22 weeks: hello, belly!

Here it is...

I like that you can see the dog's steps behind me that he uses to get up on the bed. Nice. I always feel like my belly is bigger than it looks in these pictures, though-- you're probably all wondering how in the heck I knocked anything over with that! It is a bit more cumbersome than you'd think, though, especially when you're not used to sticking out in front.

I've got to get to bed, but I do have to say... ever since the ultrasound, I've felt a lot more at peace with this pregnancy. I don't know whether it was seeing the baby, or having Tyler get all excited by seeing the baby, or feeling it move so much lately, or just passing the halfway point-- but something seems different now, and I just feel calmer and... expectant. Instead of always freaking the heck out over the little things.

Nice little trip to the hospital

Well, I had an interesting week last week. I'd have updated this weekend if I hadn't been so exhausted from it!

On Wednesday, I caught some kind of stomach bug and vomited for about 24 hours straight. Eventually I got so dehydrated because I couldn't keep anything down that I started feeling really dizzy and weird, so I called my OB and they sent me straight to the hospital. My blood pressure was a nice 90/40 (yikes) so they hooked me up to a few IV bags of this fluorescent green fluid to try and bring it back up. It finally did after a few hours, so I got to go home and didn't have to stay overnight. It wasn't all bad, though, because at least I got to see the pregnancy & birth center where I'll be delivering the baby! It's a really pretty and new facility with big windows and a great view, and all the staff were super nice. I mostly felt bad for Tyler, because I had to call him and tell him I was going to the hospital, and he was stuck in New Haven because he takes a bus to school. I really was fine, though, and it was nice to take Friday off from school to rest.

Anyway, I did my first filling on a real live patient today (yay!) and it went really well... things are good and boring here, but I'm in the middle of midterms, so I must go be a good little dental student and study!

Edit: okay, I forgot the two most important things I wanted to say.

1. The IV fluid stuff turned my pee fluorescent green! I know, you're jealous, it's okay, I understand.
   
2. I knocked over my (burning hot) straightening iron with my belly this morning... right onto my bare foot! Talk about a wake-up call-- hello, you're pregnant! Belly pic coming soon...
   

Does this baby make my butt look big?

Okay, I realize this post is going to make a lot of people want to smack me upside the head. And I could probably use a slap or two. But, I think this is something a lot of pregnant women struggle with, no matter how much weight they've gained.

It's so hard, especially when you've lived your entire life as a petite skinny person, to watch your body expand uncontrollably. Never mind what I started out at, or what I've gained-- I know I'm still at the minimum end of the weight gain scale for where I'm at in pregnancy, so it's not like I'm worried about it or anything... it's just kind of scary to watch yourself get bigger and bigger, especially when you've always been careful about how much you eat and how much you weigh. I feel hungry all the time. I eat constantly. I can't work out as much because I don't have much time with school and everything, but also because I don't feel as comfortable running as I get bigger. I really don't like going to the doctor every month and stepping on the scale. My OB is really strict about weight gain-- at my first appointment, they told me I should gain about 20 pounds. 20!! I started out underweight, and everything I read tells me to gain 30-35 pounds (and realistically, that's where I'm headed). I just wish my doctor hadn't told me 20, because now when I inevitably exceed it, I'm going to feel horrible about it.

It's not so much about looking thin-- I know that I look fine. I can still see my fricking ribs above my bulging belly! It's just the idea of gaining all that weight, and wondering how long it will take to come off. I don't like to see the numbers on the scale go up, plain and simple. It's all in a good cause, I know. But it's hard to feel complacent about it when in our society, women are so trained to want to be ridiculously skinny, and we see these celebrities gain hardly any baby weight and lose it all-- and then some-- a couple of weeks after giving birth, and they're just practically worshipped for it. It's sick. And it messes with my head.

Seeing the baby on the ultrasound the other day helped a lot, though. I feel so in love with him or her that I'd gladly gain twice the weight I'm going to, if it would make the baby healthy. But, it doesn't stop me from feeling kind of uncomfortable in this new, bigger body.

I'd post my 21-week belly pic, but I know if I put it in this post, everyone would have to be all "you are so NOT fat!!!" which I do realize that I'm not, but I really am not looking for that kind of attention here. Just trying to get these thoughts out and try to come to terms with them, because I have a lot of weight still left to gain, and I'd rather be at peace with it if I can.

Big ultrasound!

Here are some pics of our baby-to-be from the big ultrasound today... we are so in love!

Classic profile shot

It was head-down for the first half, and did a somersault and was head-up for the second half!

I can't even stand how cute that is, except the arm looks a bit freaky...

This picture looks 100% exactly like me as a baby. At least, as much as you can tell on a blurry ultrasound pic.

Don't stick your tongue out at your parents!!

Why'd you guys have to wake me up...

And that's it! Well, there are other ones, but if you're really interested you'll have to check Facebook, assuming we are friends there. Those are the highlights, anyway. It was so incredibly exciting... the coolest part was feeling baby kick and punch and watching baby kick and punch at the same time! I also discovered why I only feel movement on my right side-- it's because my placenta is hanging out on the left.

It was so hard not to find out the sex, especially when she asked right before we went into the room if we wanted to know. But, we did it, and now we will all have our nice surprise in March! The baby was measuring right on with my original due date (the one given by my early ultrasound, not my LMP date) which is March 5.

Now I need to go study, if I can concentrate on periodontology without constantly staring at the baby's little face! (This is unlikely.) I have been on cloud 9 all afternoon...

[:D]

News story that terrified me

Since I'm never on here anymore, when I do get on, all I do is write a quick obligatory summary of everything that's going on around me, and maybe post a belly pic (no 20-week pic, though, sorry-- I forgot!), but I never talk about what's going on in my head anymore.

So, even though I'm smack in the middle of horrible midterms, I thought I'd take a minute to write out the mess of thoughts that is the inside of my brain lately.

I've been feeling pretty good physically--- the migraines with tunnel vision have slowed down to about once a week, and my only real complaint is my new symptom of back pain. (I have worried about a lot of pregnancy-related things, but I never considered the fact that my petite frame is not really built to carry extra weight, so I guess my back is starting to pay the price already.) I'm sure it's nothing to what I'll be dealing with in the third trimester! Anyway, feeling good is great, but it does leave a lot of time open for those pesky doubts to creep in...

My biggest worry is that I'm not in a place in my life to be a good mom. Yes, I still freak out about this. In fact, it only seems to get more pressing as I get more pregnant. This baby is coming whether we're ready or not, and I don't even have time to work on the nursery, or read any of my parenting books. How am I going to have time to care for and play with my baby when I have all this school stuff to contend with?? The thing that really got me going on this was a news story I read last week during class... I'm sure you've heard of it, I think I'm pretty late on mentioning it, but it was about this mother who had such a crazy busy life and tried so hard to be supermom that one day she forgot that her sleeping baby was still in the carseat when she got to work, and she went about her day until someone told her after like eight hours that the baby was there, and she raced out to the car and her baby was dead.

Seriously, I am shivering right now typing this. That story made my heart feel ice cold. I am sure plenty of people think "how could she forget her child?? What's wrong with her??" but really, I could see how it could happen. I am constantly racing around doing a million things with my mind always on something else, and if something happened to mess up my routine, I could definitely see something like that happening. I literally closed my eyes and sat there shaking in the middle of class. I can't imagine the guilt that mother must feel, my heart breaks for her.

So that petrified me to the point that I am now writing obsessive lists about everything I have to do so that I don't forget anything, and I now put my purse in the backseat every time I drive somewhere, so that I will do that when I have the baby and I'll see it if it's still in the carseat when I get to school and that will never, never happen to me. I realize I'm being a paranoid, crazy pregnant lady. But that story really shook me, because I know deep down that it's something that could happen to me, and really I'm mostly just afraid that my life is too busy to fit a baby into it. I want to give this baby the world, and I don't know if I'm even going to be able to give it the basic things that it needs because I'm just. So. Busy. I just couldn't stop thinking about this story all week.

Anyway, I know that things will fall into place and everything will work out-- it has to. There's just no way that it won't. Until I have this baby and we get a nice, stable routine figured out, I'm sure I will be terrified that I will make some massive screw-up like this. As a matter of fact, knowing me, I will probably always be scared that I'll do something wrong. But hey, maybe that's just motherhood. I wouldn't know.

I have so much more to say about other topics but it will all have to wait for another post, because I need to get going on my studying... but, last thing: we have our big ultrasound tomorrow!! I am so stinking excited that it's finally time to see the baby and get a picture of him or her...

Still kickin'

I wish I were more consistent about blogging these days. I know I'm going to want to remember everything about my pregnancy, even the difficult parts... but it's hard to keep up with it when I have so much going on!

School is... school. I'm in the middle of midterms-- I think I have an exam every week until December! I'm excited for all that to be over, because once it is, I have lots of clinic time and very little class time for the rest of my dental school career! I really like being in clinic... despite all the paperwork and running-around craziness and the fact that I sometimes feel like I'm just chasing signatures instead of learning things. I love getting in there and doing real-live dentist things... I forget about everything else for hours at a time, and it's wonderful to have an escape like that. And it's really wonderful that that's going to be my job someday! It's less exhausting lately, even with the midterms-- maybe I've finally gotten that mythical second trimester energy boost.

I've been feeling pretty good lately. The headaches have gotten better-- even though I still get one almost every day, they aren't the horrible throbbing tunnel-vision kind, so I can deal with that. I'm tired, but I'd be tired anyway, just like the rest of my classmates. The other day, one of the girls in my class said to me "Julia, I don't know if this will make you feel better or worse, but when I get really really tired and sick of school, I just think to myself, hey... Julia must feel about twenty times worse than me right now! And then I just get up and do what I have to do, because if you're here every single day, what right do I have to stay in bed??" I was like uh... thank you?... but really I don't feel that bad these days! Wait till I get towards the end, and then you can feel all inspired by my determination! (And I will wallow in it. Ah, yes, thank you, thank you.)

Anyway, I went to my monthly OB appointment yesterday, and the doctor said I was measuring around 20 weeks instead of 19 (and who knows where I'm really at in this pregnancy anyway, since I've never had anything resembling a normal period in my life). She said they'd get a better idea of where I am at my big ultrasound which is a week from tomorrow! Baby also flailed its little feet and fists away at the doppler when she looked for the heartbeat... I guess it still hates it. She said it was a little show-off, moving around so much and making so much noise that it took her a little while to figure out what the heart rate was. [:)] And I've gained 6 pounds, for those who care about those kind of things.

Here's the belly pic from 19 weeks (20?) on Thursday. I'm rebelling against maternity clothes lately, hence the Bella band:

So, Tyler and I are super excited for the big ultrasound next Monday! The doctor also said they'd probably do a 3-D one while we were there. And don't worry, ladies who commented on my other post: we are going to stay strong and not find out the sex. I hope. Tyler is weakening too, though.

And, we started our registry this weekend, which was so fun! I'd post the info so you could see the cute stuff we picked out, but I'd rather not have the whole internet know. Those of you who know me on Facebook can feel free to spy on the adorableness! Tyler went with me and was so good about checking everything out and discussing different options with me. He's a good sport. He did get a little crazy with a travel system at one point (clear the aisles!!) but overall he did a great job... and he looks pretty hot pushing a stroller... [;)]

Extractions, babies, and boobs

Well, I took out my first tooth today! It was so exciting, I felt like a real live dentist. Specifically, an oral surgeon. Who only takes out nice easy teeth in the bottom jaw, with lots of bone loss around them and a professor watching over my shoulder the entire time. [:)]

No, like the professor said, I should give myself credit-- I did the injections all by myself and they were spot on because she got numb right away, and I took out the tooth and put a suture in all by myself. I was thrilled. I wanted to do a victory dance around the room, holding the tooth above my head and flinging blood all around, but something told me, Julia, that would not be appropriate. So I settled for a big happy grin behind my mask as I set that big honking molar down on the tray. It was very satisfying, and almost made me not mind that I still haven't had five minutes to myself to stop by the dean's office and get the dirty details on taking time off.

So that's school. I'm booked solid for almost the next two months, so I don't know when I'm going to get time to see the dean! In pregnancy news, I've started getting these migraines... which I used to get occasionally before I was pregnant, but they are really monstrous now. It's this horrible throbbing pain in my temples, often accompanied by really scary tunnel vision. I had one almost the entire week last week, it just refused to go away. I kept calling my doctor and they kept suggesting Tylenol (which did nothing for it), so finally I just quit calling them and suffered through it. It was pretty horrendous... maybe they are related to my seasonal allergies and will get better soon. That's what I'm hoping for, anyway.

This weekend, we took our dog Franklin to his first obedience school class. He's a really stubborn little dog (miniature dachsund), and he will bite me if I try to get him to do something he doesn't want to do, so we decided he was going to need some training before the baby comes. He was actually pretty good. I was picturing a horrific scene where he bites the instructor, all the other dogs in the class and their owners, gets loose and tears around the store, knocks down all the shelves and everything on them, and somehow set the entire building on fire... culminating with Tyler and me getting arrested and him getting sent to the pound. You know, best-case scenario. But he wasn't too bad. He did bark at all the other dogs and people, and probably would have bitten the instructor if she had insisted on making him sit, but by the end of the class he was sitting for a treat and walking on a loose leash, so I have some hope for little Franklin. We'll see how the rest of his classes go.

Also this weekend, Tyler and I did a lot of work on the nursery! It looks really cute, I'll try to get some pictures up. We (okay, he) put up the bumblebee wallpaper border, and I finally caved and let him put up the crib. Our glider and changing table came in the mail last week, so we put those together too. It's all cherry wood, which looks great with the light yellow bumblebee color scheme. I love going in there and sitting in the glider while I look around the room, imagining what our baby will look like and thinking about how it will live there in just a few months. Our big ultrasound is coming up (just two more weeks), and it's getting hard to resist the temptation to ask what the sex is! But we are going to stay strong. I just want that super-romantic moment of Tyler telling me "it's a __!" in the delivery room, rather than having an ultrasound tech tell us while I'm laying on a metal table somewhere. I'm not great at delayed gratification, but I can do this... hey, I'm waiting through more than 20 years of school to get my degree, so I can wait a couple months to find out whether I'm carrying a daughter or a son, right?? Tell me to hold out, ladies, my resolve is weakening!!

So that's it for 18-19 weeks-ish. We're probably going to register sometime in the next few weeks too... another thing I'm really excited for! The second trimester is kind of boring in some ways, but it has its good points too. I love feeling the baby kick around in my belly. It's started to do this squirmy thing whenever I'm in lab (can't really blame it, there are 40 dental drills going at once in there), so that's a little bit of a weird feeling. Tyler still can't feel it from the outside, though, I'm still waiting for that!

Oh yeah, and to follow-up on an earlier issue... to my boobs, if you're reading this: ladies, I appreciate that all is in good working order, I'm really happy about that. But it's getting a little uncomfortable, so it would be great if you could quit testing out the merchandise, if you get what I'm saying. Just hang tight until you're needed (that would be sometime around March 5.) Sweet. Thanks. Kisses.