baby #2 - month 3

 

 week 9.  

top- liz lange maternity.  dress- missoni for target.

 

how far along- 9-12 wks (december 12th-january 8th)

due date- my phone's pregnancy app says july 17th- but my doctor is saying july 20th

weight gain- not really sure.  i think maybe 5 lbs

maternity clothes- i bought a couple of dresses to wear for work

symptoms- still exhausted.  a little bit of heartburn.  the real morning sickness has began with lots of fun sickness incidents.  also, i'm having to pee all the time- esp at night.

have we announced- we told our family for christmas and announced on facebook a few days after my appointment- so yes!

cravings- for some reason i saw a commercial for red lobster and i really wanted that.  shrimp.  and sushi.  so basically- seafood.  

aversions- nothing yet- but i definitely haven't been wanting sweets very much. 

am i showing-  the bump is definitely more noticeable.  

missing anything-  i really want sushi

doctor's visits-  my first visit was january 3rd.  we had an ultrasound and got to see baby!  i also had routine blood work and a pelvic exam.  hooray.

week 11 or 12?  i think this is actually 12.

dress- old navy maternity

oh, pregnancy, you are fickle

so the point of this blog is to be real about my pregnancy, and not just to sugar-coat it. there are many wonderful things about being pregnant (that i will try to blog about later), but there are other things that aren't so fabulous too. i try to post from both sides of the coin... here are some of my top mysteries/things people don't tell you about being pregnant:

1. buy your maternity clothes in your "pre-pregnancy size." first of all, if i could wear my "pre-pregnancy size" i would be. second, this is not even true because it seems the stuff that is "my size" is either falling off me or has in my final weeks become so tight i can hardly wear it

2. why are the panels of maternity jeans blue? sometimes i'd like to wear a WHITE shirt without having the world see a blue panel up to my chest.

3. speaking of: heartburn is so bad you consider burning your bras.

4. zofran will cure your nausea/morning sickness, but as a result you will be so constipated that when you finally do go you stop up your in-laws toilet(s), and flood their house, resulting in them buying new toilets for the entire house.

5. you shouldn't really "eat for two" but if so, then why am i starving ALL THE TIME!

these are just a few things that have bewildered me during this rollercoaster called pregnancy!

stomach maladies!

boy, has baby McFadden gotten mommy's stomach all out of whack. first it was non-stop cramping (this was before I had taken a pregnancy test). the cramping still comes and goes, but it was pretty bad to begin with. then came the constipation, which I really didn't mind- I mean, not having to poop = awesome. then came the nausea and vomiting, which has lasted through my current week (week 18), but seems to be tapering off! with that I was finally unconstipated, but won't go into detail. if you are friends with me on facebook you may have seen that I flooded the basement of my in-laws house, not once, but twice (all in 1 week and 2 different toilets). now, part of this was the fact that their plumbing is really bad (this is according to the contractor who was remodeling their bathroom and saved me from the 2nd flooding by turning off the water in the entire house), and part of it was me (and probably his other pregnant sister who stays there a few nights a week). thanks to me though, there are 4 new toilets in the house, and they are fancy!

my latest problem is the inability to feel full sometimes. i really felt it last night. for dinner we had breakfast and I ate 3 pieces of bacon, a couple spoonfuls of eggs, a bowl of cheese grits, 1 blueberry pancake and 3 pecan pancakes (pancakes were small). Dave and I then went to Target to get our nephew a present for his 1st Birthday Party tomorrow, and on the way back home I wanted a hot fudge sundae from McDonald's (they have delicious sundae's). I ate all of that and then drank a glass of milk. needless to say I wasn't awake much longer after all that! I hope this calms down. I hate feeling gluttonous!

Update on my OCD Baby List.

There are now 34 women on my list. 8 have already given birth with 1 due any day now. 5 of the babies were girls, 4 boys.

7 people on the list are related to me (8 including myself). All are cousins, with the exception of my sister-in-law. 2 have been born (boy and girl). Of those on the way 2 are girls, 1 is a boy, 1 isn't finding out, and 2 aren't at 20 weeks yet.

The next 5 babies due are all boys. After that it's 7 girls, 3 boys and 1 mystery!

10 are at less than 20 weeks with me being the next to find out. 3 of those have announced their pregnancies THIS WEEK!

I made this list to keep up with names b\c I want to be safe on the baby name front- so far I am. This thing has turned more into a kind of math project!

Let's just say that baby fever is in the air. Every day at work I come into contact w\ at least 10 pregnant women + a few with newborns! Must be a good time to have a baby!! Does this mean the economy is turning around?!

Next Dr.'s appointment is on Monday!!

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.

still "enjoying" morning sickness

so, i really thought i would be over the morning sickness by now, but obviously...

there has been no rhyme or reason to my sickness, no pattern, nothing. some people have it through the evening, some in the morning only, some all day. me? every 1-3 weeks depending... it started in week 8, then I was free and clear until week 11, then it came back again week 13, then week 14, and here again week 15 (although those both happened this week, they occured technically in 2 different "weeks" of my pregnancy). it strikes any time day or night, and doesn't care if i'm near a bathroom. ugh.

maybe morning sickness is a plague for McFadden or former McFadden girls. my sister-in-law April said she was sick through 6 months with both of her boys. and now, my sister-in-law Shannon, at 5 months is getting sick again after about a month of relief. luckily, i still have my Zofran, and I think I just need to take it daily, regardless of how I feel. Other than that, I've felt pretty good lately, the nausea, which i've had more of than the vomiting has slowed down since my visit to the Dr. on Monday. Morning sickness is a weird bird. According to Wikipedia, there is insufficient evidence to nail down one or multiple causes for why pregnant women suffer morning sickness. Some causes are basically a bunch of hooey, while others can't be proven b\c they are the same case for all pregnant women, and not all pregnant women get sick.

the worst part of morning sickness has been being alone when it happens. everyone wants comfort when they're sick, and I have, the majority of the time, been here alone.

there hasn't been a particular food cause either, random things, mostly healthy seem to have set it off- fruit, cereal, apple pie, potato chips, and mostly an empty stomach. Dr. Uma says I should be feeling better by week 16 though b\c I have no signs of a thyroid problem. so i'm holding out until Tuesday praying for the relief to come!

i'm hoping my blog doesn't lead people to think that pregnancy is just this big downer... I know morning sickness can have a sharp effect on the way a woman feels, and almost in a way, it still doesn't feel "real." I know things are really going to be coming along in the next few weeks though- feeling the baby move, knowing the sex, wearning actual maternity clothes! I should be coming upon the time where I feel the best in my pregnancy, and I can't wait to share it all!!

names, insurance, and other nonsense

my sister in law's results were confirmed: it's a girl! the first girl grandchild. although, i was hoping it would be me, I digress...

with finding out the sex of your baby, (and even when you don't) you must pick names. i just recently bought 100,001 baby names, or as it should be called 99,999 stupid baby names. I guess I shouldn't say stupid just b\c i'm not going to name my baby some Scandanavian name, but I am having a really hard time with names. I used to have all these names picked out that I loved, but now I am older, and some of those names could be catagorized with "Apple Martin" rather than being a good baby name. Anything I seem to pick out, Dave hates. Dave also is dead set that we're having a boy, and therefore has vetoed every girls name I have suggested to him; even going so far as to refer to our child as the boy name that he has picked out. The one I told him was "ok" and that hasn't been set in stone yet... So as the field of names that I like (i'm in "J" in the baby book and have selected maybe 5 names) is getting smaller and smaller, I'm trying to figure out what to do. I have ridiculously made a list of everyone I know who is expecting since we have found out we were expecting. From that list I have tried to list whether they are having a boy or girl, and from there what name they have picked out if they have made it public. My list is at 30 people. THIRTY. So far, 4 have given birth. Also, so far, only 7 are having girls, 1 isn't finding out the sex and 10 aren't far enough along yet to know. Also, in more craziness: only 5 of these people are due after me. This presents my problem. People are so weird about baby names. Some people don't tell (i have considered this), but most people don't want you using their name. This means I've got to wait out 25 people worth of baby names and pray to God above that none of these people use my names. Because I'm telling you now, once I pick out a name that I like, and husband agrees on, nothing is changing my mind. NOTHING.

Of course, we also have 5 weeks to go until we find out the sex, but still...

Today is week 15. Threw up yesterday, hoping that by NEXT WEEK that this is all behind me. Of course, my sister in law is still throwing up at 22 weeks. I'm also waiting on my hair to start growing Rapunzel-style. I had these really long Freddy Krueger-like nails, but they started breaking off one by one, and yesterday I had to trim them all down to a suitable length. Now they just feel weird.

I'm sleeping better at night, thank the Lord. Yesterday at my appointment I asked my Dr. about sleeping on my back. She said eventually I wouldn't be able to because it wouldn't be comfortable, but for now, i'd be fine. She also said that women labor on their backs, and that non-pregnant people sleep on their backs all the time, and none of them are dead yet, so that I would be fine, and that she wishes those books wouldn't have some of the info that they have in them.

The worst thing to come out of this may be with our insurance. We just switched to United Health Care from Blue Cross/Shield of GA with our move. My doctor's office has 2 locations: 1 at Sherman Hospital (which is completing construction on a new state-of-the-art building due to be finished in December), and one at St. Joseph-Provena. I chose Sherman for obvious reasons. My Doctor is awesome. Not only is she young and very friendly, and knows her stuff, but she looks like Uma Thurman. She's great! When I was leaving the office yesterday I saw a sign hanging in the waiting room that I wish I hadn't seen...

"Attention All United Healthcare Patients" (you know this can't be good)

Basically, the sign says that contract negotiations between Sherman and UHC have reached a stand still. On June 15th Sherman sent UHC a letter to cease operations between the 2. The contract expires in October. We will be continuing to try to reach an agreement with UHC.

By this time I will be 6 months pregnant, and will not be wanting to look for a new hospital or doctor. I don't even want to do that now at 3 months. To top this all off, there was an article in the local paper a few weeks ago saying that St. Joe's will no longer be delivering babies and sending all their patients to Sherman.

Should having a baby really be this difficult?! Just be praying for an agreement between United & Sherman b\c starting all over with a new Doctor\hospital would be the pits.

week 8 = not so great

So, week 8 came and went and it was the worst week so far. I finally threw up Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights followed by Saturday morning. I say finally b\c although it's not fun when it happens, throwing up beats the constant nausea, gagging & dry heaves. Beautiful, huh? I also have my 2 other companions: heartburn and indigestion. Yay. I really felt like I was going to die most of the week... Friday was probably the best story of all. I threw up in the grass walking to Dave's car. It was right in front of his neighbors. I'm sure they thought I was enjoying a night of drinking. I just wanted to wave them off and say, "it's ok, it's only morning sickness." I have taken the liberty of taking myself off my prenatal vitamins and replacing them with Flinstone's gummies 2x a day, as my CNM in Conyers had told me I could do. My sister in law also gave me the leftovers from her Zofran Rx (is that legal) for her sickness. I took one last night with the onset of nausea and it was awesome. Other than that I have been sucking down a lot of gingerale- yummy!

In 2 days I am flying home for the rest of the week(end). Hopefully I will be ok for the flight- i'm a little nervous about not feeling well. Sunday we will probably drive back and I'm more nervous about that- constantly having to stop for bathroom breaks and eating! So far I have been fine, and tomorrow begins week 9- so hopefully things will be better. Tomorrow is also my 28th (GASP) birthday- so I hope I feel well- b\c I'm probably going to be spending most of it getting my Illinois drivers license and license plate. Boo. Did you know that I have to retake the driver's test and provide 461 forms of ID. True Story.