Ultrasound Day

Just for one second this morning, as I was on my way out to my car, I wanted to turn around and go back inside.  For that one second, I thought the not knowing might be better than the knowing.  Thank goodness I was wrong!

My sister met me at my RE's office, and after a brief wait, Dr M walked in with the tech.  I've been looking at all sorts of 9 week scans online this weekend, so as soon as the baby came up on the screen, I knew everything was fine.  And it is!

Chiquitita measures 9 weeks, 1 day and has a heartbeat of 180!  She/he was actually moving - you could see the little arm buds wiggling around, and they had a hard time getting the heart rate at first because it was moving so much.  I can't believe I have a baby moving around inside me right now!

Here's the picture - the head is at the bottom of the picture, and you can see the little arm buds in the middle and the leg buds at the top.

Now I'm settling in to enjoy the feeling of a good report, and already looking forward to my next scan in two weeks!  As Single Mom 2B pointed out, here ends any comparison to my prior pregnancy.  And I'm so thankful.

Maternity Clothes

Thanks to all the weight I've gained this year, none of my clothes fit.  I'm really looking forward to being able to wear maternity clothes, because I'm wearing the same 3 pairs of stretchy pants and same 2 skirts every week to work, and it's getting really old!  I broke down last night and pulled out some maternity pants that my sister gave me back in May, right before my miscarriage.  I tried them all on in mid-May, and they all fit (well, everywhere but the belly).  I was so shocked last night to discover that none of the pants I tried on fit - they were all too tight in my thighs.  My level of exercise dropped dramatically this summer, and my body is really showing it!  Ok,  my indulgence in things like ice cream, cookies and pastries might have had some effect, as well.

Which is why I was so happy to see a Groupon in my inbox today for maternity clothes!  And then so disappointed when I saw just how expensive the clothes are at Bellydance Maternity.  Wow - I'm not sure I'd pay that much for regular clothes, much less clothes I'm only going to wear for a few months!  But, they do sell things like BellaBands and camis that are not that expensive, so I went ahead and bought the coupon - $25 for a $50 purchase.  If any of my pregnant blogger friends are interested, here's the link (the maternity coupon is down the page a bit on the right).  It ends tonight at midnight.

In the meantime, I'm staying away from trying on any pair of pants in my house that I don't know for a fact fit me right now.  My fragile mental state can't handle any more shocks like that!

Speaking of fragile mental state...thank you all for your wonderful comments on my last post.  I know I'm crazy right now, but it is so comforting to know that so many of you can understand the craziness and are sending me support.  Thank you!

First Trimester Anxiety

This pregnancy is so different from my first. My first pregnancy started with nausea and heartburn in the middle of week 4. By week 6, all I could eat was potatoes, but I noticed that halfway through week 8 my nausea actually started to ease off a bit. I felt all sorts of stretching and cramping in my uterus from about week 5 until week 7, and then not much of anything. My breasts were sore up until the middle of week 8, and then that stopped. And I was sleepy, so very sleepy, but I still did ok on 7 hours of sleep. My first ultrasound at 7 weeks showed a baby measuring only 6 weeks, 1 day, with a heart rate that was low at 115 and a large yolk sac.

This pregnancy I started with nausea around week 5, but then realized it was heartburn, and was nausea free most of the time until week 8, when it’s really kicked in, despite the heartburn medications. I had lots of cramping and stretching from the time of implantation through week 6, and still have intermittent cramping and round ligament pain on a daily basis. I’ve been physically exhausted, and really only function with 9 hours of sleep. My breasts are just slightly achy, but that hasn’t changed for several weeks. My first ultrasound at 7 weeks showed a baby measuring 6 weeks, 5 days, with a strong heart rate of 148 and a normal sized yolk sac.

I keep focusing on these differences, reminding myself that this time is different, and I really believe that all is going to be well on Monday’s ultrasound. But every time I get really comfortable with that thought, especially when I imagine my baby’s heart beating happily inside me right now, I remember that second ultrasound in May.

I remember seeing the baby appear on the screen and instantly knowing that something was wrong. This baby didn’t look much different than the ultrasound two weeks earlier, and not at all like the 9 week ultrasound pictures I’d seen online. The ultrasound tech moved the probe a bit, was quiet and then she said, “I don’t see anything, do you?” LB and I both responded, “No.” I didn’t need the doctor coming in to tell me that I’d lost my baby, I knew her heart had stopped. And I felt like my heart had stopped along with it.

I wish I could stop remembering that morning in such painful detail, especially when I’m trying to be optimistic for Monday’s scan. Especially when I really do feel optimistic for Monday’s scan. The crazy part – I am so not a worrier! It feels unnatural to me, to be so worried - in fact, if I'd heard myself a year ago I probably would have rolled my eyes and told myself to stop being so crazy.  I guess I should get used to the worry, though, because my heart really isn't my own anymore.

Curiosity

For the past 6 weeks my office has been amazing at respecting my privacy.  I know they all are very anxious to know what’s going on, but they’ve all avoided asking me questions.  Until this week, when their innate nosiness has finally gotten the best of them.  They still aren’t asking questions, but they are fishing for information.  I heard one of the nurses asking my nurse if she thought I was pregnant.  Our billing supervisor told my office manager that she was “looking for signs” I was pregnant and was starting to think that maybe I am.  And then today my receptionist told me that one of my patients asked her if I was pregnant.  “Was she asking because of the weight I’ve gained?” I asked.  “No, she just said you have ‘that glow.’”

Is it really possible I can keep a secret for another 2 and a half weeks?  I’m going to have to get really good at smiling vaguely at every comment sent my way.  

I’m also trying very hard not to worry obsessively about Monday’s ultrasound.  Worrying about keeping my secret is a lot more fun.

Eight!

It’s one more week before my next ultrasound.  This is the big milestone for me – with my first pregnancy, my second ultrasound at 9 weeks was the one where I learned I’d had a miscarriage.  I feel good about this pregnancy, everything has looked so much better from my betas to my first ultrasound, but I’m still a little nervous.  I’ll be really glad when this next scan is behind me.

My nausea had been well controlled with just a little Pepcid twice a day, but towards the end of last week the Pepcid effect started to wear off, and I’ve pretty much been nauseated non-stop.  Non-stop until this morning, when someone brought us egg sandwiches from Panera Bread for breakfast.  After eating one of those, I was 100% nausea-free for 3 whole hours!  It was so great, I saved one for lunch – which means I had 6 hours of no nausea today!  This is one of those times where I wish I were married.  Because if I were, I’d so have my husband at Panera every morning getting me one of those sandwiches!

I’m still not completely decided on when I’m going to share my news with everyone at work.  I’d thought about telling everyone after my ultrasound next Monday, but I really want to wait until I’m closer to the end of my first trimester.  I just scheduled my first trimester screening (labs and ultrasound) for when I’m 11 weeks – which is just 3 weeks from now.  I think I can hold out that long.  I hope.  

Mac and Cheese

We're throwing a baby shower for my nurse tomorrow.  She's due 2 days after I would have been due if IUI #2 had worked.  Crazy.  This will be her second boy with her high school sweetheart, and she's only 23.  Also crazy.  But she's very happy, her two year old is absolutely adorable, and my nurse is wonderful, so whatever makes her happy is good with me!

Our showers and parties are always potluck, and usually I bring a dessert (I love to bake) or a fruit tray or cheese or something that requires no effort on my part.  But I got the sign up list last, and all the easy stuff was taken.  Which led me to decide to break out of my comfort zone and make homemade mac and cheese.  I searched the recipe sites for a recipe that sounded appealing, and finally chose one from allrecipes.com called Four Cheese Macaroni.  It says that it serves 6 and since we have 16 people in the office, I decided I'd better double it.  And then I read in the comments that people recommended increasing the cheese, so I prepared to do that, too.  I picked up the ingredients at the grocery store after work, but didn't get enough half and half, so I had to alter the recipe yet again.  Then I read how much butter was in there, and decided (with all my cooking experience) that it was too much.  So I decreased that.  The final product made enough for two casserole dishes, and a little small dish for me to sample for dinner tonight before serving.

And OMG.  Chiquitita and I love this mac and cheese!  Here's my somewhat altered recipe, which really serves more than 6, unless your main course is mac and cheese.  And then it might serve 4!

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

16 ounces elbow macaroni

8 tablespoons of butter

3/4 cup shredded Muenster cheese

3/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

3/4 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

3/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

1 cup half and half 

approx 10 ounces of cubed Velveeta (or as the recipe site called it:  processed cheese food)

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Directions:

1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the oil and the pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain well and return to cooking pot.
2. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt 8 tablespoons butter; stir into the macaroni.
3. In a large bowl, combine the Muenster cheese, mild and sharp Cheddar cheeses, and Monterey Jack cheese; mix well.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
5. Add the half and half, all but 1/2 cup of the cheese mixture, cubed processed cheese food, and eggs to macaroni; mix together and season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a lightly greased deep 2 1/2 quart casserole dish. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup of cheese mixture and 1 tablespoon of butter.  (I added extra shredded cheese on top, because it just didn't seem like enough, and did about 1/2 tablespoon of butter.)
6. Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes or until hot and bubbling around the edges; serve and enjoy mac and cheese heaven.          

I'm now going to roll myself to bed and hope the heartburn isn't too bad.  If it is, I guess I'll just get up and eat more mac and cheese.

Chiquitita

Almost two years ago, Heidi, Mindy and I went to Nicaragua for Thanksgiving.  We had a week off at the same time, and needed a new stamp in our passports, but preferred somewhere not too far away – so Central America was our obvious choice.  We ruled out a few countries that one or more of us had already visited, and then decided on Nicaragua because the flights there were the cheapest.  Wanderlust at its finest.

Halfway into our trip we were on a ferry, leaving the island of Ometepe and on our way to the beach, when we started talking about my plans to have a baby.  While we were talking, the TV started to play old ABBA videos (which seemed oddly out of place in a ferry full of Spanish speakers), one of which was for the song “Chiquitita.”  This musical masterpiece inspired one of them to say, “Shannon, you should name your baby Chiquitita!”  The rest of the weekend we’d find ways to bring up the baby using the name.  “What if Chiquitita loves the beach?”  “What if Chiquitita is a boy?”  “Do you think Chiquitita will like seafood?”  "Do you think Chiquitita will know to avoid mayo based products in third world countries, thereby avoiding food poisoning?"  (Oh, no, wait, if we'd said that last one, then one of us would have avoided the misery of being hit by food poisoning while watching baby turtles hatch two hours from town.  But that's a story for another day.)

And it stuck.  I continued to refer to my future baby as Chiquitita, and that’s what I started calling my baby when I got pregnant in April.  You all know what happened next with that pregnancy.

It bothered me, that I had called that baby Chiquitita, because I felt like I’d given the name to the wrong baby, and now I couldn’t use it again.  Then I came across a post from a blogger who wrote about her conversation with her husband about their lost baby, and the pet name they had for it.  I’ve lost the blog, which so disappoints me, so I’m not really sure what the pet name was, but let’s say it was Doodle.  Her husband said to her, “That wasn’t our Doodle.  We just thought it was.  We’ll get our Doodle, and this one will be the real one.”  ETA:  The woman who shared this wonderful bit of wisdom is over at The Treehouse Blog - go visit her, you'll be glad you stopped by.

That completely reassured me that it was ok to call my next baby Chiquitita.  But I couldn’t bring myself to do it until my ultrasound yesterday.  And now, I’m happy to say, the name is in use, and I’ve got me a Chiquitita in the oven! 

Before you point out that Chiquitita is a female name, I’d like to add that until I know the sex, I’m using it as a purely unisex name.  If it turns out I’m having a boy, I’ll change it to Chiquitito.  But for now, it’s the generic baby name, no sex preferred over the other!

For your viewing and listening pleasure - the exact video we watched on the ferry:

One!

We saw one beautiful, perfect heartbeat today!  Baby measures right on schedule, yolk sac is normal size and heartbeat is 148!  Words cannot describe the relief that I feel - or that I felt went the picture of that sweet little bean came up on the screen with a little heart flickering away.  My RE said this is a textbook perfect ultrasound, but I'm still going back on the 27th for another scan to confirm all is good.

Thank you, my bloggy friends, for all your prayers and words of support over the past few weeks.  I wouldn't have been able to make it without them!  I've added one of the ultrasound pictures - I swear you can see the baby's optic discs in this one!  LOL