October 17, 2006: 18 weeks 2 days aka Hormones Run Amuck Day

Raging bitch would probably best describe my demeanor today.

Why oh why would someone use someone else’s ultrasound picture in their MySpace profile without an explanation or asking permission? AND without removing the personal information like name, patient ID and hospital name on them? I don’t get that. The whole forwarding them to people I don’t know, I can kind of get… if it were my mom to her friends. But to people who I don’t know at all, nor even heard of their names? And no one asked for permission? I have a serious problem with this. This is a serious violation of my personal information and my trust.

Then I find out that maternity leave is currently very different then what I experienced with Leif is distressing. I was planning for 12 weeks paid off with some supplementing from my short term disability banked time and vacation time. Now it appears that like everything else here the noose is being tightened and provided I have a routine vaginal delivery, which I pray for, I will get 6 weeks off paid and no more. I can invoke FMLA and add up to 12 weeks unpaid but as the primary wage earner in my house? Umm not happening. At least this is my second and my childcare I will have is exemplary and so I will have less of a hard time leaving this one than I did Leif (I think). On the flip side, this is my second and so I have my previous experience to compare to and whine about nothing being the same and how jipped I am.

I had a crappy experience in a “voluntary” meeting this morning that combined with the above maternity leave issues has made me start thinking seriously about my career future here. My mantra needs to be “it’s hormones”. I will just keep repeating this.

I am going to keep my timeline for this pregnancy which falls about halfway in between where my ob puts my due date with that of my ultrasound. It just makes more sense to me and I like being due on March 18… our anniversary. So hence today I am 18 weeks and 2 days pregnant.

I am starting to show and I am feeling movement. My ultrasound did confirm that the placenta is in the front and that evidently the baby views the placenta as a humongous pillow and likes to snuggle it lots. This explains why the heartbeat was difficult to hear early on and why movement to this point has been limited. I haven’t felt any of those little tickles I felt with Leif early on, instead now I am just feeling pretty regularly larger body movements, like kicks, rolls and nudges.

My energy has returned, my morning sickness is 95% gone. I still vomit maybe once a week, which is nothing at this point. And last, but not least, I have crazy wild hormones that put my in a near homicidal frame of mind. AB is so thrilled. Oh yippee! Yes, this child has to be a girl… I never had hormones like this with Leif.