Oh. My. Lord.

I am completely freaked out. I know it's natural, I knew it was going to happen sometime... but in my 18th week?? No. I did not expect this so early. I shouldn't be grossed out by it, but I just can't help it... I don't even really want to talk about it, but I know that I need to get used to the idea...

My boobs have started leaking. AAAHHH!!!! I practically cried last night when I saw it. I don't know why it bothers me so much, but it really freaks me out. I started racing around the apartment like a crazed woman, moaning to Tyler about how weirded out I was. (For some reason, he didn't seem as disgusted as I did... although he did say "well don't get it on me!!") I am going to have to get over this, because I desperately want to breastfeed. But for some reason, it really really bugs me. Maybe because I already am expanding at what feels like an exponential rate, and I feel like a cow, and now... I actually am producing milk like a cow? Colostrum, technically, but I'm sure it's only going to get worse from here.

So today I am adding breast pads to my shopping list so that I don't get stuck in the middle of the school day with a wet bra. ::Shudders:: Get over it, Julia... you need to get over it quick...

*UPDATE: went to Wal-Mart to pick up some nursing pads, and couldn't find them. Had to ask the really hot guy behind the pharmacy counter where the breast pads were and was rewarded with a confused, disgusted look and a "what??" Awesome.

I am SUCH a good blogger

Twice in two days, and on-time belly pics to boot... 17 weeks today! Am I showing yet?? [:D]

That's me in my too-big maternity clothes (I know it looks like the same outfit as 16 weeks, but actually neither the pants nor the shirt are the same). I'm in an awkward in-between clothes stage, and when I have to dress up for school, I just look like a little girl wearing her mommy's clothes that don't fit. Well, okay, probably that's not accurate, since I hope little girls don't have baby bumps! I'm sure I'll grow into the clothes soon enough. I've gained about five pounds so far.

Anyway, I didn't mean to sound all flippant yesterday talking about taking leave from school... I know it's a really big decision. Financially, I wouldn't be responsible for paying back my loans yet since I would technically still be a student, just on a medical leave. And I wouldn't just stay home and do nothing (I would go crazy, I need to be somewhat busy), so I would probably work part-time as a dental hygienist until I got to whatever point in the 3rd trimester that I decided to stop. It would give me something to do, I would make plenty of money to offset the interest I'd be accruing on my loans, and I'm qualified to do it since I've completed two years toward my DMD. And Tyler does support whatever I want to do, he worries about me finishing and the stress that will cause me if I do take time off, but he wants me to do what I feel is best for me and the baby.

So, I still have to look into whether or not I would have to re-take this semester once I came back (in which case I would not take time off, since that would waste the tuition I've already paid and also six months of hard work). We'll see what happens. I think it's a sign of how busy and tired I am that I can't even find the time to stop by the dean's office and ask. But I'll get there!

As for pregnancy news, I got my quad screen results back-- perfectly normal, and no increased risk of Down Syndrome or neural tube defects. Yay!! I wasn't too worried, since I'm only 24, but Tyler does have DS in his family so I wasn't exactly relaxed about it either. (Like I said, I'm high-strung...) So now it's on to my next worry, which I haven't picked out yet. Perhaps it will be early labor or a cord accident. I have a feeling I will always be worrying about something regarding my baby for the rest of my life, now! All part of being a mom, I'm sure...

I've gotten a few books about the things that concern me the most: breastfeeding (So That's What They're For!), sleeping (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child), and labor/delivery (Childbirth and Pain Relief, by an anesthesiologist). So far I'd recommend the breastfeeding book very highly, but I'm not quite sold on the sleep book (I would, however, recommend it if you are having trouble sleeping, since it is very boring), and I haven't received the labor one yet.

We also are thinking about starting the nursery soon. Well, Tyler wants to set up the crib ASAP, I am not quite ready. To me, that means "there will be a baby living in this room really soon" and I am not ready for that yet. I think I posted the pic of our bedding awhile ago... it's bumblebees, since we aren't finding out the sex:

Love it!! We have a cherry sleigh crib and a bunch of other things that my parents have found for us secondhand. They've been so helpful as far as that goes, and with helping us move, too... I love my parents. They're so excited about this grandchild. Can't blame them, I guess-- especially when they thought I might not be able to have kids at all.

Have lovely weekends, everyone! I know I will-- it's going to be gray and rainy here, which is perfect weather for napping!

I blame my scrubs

I've been the worst slacker lately when it comes to blogging, and I think I know why. It's my scrubs. They just encourage laziness. When you can basically pull on pajamas and consider them "professional attire", there just doesn't seem to be any reason to motivate yourself to do anything!

No, actually, I've just been really busy with school and clinic. I figured something had to go by the wayside, and it wasn't going to be sleeping, eating, or peeing (my three most frequent activities these days), so it ended up being blogging and fun internet time... oh, and working out. What?? I just can't find the time... [:)]

This afternoon my patient canceled, so I got to come home at 4, so today is the day I catch up on blogging and working out, and maybe sneak in a little nap. Ahhhh, paradise. All I do these days is run around with a crazed look on my face, with approximately the following thoughts running through my head: "call patient... need daycare... want to nap... no, can't nap... food need food now now now... " It's getting pretty exhausting. I've noticed that I do have more energy this trimester, but unfortunately I still don't have as much as I need to get everything done and still have a little time to myself. And I am constantly so stressed about getting in enough clinic time before the baby comes that my jaw is clenched and my entire body is so tense that I am shaking by the time I get home.

Because of this, I've been thinking about taking a leave from school. I've always been a high-strung and overachieving person, and I think I might need to take the pressure off for a little while, for both my sake and the baby's. It can't be good for it to swim around in all my stress-induced cortisol. (Speaking of swimming around, I feel it kick around in there a lot now!! But I digress.) My tentative plan is to take leave starting after this semester, and go back next fall or even the fall after. I just feel like I'm not going to be a good mother the way things are going now. I'm so tense and on-edge all the time, and I can't imagine it will get better once I have an infant to care for. I snap at Tyler all the time, to the point where he just tries to stay out of my way. I have no friends who understand what I'm going through, so I feel really lonely a lot of the time... or at least, I would if I stopped and sat down for just a minute. I also feel really guilty about sending the baby to daycare for 10 hours per day when it will only be six weeks old. That was never something I wanted to do as a mom, and if I can avoid it, why not?

Wow, this post deteriorated into a lot of whining pretty quickly... but, that's what's been on my mind. Tyler doesn't seem very excited about this prospect, because I was supposed to be the one done with school first and making money, but, well, plans change and unexpected things happen. And if I'm really unhappy at school, I am just going to have to take a little time off... I know he will support me in the end, and we would figure things out financially.

Anyway, here's last week's belly pics:

I should really just take my 17-week pics too, since that will be tomorrow, but the call of my much-awaited nap is too strong!

I've been MIA

...and I'm sorry. I had good reasons, though! We moved this weekend to our bigger apartment (we got everything straightened out, and the new place is everything I wanted) and just got our internet connected today. I've been spending a lot more time in clinic so I'm really tired... where is that 2nd trimester energy boost everyone talks about? And, just as importantly, where is my pregnant-lady glow?? Everyone at school (when they are not staring at my growing belly) keeps commenting on how tired I look. I want to say, I know I look like crap, people, I've got a lot on my plate here...

Now that the excuses are out of the way [:)], I'll give you all an update. The baby is doing well, we went to our monthly appointment last Thursday at 15 weeks and Tyler got to hear the heartbeat for the first time. Well, at least he heard it until the baby started beating its little fists (or feet?) at the doppler and making this "BAM BAM BAM BAMBAMBAM" noise! The midwife said some babies don't like the doppler so they kick at it... looks like we're going to have a feisty little one on our hands!

And we moved this weekend... we actually got the entire place mostly put together, because we had a lot of help from our family and one of our guy friends. This week has taken a lot out of me since I didn't get to rest at all this weekend, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to go pass out now...

Belly pic tomorrow, I've been slacking!!

Maybe I'm crazy...

But I swear I felt the baby move!! I was lying in bed last night and I felt this feeling like a fish flopping in my lower belly. I sat bolt upright and begged baby to do it again, but I didn't feel anything else for the rest of the night, so I figured it was probably a muscle twitch or something. It was like nothing I've ever felt before, but then again, I have felt a lot of weird new feelings since being pregnant.

Then today, I was out to lunch with my mom and I took a big gulp of ice water. A couple seconds later, I felt it again! And then a few minutes later, sort of a tapping feeling from inside. I couldn't believe it! I am 14w3d today, which is so early to feel movement, especially for a first baby, but I don't know what else I could be feeling. (It's not gas! [:P]) I can't wait until I can feel it move all the time and be sure that it's the baby... it is such an exciting feeling.

Okay, update on the apartment situation: thank you ladies so much for all your wonderful advice on my last post. I definitely would have taken it and gotten legal help, but it turns out I didn't need to because I went back to the place and literally begged them and explained the situation. (And, okay, I might have cried a little bit for extra sympathy.) They had to contact some corporate guy and explain it to him, and he said that I could move on the 13th (the day I had gotten everyone to help us move) to a different apartment, and he would waive the transfer fee. Phew!! It was a huge relief. So now we (or I should say I, until Tyler gets home from Oregon tomorrow) are packing stuff up and just waiting for moving day. The new place is in a much nicer spot-- you can walk in on the ground floor in the front, which is nice because we'll have a stroller, but the back is raised up so it's a balcony up off the ground level (essentially the opposite of the place I didn't like). And, it faces the woods instead of a busy road, so it's much quieter and safer. I feel good about it and I can't wait to move now.

And, here are my 14-week belly pics-- they were taken at 14w0d, but I happened to be lazy that day and didn't post them...

So upset I don't know what to do

This apartment thing is spiraling out of control. Of course Tyler is gone again this week so I have to deal with it all on my own, once again. I don't know how we are going to make this work, but here goes...

The girl from the leasing office emailed me and said we can't transfer to a new apartment until we've lived in the crappy first floor one for 30 days because "it's company policy". First of all, that doesn't even make sense from their point of view. They'll just have to repaint and clean everything again after we lived there. Second of all, it means they are telling us we have to move everything we own twice in two weeks, because we lose our current place at the end of September, and the 30 days expires on October 2. We finally found a day (September 13) to have all our family and friends help us, since I can't do heavy lifting, and there's no way we'll be able to get everyone (or anyone? not sure) to help us again two weeks later.

I just don't feel comfortable living in this place right next to the road on the ground floor, especially since Tyler is gone so often. And there is no way we can move everything twice in two weeks. But if we break the lease, it will cost us thousands of dollars. It's going to be hard enough to afford this baby and the rent increase as it is, we can't waste 60 days notice plus 2 month's rent as a penalty (this place costs over $1100 a month-- welcome to Connecticut).

I don't know what to do, I keep calling Tyler but he isn't picking up since he's working right now... I am so upset!!! [:'(]

Apartment drama

I'm not a very picky girl. When we decided we needed to move for the baby, all I wanted was relatively inexpensive rent, 2 bedrooms, and a washer/dryer would have been a plus. Well, I found all of those things, and we got our keys today. I went to check out the apartment tonight, and after 5 minutes in the place, I walked to the leasing office and requested a transfer to a different unit.

I really am not that high-maintenance, but I just can't live in that place. There was nothing really wrong with the unit itself, although the kitchen and bathroom were smaller than they had been in the other unit I'd toured, and the appliances were a little old. Those things I can live with. But the lady at the renter's office told me that it was raised off of ground level, and it wasn't. You have to go up stairs to get to the front door, but the back door opens onto a ground-level patio, which is literally about 10 feet away from a busy street. No way am I moving into a place like that with a child. I would constantly worry myself sick. A toddler could run right out of the apartment into oncoming traffic in less than 30 seconds. Besides, I just don't feel that safe on the ground floor in an apartment complex when people are constantly walking by. Also, the patio smelled very strongly of smoke, even though there was no one around, so I guess the neighbors are heavy smokers, and I can't really live with that either.

So I went straight to the renter's office and asked to transfer. Luckily (I guess my luck hasn't run out yet!) there's another 2-bedroom unit on the 2nd floor available on the opposite end of the complex, far away from the street. We'll be finalizing the transfer on Thursday. To me, a $600 transfer fee and $10 more in rent per month is well worth the money!

Anyway (calming down now), we spent most of the weekend trying to get rid of the fleas (thanks to all who made excellent suggestions, they helped a lot!) and I think we got rid of the majority of them. I also shopped for maternity clothes with my mom. I don't really need the tops yet, but the pants situation is getting kind of dire. And my Bella band is getting kind of annoying. I had a lot of difficulty finding clothes that fit-- what the heck do pregnant teenagers do?? But I ended up buying clothes in the smallest size they had, and hopefully I will just grow into them. I am sure I will long for the days when I was too small to fit into any clothes, so I'm not complaining at all! Although the saleslady did get a little snippy with me ("those pants are too big for you. You need an extra-small. And we don't sell that here.")... even though I didn't even ask for her help!

Then yesterday for our first anniversary, we went for a hike in a nearby state park that has pretty waterfalls, and had a picnic lunch. Then we did some shopping, went out to dinner, and rented a movie-- a perfect day! My parents even got us a little cake from the same people who did our wedding cake, so we had that for dessert. It was Tahitian vanilla bean with raspberry preserves... yummm... I'm eating a piece of it right now and it is still just as delicious as it was a year ago.

Now Tyler is gone again, but only for a week this time. He does occasional jobs for the guy who did all the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park, and this time he's in Portland, Oregon dealing with one of this guy's traveling exhibits. It's good money for us, so I can't complain about him being gone-- besides, it's only a week, that's nothing to us!