20 Weeks

I can't believe we're already half way through this pregnancy.  With everything that is going on I suppose it's no wonder.  Between baby showers for friends, bridal showers, graduations, bachelorette parties (to write a post or not to write a post, that is the question), and upcoming weddings time is flying by.  I'm beginning to feel very anxious about all we need to accomplish and it certainly doesn't help when Marcus says he'd like to fix the jet ski and/or buy one that is new-to-us.  Because we have time for that!

"What could possibly be on your list of to-do's before the arrival of Baby #2," you ask?  Well, one thing I've neglected to write a post about is the current state of our master bedroom which is the major cause of this anxiety.  In December, right before he was to start working full-time again, Marcus decided to begin renovating our master bathroom and closet.  It was in dire need of a renovation as the master bath and closet left much to be desired.  The master bathroom had a pedestal sink, toilet, and stand-up shower.  There wasn't even a cabinet to store things.  The master closet was in the bathroom and could only hold my things and while I may be a shopaholic I also purge often and I don't have that much stuff.  In short, both areas needed to be expanded.  So, Marcus demolished what was our bathroom and closet and that's where we are today.

The bathroom has slowly been coming together but it's a long ways away from being complete.  The closet, well, that's more or less just an idea at this time.  What we do have for the closet is a hole through the master bedroom wall into a smaller bedroom where the closet eventually will be.  I shouldn't complain too much.  For one, it's only been 5 months.  I have a dear, sweet friend whose been without a master bathroom for well over a year now, God bless her.  For two, when all is said and done we will have a very awesome bathroom and closet.  However, it's starting to get old.  My clothes are currently down the hall in an empty bedroom which soon needs to be converted into Alexandra's new bedroom.  The nearest bathroom is across the hall and next to Alexandra's current room and so in the middle of the night when I inevitably have to get up to use the bathroom I have to maneuver the creaky floor boards hoping not to wake anybody.

I have a calendar with important dates noted and a countdown that indicates where we are in the pregnancy.  Slowly but surely our time is dwindling and so far our weekends are packed full with summer activities.  Marcus is the master at over-extending himself so we may need to call in the troops for some help.  So, with that being said I need the following:  A painter, a carpenter, a plumber, and a general contractor.  You will be paid in full with beer and pizza once the bathroom proves to be working and once my shoes are neatly arranged in our new closet.

A Somewhat Old "Update"

I guess I should post this considering I've been sitting on it for the last million weeks (or so it seems).  I started writing this before I wanted to reveal to the world about our pregnancy.  Even now I wish I could keep it to myself because I get so worried about the health of the baby but sadly, the ever expanding belly is making that impossible.
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 I'm going to start writing this knowing it will be at least another 5 weeks before I actually post it.  At this very moment I'm a tentative 6 weeks and 6 days pregnant.  I say tentative because it's been a very strange past few months and the doctor will set an actual due date in the next few weeks when the baby is a little bigger.

To begin with, ever since I stopped breastfeeding my hormones have been insanely out of whack.  I can't tell you how many times I've taken a pregnancy test in the last few months because I was having 40+ day cycles.  All of them came back negative and life carried on.  That is until New Year's Eve when Marcus encouraged me to take a pregnancy test because he just knew I was pregnant (most of his knowledge simply came from the fact I hadn't started yet...he's not that in tune to my body, at least I don't think he is).  However, this test, unlike the others, came back positive.  I immediately freaked out at the prospect of being pregnant again.  "How could this happen?!" I thought (don't answer that).  Marcus, on the other hand, was elated.  He really wanted a second child and the closer in age to Alex the better.  Also, I think it goes without saying that a pregnancy for him is a lot easier than it is for me.  He's not the one who hasn't lost all of the Alexandra baby weight.  He's also not the one who has to carry a baby for 9 months and then physically bring it into this world through some of the most excruciating pain you could ever imagine.  However, after a few days of internally processing what I was gearing up to go through I accepted it and settled in for the ride.

About four days later I began spotting.  My worst fears seemed to be coming true (for some reason I just knew my second pregnancy would end with a miscarriage despite having absolutely no basis for that fear) as I called the doctor's office who saw me that same day.  At the doctor's office I took another pregnancy test only this one came back negative.  The doctor reassured us that what I had experienced was a prolonged cycle and he sent me off for blood work because 40+ day cycles with positive pregnancy tests aren't exactly normal.  (Side note:  To this day I feel like I may have had a chemical pregnancy which is essentially a very early miscarriage that most women don't even realize is happening because it just seems like a longer cycle than usual.  How could I test positive if the pregnancy hormone, HCG, wasn't in my system?  However, without the doctor's admittance that this is what happened I guess I should just accept that my body and hormones were out of control and I was the 1% of home pregnancy tests that come back with a false-positive.)  Needless to say Marcus and I were relieved that I wasn't miscarrying though sad that I wasn't actually pregnant.  We decided to go the "let's just see what happens" route that we took when trying to get pregnant the first time and, much like the first time, that route was a very good route for us.  Two weeks after the initial pregnancy test on New Year's Eve and we were truly pregnant.

In the end, everything happening the way it did worked out for the best because it prepared me for the now.  I'm completely OK with being pregnant and nothing about this scares me:  Not the changes of my body, not the labor, nothing.  My only concern at the moment is for the health and safety of the baby which, as of today, had a teeny heart fluttering away looking as healthy as can be.

I can't really remember much about how I felt when I was pregnant with Alex but I do feel like this pregnancy is almost identical.  I'm tired but not overly tired.  I'm very weepy and feel like crying at just about anything remotely emotional.  At one point I knew I was pregnant because I wanted to murder everyone around me, and I'm not talking about your typical PMS "I hate everybody" feeling but rather a "I will rip your head off" feeling.  Overall, I feel unwell though it's hard to say exactly in what way.  Nausea isn't really an issue and if I can at least drink some juice in the morning before heading out the door I'm OK until I can get something substantial to eat.  With that being said I hate most food and nothing sounds good to me which is definitely something I remember from my first pregnancy.  When I do eat, it's not very much and I do not want it the next day for leftovers.  Hell, for Alex's 1st birthday I didn't even want to try the birthday cake we had made for her!  In retrospect I'm surprised nobody attending caught on to our secret because something is terribly wrong the day I turn down a homemade chocolate cake.

Finally, and something that has bothered me for almost this whole trimester, why does everything smell like onions?!  It's driving me crazy.  Even my freshly bathed, baby beauty smells like onions to me.  Her breath smells like onions and she doesn't even eat them.  The whole house smells like onions and it drives me crazy.  I hope this goes away soon.  I have a small hoarding problem when it comes to candles and air fresheners so I have plenty of scent to mask the atrocious onion smell but Marcus is only going to let me use all of them at the same time for so long.

Deep Thoughts

It's fascinating really that the human body produces a brand new organ, the placenta, each and every time a woman conceives.

Race to the Top With Your OB-GYN

Right around the corner from where we live is this great little restaurant/bar that, pre-Alexandra, we tried to make "our" place but just didn't frequent it often enough to really ingratiate ourselves with the staff.  We still like to go as often as possible though, mostly because it's so close but also because the food is good and it's a small establishment.  Anyway, every first weekend in May they do a race called "Race to the Top" which is a fundraiser for the local SPCA.  It's a silly race that my husband won a few years back not because he can run very fast but because he can down an entire beer in one gulp (that was really what sealed the deal for me back when trying to determine if he was the "one").  What is this race that you speak of where one gets to drink beer, you ask?  Well, basically the runners start at the bottom of a hill, run up and into the bar, chug a beer, run out of the back of the bar, up to the top of the hill, around a fire hydrant, back into the bar, chug a beer, and down to the bottom of the hill.  If you vomit you're automatically disqualified.  It's not a locally sanctioned race, i.e. the cops aren't too thrilled about it but it's for a good cause and it brings together all different types of people.  Including, it would seem, my OB-GYN.  I'm not sure if he recognized us when we said "hello," maybe it was because I was fully clothed, but I also got the distinct feeling that he wasn't interested in conversation whether he recognized us or not.  I suppose it must be awkward as an OB-GYN to encounter your patients anywhere outside of work.  For me, it was awkward knowing that there were two men within a 5 foot radius that have been in close proximity to my nether regions.  Maybe that's how he feels, too.  Strangely enough, throughout the rest of the weekend we saw him everywhere but after the awkward encounter at the race decided not to say anything and went about our business.  Maybe next time I'll flash him my nether regions and see if he recognizes me then.  If I do end up doing that you can probably mail all correspondence to the local jailhouse.

Hormones!

Adam "MCA" Yauch died today at the age of 47.  He had been diagnosed with cancer in 2009.  Holy crap, this is affecting me more than it should.  Frickin' hormones.

17 Weeks

At 17 weeks this is the most awkward stage of pregnancy, in my opinion.  For one thing my stomach is clearly larger but it could be a beer gut or the awesome hamburger I just had for lunch or it could be the tiny person developing in there. Only the people who have been informed outright of this impending arrival know for sure.  If an outsider is really paying attention then they could probably just assume I'm pregnant (NOTE: Never, ever assume out loud. Just assume in your head. It's safer that way) because only my belly has expanded, nothing else, thus indicating maybe this isn't your typical weight gain.

The other part of this stage of pregnancy I don't care for is the not knowing. It's still debatable whether I can feel the baby move.  I think I do but I'm still not sure. When I was pregnant with Alex I knew what I was feeling were baby kicks and punches because at a check-up, as the Doctor listened to her heartbeat there was simultaneously a swooshing sound over the monitor and I felt something move inside. It was then that I was able to conclusively say I was feeling the baby move. I haven't had that luxury this time around as the little guy or gal has been seemingly motionless at my last few check-ups. While I'm not exactly a fan of being kicked and punched from the inside it is a reassurance that everything is OK in there. So, until I'm 100% sure that what I'm feeling is baby movement I just have to wait until the next check-up for confirmation that all is well.

Also, let it be said, I still have a love/hate relationship with maternity clothes. While it's like wearing my PJs, they're so comfortable maternity clothes designers really need to step-up their game. It is so hard to find something that is cute without feeling like a mammoth. I found myself wearing maternity clothes much earlier this time around, like right around week 12. My work pants especially were getting to be too tight in the waist so I decided to bite the bullet and started wearing my maternity work pants. They're too big but so luxuriously comfortable it doesn't matter. I've also resorted to wearing pretty much all maternity tops, despite the fact they're huge, but that's mostly because maternity pants have that gorgeous *sarcasm* expandable belly material that tends to show if you wear shirts that aren't long enough. I think you can call my recent attire "Bag Lady Chic" or "Olsen Twins/Homeless Lady Style."

Update, 8 May 2012:  OK, I guess I can feel the baby moving around.  If I press down really hard I can feel her/him kicking and (s)he is hanging out in the same exact spot Alex liked to hang, the lower right of my tummy.  Sometimes I feel something moving in the upper left of my tummy and then directly after movement in the lower right of my tummy.  I'm hoping this is an indication of either gas or the baby's lightning speed swimming and not a sign of twins which we've been assured is not happening.

Pregnancy Dreams

My dreams have been so out there I can't even begin to describe half of them, plus I barely remember them (I don't even remember how it came to be that I was subduing a naked man in one) and instead wake up feeling like something isn't quite right.  The majority of them though have to do with the new baby.  In one recent dream that creeped me out well into the next day I had given birth to a corpse baby.  It was skinny beyond belief and its skin was black and green and as I gave it a bath, the skin peeled away.  I remember being horrified and wondering why this baby didn't look like Alexandra.  I then remember thinking to myself that no matter what I had to love this baby despite the fact it looked like I had dug it up from a centuries old grave.  Then, in an instant, the baby was rosy skinned and fat and happy and smiling and looked surprisingly a lot like Alexandra but with more hair which was in a bowl cut.  I know.  The most horrifying thing I just said right then was the baby had a bowl cut.

The second dream I had in regards to the baby was a recent dream.  In it, I was going into labor and Marcus was nowhere to be found.  This is a legitimate concern of mine as he has proven on more than one occasion to be impossible to track down during the work day.  So, I find myself at the hospital having the baby by myself.  After the baby is born Marcus is still missing indicating he could care less about the baby and for that matter, nobody else cares either.  Not one family member or friend is excited for this new baby's arrival.  I suppose there is some truth to that.  The second child, poor soul, does seem to be less highly anticipated than the first.  It was a very depressing dream though not nearly as depressing as the next dream.

This third dream I had just the other day.  I was going in for my 20-week ultrasound, the one that for parents means they can find out the gender of the baby but for the doctors it means finding out if there are any abnormalities with the growing baby.  Again, I was by myself (I'm sensing an "absent Marcus" theme here) and as the ultrasound got under way I could see the baby on the monitor.  "Uh," the ultrasound technician said, "hang on just a second.  I'm going to get the doctor."  In my real-life opinion, this is never a good thing and even in my dream I started to panic.  The doctor came in and I asked what was wrong.  "Oh, nothing, everything's just fine.  Not to worry," and then he looks at the image on the monitor, which at this point looks like a 4-week old fetus and nothing like a 20-week old fetus, points at the brain area and says, "Wow, I've never seen anything like that.  Do you mind if I have my students come in?"  By this point I'm beyond hysterical, pleading with the doctor to tell me what is wrong with my baby and when I get no response I run out of the room crying.

All of these dreams signify to me that I am truly concerned for this baby.  I don't know why my psyche just assumes that something is wrong and maybe it's my way of preparing for the worst-case scenario.  I don't remember feeling this anxious or worried about Alexandra's health as she incubated.  I just knew she was fine.  But this time is different.  I'm sure nothing is wrong and this baby will be just as healthy as Alexandra.  So far I've done everything exactly the same except maybe I've been less strict about the foods a pregnant woman should supposedly avoid during pregnancy, like cold cuts.  However, my doctor has yet to provide me with a list of foods I should not eat and therefore, to me, no such thing exists.  In turn I've also avoided reading anything pregnancy related on the Internet because, again, unless my doctor tells me to do or not do something than to me, it's just another "thing" someone has come up with to make expectant mothers paranoid (NOTE: I am avoiding the obvious like alcohol and smoking cigarettes).

So, there you have it.  My dreams as of late.  I'm looking forward to these going away with time because there isn't much more I can take.