Today I'm 20 weeks pregnant. There's a certain thrill that comes from knowing that I can now start counting down instead of counting up. Not that I will, at least not just yet. Saying "20 weeks to go!" doesn't sound all that exciting. But 20 weeks is a definite milestone, and I'm excited about it.
Last Sunday, I felt some weird cramping that was timeable and contraction-like. I called the midwife on-call, expecting her to say that I should come to the hospital, that they'd monitor the contractions, that there would be a multitude of miracle drugs that they could give me to stop the contractions and make sure that my baby stayed put. In our discussion, I was surprised to learn that they couldn't have women come to labor and delivery at all until they were 20 weeks along and that, if I needed to be seen, it would be in the ER. Furthermore, I learned that the only benefit to going in to the hospital at all would be to test if I had bacterial vaginosis that was causing the contractions, and to perhaps be reassured (through doppler or ultrasound) that the baby was still alive. This also surprised me, since it hadn't even occurred to me that the reason for the contractions might be that the baby was no longer alive. I had heard the heartbeat at a midwife appointment only two days earlier and so the notion of a second trimester miscarriage wasn't even in my head.
So twenty weeks marks an important milestone for me. For one thing, it means that from this point forward if I ever need to be seen in the hospital for something that might be pregnancy-related (or even not pregnancy-related, but something that could affect the pregnancy, such as the food poisoning incident that I had while pregnancy with Greta), I can go to L&D instead of to the ER. This is hugely reassuring, since it is particularly strange to experience pregnancy-related symptoms that might be worth checking out, but not be able to see my midwives.
It also is somehow, perhaps in a way that is more macabre than most of my thoughts, reassuring to have passed the point at which a pregnancy loss would no longer be called a miscarriage, but instead a stillbirth. It's not a thought that I like to dwell on, but it's there. I have a particular dislike of the term "miscarriage" to begin with, and the thought that I could be 19 weeks and 4 days pregnant (as I was on Sunday) and still suffer the same "category" of loss as I did at 11 weeks and 1 day pregnant was rather disturbing, especially since the same loss, experienced only 3 days later, would carry a completely different term.
So yes, while I am excited to be at the 20 week mark for all kinds of normal pregnant-lady reasons, I'm also feeling reassured by this milestone on a strange and different level. It's important to pass these milestones, especially when -- pregnancy-wise -- very little is changing in a positive way from day to day.
Unfortunately, although it is getting harder to sleep and I am getting sudden and horrible sciatica this week, little Piccola isn't giving me many reasons to feel confident in this pregnancy's progression. Mainly, she is being very cryptic in her movements. While we can hear plenty of movement on the doppler, I am feeling almost none of it. I had been under the impression, around 11 weeks, that I was feeling flutters. But since then those flutters haven't developed into anything more pronounced and, in fact, have become less frequent. This is a scary thing and, as a result, I am still going to the midwives for reassurance appointments and heartbeat checks every two weeks. With Greta, I was feeling pronounced kicks and jabs at this point. But with Piccola, I am still not convinced that I have experienced a true "quickening" yet. I am eager to find out the location of my placenta at my ultrasound on Monday. I am assuming that it is anterior this time around, and hoping that this doesn't mean I will have to wait another month or so before I feel distinct movement. I am definitely ready for this baby to make her presence known.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Sunday, January 25, 2015
A Little Update on our Original Bambina
So what's Greta up to these days? A lot.
I keep forgetting that the new baby won't be like Greta. Not only will the new baby have a personality of her own, of course, but the new baby will also be, well, a newborn. Greta is definitely my baby, but in all other respects, she is a kid. A talking, walking, exploring kid.
Talking
I still can't understand most kids her age when I try talking to them, but I'm continually surprised by how much Greta can communicate with me. I find this fascinating -- how parents and caregivers can understand their own children so much more clearly than any passerby. And that even when I feel like I have an "ear for toddler-speak," in fact, it's still just an ear for my toddler's speech.
Not only does she still cry when she's annoyed and shake her hands when she wants to say "a hard no," she also is saying words pretty well and often putting two-to-three words together. Some words, of course, don't sound the same when she says them versus when I say them (for example, she says "pahs" for both pacifier and puzzle -- the context is critical), but she clearly means what she's saying and speaks with purpose frequently. She still babbles to herself while hanging out in the carseat, of course, but even then, she seems to be deliberately practicing new sounds to try out on us later.
A smattering of words that she currently uses at 22 months (these are just off the top of my head, not even necessarily the ones she uses most often, it's just hard to keep up):
No (*shocker*)
Mama ("Ma")
Papa ("Pa")
Sit
Down
Cook
Pour
Else (in the context of "something else")
Books
More
Hey Hey (she says this when she sees other children)
Honk (she says this in the context of blowing one's nose, which we've been doing a lot recently)
Beep Beep
Car
Truck
Kiss
Hug
Chair
Up
Down
Outside
Box
Cracker
Couch
Bath
Uh-Oh
Crayons
Food
Eat
She also enjoys counting, although she's still struggling to keep the numbers in order. She rarely says "one" because usually we're the ones who start counting and so she chimes in on "two." As a result, she will often count starting from two, which then gets a little jumbled. She also definitely prefers the numbers that she knows how to say well. For example, "seven" gets very little love from her. On the other hand, she proudly said, "Two, Four, Six, Eight!" the other day, which startled me a little. I don't think it was intentional, though. She often also says other combinations of four numbers (usually ending in eight, which I think is her favorite number) that are more random.
It's SO nice to be able to talk to our little girl. I think I'm going to be in for a rude shock when I have a newborn whose communication skills are back down to the bare minimum again.
Walking
Speaking of things that newborns can't do, I'm also a little worried about having a child who can't walk on her own again. It's so nice to be able to hold Greta's hand and walk around at a store or out in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, while she's really good at walking and can keep up pretty well, she's also a bit willful and doesn't always want to hold my hand. The other day, I was in a fit of round ligament pain that made it painful to carry her. Of course, it was decently okay if she held my hand and walked, but she was losing her patience with holding my hand. She'd stay within eyesight, but if she ran off suddenly, it was very painful to keep up after her. Argh. Definitely a downside to pregnancy with a toddler.
Exploring
It's so much fun to do things with her now. Last weekend we went to the Children's Museum and it was just so much fun to play with her in all the exhibits. She was legitimately excited by the things that we did and there were so many opportunities for us to talk to her about the world around her. I love Children's Museums!
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The Children's Museum was also an interesting opportunity for us to see Greta's personality. She is a lot like me. She kept wanting to watch the children playing at the water table (shown above), but she was afraid to actually put on the apron (also shown above) to go join in. When we asked her if she wanted to play, she would nod, but when we told her she'd need to wear an apron, she'd panic and pretend that she just wanted to watch. This went on for awhile -- we distracted her with other things a bit, but she kept eying the water table area. Finally, we just made the parental decision that we'd get the apron on her. Sure enough, once it was on, she had a fantastic time experimenting with all the different fountains and cups and tubes. I'm beginning to understand my own parents' frustration with my shy stubbornness.
Flirting?
It's hard to tell what is an actual preference, what's just mimicry, and what's just in our imaginations, but Greta has seemed to be flirting with a few boys. I first noticed this around New Years when a boy about 2 years older than her was visiting. Greta did a good job of sharing her toys and tried to engage the older boy in various activities. I was surprised, though, to see her chase after him, blowing kisses at him. The boy was not at all interested in this game and responded by making one of the stuffed toys "growl" in Greta's face, which initially didn't deter her, but eventually scared her and she came running to my lap for protection. It was such a classic scene of gender-typical behavior -- but was that more in my imagination than in reality? After all, there were other factors at play -- for example, the difference in their ages also made them susceptible to differing styles of play.
A few weeks later, we were out at a restaurant and I saw Greta saying, "Boy! Kiss!" and blowing kisses at someone over my shoulder. I turned to follow her gaze and saw a little boy of about 4 years old, looking a little embarrassed. I tried to explain that perhaps she shouldn't blow kisses at strangers, but she still maintained eye contact with him as she coquettishly ate her noodles.
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But again, is this an actual preference on her part? Or is it perhaps just that she's acting out the behavior that she sees between her opposite-sex parents?
Uh . . . Pill Popping?
Just this last week, Greta started taking her meds without us crushing them up first! It was a huge milestone! We still put her in her high chair, but we're getting closer and closer to the day when she can just wake up, take the pill with a gulp of water, and then go back to sleep for an hour. It's still hard to insist that she wait for awhile before she can eat anything, but at least the time it takes to get the meds ready is shorter.
The first time I did it -- last Monday or Tuesday, I think -- I strapped her into the high chair and asked if she wanted a little sip of juice (it's mostly water -- we water it down pretty significantly). She nodded and I gave her a sip through the straw. Then I gave her the pill and said "today we're going to take your meds a little differently." And I held out the pill. "Can you eat this pill?" She smiled at me like I was joking and said no. I said, "Can you try it? You can have more juice if you try the pill." She took the pill out of my hand and popped it in her mouth. I gave her a sip of juice. She swallowed, but had a weird, focused, look on her face. I asked "did you swallow it?" She nodded, but it was really clear that it was still in her mouth. She started chewing and I said "are you chewing it?" She nodded and I encouraged her ("Yum yum. Chew and swallow!" etc.) I watched her really carefully until I could tell she'd swallowed it all down and then gave her a little more juice. Then got her out of her high chair to play. It was awesome.
I keep forgetting that the new baby won't be like Greta. Not only will the new baby have a personality of her own, of course, but the new baby will also be, well, a newborn. Greta is definitely my baby, but in all other respects, she is a kid. A talking, walking, exploring kid.
Talking
I still can't understand most kids her age when I try talking to them, but I'm continually surprised by how much Greta can communicate with me. I find this fascinating -- how parents and caregivers can understand their own children so much more clearly than any passerby. And that even when I feel like I have an "ear for toddler-speak," in fact, it's still just an ear for my toddler's speech.
Not only does she still cry when she's annoyed and shake her hands when she wants to say "a hard no," she also is saying words pretty well and often putting two-to-three words together. Some words, of course, don't sound the same when she says them versus when I say them (for example, she says "pahs" for both pacifier and puzzle -- the context is critical), but she clearly means what she's saying and speaks with purpose frequently. She still babbles to herself while hanging out in the carseat, of course, but even then, she seems to be deliberately practicing new sounds to try out on us later.
A smattering of words that she currently uses at 22 months (these are just off the top of my head, not even necessarily the ones she uses most often, it's just hard to keep up):
No (*shocker*)
Mama ("Ma")
Papa ("Pa")
Sit
Down
Cook
Pour
Else (in the context of "something else")
Books
More
Hey Hey (she says this when she sees other children)
Honk (she says this in the context of blowing one's nose, which we've been doing a lot recently)
Beep Beep
Car
Truck
Kiss
Hug
Chair
Up
Down
Outside
Box
Cracker
Couch
Bath
Uh-Oh
Crayons
Food
Eat
She also enjoys counting, although she's still struggling to keep the numbers in order. She rarely says "one" because usually we're the ones who start counting and so she chimes in on "two." As a result, she will often count starting from two, which then gets a little jumbled. She also definitely prefers the numbers that she knows how to say well. For example, "seven" gets very little love from her. On the other hand, she proudly said, "Two, Four, Six, Eight!" the other day, which startled me a little. I don't think it was intentional, though. She often also says other combinations of four numbers (usually ending in eight, which I think is her favorite number) that are more random.
It's SO nice to be able to talk to our little girl. I think I'm going to be in for a rude shock when I have a newborn whose communication skills are back down to the bare minimum again.
Walking
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| Greta at open gym, a winter necessity. |
Exploring
It's so much fun to do things with her now. Last weekend we went to the Children's Museum and it was just so much fun to play with her in all the exhibits. She was legitimately excited by the things that we did and there were so many opportunities for us to talk to her about the world around her. I love Children's Museums!
The Children's Museum was also an interesting opportunity for us to see Greta's personality. She is a lot like me. She kept wanting to watch the children playing at the water table (shown above), but she was afraid to actually put on the apron (also shown above) to go join in. When we asked her if she wanted to play, she would nod, but when we told her she'd need to wear an apron, she'd panic and pretend that she just wanted to watch. This went on for awhile -- we distracted her with other things a bit, but she kept eying the water table area. Finally, we just made the parental decision that we'd get the apron on her. Sure enough, once it was on, she had a fantastic time experimenting with all the different fountains and cups and tubes. I'm beginning to understand my own parents' frustration with my shy stubbornness.
Flirting?
It's hard to tell what is an actual preference, what's just mimicry, and what's just in our imaginations, but Greta has seemed to be flirting with a few boys. I first noticed this around New Years when a boy about 2 years older than her was visiting. Greta did a good job of sharing her toys and tried to engage the older boy in various activities. I was surprised, though, to see her chase after him, blowing kisses at him. The boy was not at all interested in this game and responded by making one of the stuffed toys "growl" in Greta's face, which initially didn't deter her, but eventually scared her and she came running to my lap for protection. It was such a classic scene of gender-typical behavior -- but was that more in my imagination than in reality? After all, there were other factors at play -- for example, the difference in their ages also made them susceptible to differing styles of play.
A few weeks later, we were out at a restaurant and I saw Greta saying, "Boy! Kiss!" and blowing kisses at someone over my shoulder. I turned to follow her gaze and saw a little boy of about 4 years old, looking a little embarrassed. I tried to explain that perhaps she shouldn't blow kisses at strangers, but she still maintained eye contact with him as she coquettishly ate her noodles.
But again, is this an actual preference on her part? Or is it perhaps just that she's acting out the behavior that she sees between her opposite-sex parents?
Uh . . . Pill Popping?
Just this last week, Greta started taking her meds without us crushing them up first! It was a huge milestone! We still put her in her high chair, but we're getting closer and closer to the day when she can just wake up, take the pill with a gulp of water, and then go back to sleep for an hour. It's still hard to insist that she wait for awhile before she can eat anything, but at least the time it takes to get the meds ready is shorter.
The first time I did it -- last Monday or Tuesday, I think -- I strapped her into the high chair and asked if she wanted a little sip of juice (it's mostly water -- we water it down pretty significantly). She nodded and I gave her a sip through the straw. Then I gave her the pill and said "today we're going to take your meds a little differently." And I held out the pill. "Can you eat this pill?" She smiled at me like I was joking and said no. I said, "Can you try it? You can have more juice if you try the pill." She took the pill out of my hand and popped it in her mouth. I gave her a sip of juice. She swallowed, but had a weird, focused, look on her face. I asked "did you swallow it?" She nodded, but it was really clear that it was still in her mouth. She started chewing and I said "are you chewing it?" She nodded and I encouraged her ("Yum yum. Chew and swallow!" etc.) I watched her really carefully until I could tell she'd swallowed it all down and then gave her a little more juice. Then got her out of her high chair to play. It was awesome.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Do you want to know?
So, as mentioned in a previous post, we have already found out the sex of our baby. It's still something that feels unreal to me. I still use non-gendered terms for the little one and frequently forget that I could be using words like "son/daughter" or "his/her" etc. I don't know if everyone feels this way after finding out, but it's been over a week since we opened the envelope and I still feel unsure whether to believe it. Ben and I were talking about names yesterday and it felt incredibly strange to be talking about only one set of possibilities.
If you want to know now, click on the link at the end of this post for a little "gender reveal" video.* It was setting up this video that convinced me that I was ready to open the envelope. Once I had everything set up it was like, "Okay, now we have to open it in order to be able to actually finish prepping the video . . ."
I don't know anything about editing, so it's not terribly sophisticated, but I thought it would be fun. I would recommend watching it on a computer instead of a phone because for some reason the annotations don't show up on a phone (which means if you can't see the handwritten words on the labels, it might be confusing).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1NUvAWDKs4
*FYI, if you don't want to know now, just be warned that in future posts we may be referring to the baby with a pronoun or two that will give it away. So if you don't want to click on the reveal video yet, but want to continue reading our blog, you will likely end up finding out pretty soon anyway.
If you want to know now, click on the link at the end of this post for a little "gender reveal" video.* It was setting up this video that convinced me that I was ready to open the envelope. Once I had everything set up it was like, "Okay, now we have to open it in order to be able to actually finish prepping the video . . ."
I don't know anything about editing, so it's not terribly sophisticated, but I thought it would be fun. I would recommend watching it on a computer instead of a phone because for some reason the annotations don't show up on a phone (which means if you can't see the handwritten words on the labels, it might be confusing).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1NUvAWDKs4
*FYI, if you don't want to know now, just be warned that in future posts we may be referring to the baby with a pronoun or two that will give it away. So if you don't want to click on the reveal video yet, but want to continue reading our blog, you will likely end up finding out pretty soon anyway.
Monday, January 5, 2015
Peace, Love and New Beginnings
If you are reading this post (especially if you haven't been here in awhile) it is likely because you heard from a little bird (perhaps a carrier pigeon) that there was something new happening in our lives. If you don't know what I'm referring to, get ready for a huge spoiler alert.
We are expecting a second child to arrive in early July.
I've been writing some posts over the course of the first trimester that I have now published, so if you scroll down, you will see those now. I tried to incorporate the date of each one in the text so that you will be able to identify when they happened, even if the postings end up looking out of order or something (I'm not very tech-savvy). The first reference to this new pregnancy was October 23, I believe.
More updates to come, of course.
We are expecting a second child to arrive in early July.
I've been writing some posts over the course of the first trimester that I have now published, so if you scroll down, you will see those now. I tried to incorporate the date of each one in the text so that you will be able to identify when they happened, even if the postings end up looking out of order or something (I'm not very tech-savvy). The first reference to this new pregnancy was October 23, I believe.
More updates to come, of course.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
The Sex of Our Baby
It's New Year's Eve. It's actually nearly 11pm and Ben and I are both still up, but we had fully expected to be in bed by now, so we've already opened the envelope that contained the results of our chromosomal tests. We already knew that the baby had tested "negative" for all the abnormalities, but we had asked the nurse to put the results in an envelope and mail them to us so that we could find out the sex of the baby on New Year's Eve. This was a good day to do it, too, since I just had my first appointment with my midwife today, after transferring our care back to my midwives after seeing the OB for the first trimester. She found the heartbeat right away and we heard the baby zooming around in there, just like Greta used to do. It's a good day to find out the sex of the baby, when I am feeling a little less anxious overall.
I gotta say, it's totally surreal to know this information though. We haven't even made the pregnancy fully public yet. This post, for example, is one of the ones that I will be saving as a draft for another week or so before publishing, because we are not "out" on the blog yet.
For us, it's not only bizarre to know the sex so early in the pregnancy, but it's just plain strange to know the sex! And to have found out on a piece of paper, without even looking at the baby. I still feel a little skeptical, like we just received the results of a virtual psychic reading instead of a lab report on cell-free DNA.
I have to say, I am more excited to know than I had thought I would be. I was very worried that I would immediately lose interest in the pregnancy, having been deprived of the remaining months of anticipation and wonder. Although I do worry a little about whether the remaining 6 months of pregnancy are going to drag more slowly, I'm still excited. It's nice to be able to have a picture in my mind of our complete family.
I gotta say, it's totally surreal to know this information though. We haven't even made the pregnancy fully public yet. This post, for example, is one of the ones that I will be saving as a draft for another week or so before publishing, because we are not "out" on the blog yet.
For us, it's not only bizarre to know the sex so early in the pregnancy, but it's just plain strange to know the sex! And to have found out on a piece of paper, without even looking at the baby. I still feel a little skeptical, like we just received the results of a virtual psychic reading instead of a lab report on cell-free DNA.
I have to say, I am more excited to know than I had thought I would be. I was very worried that I would immediately lose interest in the pregnancy, having been deprived of the remaining months of anticipation and wonder. Although I do worry a little about whether the remaining 6 months of pregnancy are going to drag more slowly, I'm still excited. It's nice to be able to have a picture in my mind of our complete family.
And how was our Christmas? Did she get it?
The holidays this year were a bit crazy. I got sick right as my winter break was starting. Literally, the Sunday night before my first day off I got hit with a killer cough. It was like my body was saying, "Hey, aren't you supposed to be stressed out with planning right now? Oh no? You're on vacation? Well, let's see if we can find another way to add a little stress to your system!"
But other than that, things went really well. My mom was in town starting on Monday evening and then my Dad came into town on Christmas day. My mom and I went to the Science Museum for more "butterfly exposure therapy" for Greta. Poor kid. She really, really likes butterflies. Just not when they are too close.
On Christmas Eve, before I put Greta to bed, I showed her the empty stockings. We looked inside hers and saw that it was empty and I told her that sometimes special things happen on Christmas Eve and that tomorrow there might be something inside her stocking. On Christmas morning, I introduced Greta to the contents of her stocking -- a mandarin orange and a booklet of stickers. She was excited about the stickers and gently pushed away the mandarin orange. (I found this very funny, since she loves oranges, but I guess maybe it was her way of saying she didn't want to eat it right now.)
I think opening her stocking was fun and worth it, even at her young age. Over the next few days, though, she occasionally has pointed excitedly at the empty stocking and indicated that she wants to take it down and look inside. This has made me feel a little guilty for raising her expectations that, at any moment, it might be filled with treats again. It's a little hard to explain to a 21-month old that she has to wait a whole year for that trick to be performed again. But maybe it's a sign that it's time to take down the stockings and put them away for next year.
As far as her other education on the topic of Christmas, I used a pad of stickers to help explain the nativity story to her. I explained what was going on in each step as I stuck the different major characters on a piece of paper. Stickers are a great way to interact with Greta. They provide a visual aid for whatever you're talking about, and she's just generally fascinated by any information that comes in sticker form. After I'd told the Christmas story once, she wanted to use the next sheet of the same stickers again, and so she got a second rendition of the Christmas story on the back of the same sheet of paper. Then she wanted to use her other pad of stickers -- the secular stickers -- but I didn't have another piece of paper handy and so we had to just add to the nativity scene. Suddenly, there were snowflakes, polar bears, Santa Claus and stockings at the birth of Jesus. So . . . yeah . . . I may have botched that lesson a bit. Oh well, she's 21 months. I have time to clear up any confusion.
I have pictures that go with this post, but I am having trouble getting them off my phone. We'll see if I can add them later.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Next Steps
It's December 21st, the winter solstice will occur in about a half hour, and I feel the impending return of sunshine like never before.
This week I am 12 weeks pregnant and feeling less terrified every day. We've made several personal announcements and are waiting to make just a few more before making this pregnancy public. I am excited and nervous, but also filled with hope and relief. Last week we had the NT scan and the results looked great. The next day, we got the results back for the Maternit21 testing that we'd had done and all of those came back negative (meaning no signs of any of the trisomies or microdeletions that that test screens for). The next day, I officially turned 12 weeks. In those three days, I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.
I also have been feeling tiny flutters this week -- starting around 11w6d. I know a lot of people would say that that's crazy, but it doesn't really surprise me. I started feeling similar flutters in my first pregnancy probably around 12-13 weeks, but didn't realize what they were. At 15 weeks was when I felt my first kick from Greta, but I didn't feel it again until 17 weeks. Both of those times, I felt the kick on the outside as well as the inside. And since I have heard that you are more likely to feel the baby earlier in subsequent pregnancies, feeling the baby now seems appropriate and in line with its development, since we saw Piccol@ jumping and twitching during the ultrasound last week.
Speaking of the "@" symbol (I know we weren't, but I just typed it, so now I'm thinking about it), we will be finding out if we can call our little baby Piccolo or Piccola this time around -- and pretty soon. The Maternit21 test results are sitting on the dining room table and although we know that the contents of the envelope says that the baby screened negative for all the genetic abnormalities that it tests for, we asked the nurse not to tell us the sex and to let us open the results ourselves. We don't know how or when we're going to do this, though. It feels strange to me that we haven't even publicly announced the pregnancy and we could already know the sex. I feel a bit anxious about the fact that many people might not have time to get excited about the pregnancy or wonder whether we're having a boy or a girl before being told the sex. We waited so long with Greta -- the entire pregnancy we had no idea. It feels bizarre to know this early this time around and so I'm hesitant to open the envelope.
Obviously, there can be mix-ups or errors -- for example, if a Y-chromosome is detected I'm not sure that I'll entirely believe it quite yet, since there's a possibility that it will not be from this baby, but from cells that are left in my body from the baby boy that we lost last summer. Although it didn't flag this baby as having Trisomy 22 -- which also would have been present in cells left over from the baby we lost last summer. The lab knows my history -- so I'm not sure if they take the diagnoses and sex of the baby from the recent pregnancy into account when calculating the relative presence of the chromosomes. I've just heard that a recent boy pregnancy can throw off the results. But overall, the test accurately identifies fetal sex at a rate of 99.4%, which is definitely better odds than are given by most ultrasound technicians. So we'll see.
This week I am 12 weeks pregnant and feeling less terrified every day. We've made several personal announcements and are waiting to make just a few more before making this pregnancy public. I am excited and nervous, but also filled with hope and relief. Last week we had the NT scan and the results looked great. The next day, we got the results back for the Maternit21 testing that we'd had done and all of those came back negative (meaning no signs of any of the trisomies or microdeletions that that test screens for). The next day, I officially turned 12 weeks. In those three days, I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.
I also have been feeling tiny flutters this week -- starting around 11w6d. I know a lot of people would say that that's crazy, but it doesn't really surprise me. I started feeling similar flutters in my first pregnancy probably around 12-13 weeks, but didn't realize what they were. At 15 weeks was when I felt my first kick from Greta, but I didn't feel it again until 17 weeks. Both of those times, I felt the kick on the outside as well as the inside. And since I have heard that you are more likely to feel the baby earlier in subsequent pregnancies, feeling the baby now seems appropriate and in line with its development, since we saw Piccol@ jumping and twitching during the ultrasound last week.
Speaking of the "@" symbol (I know we weren't, but I just typed it, so now I'm thinking about it), we will be finding out if we can call our little baby Piccolo or Piccola this time around -- and pretty soon. The Maternit21 test results are sitting on the dining room table and although we know that the contents of the envelope says that the baby screened negative for all the genetic abnormalities that it tests for, we asked the nurse not to tell us the sex and to let us open the results ourselves. We don't know how or when we're going to do this, though. It feels strange to me that we haven't even publicly announced the pregnancy and we could already know the sex. I feel a bit anxious about the fact that many people might not have time to get excited about the pregnancy or wonder whether we're having a boy or a girl before being told the sex. We waited so long with Greta -- the entire pregnancy we had no idea. It feels bizarre to know this early this time around and so I'm hesitant to open the envelope.
Obviously, there can be mix-ups or errors -- for example, if a Y-chromosome is detected I'm not sure that I'll entirely believe it quite yet, since there's a possibility that it will not be from this baby, but from cells that are left in my body from the baby boy that we lost last summer. Although it didn't flag this baby as having Trisomy 22 -- which also would have been present in cells left over from the baby we lost last summer. The lab knows my history -- so I'm not sure if they take the diagnoses and sex of the baby from the recent pregnancy into account when calculating the relative presence of the chromosomes. I've just heard that a recent boy pregnancy can throw off the results. But overall, the test accurately identifies fetal sex at a rate of 99.4%, which is definitely better odds than are given by most ultrasound technicians. So we'll see.
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