Sick, so very, very sick

I was so not this nauseated with Leif. This baby has to be a girl, girls are known for tormenting their moms from an early age. I am nauseated pretty severely all throughout the day. Varying levels of debilitating. From, “don’t you dare wave that NutriGrain bar in front of my nose you evil child” to “Gahhhh” (loosely interpreted as “I can’t get my bloated self up off the couch/bed/floor I am so sick”).

Six weeks. I want to tell myself only 5-6 weeks more of nausea. But being that the first 4 weeks of this pregnancy I didn’t even know, the math doesn’t work out so well. Gee, only 3 times more what you have been going through for the last two weeks! Gahhhh.

First pregnancy, “Yay, I am pregnant! Oh wait, I need to go puke. Yah, I am pregnant!”

Second pregnancy, “Gahhhh.”

The hit this morning was Jolly Ranchers, cherry ones. I have loved those since I was a kid and they saved me today. However, my tongue is now raw and I think I have found at least one place a cavity is starting, ouch.

The entertainment factor has come from Leif who responds “Sister” when asked “Do you want a brother or a sister?” Every single time he responds sister with enthusiasm.

Now to figure out how in the world I am going to make a train cake this weekend.

Gahhhhh!

Just over 5 weeks now

I am just over 5 weeks now. All the signs are there, sore boobs, frequent nausea and urination, fatigue and a finicky stomach. The nausea seems to be intensifying everyday. At first it was only in the mornings (aka morning sickness), but now it is invading my afternoons and evenings. I fear the coming weeks with regards to nausea. Peeing all the time? Yeah, that’s me. I normally have a bladder the size of a walnut anyways, let’s just compound the issue now! We finally have Leif sleeping through the night pretty consistently and now I am up twice a night to pee? Nice. (No complaints…) Oh and then there is my finicky stomach… I am hungry but I don’t want anything to eat, at least anything that is reasonably accessible.

I feel bloated and my pants are tight. I chalk this up to the bloat and not because I am “showing” – because I am not showing. My pants were already borderline tight, the bloat isn’t helping any! I have a feeling my regular jeans will be saying sayonara for a year or so (here’s hoping at least it is only a year). My dress pants tend to fit looser, so I need to start looking as though I am dressing up for work daily I suppose.

I really need to start going through my closet now and moving the contents to the other closet. I seriously have A LOT of clothes. Enough that I don’t even really know what all is in there. Yeah, those skinny capris from last summer? (That I can’t fit into this summer…) Those can go to the other closet and I can hope to visit them again in two summers.

Like most women I think, with my first pregnancy I was eager to get into some fun maternity clothes. But after 25-28 weeks they were no longer fun anymore, they were annoying and boring and “even these are feeling tight”. Also like most women on their 2nd pregnancies, I don’t relish the thought of switching to maternity clothes anytime soon. However, I hear that with #2 the need comes sooner than #1. They say your body remembers and responds quicker. Nice try attempting to soften the blow that “you are already stretched out and flabby from #1”.

I was hungry for lunch, then I walked to the fridge and decided to come back here and sit down. Gag. A bagel and cream cheese (which has been nearly the only thing I have tolerated for a few days). I have a meeting on the main site in an hour. I am going to attempt to pick something up on my way there. And it might just be a pomegranate frappacino!

I will say that it is a small feat that I ate chicken last night. So far, the anti-chicken mania has not set in.

Smelling Leif’s Nutrigrain Bar this morning though nearly made me hurl. And the little beast kept trying to shove it in my mouth to “taste mommy!” No, really no.

Nearly sunk in

Just about. Not completely yet, but I am just about there. Since my nausea is only mild and isolated in the morning for the most part so far (knock on wood) I still yearn for that glass of wine with dinner. But that's an easy no go.

The harder thing? My poker face. This morning one of the admins who is a couple years younger than me and just had her 3rd baby came into my office and says, "So are you pregnant?" I was so taken aback. I stuttered and stammered, my face turns red.

She stops, looks at me and squeals, "Oh my God, you are!"

I managed a nod.

"Oh my goodness," she goes on giggling. "I was joking because I had a dream about you this last weekend and you were pregnant!"

"Ok psychic!!" I tell her. She promises me she won't tell a soul. At this point we have only told our immediate family and here is an admin who I am not *that* close with and she knows! GAH.

A little later I am sitting at my desk slaving over the concept paper I am writing. My admin's office mate walks by, also an admin, sticks her head in my office and says, "I know your secret, but don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

GAH!!

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So telling the family went pretty good. We sent out an e-mail with a picture of Leif in a t-shirt that said "I'm going 2B a Big Brother!" For my mom we got on the webcam and made her read Leif's t-shirt. There were many tears.

Yes, it is hokey, but I am pregnant and entitled to hokey. And retrospect I don't think it was probably the best approach for a few reasons. I guess the most disappointing part of it all was that instead of calling us immediately a few people called others and shared our news for us.

(Headline... Pregnant lady rips throat of family member out over the phone.)

Yes, steal our thunder. Don't even let them open the e-mail. Whatever.

The second one was that I wanted my mom to be among the first to find out. We sent out the e-mail and then I called her to do a webcam. Not home. And then not home for a full day! GAH! Here we are telling people and I haven't told my mom. I should have coordinated better.

Add to the list of things that annoy the crap out of you is the stupid things people say when they find out. How about the all classic, "Was it planned?" What f'ing difference does it make, it's a baby, be happy? Sheesh, imagine my response if it wasn't planned.

Suffice it to say that everyone is really thrilled, albeit a little tongue tied and lacking proper etiquette for such announcements.

So here is proper etiquette... let's role play:

"We're pregnant."

"Wow, I am so happy for you! You don't even look it, you look radiant! Having two kids is the most fantastic thing, you will never be stressed and you will have copious amounts of time for both children! You are truly blessed and let me know if I can be of any help, OK?"

And that's it. No need to say anything more, just exude happiness.
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So this blog theme is pink... in hopes that we might end up having one of each. AB is hoping "mildly" for another boy. I am hoping "mildly" for a girl. But we both are fine with whatever we get.

Names... we have started looking for names and if I get brave I might post some of the selections. This is something we didn't do with Leif was share the name possibilities. We will debate that with this one. Also gender identification. AB was leaning towards finding out the gender, while I was leaning towards not again. Another decision to be made.

My first prenatal appointment is August 8th, already! I can't believe it will be so soon, but I suppose that is 8 weeks. I can't wait!

July 7, 2006, It happened!

It happened! I can’t believe it! I am officially pregnant and due on our anniversary, March 18th! Holy cow!

After it taking over a year to conceive Leif, I expected the same with #2. Although I really hoped it would take less time, but didn’t want to get my hopes up. Two months of trying!

I tested Wednesday night and got an extremely faint positive. I didn’t really believe it and assumed the test was faulty. I bought more tests on Thursday and tested as soon as I got home from work. Sure enough! A good line showed up immediately. Wowzers.

AB is thrilled. I am thrilled. Winny looks at us like we are nutso (I am positive that she knows and is dreading this journey) and Leif just wants cookies or snacks.

Being pregnant with #2 is so different than #1 already (and it has only been two days... just call me whack). I have heard that every pregnancy is different, but how much of that is your state of mind? Already I think that March 18, 2007 is SUCH a long time away. How can I wait that long to meet this baby (that I can’t even feel yet)? I am also wondering how long I can stay in my regular clothes before I need to get the maternity clothes out and see what still fits. The vast majority of my old maternity clothes were spring and summer, and of course now I will be in mat clothes for fall and winter. This time we know and have experience with what is on the other side of this very long 40 (or 41) weeks. We know the end product and man do we love him. I can’t wait!

The questions have started already. Will we find out the gender? I immediately said no to finding out the gender. AB was waffling a little more on this one. We had planned to with Leif, but he was uncooperative. Hard to believe now… I loved not knowing with Leif, but part of me says it would be fun to know. But I like tormenting people too much (my sister) and telling them their best guess!

I asked AB what he thought the gender was and he thinks and says boy. I think girl. but I am ALWAYS wrong. So it is probably our second boy. Funny though when the talk turned to names AB started spewing out girl names! How can he think boy and then the first names he starts talking about be girl’s!! (It’s a girl… I know it.)

I was surprised when AB was actually hesitating about our long standing #1 girl’s name. He actually started throwing out some more traditional girl’s names which is uncommon for him. Usually all the girl’s names he likes are wacky. He finally sold me on two of them (albeit two years ago) and now he is wavering! Boys names… that will be the bane of our existence. I have such a mental block with boy’s names.

The big question now is how to tell the parents. They are all going to be thrilled, no doubt about it. We don’t need to do anything in particular, but it is so lackluster just calling them up and saying “oh guess what?” My thought (which AB seems to be succumbing to) is to buy a t-shirt and fabric paint and write on it “I’m going to be a big brother” and then take pictures of Leif wearing it and e-mail it out. Hokey I suppose, but it will be fun. Of course then we also will get an idea of who doesn’t open their pictures that we send in e-mail… such a good idea? I think AB is leaning towards just calling and saying “guess what?” But we are going to Michael’s tomorrow for the t-shirt supplies anyway!

No signs or symptoms yet. I have a little breast tenderness, a little urky here and there but rare, but probably just my imagination. The thought of morning sickness is freaking me out some. I already have a list of things I could tolerate last time around and will be getting them at the grocery store this weekend. I bought a big bag of fresh bagels over lunch. Oh pure indulgence. I have been trying to limit my carbs due to their high calorie nature. But I have such fond memories of what a treat a bagel with cream cheese and a chocolate soda (no caffeine) was while I was pregnant with Leif. I bypassed our local Starbucks this morning. They will miss me and I hope they don’t go out of business in the time I am on my hiatus. OTOH I have heard that they have some non-caffeinated drinks that I may need to check out. And dinner without a glass of wine was just weird. A big tall glass of water probably did me so much better.

Last night I pulled out my “From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfolds” book off my bookshelf. Gorgeous book if you haven’t seen it. Highly recommended. I started reading and looking at the pictures of what the nub in my uterus looks like right now. A yolk sack starting to form. The fact that the size is doubling everyday and if the baby continued to grow at this rate it would be bigger than the sun at birth. I can apparently birth a bigger baby than Leif was (according to the “wonderful nurse”), but I do have limits. Regardless, as a scientist with a background in math, I have trouble with this concept. I think they are off by a few orders of magnitude.

Oh yay! I am just so excited for this journey we are starting out on!