baby #2. month 5

how far along- 17-20 wks (february 6th-march 5th)

due date- i just tell everyone july 20th

weight gain- i've lost count.  the scale at my ob's office is so different than my home scale. 

maternity clothes- i actually packed about 90% of my maternity clothes back up.  i kept out 2 pairs of jeans and a handful of tops/sweaters.  why wear something that makes you feel bad about yourself?  i actually ended up going to old navy and buying their jeans (that i love), but i sized up a couple of sizes- i feel so much better when i get dressed now. 

symptoms- still feeling very nauseous, very tired AND i got a cold from ian that was just terrible.  thank goodness for the ob-approved list of medications (i love you sudafed)! 

cravings- i finally got my red lobster (thank you other pregnant girlfriends) and my other random craving was a sonic cherry limeade & a klondike bar- i wanted them together. 

aversions- nothing.  wow 

am i showing-  of course.  

missing anything-  at this point- i miss warm weather- which has nothing to do with a baby!

movement-  i thought i had been feeling some movement- but it was hard to tell b\c of where my placenta is- i can definitely tell now that the baby is moving!  woo.

doctor's visits-  gender ultrasound this month!  more below!!

boy or girl-  IT'S A GIRL!

notable and interesting things from  month #5 (it was a doozy)

-  i had 3 incidents this month that i guess can be chalked up to the worst heartburn of all time- but were scary as hell.  all 3 incidents were severe chest pain (like my chest was in a vice grip), shooting pain up my right arm and severe jaw pain.  don't ever google your symptoms- b\c google will tell you that you're having a heart attack.  i talked to my ob about it, and she wanted me to have an ultrasound done on my gallbladder.  apparently gallbladder issues are common in pregnant women.  i also had a blood draw done.  luckily, everything came back clear- but they did find a teeny tiny blood clot on my liver- which i just have to follow up with my regular doctor the next time i see him.

  

-  i had my gender ultrasound and the instructions i was given were to pee 1 hr 15 min prior to the u/s and then drink 32 oz of non-carbonated liquids in the next 15 minutes.  i knew it would be impossible for me to drink all of that in water- so i split it up among juice, tea & water.  i was doing well until i had about 2 oz of water to go... and then i lost all of it.  ugh.  it was the worst.  i couldn't even recoup all that water before the appointment, so i just went as is- and luckily i had to pee when i got there, so i must have retained enough for it to matter.  but yeah, i'm not built for all that liquid.

-  i ended up having to have 2 ultrasounds at my gender ultrasound to check my placenta.  i stated in a previous post that my placenta was in an anterior position- and the tech was worried that it was attached to my cervix (aka placenta previa).  i have a partial placenta previa right now.  this can be common in early pregnancy, but 99.9% of the time it corrects itself as your uterus gets bigger and moves things around.  you need a distance of 2 cm between your placenta & cervix to be considered in the clear of placenta previa- at my 20 week u/s i was at 1.8 cm.  i need just a tiny bit of movement.  i have to have a follow-up u/s at 28 weeks to see if  my placenta has moved.

-  baby is breech.  it's early, so no concern.  she moves a lot, certainly she has flipped back over...

-  we're having a girl!  we are so excited (dave is so scared).  ian had been saying for weeks that we were having a "gril"- and he was right.  since we couldn't all be together for the appointment, i had decided that we would have our tech write the gender down and place it in an envelope.  then i was going to do something cute- have a pink or blue filled cupcake made, buy balloons or an outfit and we would all find out together.  riiight.  dave & i didn't make it out of the hospital.  we opened the envelope in a hallway.  maybe next time?

and weekly photos....

17 weeks

cardigan- gap maternity

dress- modcloth

belt- target

 18 weeks

dress:  i am wearing my pal Rebecca's namesake dress from modcloth

19 weeks

 blouse-  modcloth

sweater- LOFT

skirt-  gap maternity

 20 weeks!!

dress-  modcloth

sweet boy.  he's so excited!

It's a BOY!

My 20 week ultrasound appointment was yesterday, and as confirmed 100% by the ultrasound tech. we have a boy! This should bring much relief to all McFadden's as Dave is the only male McFadden under 30, so now there is a new heir. I would put photos up, but my scanner refuses to work. We'll have to see what I can do to remedy that.

Can I admit I wasn't thrilled for about 10 minutes? Ok, I wasn't thrilled for about 10 minutes. I had my heart set on a girl, I was sure it was a girl. People said I had a " girl belly", the heartbeat was super fast @ all my appointments- which usually means girl. I just wanted a girl. I figured I would be right. I thought for sure when I looked at the initial picture that it was a girl, and then "IT" showed up in the picture, and it was not hiding. 100% Boy is what the tech labeled the picture. I have to admit, I felt sad, and then when the tech left the room to get the Dr. I broke down...

Me: "but i wanted it to be a girl, I don't want a boy"
Dave: "Mel, you said you weren't going to do this"
Me: "I know, but I really thought it was going to be a girl"
Dave: "it's our baby, it's going to be great no matter what"
Me: "i feel like such a jerk and an idiot, don't tell anyone I was so upset" (slaps my own face as to "slap me out of it")
Dave: "everything's going to be fine, we can have all the girls you want after this"
Me: "but you're the only boy in your family, we're destined to have a girl first"
Dave: "no, my grandparents had 3 boys & a girl, my uncle had 4 girls, and my dad had 3 girls and a boy, it probably skips a generation"
Me: "I'm going to be just like my grandmother and have 4 boys"
Dave: "no, you're not"
Me: "it's all because I bought that shirt at Old Navy Monday"
Dave: "you bought that shirt?! i told you to wait"
Me: "but it was so cute, and they were almost all gone
Dave: "oh, Mel"
Me: "really, I'm happy, we have a perfectly healthy little boy"

So I got on the phone yesterday and called a billion people- doubled our used phone minutes (thankfully we have plenty) and the more I talked to people and told them, the more I was absolutely thrilled! By 2pm, I was in full baby mode! I tried to pick out bedding, we talked a little about names- very exciting stuff. We still have a ways to go, but it just seems so much more real now! We couldn't be any happier! It definitely makes me less patient b\c I'm ready for January to be here now, but I'm going to try to savor my last 4 months and make the most of every day until our little boy makes his arrival!

One week to go!

It is ALMOST here (finally)! Just one week until we know if we'll be seeing pink or blue! I think it's definitely going to make things a little more "real." When you finally start seriously talking about names, registering, and doing all the other things in preparation for baby's arrival! I just keep having these thoughts that baby isn't going to cooperate and I'm not going to get to know, and then I'm really going to be freaking out!

On the house front we may be closer to getting someone in! We actually were expecting that our tennant would be moving in this week, but the Atlanta Housing Authority had other plans for us. We received our tennants voucher and filled it out on July 23rd. We sent that back to our real estate agent, who transcribed the info, and dropped it off at the AHA. 3 weeks later (2 weeks ago) on the 14th, our tennant called us to see if we knew what was going on because she had called the AHA and they had no records of her voucher being turned in. I called the AHA and Dave called our agent in a panic- the AHA had no record, and the agent had turned in our forms. We had to start all over again (it's a 3-4 week process, at least) with our prospective tennant having to pick up a new voucher. We are currently waiting on the forms to be overnighted to us- which means they should be arriving today. We fill everything out, sign it, and then either return it to our agent or to the AHA to wait again. The process consists of a credit and background check on Dave (to make sure we own the house and aren't in foreclosure) and who knows what else. Then the AHA comes to inspect the house, and when it gets the ok, our tennant finally has a place to live. I haven't seen our house in over 2 months :( I assume it's still standing...

Once someone is in our house, and we are receiving rent for it, we can move toward finding our own place to live. I wish I could say we'd been able to save money during the 3 months I've lived up here, but with my not having a job until about a month ago, it really hurt more than helped us. We've paid our bills, and eliminated some of the debt (Dave's car! All we have left is our student loans- we have no credit card debt)! We've saved some money not having to pay for cable, phone or the net, but our storage unit made up for that! We are hoping to receive something from the insurance company on our storage unit, and we have to put some money back into our "tax acct" (we used this money to take taxes out of my nannying paychecks since I didn't pay taxes). I think i've set a reasonable goal for us to be moved out of here by December (sooner would be better), but December allows us to save a lot of money b\c renting a house or apartment here will be more than our mortgage. We just need everything to go smoothly this time! In 4 weeks we will hopefully have someone in our house, and that's what matters!

I now need to get ready for work- today starts my 7 day work week- yes, let's pick on the pregnant girl.

no signs of relief

morning sickness is apparently never going to way. at least it seems that way to me. it's endless. at first I thought it would be gone by week 12- the end of the first trimester, nope. then a lot of people said they felt better by week 14- not me. then my Dr. said I should be feeling better by week 16- wrong. Although i haven't been physically ill in about a week, the nausea is awful still. I haven't felt well since waking up this morning, and my pill obviously hasn't had time to take affect. Here I have to be at work in about 90 minutes, and I feel like death. I had a similar problem at work on Saturday, where I worked only a short shift, but the last 2 hours were absolute torture.

morning sickness makes no sense. sometimes i have days, even a week where i've felt wonderful, but there are other times where every day seems to be a struggle. i am on my last refill of my 2nd prescription of zofran, 9 pills left, and I go back to the Dr. on Monday. Here i'm hoping that Dr. Uma will have some insight to why I still feel like death at nearly 5 months in!

In more delightful news we have only 2 weeks until we find out what flavor baby we are having. See poll to share your thoughts.

In even worse news we hit a roadblock with our house. Even though we filled out all necessary paperwork for the AHA on July 23, that our real estate agent says he dropped off, the city of Atlanta hasn't seen this paperwork and therefore we are not in the process of having our house approved. Here we thought that our tennant would be moving in during the next 2 weeks, and we now have to start all over. She has to go pick up her voucher all over again, which has to be filled out again, which has to be dropped off again, which has a waiting period of 35 days again, then a home inspection. It's a mess. So maybe by the end of September we will have someone living in our home. One can only hope.