Week 11

When Life Gives You Limes...Make Lime-ade

Home Doppler and Unreasonable Fear

I caved and bought a home doppler, which works by emitting sound waves that bounce off things in your uterus.  The main hope is that you hear a heartbeat.

At ten weeks, I knew it was a longshot, but we tried anyway.  Husband was cautious about the machine at first, and looked up several articles that explained the dangers and benefits of using one in early pregnancy.  After being convinced of its safety, he thought it was ok to use.  

I started that sucker up and searched for nearly ten minutes.  Nothing.   

At that point, I was ready to give up.  It didn't bug me as much as I thought it would.  Doctor's hate home dopplers, mainly because it freaks out the already freaked out pregnant woman and they get a lot of frantic calls when heartbeats can't be detected.  The reality of it is that heartbeats are not easy to find on a fetus the size of a grape.  Usually by the 14th week, they're detectable without much fuss.  Ironically, most pregnant women will not wait that long and will start searching at 10 weeks...like me.  Let the freakout begin!

Then husband decided he wanted to try.  For 30 minutes, he pressed the doppler to my abdomen and found nothing.  I was feeling a tad panicked at that point, not because we couldn't find the heartbeat, but because we had been using the doppler for a good 40 minutes.  Every site I had seen instructed use limited to 10 or less.

One midwife site actually posted that two minutes with a doppler is like 30 minutes with an ultrasound.  Knowing that midwives usually hate dopplers, and use only sound horns, I wasn't convinced of that little factoid when I read it.

Three days later, I've had time to obsess over the dangers of home dopplers.  Now I'm thinking the fetus is going to have a great life as a circus freak.  Did the sound waves alter his DNA?  Do sound waves give the fetus brain damage?  DEAR LORD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

Ugh.  All this and a genetic testing appointment next week to discuss CVS.  If it's not one thing, it's another, I suppose.  I'm trying hard to adopt the "Que sera, sera" approach.  Whatever will be, will be.

Danger! Danger Will Robinson!

So I've made a few discoveries while pregnant this time around.

1) I am a bloated whale and now weigh as much as my husband.

2) I have porn star boobs, which are unusable in a porn star way because of tenderness.  The husband grazed a nipple the other day and I thought he had accidentally ripped it off.

3) EVERYTHING IS DANGEROUS TO THE FETUS.

When I say EVERYTHING, I don't mean literally everything.  Air and water are not dangerous to the fetus.  But everything else?  The equivalent of Anthrax, apparently. 

This is annoying, to say the least.  I can't eat anything without fearing a third arm or two heads.  Fish is off limits, because of mercury levels.  Soft cheeses are unpasteurized, which is considered bad, although I see a lot of French babies around, so I question that one.

Here is the short list of things I can't eat according to my OB/GYN and Acupuncturist.  It's ridiculously long, and I am currently existing on organic, expensive dried fruit and beef jerky.  I'm like a pregnant frontier woman.

ACUPUNCTURE NO-NO FOOD

Gluten (that's EVERYTHING gluten, including bread and pasta)

Shellfish

Peanuts

Pureed tomatoes

Soy

Tofu

Cold anything

Milk and milk products

Refined sugar

Avocado

Raw vegetables

Salad

Fried food

OB/GYN NO-NO FOOD

Unpasteurized cheeses

Large fish

Sushi

Deli meats

Raw eggs

Sugar

Juice, in large quantities

Soda

Most medication for anything, including cold and flu

Artificial sweeteners

Caffeine 

Chocolate

So basically, if I combine both traditional and alternative medicines, I can't eat anything that tastes good.  Everything that tastes horrible, coincidentally, is totally green lighted.  

Not that I'm complaining, but I'm complaining.  I want chili cheese fries.  The FETUS wants chili cheese fries. 

Low blow, I know, but I'm hungry.

Prune

Week 10

Week 9.5 Sonogram

Olive or Grape?

Week 9

The Non-Glow

No glow.  I keep waiting for it, but the most I've gotten was a light oily sheen on my T-zone.  Where is that pregnant skin that everyone talks about?  

I do have that wonderful queasy feeling, however, that doesn't stick to just the morning routine.  It shows up at any given moment, whenever it feels like it.  There's no telling when I'm going to feel that weird saliva rush and then that gross lump in my throat that feels like I failed to swallow my last bite of dinner.  It usually appears in the afternoon, which I should be thankful for, considering my work schedule.  It would not be acceptable to vomit at my job, as you can imagine.

I haven't officially tagged it "morning sickness" because it's neither in the morning nor is it a full-blown sickness.  It's on the verge of nausea, but not completely gross like nausea.  I can't describe it other than it's gnarly and unrelenting, and I'm hoping it will subside soon.  I must add that I am extremely grateful it is not as bad as some have described it to be...some pregnant women have gone to the E.R. with dehydration because they've vomited so much.  

On the other hand, the bloating has been far worse than any I've read described on the Internet.  I'm huge.  Like, 5 months huge.  I look like I had a reverse stomach stapling.  Everything is engorged, including my boobs, which are porn star big.

But I keep holding out for "The Glow."  I just know all of this will be worth it when I have skin like Natalie Portman.  Right?  (Just say yes and we can move on.)

Sonogram Week 8 with a Psycho Bitch Chaser

After a harrowing episode with a completely psychotic screamy pregnant woman in the parking garage at the medical center (sonogram day), I realized I was pregnant too, and I didn't deserve any extra special treatment from strangers.  

How did I come to this conclusion?  From witnessing the wrath of the craziest road rager I have ever seen.  The freak kept screaming "I'M PREGNANT!  I'M PREGNANT!  YOU ALMOST KILLED ME!  YOU ALMOST RAN ME OFF THE ROAD!"  Key word:  almost.  Key point:  It was an incident I had no idea I had taken part in.  Key factoid:  Her car was twice as big as mine.  She could have run over my car a la Monster Truck Rally style.

Aside from the fact I was driving no more than 5 miles an hour when I supposedly nearly killed her and her unborn child, the woman was upset that I had cut her off in traffic to make the turn into the garage.  This point was made with great gusto and enthusiasm as she went bat-shit crazy five inches from my face, stomping around in her designer outfit while waving her BMW keys around in a hysterical huff.

Now, if she had calmed down long enough to let me talk, I would have apologized.  I honestly had no idea I had almost murdered her on purpose, not to mention the life growing in her womb.  No such luck.  Psycho killer couldn't stop screaming.  Obviously her goal was to scare me and everyone around me...not necessarily to resolve the situation.  I love getting verbally attacked by a mentally ill person right before a sonogram.

Back to the original point:  She was pregnant, or as she so eloquently screeched, SHE WAS PREGNANT!!

My first and only reaction was surprising.  So what?

So what that you're pregnant?  Why should I give a shit?  You're pregnant.  Maybe three months so, because you're skinnier than I am.   Good on you.

Well, SO AM I, you cow.  But I don't go around freaking my shit out and stalking people in garages when I'm pregnant and hormonal.  Get a fucking grip on your own crazy self.  

By announcing to the entire garage that she was pregnant, was she really expecting me to fall to my knees in hysterical tears and beg her forgiveness?  Was I supposed to cry out in shame, "I HAVE BROUGHT RUIN UPON MY FAMILY!  I WILL NOW DRIVE SUPER CAREFUL AND NEVER MAKE A MISTAKE ON THE ROAD!   BECAUSE ANYONE COULD BE PREGNANT!  ANYONE IN A CAR!"

Ugh.  The only thing I could say to her was an incredulous, "Wow.  You're crayyyy-zy."  The cashier taking my parking ticket looked utterly bored and annoyed.  I actually felt worse for her than for Screechy.

Not to mention she looked about 50.  It made me wonder, "Really?  You're pregnant?  YOU'RE pregnant?!  Wowzers!  Congrats!  If you can do it, there's hope for everyone over 35!"

Alas, she did not want to celebrate the creation of life in her old geriatric uterus.  She just wanted to go ape shit.  

I'd just like to take this opportunity to say this one thing about being pregnant...I realize I am not special because I am carrying a life in my body right now.  I realize that I don't deserve to have people treat me with kid gloves because I'm pregnant.  I also know that I can't expect to never have a traffic near-miss because I'm with child.  

Seriously, you crazy bitch, how the Hell is everyone on the road supposed to know you're pregnant?  And how am I supposed to never ever make a mistake while driving because of the slim possibility that the person in  the car I offend is knocked up?  Get over yourself.

Maybe you should hang a CRAZY PREGNANT BITCH ON BOARD sign in your window.  That would be almost as annoying as those yellow BABY ON BOARD signs that used to hang in the rear window of every yuppie Volvo in the 80's.

Are all BMW SUV drivers this fucked up?  Or is it just me being my usual freak magnet self?

Either way, I feel sorry for her fetus...not to mention her husband.   You look kind of stabby when you're mad.  Yikes.

Week 8

Raspberry!

Tiny Foot, Tiny Hand

Week 7