First Ultrasound

The ultrasound was AMAZING. It was just the best day ever. That baby was waving and doing things with its' fingers the entire time - we'll show you the 'alien baby' pictures. He/she is 4.2 cm long and they advanced my due date to the 28th of June - even better. Nothing came up with the genetic counsellor and the nucol test (a bunch of tissue at the base of the baby's neck/spine) was totally fine. Will see if anything shows up on results of blood tests this week or next, when I have an appointment with the nurse/midwife.

Soapin' the Belly

NOW I've gained weight (3#) and I definitely have a tummy - I get a big kick out of soaping it in the shower - my buddha belly. Wow, your mom was teeny tiny like my mom was. Space, ah space. I imagine we will not worry about space so much the first year or so of baby's life (while we are recovering from the kitchen remodeling and being new parents) - people all over the world don't have McMansions and put babies and children wherever they can (think New York apartment dwellers). When we're ready, we'll either go up or down or out or some combination thereof.

Baby is growing from PRUNE sized to APRICOT sized

I feel really good and my lower belly is starting to grow like right above my pubic bone, but I won't feel any movement for awhile. One of the books I am reading uses food to relate the size of the baby (rice, bean, cashew - this week a pitted prune - and starting next week, things are supposed to kick into overdrive and we go to a small apricot, then peach slice to mango, to pear, to banana if I remember the order correctly) which is so hilarious to me considering that we are both such foodies! So this week it's our little prune! I think this is the week the baby starts peeing. Isn't that funny? Amniotic fluid is just a bunch of baby pee (amongst a lot of other things). I guess it passes through the placenta and then my body has some way to rid itself of it. So I'm peeing for 2 also! I still sleep alot, but the nausea seems like it is pretty much over or so minimal (mostly in the middle of the night when I get up to go to the bathroom) it doesn't affect me (my mom said she never had any with my brother or myself). I'm not gaining weight, which is sort of freaking me out. We have our first ultrasound and the first of the triple-screening tests next Friday at Swedish in Seattle - I can't wait! This is just the coolest thing I have ever experienced in my life. 9 mos. sounds like a long time until you break it down to weeks (it's actually 40 - longer than 9 mos). I start my 11th week on Tuesday. So we have 38 weeks to get a kitchen completely remodeled and a porch built!

Q and A on Midwives

So, anwers: A midwife is a certified nurse who has as much school as an a medical doctor, but with an emphasis on women's healthcare and delivering children. From what I understand, one of the major differences between a hospital delivery with a doctor and a home birth with a midwife is that doctors view childbirth as a disaster waiting to happen and midwives view childbirth as something that women have been doing for centuries and a very natural process that typically goes off without a hitch. With a midwife, home delivery, it is your birth, you can have the baby in bed, squatting on all fours, in the shower, standing up, dancing, or whatever feels right/good to you. I don't know if she does the ultrasound or if she sends me to an ultrasound tech - it seems like everyone specializes now (which typically I think is good for the best medical care). From what I understand, I will have the option of having something for pain or not. I want to have a natural birth, unless there are complications. I am only going to do this once in my lifetime, so I want to feel it no matter how much it hurts. I can't imagine having an epidural and not feeling it or feeling like I am in control of the process. I will know more at this time next week.

The genetic counselling will look at both Joe and my family's health histories and see if there is anything that we should pursue with testing that might be an inherited abnormality, but I don't think we have anything. It has nothing to do with the baby's sex. I would rather be surprised about the sex and have no preference, just a healthy baby. We're not the kind of people to do some 'theme' room or baby decor or anything like that (we don't even know where we are going to PUT the baby!) and I loathe the color pink, so unless we see something danglingg on an ultrasound or I change my mind, I'd rather be surprised! I'll tell people as soon as we have an ultrasound to confirm everything is okay. I think Joe is telling his boss today (because they will need to plan ahead as the baby is supposed to come between green beans and blueberries), but asking him to keep it a secret until we are in the clear. The naturopath says 12 weeks is the magical miscarriage marker. Everything I've read states that, aside from jumping off a building or scuba diving into the depths of the ocean, there is nothing you can DO to cause a miscarriage. I tend to think more about the 70% chance of everything being A-OK and going with that instead of being fatalistic. 

One ultra cool thing is that General Mills has paternity leave, so Joe can take weeks off, work from home and check crops in Skagit and California as needed, but mostly he'll get to be here full time while we are fumbling around and figuring out what in the heck we're doing. 

I think I'll at least be missing my waistline by Christmas because my belly is already fuller - I'm not sucking it in anymore - ha ha!

And the Nausea commences

Well, I am feeling very slight nausea and understand the key is to eat 6 or 8 very small meals a day instead of the usual big 3. Apparantly, the medical community is too busy trying to make millions treating erectile dysfunction to waste much time studying trivial little things like morning sickness, but I have a whole list of remedies and so far...so good. I also understand that it only affects half of the women and ranges from very mild to quite severe (as in hospitalization with intravenous fluids to make up for everything that ISN'T staying down). I do get up to pee a million times in the night as my growing uterus containing the growing Hale Hale bean is sitting on my bladder for awhile here (and tell me if I am giving you more info than you want :). We get to go meet the midwife the Monday of Thanksgiving week and hopefully get to do the first ultrasound then. I talked to her on Friday and she estimated my due date to be around the 5th of July. I hope we like her. I read a book called The Babycatcher a friend loaned me about a year and a half ago. It's about a nurse midwife. When I started reading the book, I couldn't imagine having a child at home and by the time I finished the book, I couldn't imagine having a child in a hospital. I'm crossing fingers, toes, everything but my eyes that we like her, she likes us, the pregnancy is uncomplicated, etc. and we can have this baby in the living room. We go to Seattle (relief) for genetic testing.

I went to Hawaii and I all I got was knocked up!

I don't feel that different, which is why I was convinced that TWO pregnancy tests had to be defective. Some areas seemed fuller (but you know how you gain and lose weight there so easily anyhow). I don't have any nausea at all (yet) but I am so tired. I could just sleep, sleep, sleep. It's a little frustrating - am so used to being Action Jackson and Charles in Charge. This morning we went for a run (which is okay, even encouraged - everything is okay except scuba and high impact aerobics - even boxing is okay if you can believe that, just no high kicks), had breakfast, and then I felt like I had been awake for 3 days. I am going to give you my fertility book when you are here. I learned so much about my body from that book. One day, you'll be ready to pull it out and figure things out too. I go to the doctor tomorrow.

It was wierd, though. We were in Portland last week eating at this

restaurant we love and Joe told me that he didn't think I should have a

glass of wine with dinner, that he just had a feeling and he told me

that my smell (like my skin and hair) was different. Jess, he knew...

BIG NEWS!

BIG NEWS!

While Jess went off to teach all of the little Big Islanders to play their violins and pianos and Alex went off to inspect the peaks and bowels of the island abodes, Joe and Terry made a little Hale Hale on the 10th of October - I told Joe that would be the best 40th birthday present he could give me. Jessica, you were right! So there's magic in that little room of yours looking up at that big green hill and watching the clouds fly across the big blue sky.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

We found out last Thursday and I was in a state of complete and utter disbelief (semi disfunctional) the entire day. I was glad I had purchased the 2-pak of p-tests, because I thought the first one must have been defective when it came out positive. It was quite comical had you been a fly on the wall. I went straight to the library Thursday night and picked up books for the pregnant and clueless and have had my nose buried since. Don't wig out about the wine consumption while we were there - for a week(ish) after conception implantation doesn't occur, so the grain of sand we are calling Hale Hale wasn't getting anything from me yet.

Before Terry even knew she was Pregnant Post Hawaii

THANK YOU BOTH A MILLION for a super great, ultra-relaxing time in your not-so-big island. Joe has some totally amazing pictures we will share with you when he is through doing all of his Photoshop magic. The Waipo Valley and botanic gardens shots are mind-boggling - you'll see. I returned re-invigorated and re-energized about this damned little yellow house (NO idea where in the hell we are going to put a bambino if we can make one - Joe seems to think it isn't an unsurmountable problem - I seem to think I've been shoehorning and getting rid of things continuously for the past 7 years and we are busting at the seams...). I decided 'if Jess and Alex can build a house, I ought to be able to at least fix a toilet' and crossed that one off of the list this week - no more drippy, leaky potty - it's Plumber Terry! My big test was whether or not I even wanted to stay in this house after being in your beautiful and spacious abode and reportedly, I still do. Joe must have been inspired by the water filter in the fridge, because he installed a purifier and we are through hauling cases of bottled water from Costco - thank you! I've kicked the kitchen plans into high gear and will be bouncing ideas off of you as soon as I have something concrete - I have to have everything completed and ready for a contractor bids by Turkey Day.

We are doing a trial with NetFlix (thanks for the reco) and watched our first movie last weekend (The Corporation - very depressing) and have Ghengis Blues ready.

Made curried tuna sandwiches last night and they go on the permanent menu - another memory from Hawaii.

Amos is in failing health - bummer - he gets to do weekly subcutaneous fluid injections until I decide it's unbearable for him (and us) and we give him the big ticket to kitty heaven injection.

Going to Portland with Joe next week to check out a business and visit the stainless steel counter fabricators.