Contractions update

I begged my OB to squeeze me in for an appointment yesterday, I really wanted another cervical check for some peace of mind. So she did. Following my usual routine, I walked over to the hospital from my office, about a 20 minute jaunt. It’s about the same amount of time whether I walk or take the T (subway), so I prefer the extra exercise.

I got there at around 11, and she finally had time for me at about 12:45. Whatever. She theoretically was only working until 11:45, so I was really pleased she stuck around!

Another cervical check gave similar results as over the weekend; long and closed. Whew.

After that, we chatted for a bit. I gave her the lowdown on what happened on Saturday night, she asked me about exercise (nothing since biking on Weds night / Thurs morning), and we talked about a steroid shot if the contractions picked up again. She also mentioned bedrest, but said that we’d give it until my appointment next week, and reassess at that point. In the meantime, NO exercise. Not even walking any more than necessary.

What really hit me about that was that although I was still feeling intermittent contractions, while I was sitting in the waiting room (after my 20 minute walk), I noticed that they were back to about 15 minutes apart. Later on in the afternoon I was late for a meeting, so hustled from my building over to where the meeting was, about 2/10 mile. And had more contractions during the meeting, now about 10 minutes apart.

So. Given that rather convincing evidence, I WILL be taking it easy for the next week. Rather than walking a report over to a co-worker to sign (different building again), I’ll put it in the interoffice mail. No biking, no weight lifting, and no golf this weekend. Sniff. Hopefully things will calm down, and we can avoid any further mention of bedrest!

My mom is a bit of a vitamin junkie, so she did some research on this yesterday, and came up with an interesting theory. I drink a ton of milk, about 40 oz (just over a liter) in a day. Which means lots of calcium. Which can cause muscles to contract. So she suggested that I take a magnesium supplement, which does the opposite. There is some magnesium in milk, but not nearly as much as there is calcium. I checked with the doc, and although she said she doesn’t necessarily think it will help, it won’t hurt, so she gave me the go-ahead. So I’m going to start that today. I think it makes a lot of sense – magnesium sulfate in an IV is one of the things they give people to stop contractions, so I think a bit of supplementation, especially since I don’t eat a lot of the foods rich in magnesium, is the way to go, since I am still having contractions intermittently. I’ll also go and see my acupuncturist tomorrow if they haven’t completely stopped by then.

I’m still not overly concerned, but I will be paying very close attention!

A wee bit of a fright

M and I babysat for my 7 month old niece on Saturday. It was the first time I'd babysat in the afternoon when her parents weren't around (I'd put her to bed in the evening before while they went out to dinner, but this was my first extended session without Mom or Dad), and unfortunately had an experience similar to Kath's recent encounter with her niece. The first half-hour or so was just fine, she was playing nicely with the two of us. But all of a sudden, the monster came out. She was pretty much inconsolable. I think she realized Mom wasn't coming... I was supposed to feed her a bottle at 4, then put her down for a nap. She wanted NONE of the bottle. Which didn't make sense because she hadn't had any of her veggies for lunch, since we'd been out. So I called my sis in desparation, and she told me that the trick she uses is to put her left hand on my niece's one cheek, hold the bottle with right thumb and forefinger, and lay the other fingrs of the right hand on the other cheek. Worked like a charm! She then took the bottle with no problem, and although she cried a little when I tried to put her down, I just left her in her crib and she quieted down pretty quickly.

During her nap, M went out with her stroller to check that it would fit into the back of the station wagon we're thinking of buying (actually, put a deposit down on it yesterday - item number one for baby finally purchased!). I sat down and read for a while. At around 5, I had my first "Braxton-Hicks" contraction. At the time I thought it was pretty cool, I could really feel my uterus, and how it was much more on the right side than on the left. Neat.

Nuzzles woke up from her nap at about 5:30, played nicely for a little while again, but just before dinner time proceeded to go on yet another screaming jag. She did NOT want to be in her high chair, her bumbo, her exersaucer, and even more vehemently did not want her dinner. Sis and I had discussed whether I should give her a bath, I was so glad that we had decided against that endeavor! Fortunately I did again manage to give her a bottle and put her to bed without too much fuss. I think she really just didn't want to be fed by anyone but mom!

M and I had dinner after that, and I noticed a few more "BH" contractions. On the drive home, though, I started to get a little concerned - they were coming about 6 to 7 minutes apart by this point, which, at 25w1d was not something I was really happy about. When we got home we did a little reading / internet checking, and as the universal recommendation was to call the doc if you were having more than 4 in an hour, I did.

I wasn't *too* worried because I wasn't having any other symptoms of labor - no discharge, no back pain, no real pain with the contractions... but the doc I spoke to said that I should come in just so they could make sure that it wasn't a problem.

So we had our first hurried drive to the hospital, leaving our house just before midnight.

When we got there I was really impressed by how quickly they had me on a bed and hooked up to the fetal heartrate and uterine activity monitors. I had another contraction pretty soon after they started the paper tracing - I was vacillating between being happy that I wasn't imagining things, and being worried that yes, I was in fact having contractions.

A midwife came in not too long after that to check my cervix. The insertion of the spec was somehow a lot more uncomfortable than it had been for any of the paps or IUI's I'd had... but she did get a look, and said that it was "nice and long, and closed". Also took a swab for a fibronectin test.

They then had me drink a liter of water, as one of the causes of contractions can be dehydration. I was pretty sure that wasn't it, given that I'd had over 80oz (2.5 liters) of liquid during the day and my pee was pretty clear, but whatever. Not surprisingly, it didn't have any effect on either the spacing or intensity after about an hour.

Next, a doc came in and said they'd like to give me a shot of Terbutaline to try and stop the contractions. I was a little iffy at first, but she assured me that it would not hurt Phred, and although it might cause me to feel a bit jittery / increase my heart-rate, that would only last for 20-30 minutes. After a little hemming and hawing, I said I'd "give it a shot" when she said she'd feel much better if I did take it. Unfortunately no-one seemed to appreciate my little pun :-(

The shot stung like a motherfluffer (thanks for the eupemism, Kellie), but it was sub-q and didn't last long. And it did slow the contractions almost immediately. I'd only had one more in the half hour after the shot, so they sent me home. Got to bed at around 4am. So much for golf on Sunday!

I did have a few more contractions the next day, but only about one an hour. So that was a relief. The only thing that does concern me at this point is that the fibronectin test came back positive. They were saying that doesn't mean anything, really, and that only a negative test is predictive. But I would have felt / would feel a lot better if it were negative.

So that was my fun for the weekend!

Biking etiquette and musings thereon...

I was so happy that it finally stopped raining! I could get back on my bike, and actually get some exercise. I have been having trouble waking up in the mornings this past week, and I wonder if it's due to the sharp decrease in my exercise from the rain (no biking and no golf!).

Yesterday evening I was really psyched to push some pedals, and rode my bike to my acupunture appointment. I was a bit annoyed when I was riding, becuase on three occasions, other people on bikes passed me, without giving me any kind of warning at all.

*I* always yell "on your left" when I'm passing another biker, and generally either yell or use my bell when I'm passing a walker / runner (sometimes I don't if the pathe is super wide and they're staying over to the right, otherwise I will). My feeling is that you never know when someone is going to make a sudden move, and I'd much rather be safe than sorry.

When I rode in to work this morning, I rang my bell to let a female jogger know I was passing her, then we both ended up stopped at a traffic light ahead. We chatted a little bit about the use of bells / yells - she said that in her experience almost every woman biker would do one or the other, where as only about 1 in 10 men would. I thought that was really interesting. Is it that men feel more in control and don't worry about a sudden move? Are they just less considerate? She also thanked me, and said that the warning is much appreciated.

My other pet peeve about this whole endeavour, aside from other cyclists passing me without warning is joggers / walkers / rollerbladers (the last are the worst because they take up so much room) who have their music on so loud they can't hear me! Again, not very safe. For either of us. I once yelled at a rollerblader, because I was trying to pass her and she couldn't hear me - when I finally just did it, she hit me with her swinging hand, and then had the audacity to give me a nasty look.

Then I have a whole different set of pet peeves when it comes to dealing with cars, but I'll leave that for another time.

Any other pet peeves on the subject to share?

Random collection

I went out to dinner with a friend last night, and got full way more quickly than I’m used to. I think my stomach must be getting squished now. I couldn’t even finish my dessert. And that has *never* happened before!

I still haven't done anything about setting up a nursery. Despite various people telling me that cribs can take months to get in, if you want to order one. I'm just not ready yet. We were going to go and take our first look at furniture a few weeks ago, but ended up going to a car dealership instead to test drive the station wagon we're thinking of getting. Somehow that is much less frightening to me than going furniture shopping.

I’m also mostly still wearing my non-maternity tops. I know that other people have complained time and time again, but maternity clothes really are awful. They’re just like big tents. As if I should be embarrassed about being pregnant, and do my best to make it look like no, I’m just wearing clothes that are 47 sizes too big for me.

But then sometimes I feel like I should be hiding it. There’s a woman at my office who has been trying to have kids for over 5 years. I had a feeling… she was telling me about her new puppy a little while ago and said something like, “since we don’t have kids, we figured we’d get a dog”. So when I officially came out at work, I happened to mention to her that it had taken us quite a while to finally get here. So we talked about it a bit. But I feel really bad for her – not only am I pregnant, but so are two other women I work directly with, as well as a few others in our department. I imagine sometimes how I would feel if I hadn’t gotten pregnant when I did, having the other two around who both managed it easily. And she must feel ten times worse, given that she’s been trying for so much longer. I don’t think there’s anything I can do though to make it better for her. Which sucks.

I think that Phred is still head up, because I have yet to feel kicks anywhere but way down low, by my “vajayjay” (thanks, Dr. Bailey). I’m looking forward to him going head down so I can actually see the movement, and M can feel it more than just once in a blue moon.

Speaking of Grey’s Anatomy, what a heart-wrencher on Sunday! I bawled my eyes out at the end. And then I almost bawled when Chris was voted off Id0l. What a shame. I *really* do not see what the judges see in Elliot. I completely thought that Chris would win it all. Of course, I never voted, so I can’t really complain, can I?

Pregnancy drive-by… with a Hummer and an Uzi.

I know that a number of other pregnant after infertility folks have mentioned that they still feel some pangs when hearing about newly pregnant people, despite their own change in status.

Well, I got to experience it first-hand the other night. I was talking to my mom, and she told me that my cousin had called and left a message saying that his wife is pregnant.

So you have some of the backstory... they just got married September of last year. He’s 21, she’s 19. They had been dating for only a year before their wedding. She has a part-time job at Petco, and he’s an apprentice welder.

I can't put a finger on how I feel. Flattened somehow. I *know* that it has no bearing on ME, but somehow I just can’t bring myself to be happy for them. Maybe just because it’s such a different life path than I chose to take, and I can’t even begin to comprehend it. Maybe because I was already worried about whether they would even make it, now there’s another worry to add to the pile – what about the baby?. I’m just trying not to think about it at all. Gah.

And the ewwwwww factor goes up a little more

One of the things that I did know might happen was the separation of my abdominal muscles. I noticed last week that when I was lying down, and lifted my head up, I could see a little lump going straight down my midsection, so I figured it was starting to happen. (Apparently the lump is the rest of your insides poking through the separation between your muscles)

When I did the same thing last night, though, I got quite a fright! My muscles seem to have separated quite a lot, so I could now see a lump about two inches wide running straight down my middle.

Weird. Really, really weird.

:-)

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!

Two things I hate about myself

I'm sitting at my computer, at work. It is godawful hot in here - my thermometer at the moment says 77.7 degrees. Lovely. (And that's not the worst it gets, by far - most day's it's close to 80 by the time I leave, at one point last summer it was 86.5!) My problem is that I'm a sweater. I don't glisten, I don't perspire, none of those nice girly things. I sweat. Usually my deodorant controls it relatively well, but when I get nervous, for example when I'm giving a presentation... well, not so much. When I'm presenting I also get sweaty *everywhere* - I can often feel the sweat running down the backs of my legs. Ugh. Anyway, despite the short sleeved shirt I'm wearing today, or perhaps because of it?, I've been sweating. And I get a whiff every now and again. Double ugh. I'm hoping that it doesn't worsen with pregnancy, although I'm not holding my breath. But perhaps I'm going to need to!

The other thing I hate is that I blush on a dime. Whenever attention is focused on me for any kind of personal reason (although fortunately not when I'm, say, presenting at work - then I just sweat), I can feel my face turning beet red. For example, one of my coworkers just came in to congratulate me on my pregnancy, having found out through the grapevine. We were having a perfectly normal conversation, what's my due date, how nice to be pregnant in the summer because clothes are less expensive, blah blah blah. And I can just feel the heat exuding from all the blood in my face. It's so annoying and embarrasing. As if I need to be more embarassed when I'm already there!

So, are there any physical quirks like this that drive you batty?

Since I'm uploading pictures, here's one of me in my hockey gear, which Pixi had asked for ages ago :-) 

Cake side

Unfortunately the pictures didn't come out that well, and don't give you a great sense of the scale, but here's my cake in all its glory.

Cake top

And here's the top of the cake. I was pretty proud of how straight I managed to get the writing, and how I made it all fit without obvious squeezing (I usually start out too big, and it just doesn't go well from there), but it looks a lot messier in the pic than I thought at the time. Oh well!

Top ten things I learned on Saturday.

I spent ALL DAY on Saturday baking cakes for my FIL's 65th birthday party, where we expected about 80 people. I was planning on baking four 12x12 square cakes - to make a two layer 18x12 cake, and an extra 6x12 just in case the first wasn't enough. Top ten things I learned during the day:

1. Never, never, EVER take my wallet out of my pocketbook. I got up bright and early (8am) to go to the shops to pick up the various ingredients I needed. Had a nice drive over to Wh0le Foods, picked up the 5 packets of maple sugar, maple syrup and maple flavoring that I needed (making a maple cake). Put them on the conveyor. Then realized that I'd taken my wallet with my credit card and bank card out of my pocketbook the day before and put them in the pocket of my coat. Which I hadn't worn. Argh! Add an unnecessary half hour of driving on to the day.

2. When the recipe tells you to add things in a certain order, they really do mean it. The Cake Bib1e (best cake cookbook EVER!) tells you to add the butter, then the milk, to the dry ingredients. For my first try I added the milk first. The butter never mixed in nicely. So although the cake didn't taste bad at all, the texture just wasn't right. Nor did it rise properly. Gah.

3. Don't jiggle a cake that really looks like it's not cooked! My first attempt cooked in 25 minutes. Which was less than I was expecting, but it was definitely done. So on my second attempt, where I mixed the batter correctly, I opened the oven to check the cake after 25 minutes. It was still looking pretty pale, so I didn't think it was cooked. I gave it a little jiggle just to check. Bad, bad idea. The whole thing just went phbttttttt. Number two relegated to the vultures at work.

4. Don't turn off the oven in the middle of baking a cake. Fortunately this happened for the second cake, so I didn't ruin a third one! After it fell, I was trying to shut off the oven timer. By mistake I pressed the "off" button for the oven instead of for the timer, and didn't realize it for another 10 minutes.

5. Don't invite people over for afternoon tea, assuming you'll be finished with your baking by then. I had been trying to get together with my sister and niece, and a very good friend of hers with her 1.5 year old daughter for ages. We all finally had Saturday free - I thought! Needless to say, with two more cakes to bake than I had originally thought, I was not a very good hostess.

6. Putting 60 egg shells down the garbage disposal all at once is a VERY bad idea. I had been piling them up throughout the day (each cake took 6-7 eggs, each batch of frosting another 6-7), and shoved each pile down the garbage disposal with little time in between. Just as I put the last batch down, the water in the sink started backing up. Turns out I had basically filled the entire drain from the sink to the trap with egg shells. Took us almost an hour to clean them out the next day.

7. Showering before going to a birthday party really is optional. So my choice was between getting the cake done on time and being clean. I went with the cake. tee hee.

8. Don't let the serving staff take the cake away from you. There should have been a fair amount left over... yeah.

9. Don't put on your going out clothes before frosting the cake. I ended up with a big splotch of frosting on my stomach, and didn't notice until about half-way through the evening. Fortunately it washed out pretty easily.

10. No matter how much trouble it is, the accolades at the end are worth every bit :-) I'll post a picture later today.

Psyche!

Had my 14 week appointment today (14w4d). When I was taken back, the nurse told me that I had to have an early GD test. I was a bit surprised, because I thought that didn't happen until 28 weeks... but whatever. She apologized for not having the drink ready for me, and went away for a couple of minutes to get it. When she returned, she told me to take my time, and let her know when I was done. It wasn't nearly as bad as I had anticipated (although this anticipation was for 14 weeks from now). It was only about 6 oz, and tasted like super-sweet coke. She then said that I'd have to hang out for an hour, and have my blood drawn at that point.

The rest of the appointment was pretty fast. Checked on the heartbeat (nice and strong!), weighed me (up 5lbs since the last appointment. I'm telling myself that at least a bit of it is because this time I was wearing clothes whereas last time I was wearing a fancy johnny :-), and took my blood pressure. The doc came in to see me after that.

I didn't have many questions for her, except to ask about whether I need to modify my weight-lifting routine at all (answer - as long as I'm not getting dizzy or light-headed, and feeling fine, I can keep up exactly what I'm doing), and about the whole lying on the back thing (answer - try not to sleep on your back if you can, but don't worry about it if you do happen to wake up that way. Also, okay for shorter periods of time (like for situps), again, as long as it's not causing any dizziness or light-headedness). And finally, is it okay for me to ride my bike out on the road? (answer - as long as I feel balanced and okay with it, totally fine for as long as I'm comfortable).

I was so happy to hear that. I stopped playing ice hockey at 12 weeks, and have moved to using a stationary bike and elliptical instead. It flipping sucks!!! I'm so used to having FUN while I exercise, either playing ice hockey, volleyball, or riding my bike to/from work (the latter is not exactly fun, but it has a purpose). The whole stationary thing is for the birds. I wasn't sure I could keep it up throughout however long this lasts, much as I want to for my health and Phred's (I highly recommend the book "Exercising through your Pregnancy" by Dr. Clapp for a scientific dissection and debunking of many of the arguments against exercising while pregnant). But if I can keep commuting on my bike, I can definitely handle it. Whew!

My last question - why exactly am I doing the early GD test? answer - psyche! I didn't actually have to do it. Apparently they normally will do the early test if you have any signs of glucose resistance (or is that insulin resistance) such as might be seen with PCOS. But since I don't, no need for it. Hahahaha. At least I didn't find the drink too bad.

On a different note, I went shopping for shoes on Saturday at some outlet stores near here. Don't go getting all hot and bothered - these weren't fun shoes. My daily brown and black shoes are over two years old, and definitely worse for the wear. Time for new ones. There also happened to be a maternity store there. I thought I would go in and get a pair of jeans - my regular ones don't really fit any more, and the larger sizes my sister had given to me were too small for my hockey thighs. I couldn't do it though. Walked in, flipped briefly through a rack of jeans, and totally freaked out. I told M "I'm not ready for this yet", turned around and walked out. I don't know exactly why I was so uncomfortable in there, but all those clothes frightened me. I guess I've never been one for shopping in the first place, and seeing all that stuff just overwhelmed me. I might have to get a personal shopper for it instead ;-)

Don't get caught!

I noticed last night that I can feel the top of my uterus now (12w6d today), right around where my panties sit. I'm so fascinated, I just can't stop feeling it. Just have to make sure no one sees me!

All's quiet on the western front...

Thanks so much for your reassurances, everyone! I had read in various places that one could expect any nausea to go away around the twelfth week, but never that ALL 'symptoms' go away. But it does sound like it's pretty normal for that to happen.

I also stopped taking the Prometrium suppositories last weekend. No more pantyliners, no more goop, no more sticking my finger up my... well, you know. It wasn't actually too bad, especially since I was only taking them at night time, but still, it's nice not to have to deal with it.

Another week and a half until my next DA. Getting to go every two weeks was so nice. I'm used to the two week wait. Four weeks seems to pass so much more slowly. Especially when nothing is happening!