Halfway to Bambin@!

Today I am 20 weeks pregnant! 20 down and 20 to go. I'm not positive about how I feel about this milestone.

A 20 week baby bump (plus a steak dinner). 

Reasons I feel like this isn't such an accomplishment:

1. Because pregnancy is measured from the last menstrual period, I don't feel like I am "halfway" through my pregnancy quite yet. In another week, I will be halfway through gestation (since conception didn't occur until about two weeks into the "pregnancy.") And since the positive pregnancy test didn't come until I was 4 weeks pregnant, I don't feel like I'll really be halfway through until I'm 22 weeks or so. Is that crazy? I guess I just feel like I'm somehow "cheating" by counting the weeks when I didn't even know I was pregnant -- or the weeks before Bambin@ had even been conceived. I guess it's a little silly, since the baby could come late or early . . . there's nothing to actually say that any of these milestones are really the halfway mark. 
2. Ever since about 17 weeks, I've already been thinking of myself as "about 20 weeks along." So to actually make it to 20 weeks feels like it should have happened awhile ago. 
3. There hasn't been any real change in baby movement for the last three weeks or so. I'm still just feeling the little taps and flutters here and there. I feel like, by now, I should really be feeling some more pronounced movement. :-( 

Reasons I feel like this is a really big deal:

1.  I'm halfway through my pregnancy! Because both of our parents have "countdown" plaques, it's kind of exciting to know that, from this point forward, the numbers for the weeks remaining will all be lower than the numbers we've already hit as "pregnancy milestones." So for example, last week I was 19 weeks along and 21 weeks to go and next week I will be 21 weeks along and have 19 weeks to go. That's pretty spiffy. 
2. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with having the belly. When I think of myself as being in the middle of the pregnancy, rather than early pregnancy, I feel more okay with the fact that I have a protruding bump. 
3. Our mid-pregnancy ultrasound is next week! 

It's hard not to be impatient, though. Especially since we're here in Florida visiting with Amanda, who is so much closer to the end than I am.

Mandi looking adorably pregnant.

Speaking of which, we're having oodles of fun down here, and this is perhaps the best way to celebrate 20 weeks. Just hanging out, lounging at the beach . . .

Ben and Mandi enjoying the ocean.

. . .  and putting together baby gear! While Mandi was at work yesterday, we put together her swing and bouncer, which are adorable. I can't stop patting the soft fabrics.

Our grand accomplishments!

We also got to visit her birth center and a baby consignment sale where we both picked up some good finds. Can't wait to meet both our babies!

Rough day?

Yesterday was a bit tough on us. 

It started on Tuesday evening actually. I was talking on the phone with my sister when I started coughing. And coughing led to throwing up. Needless to say, I had to hang up on her and make a break for the bathroom. 

It wasn't a pleasant experience and when I looked in the mirror, I saw that I had lots of little red dots around my eyes and on my cheeks. This was not unusual. Burst blood vessels with vomiting has been an unfortunate side effect of the morning sickness. 

But the next morning was a bit more unusual. While I was getting ready for parent-teacher conferences, putting on my cute maternity dress and smiling in the mirror, I saw that I had a dark red splotch across the sclera of my eye. Apparently I'd suffered from a subconjunctival hemorrhage (a broken blood vessel in the eye) as well as the red spots on my face. I was going to be spending the entire day making eye contact with parents and students during face-to-face meetings . . . and I looked like I belonged in the haunted house that had been constructed in my classroom the previous week.

So then I showed the eye to Ben and he started researching what (if anything) I needed to do. 

Ben has what's called recurrent vasovagal syncope, which causes him to faint when confronted with certain types of stressful situations (like feeling pain, seeing someone in pain, reading about medical phenomena . . . you may have some idea of where I'm going with this, and yes, we've already decided that we will be hiring a doula to help us through labor). Usually he recovers in about 15 seconds, but it's always a little scary to see someone lose consciousness like that. 

When Ben fainted yesterday, I didn't realize right away what was happening. I thought he was just a little dizzy. And unresponsive. And then I ran over to see if he was okay, started shaking his arm, tapping at his face, calling his name. 

To make a long (it felt like an eternity) story short, he didn't recover in the usual amount of time and so I started to fear that he was having trouble breathing, or was having a seizure, or . . . I don't know. In a few more seconds, I was on the phone with 911 -- and I was a mess. 

I had always assumed that I would be awesome in a crisis. That I would be the one who clearly and concisely yelled to the accident victim, "Can you hear me?" and then called to a passerby, "You call 911, I will check vitals and begin first aid!" Or, better yet, who put 911 on my speakerphone while I simultaneously delivered top-notch first aid and communicated effectively with the emergency dispatcher. 

In real life, I was simultaneously trying to revive Ben by propping up his head (apparently the exact opposite of what I should be doing) and asking him if he could hear me while the emergency dispatcher was trying to ask me for my address. In response to her question (which I had not heard at all over my own voice), I began to tell her what was happening with updates every three seconds to let her know what new noises he was making or colors he was changing to. 

I learned an important lesson about myself. I am an absolute basketcase when someone I love is in trouble. 

As you may have gathered from the tone of this post, my husband did recover. In fact, he recovered while I was still in my minute-long conversation with the dispatcher. And despite the fact that the second thing he said after, "I'm fine, I just fainted," was "I can't see!" (which was not at all reassuring to me) within a few more moments he was almost back to his normal self and his vision was restored. 

I was pretty shaken up for the rest of the day. And for the rest of that day I started most of my conferences with a jittery explanation of why I looked like I was bleeding from the eye and also why I was forgetting the names of most of the people around me. 

Luckily, everyone is sympathetic to a pregnant lady. 

Slow Ride

One of my current goals, on par with "keep the house clean" and "eat your vegetables" is to spend time on us as a couple.  I give the other two examples because it's something I always know is a priority and it does happen most of the time, but it often slips when anything big is going on.

As we talk about the fact that we're starting a family, and that we're the process of aquiring these new identities as family members, more specifically as parents, I really do want to keep the spirit of what made our time together as "just us."

Last night, I met up with Arden after her shift ended, and we checked out the new Egypt exhibit at the Science Museum.  It was not as significant as the big touring exhibits that have come through, but it was a lot of fun and had some good info.  We wandered around, chatting together, then splitting up, and so on.

Not once did I wonder about where Bambin@ was.

As it was the kind of evening that would be very difficult to have post-partum, I think it was rather perfect.

Last week's midwife appointment . . .

So today I just set up my next midwife appointment and it made me realize that I'd meant to post about last week's appointment. 

Last week was my 14 week appointment. I'd been in the week before because I'd fainted and so I'd gone in to get checked out. At that appointment was the first time that we heard the heartbeat with the regular doppler (as opposed to with the ultrasound). 

The heartbeat had sounded really far away and quiet, so a week later when the midwife tried it, I was concerned when it was taking a little while to find it. 

Then she said, "I'm having a hard time finding it . . ." I tried not to freak out, but I was worried until she finished her sentence with, "because there's so much movement." 

Me: (chuckling with relief) Really? How can you tell? 

Midwife: Hear that sound? (She pointed out a few sudden, high-pitched static sounds that reminded me of the sound that cats make in movies when they're startled by something thrown in their direction.) Everytime you hear that noise, that's the baby moving around. 

I listened to the weird "wirr! wirr!" noise a few more times, totally content with the fact that I wasn't hearing my baby's heartbeat. A moving baby has to have a good heartbeat, right? 

And then all of a sudden, she found it. It was loud. And it felt closer and more thrilling to hear than I'd expected. I wanted to just keep the doppler on my belly all afternoon -- until the "wirr!" noise returned to signal that our bambin@ was no longer interested in sitting still for me. 

But the midwife had other appointments. Sigh. 

Maternity Pants and Movement

So I'm officially wearing maternity pants now. I don't know how much I'm actually showing a "bump" but I've long since stopped trying to hold my abdominal muscles tightly. I have found that since about 10 weeks, it would just hurt if I tried to hold my stomach in. So as soon as most folks around me knew about the pregnancy, I just stopped trying, leading to a potbelly appearance. I have gained very little, if any weight (sometimes the scale shows a gain of 1-2 pounds and other times it shows me lower than pre-pregnancy), but it wasn't like I started with a flat stomach and now my belly is definitely poking out.

At first, the potbelly look was really embarrassing. Right around 12 weeks, I was picking up some Thai food and the woman who was ringing me up asked me if I was pregnant. I must have blushed over my whole face. I affirmed the pregnancy, but inwardly I was adding, "But you're not supposed to be able to tell yet!" It was especially embarrassing when she asked how much longer I have to go and I had to say "About six months...."

But now, I rather like the belly. It helps that I'm no longer trying to hide it from anyone. I rub it often because of my round ligament pain. My students love it when I absent-mindedly rub my belly.

Back to the pants. My stretchy skirts and one pair of stretchy shorts had been serving me well, but with chilly weather approaching, I was needing to start wearing pants. None of my pants fit anymore, so I bought three pairs of maternity pants at Target a few weeks ago and I've been officially living in them for the last week. I love them.

Of course, they don't quite fit yet. I've been folding over the stretchy belly area to make them a little more comfortable, but they still slide down. I have been told that if I get a "Bella Band" and put it over the maternity pants, it will keep them from sliding down so much. So that's the next item on my shopping list.

As well as a "Snoogle" or a "Preggle" or whatever those crazy body pillows for pregnant ladies are called. I'm hoping to pick one of those up soon, so I can start experimenting with it. Right about now is when I'm supposed to stop sleeping on my back, and I need a little help to keep myself on my side.

As far as the second half of my post's title, I have not felt movement yet. At least not officially. Even though I've been awaiting it with great anticipation, I could honestly say that I hadn't felt anything that felt even close to movement until this past week. During this past week, though, I have definitely had some more, "What was that?" moments. They are usually times when I'll feel a little sensation like the Pillsbury Dough Boy being poked in the belly. Or sometimes it will feel like a muscle twitch (but different from the round ligament pain).

Then, on Saturday night, I was lying on my side, eyes closed, before falling asleep. Suddenly, I felt this really quick little feeling that felt like a "pop" kind of sensation. I can't really describe it. My eyes opened and I just laid still for a few moments, trying to think about what it could have been. It didn't feel like gas or a muscle spasm. Just like a little "pop." I told Ben and he said, "I bet it was Bambin@."

I'd like to think that it was, but I am prepared to concede that it's still too early. I don't feel a strong urge to put a label on it just yet. I'm sure that, soon enough, I will be willing my baby to stop kicking me in the liver.

The Seven Stages of Morning Sickness

I know that every woman experiences morning sickness differently, and that it is often different for the same woman during different pregnancies. Here's a run-down of how I've experienced morning sickness so far in this pregnancy. 

Stage 1: Anticipation
The day after we saw the two lines on the pregnancy test, we had to get up early in the morning and head off to Switzerland. In order to do this, we boarded a vaparetto (a water bus) to go to the train station. To board the vaparetto, you get on this little floating station. The moment that I stepped onto it, I felt a wave of intense nausea. I didn't know whether I would throw up or break out in a cold sweat. I thought to myself, "Oh no, this is it." 

Luckily for me, that particular feeling was kind of a one-time deal. I've actually never felt quite like that again through this whole pregnancy. I have felt awful, mind you, but not like the nausea that I experienced in that moment. And it took a good week and a half before I felt noticeable nausea of any sort again. 

During that week, though, I had a lot of anxiety about whether that feeling would return again when I hit six weeks, whether it would be like that the entire pregnancy, whether I would never want to eat again or whether I would be able to keep any food in my stomach for the next several months. I tried my best to appreciate every day that I felt good and not get too nervous on the days when I'd start to feel bad. 

Stage 2: Panic I
The first time I threw up, it was scary. I don't throw up often. More often than not, I think I will throw up and then am wildly unsuccessful at doing so. So it surprised me when I did. And it surprised me even more when I felt a little better after doing so. The process of throwing up is just awful. There is nothing that could make me feel any better in that moment, but there was a definite sense of relief when it was over. 

Still, I told myself,  perhaps I'd be like other women I've known . . . who experienced bad morning sickness, but only threw up a few times. 

Stage 3: Mini-Acceptance
By the end of that weekend, I'd already thrown up three times and I gave up my dream of a low-vomit pregnancy. Throughout the next couple of weeks, I learned that there was little that I could do to prevent myself from throwing up. I figured out how to tell whether I would need to or not and learned that vomiting and nausea often had little to do with one another. I tried to look on the bright side. At least I was able to feel some relief from vomiting, instead of feeling sick all the time. At least I was able to keep most of my food down. At least I wasn't being admitted to the hospital for IV fluids because I was vomiting so much. There were plenty of things to be grateful for, and I still had the end of the first trimester to look forward to. 

Stage 4: Panic II
My next wave of panic came when my vomiting started to get worse and more painful. I will spare you the particular details of why this became so, but suffice it to say, I have learned through experience that there are different types of vomit and they result in varying experiences. This also came around the time when everyone around me started to say, "Well, at least this is the worst of it and it should start getting better now." And yet it never seemed to. It was also around the time when several people reacted with surprise when I told them that I had morning sickness. It made me realize that perhaps I had it worse than I'd thought. That perhaps the "norm" is to throw up only occasionally or not at all, and that I didn't have as much to be grateful for as I'd thought. 

It didn't help that I got a sinus infection around this time and was suffering from post-nasal drip and coughing. Kinda difficult to avoid vomiting when you're gagging on phlegm. 

Stage 5: Pride
I experienced a stage in which I would tell myself, "Yeah! You're a badass mama for throwing up all the time! Look at you, being all hardcore!"

This was, as you might expect, the briefest of stages. 

Stage 6: Panic III
As I've entered the second trimester with little change, panic has set in once more. I've passed all the other milestones that folks have reported to me -- that it would get better at 10 weeks, at 12 weeks, at 13 weeks, at 14 weeks. At this point, if it's not better yet, there's no particular reassurance of when it will end. When people find out that I'm still throwing up, there's a sympathetic nod rather than a quick assurance that the end is in sight. 

I've also noticed a disturbing lack of relief after vomiting. It used to be that I would feel immediately better (not normal, but better) and now I've started to notice that throwing up makes me feel worse or the same. 

I really hate to throw up, but it's not even about that anymore. It's the feeling that the second trimester -- that most blissful of times -- may slip out from under me because I still feel awful. The panic comes from wondering whether this will stay with me throughout what it supposed to be the best part of pregnancy. It comes from worrying that it will stick with me right up until morning sickness turns into labor vomiting. 

Stage 7: ?
I don't know what stage 7 holds because I'm not there yet. But I'm hoping it's something like "relief" or "acceptance." Either of those would be okay. Even if it doesn't go away, I'd like to be able to gracefully accept that the second trimester may not be as blissful as I'd imagined and that the third trimester may just be all-around rough. I'll let you know what stage 7 is and what it brings with it when it happens. 

I really am grateful for the fact that I'm able to have times when I am nausea-free. I know that some people never get that feeling. 

How we found out about Bambin@

We found out about the pregnancy while traveling in Europe. We'd been traveling in Vienna and Prague with both sets of our parents and Ben's sister for a week when we began to suspect that I could be pregnant. This is the story of how we found out. It is almost all directly from the notes that I wrote down the day that we got the positive test, so it may provide more information than most people would care to know, but c'est la vie.

Family dining in the Czech Republic.

On Thursday, we were in Prague and I suddenly began to feel PMS symptoms. They were perhaps stronger and more painful than usual, but they were not categorically different from my usual symptoms. I felt certain that my period would come soon and began to expect that it would start any moment.

Blissfully unaware that we were already parents.

I had been charting my BBT for awhile at that point. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, your basal body temperature is your body temperature in the morning, right when you wake up. In women, ovulation produces a noticible upward shift in the range that these temperatures can be. So, if you are recording your temperature at the same time every morning, then you should notice a general shift right after the day of ovulation. Cool, huh? Since the shift doesn't occur until after ovulation, though, it is recommended that you also check your cervical mucus -- as cervical mucus changes indicate rising fertility, whereas a temperature shift indicates that the most fertile period is already over. But there is no quantitative method for charting cervical mucus, and I am much more comfortable with quantitative data, so I hadn't been consistently observing my cervical mucus. Using the temperature method, I had a rough idea of when I typically ovulated each month and how long my luteal phase (comprised of the days after ovulation and before menstruation) typically lasted.

Unfortunately, my charting had been inconclusive that month because my temperatures had been very sporadic and I had stopped taking my temperature once we'd arrived in Europe, so I wasn't sure exactly when to expect my period or when to consider myself "late." I knew that an early estimate would mean that I should expect my period on Friday, July 6 and a late estimate would mean that I should expect it on Sunday, July 8.

On Saturday, Fertility Friend (the website I'd been using to enter my data and create my charts) was proclaiming that I should take a pregnancy test. On Sunday, I decided that I should test on Monday morning, but I wasn't sure where to find a pregnancy test. After some internet research, I found out that Tesco (a European supermarket that I knew well from my days in Ireland) sold a house brand pregnancy test. I decided to buy one at the Tesco around the corner from our hotel in Prague before our flight to Venice. 

A cute car on the walk to the nearby Tesco.

My parents had already left Prague that morning, so I didn't have to worry about running into them next door. Ben's parents were still in the hotel, though, and so I knew that I had to be discreet. When I went into the hallway, I could hear my father-in-law, Gib, on the floor beneath us, talking to Carol and Elisabeth. I jumped in the elevator and took it down to the lobby rather than risking going past them on the stairs. When the elevator stopped, I poked my head out to make sure they hadn't come down the stairs in the meantime, as it had sounded like they were making plans to go out. I scurried out of the hotel, looking behind me as I quickly turned down the street. I felt like a teenager sneaking out of the house. It wasn't that going to Tesco would automatically paint me as a woman who intended to discover whether she was pregnant or not. But I was worried that if I told them I was going to Tesco, they would offer to join me and then I wouldn't be able to buy the test.

Our hotel in Prague.

As it turned out, Tesco didn't sell pregnancy tests. Or at least not any that I could find. I walked up and down every aisle -- even the breakfast cereal and the jam aisles. I even looked through the ten refrigerator cases devoted to types of yogurt. It seemed far more likely that it would be in the toothpaste-tampons-condoms-baby formula aisle and so I walked up and down that one three or four times, but I walked all the others at least once for good measure as well. But no luck.

So we left Prague without a pregnancy test.

At the airport in Prague. Nervously wondering whether there was a fetus amongst us.

 As soon as we checked in to our hotel in Venice, I asked the gentleman at the front desk where we might find a pharmacy. He said that the only one that would be open on Sunday was the international pharmacy (just the kind of pharmacy I wanted!) and gave me directions that coincided with our proposed walk to the Piazzo del San Marco.

Our hotel in Venice.

Little did we know, there was a non-International pharmacy right around the corner from our hotel with an exterior vending machine that sold a pregnancy test, amongst other convenience items. 

What a convenient way to purchase a pregnancy test!

But of course the man at the front desk didn't know what we wanted the pharmacy for, so it was good of him to direct us to one with humans in it. It's lovely to see pregnancy tests in vending machines, though, I must say. I have taken a few tests over the years and even though I have never been underage when purchasing them and in fact I think I may have been married for all or nearly all of these purchases, I have always felt embarrassment at the check-out counter. I don't know why. I guess it's just such a personal thing to be sharing with a stranger.

In any case, we didn't know about the vending machine, so we found the Farmacia Internazionale on our walk. 

Our local Venetian pharmacy.

Ben thought that it looked closed, but it seemed fairly open to me and so I walked in. A man appeared at the desk and in heavily-accented English told us that the store was closed, but that if we needed something, he could help us. I paused for a moment, wondering whether it would be polite to try to ask for the test in Italian (I had looked it up before, so I knew that it was in our Rick Steves Italian phrasebook, but the wording had since left me and so I would have to ask Ben for the book in order to look it up again.) I decided that I shouldn't waste the time of a man who clearly spoke better English than I did Italian and just bit the bullet and asked for a pregnancy test. He said, "Ah, yes, I have just this one." And then he left for a moment and returned with a box.

A knowing woman invites me to pee on a stick.

 The test was all in Italian -- a Test di Gravidanza -- so he kindly described how to take the test, how long to wait, etc. My favorite part was when he pointed at the results pictures on the outside of the box. Pointing at the "positivo/incinta" picture, he said, "If it looks like this, then you are happy . . ." and we had a good chuckle together. I was glad that Ben was there with me. I think it made it clearer to the man behind the counter that we would be happy with a positive result. In all the other times that I've bought a pregnancy test, I have never talked with a pharmacist about it before. I wonder if my options in Italy provided me with the perfect balance. I could either buy one at the vending machine and have total discretion and anonymity. Or I could have a chuckle with an Italian father-figure as he explains to me how to use it. In the US, the experience is this weird middle-ground, where you don't really talk about it with anyone, or even say the words "pregnancy test" out loud, but you have to sheepishly bring it to the checkout counter and hand it to a 19-year-old boy to be rung up.

I fell asleep that night with much anticipation. I had planned on testing once in the evening, and if it was negative, using the other test in the box in the morning with "first morning's urine." But as it turned out, I was so dehydrated that I couldn't produce much that night anyway, so I decided to fall asleep and wait for morning.

Around 6:00am, I woke up and needed to use the restroom. I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't. So I grabbed the test off the nighstand and stumbled to the bathroom. The instructions from the pharmacist had been to hold the test in the stream of urine, but the bathroom was quite cramped and I was concerned about how to do this without creating a mess. So I collected it in a plastic cup and dipped the test instead. But the dipping also presented a problem. The test said that I should, "Tenere il tampone assorbente sotto il flusso di urina per almeno 10 secondi." 

The instructions. Very Italian.

I wasn't sure whether "almeno" meant "no more than" or "at least" and Rick Steves' phrasebook did not include this word in the dictionary. Furthermore, neither "at least 10 seconds" nor "no more than 10 seconds" was consistent with what I remembered from what the pharmacist had said (which I had remembered as either 3 seconds or 5 seconds). So I decided to compromise by dipping the stick and counting quickly to ten. When I got to ten, though, I nervously continued on to twelve and then decided that that was enough.

I re-capped the test and laid it flat on the sink. Then I got back into bed. Ben turned over and asked me how I was doing. I told him not to drink the apple-juice-like fluid from the cup in the bathroom (I hadn't poured it out yet, in case the test was defective and I had to use the other test from the box). I waited for the requisite three minutes and then I went back into the bathroom to check on the test. 

Oh my! I appear to be quite "incinta."

Peering over it, I called out to Ben, "It's positive." Ben called back, "It is?" and got out of bed. I said, "Yeah, it's lighter than the control line, but they say that that doesn't matter." When Ben came in, I added, "It is, right? You see that line too -- I'm not hallucinating, right?" He said, "No, I see it too. That's definitely a line."

When I'd first seen the test, it didn't surprise me, initially, that it was positive. But the more that I looked at it, the more stunned I became. Sharing it with Ben made it all the more unbelievable. That we were both seeing this. That we were both happy and nervous. That we were saying to each other, "I'm pregnant!" and "You're pregnant!" (Which we did for much of the rest of the day.)

We spent the rest of the day doing all the things we'd already planned to do. We visited the Doge's Palace. We went to a Gelateria on the palazzo near our hotel. We toured the Basilica. For much of the day, we felt just like tourists, not like expectant parents. But every once in awhile, the reality would sink in again and we'd look at each other and "Squee!" or "Meep!"

A celebratory gelato.

 

In the first few days, I wouldn't know what to think in the morning. It would take me a moment to remember that I was pregnant, that this was real, that it wasn't a dream. We only had the one day in Venice, so the rest of our trip was spent in Switzerland. 

Am I glowing yet?

I feel so lucky that I didn't experience any morning sickness during the remainder of our trip. I hadn't expected any, since I know that it usually doesn't hit until week 6 or so, and I was only 4 weeks pregnant at the time. But once it did hit (which I'll write about later), I was extremely grateful for that last week in Europe, when I was peeing a lot and still experiencing PMS-like symptoms, but for the most part felt normal and good. We went hiking in the Alps and ate delicious food and enjoyed the chilly weather that we'd missed during the 90+ degree heat that we'd had in the other cities on our trip. It felt so good to be distracted and happy and enjoying just the two of us . . . but knowing that there were three.