Changes everywhere
We got our drywall done. And no, we would not recommend our contractor. We’ve been priming and painting, with Seppo picking up the heroic portion of the load, what with my general tiredness, back aches, and legs & feet that swell if I stand too long. We’ve also picked the most bold choices we’ve ever chosen in our lives for the walls, which basically means that we just stole the colors from our friends with better taste. When you see the colors, you’ll know who you are.
We hired on a company to do repairs to the floor and refinish the surface. They will start next Wednesday. I think more than the walls no longer falling down, the changes to the floor will make the biggest difference in how we perceive the house.
We also now employ someone who will come to maintain the yard on a regular basis, rather than on a call-by-call basis. Better to automate all this now, before the Big Life Change.
The other potential thing that might happen is the upstairs bathroom renovation. Our friends who live up in Walnut Creek (whom I just found out are also having a baby, due only two weeks after us!) are getting their kitchen renovated this month, and it’s supposed to take one week. One week! If they like their contractor, and if they stay within the time & budget limits, I think we’d think about hiring them for our bathroom.
Work is hard but rewarding. I’m getting happier and happier with our product every time I hit a milestone. I am tired though, because I feel like I’m trying really hard not to let my fatigue show at work, and not let anyone think I am falling short or not pulling my weight due to being pregnant. I’ve been doing really well so far, but the thought stresses me out. And I end up so tired that I don’t pull my ever-increasing weight at home, which pulls me further into a stress-guilt cycle. Bleh.
Other than the tiredness and aches, everything is going well.
Small stresses
Just when I thought the worst physical symptoms were over, new ones began! 🙁 Physically, I’m great when I’m sitting down — almost no pain or stress. When I lie down, my back, thighs, and neck hurt like crazy. You can imagine how this affects my sleep. I wake up every morning more tired than the morning before. When I stand, my back strains and my legs & feet swell up. The swelling has been much, much better since I’ve been able to drink water at will, so it’s not a big issue, but does kind of freak me out occasionally. I’ve woken up a couple of times at night with freakishly painful cramping in my calves, which my friend U had warned me might happen.
In some ways, these things are MUCH better than the constant nausea, vomiting, and heartburn of the first trimester. But having had a reprieve of a few easy weeks really spoiled me!
In addition to the major things, it’s been really, really depressing the number of very minor things that are harder for me to do. Putting on my shoes, bending down to pick up a book, reaching a shelf for something I need, picking up my backpack, walking up stairs, getting out of the car, walking Mobi & controlling him when he’s seen something he wants to chase, bending to pull out the drain plug from the bathtub, etc. Literally everything is harder, most of which I hadn’t expected. The biggest thing is that because so many of these things are so lame, I feel horrible about even mentioning it out loud or asking for help. And when I just keep it to myself, I get into sort of a lonely, sad state of mind. So here I am, talking about it. 😐
Mentally, I have been fretting. Am I doing enough at work? Am I doing enough at home? Am I getting enough rest? Am I eating the right foods? Should I have had that cup of tea? Why didn’t I feel the baby kick today? Did I do something to hurt the baby? Are the paint fumes bad, even though we ventilate the house very well and I only paint for short periods of time? Should I have lifted that heavy bag? Why did I eat that? Am I complaining too much? How will we find daycare? Which pediatrician should we choose? When should we start taking classes? Do I want my mom to come to visit just before giving birth or after Seppo goes back to work? How will Mobi feel when we have a baby? Will Mobi hate the baby? What will happen to the project I’m working on when I’m at home? Do we have enough money to take more time off? Should we be buying baby stuff now? How will I learn to be neater so our baby doesn’t grow up in my mess? What should we name the baby?
My brain feel so full, and I can’t get any relief from the thoughts.
Random advice from my sister
This was an interesting piece of advice I got. I had been contemplating cutting my hair really short before the baby is due, with the idea that I won’t have a lot of time to take care of it, and I won’t want it to fall into the baby’s face or anything later.
My sister’s take on this was that she had the same impulse, but it’s better to grow it long enough to be able to tie every strand back from the face, because when it’s short, it’ll need to constantly be trimmed or it’ll fall in my eyes and drive me nuts when I don’t have a hand to spare.
Good one! I will take her advice and keep growing out my hair. I can get almost all of it back into a ponytail right now, so it’ll just need a little more.
Zee Sexola
It’s a boy! Husband & I had individually guessed girl, and the grandmothers-to-be guessed boy. I guess the elder generation takes this round!
In other news, my long-time friend (I’ve known him since the third grade) and his wife (who is totally awesome) just revealed to me that they are expecting their own baby, just about two weeks after ours. I am so very excited for them. We are making plans to meet up for lunch or dinner soon. It has been entirely too long. We don’t live super-far from them, but our work schedules have been such that we’ve had a lot of trouble meeting up more than twice a year. I know, totally shameful.
But now I can look forward to playdates for parents and kids, not just with them but with other friends who have young kids and who are expecting. How wonderful to be able to go through this process at the same time as good friends… 🙂 I am truly lucky.
I only wish family (on both sides) were closer by so that they would be able to grow up with family near. We are still lucky to have our close friends live in the Bay Area, so I can’t complain.
Kicks and other news
We definitely, without any room for doubt, felt kicks externally yesterday. It was pretty exciting. I had felt the so-called flutters and even some things that I was reasonably sure were kicks in the past, but yesterday was the first time I was like, “There is nothing in my body that could possibly make that sensation except for a baby!”
I also tried to use the stethoscope to find the heartbeat, but I couldn’t. I knew it would be hard this early and especially with a baby that is attached in the front (I don’t know the technical term, but that’s where the placenta is), but it was fun trying. 🙂 Some people say they get paranoid when they can’t find it, but I know I can feel the baby moving around in there, so I’m not concerned. It’s just for my amusement.
In the last couple of days, it seems as though the baby has further accelerated in its growth! My stomach is ginormous. It has become uncomfortably large, in that it is big enough to make other people around me feel uncomfortable. It is the metaphorical elephant in the room, so people feel obligated to make a comment, but no one should feel like they need to talk to me about the baby. My brain is already chock-full of baby thoughts and I don’t mind a distraction about “normal” things. 🙂
My coworker brought us a bundle of baby things for us. They are completely unused (long story, not mine to tell) and of an amazing quality. The haul included a stroller, a baby food steamer/blender, some toys, and a baby bouncer*.
* One might imagine a tough little baby that kicks people out of clubs, but really, it’s a bouncy thing the baby lies down on.
Because I am a dork…
I have ordered a stethoscope from Amazon to see if I can listen to the baby while it’s inside. Heh.
Pixelated Skeletor
We had our 20 week ultrasound today. It was exciting because we got to see the baby wiggle around in there quite a bit as the technician searched for various bits. This is how it came down:
- Hands: 2
- Arms: 2
- Legs: 2
- Feet: 2
- Heart: 1, 4-chambered
- Kidneys: 2
- Spine: 1, with lots of neat cross-sectional views
- Brain: 1, with lots of neat cross-sectional views
- Face: OMG, it’s Skeletor! Profile is cute, but straight on is a skull-face, which is to be expected in an bw ultrasound
- Umbilical cord: 1, attached in the right place, 3-cord
It looks like everything is good! From a femur measurement, they told us that the baby is at 20 weeks and 1 day, not 19 weeks and 6 days as I had thought, so I’ll move up the ticker to October 5th, 2009 as the estimated due date, not that two days really matter much.
Except.
Except now we are suddenly past the 50% mark! OMG! WHAT?!
We are just so relieved that the baby appears in all ways to be healthy and growing normally. The baby is estimated to be at about 11 ounces. That’s lighter than a biggish cup of coffee. Heh. It was also surprising to see how crowded things looked in there. When we last saw the baby, it probably only took up like 1/3 to 1/2 the space and I don’t know if I could see the placenta very well. It looked like space baby floating in space land. Now, the placenta is huge (like 1/4 to 1/3 of all the “real estate” *cough*) and the baby easily takes up far more than half the space.
Halfway-ish
Tomorrow, we will officially hit halfway through our pregnancy: 20 weeks. Whoa.
The week before I went to Chicago, it became obvious that I was pregnant and showing. The weeks since, it’s eye-popping how huge my belly has gotten!
Unexpected things:
- How uncomfortable the feeling of constantly stretched skin feels. Try poking your tongue really hard against your cheek and see how your cheek feels. Except it’s a baby/my uterus against my abdominal flesh. This is 10x worse after I eat, because it’s crowded in there.
- How fast that dark weird line in the center of the belly came on. And I hate it. It’s so weird! I will refrain from speaking in detail of other lady parts. 😐
- How quickly it has become difficult for me to put on my shoes, pick up things from the floor, get out of the car, etc. I can do it still, but bending over that far means I need to put a lot of pressure on my belly which is being squished and it is both really uncomfortable (hard to breathe, that kind of thing) and it makes me worry.
- How often I forget I’m pregnant when I’m sitting down.
Great things:
- Feeling like I can eat like my normal self. I love being able to eat without the constant terror of headaches/nausea/vomiting hanging over my had (or actually in progress).
- Not feeling like I’m going to die while I’m at work.
- The teeny little feelings I have in my belly region. I think  have been feeling the baby for about two weeks now. At first, it was tiny flutters, but now, I think I feel actual movement. I think in another week or so, we’ll be able to feel the movement from the outside.
- Feeling a lot more relaxed about the pregnancy and the potential for things going wrong. The doctor and all the books have pretty much said that you make it this far, and there is little to worry about. I know things can still go wrong, but those odds are much better at this stage.
- As a result of the item immediately above, feeling more free to speculate about the reality of the baby: will it be a he or a she? Will s/he have our tiny eyes and short yet substantial legs? Hee.
Stuff to worry about:
- Getting more of the house stuff done
- Finding a pediatrician
- Finding daycare
- Getting more of the work stuff done so it’s left in a good state when I take leave
- Figuring out how to get a good night’s sleep with the weight/discomfort of the bulge. It’s actually already starting to give me trouble.
We should really start taking regular pictures and posting them somewhere. I went to a baby shower for a friend who is expecting end of July, putting her about 2.5 months ahead of me, and my belly was much bigger than hers, which makes me worry that I’m getting too large, too fast.
May stuff
The first weekend of May, we went to Chicago for a wedding. We proceeded to eat a CRAZY meal at Alinea, attend the wedding, and spend a day with some friends we met for the first time (mini-TGFCon 2009!), and generally had a great time. Chicago was beautiful, the wedding was sweet, and the TGFers were kick-ass, as expected.
I then flew to Philly to spend some time with my best friend H and attend her graduation from nursing school! Woo hoo! I almost cried seeing her walk. I also saw a bunch of friends I hadn’t seen in about 3 years, and a handful of cousins, two aunts, and one uncle I hadn’t seen in probably about 15 years. They all fed me until I was stuffed to the gills and generally babied (unintended pun!) me due to my being pregnant.
Oh, lest I forget, I finally got to meet the little daughter of a friend I’ve known since the third grade! She is also referred to as The Paragon, The Perfect Angel, etc. by my other friends. 😀 And you know what, she serious was really, really awesome: perfectly behaved, totally charming with her hellos and thank yous, and honestly the prettiest little baby girl I have ever met, apologies to my very good looking female nieces/cousins/kids of friends, whom I love dearly. I mean, many of them have been simply adorable! But C was kind of unreal in how pretty she was. And as I said, she was a perfect little charmer as well.
All during the trip, I actually worked full time, which was the only bummer, but I was lucky to be able to work remotely at all, so I am not complaining. Since most of my friends work full-time anyway, it wasn’t a big deal to just meet up for lunch and dinner.
I miss my friends already. I will be missing one of their weddings in September due to it being so close to my projected due date. 🙁 I told her she should live videocast her wedding, but she seemed to think I was kidding. I wasn’t!
My first random comment!
We were in Chicago last weekend to attend a wedding and meet up with some internet friends. It was a great time! But I digress. We were walking down the street, on the way to see the Bean, when a bunch of guys passed us. I overheard one say, “Dude, I think she’s preggers!” I was caught so off-guard that I reflexively responded, “I am!”
When I think about that guy’s comment, I think it must have been in response to someone else’s comment to him about “that girl with the huge gut” or something like that. Hee!
While I was slightly offended at the time, about 5 seconds later, I was highly entertained. 🙂