeding class taken

Things yet to do:

• Order replacement parts for crib (hand-me-down with missing parts for side rail)
• Buy a dresser
• Wash baby clothes (I really, really want to wash everything but I have nowhere to put it!)
• Come up with birth plan
• Send in pre-registration paperwork
• COME UP WITH BABY NAMES

It still feels like there’s so much left to do, but the biggest is coming up with names.  And since we don’t know whether our little one is a boy or a girl, that’s twice as many names we need to come up with.  I got a couple of baby name books and had G. look through them but he hasn’t been able to come up with any ideas.  Poor thing is going to be Baby Boy or Baby Girl if we don’t come up with something!

The childbirth prep classes have been interesting.  Scary, but good, I guess.  G. doesn’t like the videos of the women in labor because he can’t stand to see me in pain, so he doesn’t like to imagine how much pain I’ll be in.  He hated when I had my miscarriages because I was in such awful pain and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.  In our classes, I think we’re the oldest couple.  It’s weird because you hear and read all these stats about how women are putting off childbirth and whatnot, and then there we are at 29  and 30 and we’re the oldest ones there.

I try not to be judgmental, but it’s hard when I see these high school-aged couples who aren’t paying attention and look totally bored.  One couple even left during the break of our first class.  I just feel so grateful to be there, to have a reason to be there, and it bothers me to see kids who don’t appreciate why they’re there.  I don’t know if that makes sense or not.

The ultrasound tech at my last appointment mentioned something similar.  She and her husband are doing their third round of IVF in October and she said how hard it is to have teenagers in there for their ultrasounds who only care about whether the baby’s a boy or a girl.  That would be so hard.  At least I never had to be around pregnant people much and see actual babies like that before I was pregnant.

My pregnancy is still going well.  I have my fourth weekly non-stress test this Thursday.  The first two were fine, but at last Thursday’s, the baby’s heart rate wasn’t staying up once s/he would move.  The nurse had me lie on my left side and that helped things, which was a relief.  I still worry that something will go wrong at some point and I imagine I will up until the baby’s actually born and I see a living, breathing boy or girl.

Today for the first time my feet are slightly swollen.  Not a whole lot, but obvious to me.  I also feel like I’ve started waddling a bit and like the baby might’ve dropped slightly.  Today I had awful pain whenever my bladder would get too full, from the baby’s head pushing right onto it.

The baby gets the hiccups usually twice a day.  It’s so funny.  I was telling my mom about it and she said that my sister used to get them all the time when she was pregnant with her, and that she still gets them a lot.

Because I’ve had weekly appointments for the last month, I’ve been able to see how my weight fluctuates, and it’s funny.  The first two weeks I didn’t gain anything and then last week I’d gained three pounds.  So I’m still gaining at an appropriate rate, but it’s like it happens all at once instead of a pound a week.  Though today I’ve been starving, so we’ll see how much I’ve gained by this week’s appointment.  Some days I’m starving and then the next day I don’t eat a whole lot.  I guess I just eat more when the baby has a growth spurt.  I have possibly my last monthly ultrasound next Thursday, assuming I don’t go overdue.  I’m excited to see how big the baby is, though I’ve heard that the later ultrasounds aren’t a good gauge for weight, that the baby can be off by as much as 2 pounds either way.  Hopefully I have a smaller baby!

I’ll be switching to heparin from the Lovenox next week.  I can’t believe how long I’ve been on the stuff.  I’ve kept every needle simply because there isn’t an easy way to get rid of them here, but I thought that once I’m done with all of them I’d dump them all in a big pile and take a picture of the baby next to the pile.  The only thing I don’t like about the heparin is that it’s twice a day instead of once, but I’ve heard that it doesn’t burn as much.

I’ve been so tired lately.  I come home from work and prep for dinner right away because if I sit down at all, I fall asleep.  Twice in the last month we’ve had macaroni and cheese for dinner because I was too tired to make anything.  And omelets are becoming a common dinner item, too.  Basically we’re only eating quick and easy meals.  Tonight we grilled steak, potatoes and corn on the cob, so I got the potatoes cut up and in a tinfoil packet and the corn cleaned and in tinfoil as soon as I came home and then I fell asleep on the couch until he woke me up when it was all ready.  That’s pretty much how it goes every night.

My pregnancy ticker thing says I have 36 days left.  Holy crap.

Me at 34 weeks

Holy crap, 29 weeks?

I still can’t believe I’ve made it this far.  I had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and hadn’t seen this particular doctor since week 7, when she told me we could be cautiously optomistic about this pregnancy.  I don’t know if she remembered me or if she just actually bothers to read charts before she meets with patients, but she reminded me of that appointment.  “The last time I saw you, the baby was just a flicker!”  It’s so weird to think how nervous and scared I was then, of how I didn’t really believe that things would work out, and yet, here I am.

I had my first shower this past weekend and got so much stuff.  Looking at all the cute things, I felt as if it all must belong to someone else.  It couldn’t actually be for my baby, could it?  I don’t know why I’m having such a difficult time believing or accepting that we’re going to actually have a baby in 11 or so weeks.  I mean, I do know why, after all we’ve been through, but I would’ve thought that my expanding tummy and the baby’s movements would assure me, but I still find myself bracing myself for the worst.  Today I was trying to imagine what I would do if for some reason we lost the baby.  It’s like I have to mentally prepare myself for the worst outcome, even though I’m hoping that all I’ve been through means I’ll have an easy rest of the pregnancy and an uncomplicated birth.

I haven’t even done much of what I’ve wanted to do during my pregnancy.  I always imagined that I would write letters to the baby every month, and have a pregnancy baby book about how I’m feeling, stuff like that.  I’ve taken monthly pictures, but that’s it.  Part of it is me trying to protect myself in case something were to happen, but part of it is my tiredness.  It’s come back with a vengeance, and I feel nearly as tired now as I did in the first trimester.  Some of my morning sickness is back, too, though mostly just in the mornings when I brush my teeth.

Today at my appointment, they gave me a support band to wear under my tummy.  The baby has been very low my entire pregnancy, but lately he’s been pushing his head into my bladder.  The band really does help, which is great.  At the ultrasound last week we learned that the baby is head down pretty low, with one foot up over his head.  Or at least it was at that time.  Which explains how he’s been kicking my bladder, too.

Here’s a pic of the baby last week:

Our baby at 28 weeks

I think it looks like a boy.  We’ll see.  It’s hard to believe I’ve only got 3 ultrasounds left, at the most.  I can’t wait to see if he/she looks different next month.  The baby’s been measuring a little bit bigger, just like a quarter to a half pound bigger, which is good, I guess, though it makes me nervous to think I might have this giant baby.  I was my mom’s biggest baby, at 7 pounds, but G. and his brothers were in the 8-9 lb. range.

Right now, G.’s in the baby’s room, sanding and taping the walls to get them ready for painting.  We’ve decided to go with a very pale lime green color with brown trim.  I think that will go nice, whether we end up with a boy or a girl.  I’ll post pics once we get it done.

We haven’t done much with the house, we’ve been so tired out.  Or rather, I’ve been so tired out.  It’s livable, of course, but you can tell that the people who live here haven’t been here for very long.  We haven’t hung any pictures or even curtains.  Well, we’re not done painting the trim yet, which is why I haven’t hung curtains.  Plus, we were waiting for our first-time homebuyer credit to arrive so we could buy some new living room furniture and we just got the check in the mail (so awesome).

The baby’s been super active and I’m just so thankful that everything’s gone so well so far.  And I did talk to my doctor about inducing me on Lovenox, and she said that they won’t.  I’ll be switched over to heparin around 36 weeks, which only has an effective time, or whatever you want to call it, of 12 hours.  Plus, they have a drug that can counteract the heparin in case they need to, so it shouldn’t be a problem.  I’m glad.  I really want to let things happen on their own, when the baby’s ready to be born, though I’m sure I’ll be wanting to hurry things along towards the end. 

I really like being pregnant.  I’d hoped I would, but I wasn’t sure.  A few people have told me that they hated being pregnant, and I worried that I might be one, but I really don’t.  I thought what a cruel joke that would be, if I tried for three years to stay pregnant only to hate it, so I’m relieved that that doesn’t seem to be the case.  I love feeling the baby move and kick.  I love knowing that there’s this whole other person growing in there, and I love to wonder what he/she will be like.  In the ultrasound pics, it looks like the baby has G.’s lips and chin, and I can’t wait to see if that’s true once he’s here.   Will the baby have my ears and my super long second toe?  Hard to believe we don’t have long before we’ll find out.

24 weeks

Holy crap, I can’t believe I’ve let 5 weeks go by without a posting.  Shame on me.  Though I did have good reason: we bought a house!  We signed for it the beginning of May and then spent the entire month cleaning, painting (VOC-free paint, of course), packing, sorting and hauling.  It was so exhausting.  I don’t know how many times I fell asleep in an uncomfortable camp chair while telling G that I was just going to sit down for a minute.  I even slept on a pile of furniture-cushioning blankets on the floor.  Plus, we had our TV and Internet shut off at the old house and it took 3 weeks for the stupid cable people to come out and turn it on at the new house.

Anyway, that’s my excuse.  We’re not 100% settled in, but I’m not in a big rush to finish unpacking.  It’s livable and that’s good enough for me.

The baby and I are doing well, or I assume we are.  I have an ultrasound later this afternoon, so we’ll see how he/she is doing then.  Because of the Lovenox, I have to have monthly ultrasounds.  I’m not complaining because I’m more than happy to fill up my bladder and squirm around on the table if it means I get another peek at our little one.

I’m definitely starting to look pregnant, as you can see below:

We still don’t have the nursery ready at all, though I did pick out paint colors.   Tomorrow, though, we’re going to register for our showers.  I have two scheduled in July and another in early September.  I still can’t believe we’re going to actually have a baby who will need all of this stuff.  I guess part of me still worries that something is going to go wrong.  I don’t know that I’ll get over that until the baby is actually born.

Totally out of order here, but you know how I was saying how I have to have the monthly ultrasounds because of the Lovenox?  Well, I was doing more research and it seems like most doctors won’t let you go to term if you’re on blood thinners.  This risk of bleeding is too high, so they’ll schedule an induction a few days before your due date so you have plenty of time to let the blood thinners get out of your system.  My doctor hasn’t mentioned this at all, so I need to remember to ask about it at my next appointment.  I really wanted to just let things happen on their own, though of course I’ll do whatever is best for the baby.

Another totally selfish reason I wanted to go past my due date (I’m assuming my baby will be born late for some reason) is that I wanted to have my maternity leave last through the end of the year.  If I deliver in the second week of October, I won’t come back to work until the beginning of the year.  If I go early, I’ll be coming back the weeks around Christmas, which just seems pointless.

I mean, whatever, it’s fine, I just though ideally that it would be nice not having to come back until after Christmas.  Anyway, we’ll see what happens.  I just need to remember to ask my doctor about that.

So, anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to lately: house-related stuff and trying to actually believe we’re going to get a baby out of all of this.

19 week ultrasound

Today’s ultrasound was so much fun!  The tech said that everything looked great, and I’m so relieved.  Even though my triple-screen test came back fine, I was still a little worried that something would show up, but it was all good.

The baby's profile

Camera shy baby

The baby wouldn’t turn over for the 4D part, so we’ll go back in 10 weeks to get a look at the face, which is awesome.  Any and all reassurance I can get is great.  Seeing all those fingers and toes is just the greatest thing, though it is still weird to look at these pictures and think that that baby is inside of me.  And I’m only halfway through!

We decided ahead of time not to find out the baby’s sex, and I thought that once we were in there and had the opportunity that we might change our minds, but we didn’t.  It is weird to think that there’s one person right now who knows if it’s a boy or a girl, though.

Changing the subject, I found the best maternity jeans.  I ordered a pair of the real-waist flare leg jeans from Old Navy, and they are awesome!  They’re super comfy and aren’t all baggy in the hips and thighs like those other ones I have are.  It’s nice because you can tighten or loosen them with these elastic and snaps on the inside of the waist.  We’ll see how long I can fit into them for. 

18 weeks

Last Tuesday was the 2-year anniversary of my very first due date.  Isn’t that weird?  I can’t believe that if everything had gone well with my first pregnancy I would have a two-year-old running around.  Just crazy.

Instead, I’m now 18 weeks with an extremely active little guy.  He kicks randomly throughout the day, sometimes over and over for 10 minutes at a time, and sometimes just once every hour or so, to let me know he’s still there.  It’s really nice to have that reassurance.  I’ve only been using the doppler sparingly.

Before yesterday, he had been lying sideways across the bottom of my pelvis, randomly kicking my bladder, but about noon yesterday he started kicking up a storm.  The kicks moved up the right side of my uterus until he was kicking up by my belly button.  It was so weird.  I can’t even describe what it felt like, other than this strange, alien creature doing gymnastics inside my pelvis.  But right after he moved up, the pressure on my bladder was gone and THANK GOD because I was getting sick and tired of having to pee every two minutes, especially when I’d pee and as soon as I stood up I felt like I had to pee again.  I even got tested for a bladder infection because it was so annoying.

Today is the first day I’ve worn maternity jeans to work.  They look hideous on me.  They’re super wide through the hip, then almost taper at the ankle and they’re too short.  They were on clearance at Target and I guess I know why now.  I checked Kohl’s but they only had XL.  I also got a pair at another store, but they again have the weird extra hip fabric.  I understand that at some point my hips are going to spread, but it’s super annoying for now.

I’m having trouble with finding tops to wear, too.  I never thought of myself as wearing skin-tight clothes, but apparently I did because I don’t own anything baggy.  I have, I think, about 7 tops I can still wear.  Enough to make it through the week, but still.  It’s getting old.  You would think it would make it easy to find something to wear in the morning, but last Friday morning I had a meltdown.  Just one of those days where nothing was going right and everything I put on made me feel pudgy and ugly.

G was able to feel the baby kick last Thursday and he was super excited.  Whenever the baby kicks now, I have him come over and put his hand there, and of course, the baby stops kicking.  Yesterday I made him sit for five minutes with his hand on my belly while he typed on the computer with the other so he could feel it.

Here’s my 18-week picture:

My belly at 18 weeks

And here’s a shot showing my bruises from the Lovenox.  The giant one on my left has actually faded a bit since last week.  Crazy.

Lovenox bruises at 18 weeks

Next Tuesday is our big ultrasound and I’m so excited!

15 weeks and movement? Already?

So yesterday I swear I felt the baby move.  It was this weird slow roll sensation, like the baby was maybe doing a somersault in there.  Isn’t this too early to feel movement?  I thought with first babies you didn’t feel much until closer to 20 weeks.  I was telling a friend and she said that it’s probably because I’m thin that I’m feeling the baby move so early.  And then today I felt what I think was a kick.  Both of these movements I’ve felt at around the same time of day.

And I did buy a doppler, which I’ve had for about a week now, and I love it!  I was so worried I wouldn’t be able to find the baby’s heartbeat, but I found it right away.  From listening in the morning and at night, we’ve been able to notice that the baby’s way more active at night.  When I leave the wand in one place, the baby will go zooming right by it, it’s so funny.  There will be no heartbeat, then it’s faint, then it’s super loud, and then it’s gone again.  I like to imagine he’s doing gymnastics in there.  And we can actually hear him kick on the doppler, which is cool, too.  And yesterday he kicked the doppler wand, which was weird.  And G of course panicked that I was pushing too hard with the wand and bothering the baby.

I’m still not showing much at all, but I’ve been doing the old rubber band trick for a week with my jeans.  When I went down to my parents’ house last weekend my mom and sister went through their closets and loaned me some of their looser tops so I have something to wear before I need to go to maternity tops for real.

I’ve been done with my progesterone for a week now, and it’s so nice to only have one shot to do each night.  My poor rear is slowly healing, although I still have lumps under my skin from the oil build up.

Yesterday I was at Target and I oh-so-briefly checked out the maternity clearance.  I couldn’t bring myself to take anything off the rack and I just felt like I didn’t belong there.  Like someone was going to come up to me and say, “What are you doing here?  You’re not pregnant.”  I felt the same way when I walked through the maternity section at Kohl’s last week.  And I wandered through the baby stuff just to look and I still felt like someone was going to tell me I wasn’t allowed to be in that section.  It’s so silly, I know.

I finally told people at work last Thursday that I was pregnant, but only because someone asked if I was pregnant.  I had been telling G that wouldn’t it be funny if I didn’t say anything and just waited to see how long it took someone to ask me and then boom, it happened.  I don’t even look that big, but she said it was just like I had this little belly that I never had before.  Everyone else was horrified that this woman would even ask me because how embarrasing if I wasn’t.  Anyway, two of my coworkers bought me a baby outfit, the only thing this baby owns.  I brought home and showed it to G who made me put it down because he was starting to hyperventilate.  I just stared at him and he said that seeing the outfit made it real.  I said, “The seven ultrasounds didn’t make it real?  Hearing the heartbeat every day hasn’t made it real?”  He said no, that it was the outfit that finally did it.  I’m apparently not the only silly one.