Our Other Babies and the First 17 Weeks

Here is a photo of Tux and Tails, our other babies. If we can take care of our pending arrival as much as we do these guys, we will have one spoiled kid! I know not everyone is a cat person, but the stories we could tell you about each of these cats could soften those of you up who are not cat people. Tux likes to be left alone for the most part and will take affection on his terms - usually hides in a closet when we have company. Tails thinks he's a dog half the time, or a real baby, with the way he snuggles in or puts his head on your shoulder when you carry him. It will definitely be interesting to see what they do when the baby arrives. Since my sister and brother both had cats at home when they brought my nieces and nephew home, we know to bring in a blanket or some article of clothing with the baby's scent on it before we introduce the baby to them. I'm sure we'll have some good stories!

I said I would recap my first 17 weeks, since I didn't start this blog until a week ago. Essentially, I was sick ALL DAY EVERY DAY. I lost weight between my first 2 appointments, and my body only craved carbs. I pretty much lived on pizza, which I LOVE, so the next time someone asks me the question, "if you could only eat one thing for 2 weeks, what would it be?" I can actually answer honestly that i've done that with pizza! Breakfast was usually toast. Gradually I was able to add in cheese quesadillas, but had to be careful of what kind of cheese b/c the Mexican stuff I think had too much of a kick. Thankfully, I never had a headache the entire time, which I thought was odd since I was not eating a lot or keeping a lot down. I had the typical fatique, and took naps quite a bit, or fell asleep on the couch in the evening while watching TV. Anyone who knows me knows I am a real night owl and also that I never nap. I probably took more naps since January than I have in the past 20 years! I am a very active person, usually at the gym 3-4x a week doing spinning, kickboxing, pilates, willpower and grace...I like that sore feeling after a workout. Now? Have not been to the gym since the first week of January. Absolutely driving me insane, as I feel like i can actually FEEL my muscles atrophying (sp?). My big workout now is a 30 minute walk, which I have only done about 3x in the past month and a half anyway. But now that the weather is getting nicer, my plan is to walk at lunchtime on the track across the street from my office - a nice benefit of working in an athletic facility! I also bought 2 pregnancy workout DVDs, but have only done one of them all the way through ONCE and the other about halfway through. The one i did halfway is done by some chick that was a Cirque du Soleil performer. I did a lot of research and supposedly it was one of the best pregnancy DVDs out there, but I think I've scared myself thinking about some crazy in shape former performer and the exercises she is going to put me through. I did watch the whole video at least...honestly, it's hard for me to drive an hour home from work and then exercise. I would go to the gym at work before heading home usually, so I'm definitely being lazy about working out when i get home from work after my drive...of course, my busy season is officially over as of last night, so no excuses...but that's why I'm going to try to walk at lunchtime everyday...exercise and fresh air!

The worst part about being so sick was worrying that the baby was getting what he/she needed in terms of nutrition. Pizza everyday? My doctor, who I love, reassured me not to worry. now that i am feeling better I am trying to slowly incorporate good stuff back in my diet. I've missed my salads so much!!! I still have not eaten chicken since January - the smell alone drove me to the bathroom. Right now it's just a mental thing b/c the smell and looking at chicken doesn't bother me anymore. I had beef at the banquet I worked last night and everyone else around me had chicken, and I was fine. Just holding off for now.

John liked to say that when I got sick it sounded like the devil had taken over my body. I've had stomach bugs before, but I had to agree with him that it was like there was something inside of my body making that awful sound come out that I'd never heard before...oh yeah, there is someone inside of me...even Tux and Tails looked alarmed. often I'd run to to the bathroom with no time to shut the door, and they'd be in the hallway, and I'd glance out and see one or both of them occasionally with this wide-eyed look like, "what kind of animal is that that's in the house?"

John can tell you that I had a few mini-breakdowns where I just felt so awful I just honestly did not know how I would get through the full 9 months. Fortunately, he was there to remind me that i just had to get through that day. If you didn't know, I have a tendency to get carried away with my worrying, and of course this was no exception! i have to say that John has been very good to me and did a good job picking up a lot of my jobs around the house - like cleaning. But, we finally hired a girl to come in and clean the house every 2 weeks...she started last Thursday and I wanted to cry the house was so clean! And here I thought my standards were high!

otherwise, that's the recap of the first 17 weeks...it would have been a bit boring and gross if i had weekly updates going during that time to tell you how many times I got sick and what things I tried to eat that made me sick, don't you think? All of my bloodwork is good and the nuchal translucency went well too - that's a PREDICTOR test to tell you the likelihood of the baby having any chromosomal issues or neural tube defects. Our results were 1/10,000 for the chromosomal and 1/1,200 for neural tube, which the tech told me were very good results. Again, just a predictor, not a diagnostic test, and while there can be false positives and false negatives, I think I read the results are usually more tha 90% accurate. When I have my next appointment, I guess we'll find out if we should/want to do an amnio, but I'm not really worrying about that right now. We have an appointment on Monday, 4/27 for the level 2 (anatomical) ultrasound, and should find out if we are having a boy or girl. So if you don't want to know that, I'll try to remember to warn you when I do that post. I always thought I'd be traditional and want to be surprised, but have surprised myself now with wanting to know. My dad i think is the only one who does not want to know. Should be interesting to see how that works out. And then my next regular appointment is on 5/4.

John is off on this rare Saturday so we are heading up to Rutgers for Ag Field Day...hope to pick up some tomatos and a few other things for outside and meet up with my mom, brother, Cindy and Em and Fin and maybe some friends. Enjoy the beautiful summer like weather...it will be 85 degrees in NJ today!