I feel like an idiot.

Last Thursday (20w5d) I felt Phred's first definable "kicks". I'd been feeling movement since 15w5d, every now and again, sometimes every day, sometimes every two or three days. Bubbling, fluttering... I think the best comparison from my point was that it felt like the muscle tics you get in your eyes sometimes. But last Thursday it was three distinct movements, like someone tapping gently on my lower abdomen.

And then, nothing.

I didn't feel anything at all from Thursday morning until yesterday afternoon. I wasn't really worried, I figured he was just moving around so I couldn't feel anything. But yesterday was the five-day mark of not feeling anything, and all of a sudden I started freaking myself out.

Imagining how I would feel if Phred wasn't with me anymore. Imagining what I would post. How I would tell people.

I realized pretty quickly that that was just a bad road to be heading down. So I called my OB. They said to try eating something sweet then lie down and really concentrate on feeling something. And that I should come in the next day (i.e. this morning) for a heartbeat check.

Of course, as soon as I sat down once I got home, I felt more movement than I ever have before. And I felt her when I lay down to go to bed at night, which was a first. And then I felt her this morning after I had breakfast. And while I was sitting in the waiting room at the doc's office.

Hence feeling like an idiot. Fortunately, when I went in for the heartbeat check the nurse was really sweet about it, and said that they much prefer people to call and come in rather than being a wreck at home.

It was nice to hear his heartbeat again, and M came with me and got to hear it for the first time. So that was good. Even though I was pretty sure by that point that everything was fine, it was still nice to hear it. We had some fun with it too - at one point you could hear my heartbeat and Phreds at the same time, which was totally neat. We could also hear her kicking, and she was moving around quite a bit.

The nurse said that it's pretty common at this stage to go for a few days without feeling anything. Particularly if the baby's back is turned towards my front, so that he's kicking on the back side of the uterus. I also only have felt kicks down towards my pubic bone at this point, so I think if she's upside-down I probably can't feel anything from that yet either. So no more worries for the moment. And as he gets bigger it should become less and less of an issue.

The start of Grosser than Gross

You remember that game we used to play as kids? What's grosser than gross...? I have a vague recollection of some toy company or other coming out with sets of cards that had gross things on them. Or maybe I'm just thinking of the Garb@ge Pai1 Kids.

Anyway. I think I've entered the grosser than gross stage of pregnancy. You know, where parts of my body start doing things that I just never knew they would do. Or wanted to think about. First it was the snot. Then the bloody snot. Then "pink" toothbrush (which is really more like orange). The lastest grossout is that I've started leaking! I know that Megan mentioned squeezing and getting drops of liquid a little while ago, but I never knew about the leaking without any stimulation. I started noticing a little yellow spot in my bra from my nipples about a week ago. Then last night, it was a quarter sized spot! I knew about leaking once breastfeeding started, but I had no idea that it might start sooner than that. I'm only at 20.5 weeks! I did check on bbycenter, and got some reassurance from that, there seem to be plenty of other early leakers out there, so at least I don't have to worry.

And I have a feeling that there are more things that I've never heard mentioned before still to come...:-) (note: I am NOT complaining - it's more like bewildered amusement.)

Bellybutton fun!

I noticed this weekend when I was trying on some clothes that the hole my bellybutton ring was in was getting stretched. So I decided that it was time to take my little friend out.

I've never taken my ring out in the 11 years I've had it. It's amazing how naked my poor button looks now when I look down at it. Really, really strange!

Phred pics

Okay, so after my saga this morning, and approximately 6 hours (last night and tonight) fighting with my computer to get the scanner working again, I finally managed to scan a couple of u/s pics.

Here's a picture of Phred's phoot (towards the upper right, I have no idea what the stuff on the left is). And here's Phred! I think this pic is way cool - you can see the spine, ribs, arm / thumb in mouth, the other hand, the leg and other knee, and some facial features, including the ear.

It is just so incredible that all that is in my belly - and I really don't feel that different. I am showing a bit these days, which makes it slightly more believable, but it is still so hard to fathom.

I hate myself today *more updated*

We got some really lovely pictures of our ultrasound on Monday. Incredible resolution - I took them down to my sister's on Monday night, and we compared with her 18wk ultrasound pics, and ours were much more clear. I was so excited to take them home last night, scan them and email them to people! They gave us the usual strip of pictures on thermal paper, which looked great, and then also blew up a few of them and printed them on regular 8x11 paper. When I was halfway home from work, I flipped through the 8x11 pages to take a quick look at the ones on the thermal paper, which were the ones I was going to scan, but they weren't there. I figured that I must have left them in my computer bag, which is where I transferred them from in the morning, so I would remember to take them home and not leave them in my computer bag at work. ha. Oh well.

But, I came in this morning and couldn't find them! They're definitely NOT in my computer bag. Nor on my desk. Nor in the garage near where I parked, nor in the nearby trash can.

I am so flipping mad at myself. I really can't believe that I could be so stupid as to lose them! I tried calling the clinic, and someone will call me back to let me know if I can get more printed. I really hope that I can. In the meantime, though, I will persist in hating myself.

*update* WHEW! Just heard back from the clinic - the printed me some more pics, and I can get them today. So I can stop with the hating now. But the moral of the story is, don't give me anything important to look after! (Um... like a baby??? Hopefully that's a little harder to lose track of!)

*more update* On M's suggestion I went back to my car to look there again. As soon as I looked behind the passenger seat, I found the pics. They had slipped through the crack between the bottom and back of the seat. So I got myself all worked up for nothing. Sigh.

18w2d

We had our "big" ultrasound today, and found out we're having a ..... baby! We were really glad that we had decided not to find out the sex - it just seemed like it would be very anti-climactic to be told by the ultrasound tech. Not the right choice for everyone, but definitely for us.

She looked at all kinds of things, starting with the brain, which measured at 18w5d, so we're basically right on target. The next organ for examination was the heart - it was so cool, we could definitely see all four chambers of the heart moving in sync as the heart beat (and the heart-rate was 147bpm... according to the old wives, that indicates a girl). She looked at the kidneys, but I couldn't see those. The stomach was a black hole in the middle of the baby. The ribs and spinal cord were really obvious, as were the hands and feet when she pointed them out - you could see the bones in each very clearly. We got a really cute picture of one of Phred's feet! We also have a picture of his/her whole body, some shots just lying there, then a few more with the thumb in the mouth.

After the u/s tech was done, a doctor came in to look at a few more things. He wasn't nearly as playful or informative though - he turned the screen so I couldn't see it anymore, and basically just clicked around pretty quickly. He said he was checking the same things the u/s tech had looked at, as well as looking for additional abnormalities.

He gave us his little lawyer speak "Everything looks perfectly normal, but of course, there are things that can't necessarily be caught on an ultrasound". But the good news is that everything did look normal, no areas of concern whatsoever. Phew!

Aftter I wiped the gel off my belly (my belly button was full of it! and my belly ring did kinda get in the way, so M was angling again for me to take it out. We'll see...), we hung around for a while until my doc was ready to see us. She told us that the blood test we had done (the quad screen) for various abnormalities came back normal as well. Another phew.

And that was about the extent of the appointment. All around good news :-)

The other thing that my boss (who's also pregnant) mentioned to me the other day was that her belly button feels flatter than it did before. I immediately stuck my finger in mine, and sure enough, she was right! I've been making daily checks ever since. hehehe. It feels so funny!