11 weeks

Baby's getting bigger. Depending on the source, he or she is either the size of a fig or a strawberry. The little critter is forming tooth buds and apparently is kicking and squirming around in there, even though I can't feel it. The baby has basically all of its major body parts now, just on a very tiny scale. So cute!!

Day Off - Preparations Begin

I'll be playing hooky from work tomorrow (actually using a vacation day so I don't think it counts) since there is a useless four hour meeting I'd prefer not to attend. So instead, I'm going to do some shopping. Specifically I'm going to be shopping for some equipment/storage that will be the first step in magically reducing my beloved studio to a small bundle on wheels that will fit in a closet. I tried to convince Julie that it would be a good musical influence to have the baby sleeping amidst patch chords and effects pedals, but she pointed out that he/she/it probably won't get much sleeping done with me banging out arrhythmic renditions of Crazy Train (crazy, but that's how it goes). As far as milestones go, this will be the first home preparation for the olive or kumquat or kiwi, or whatever spheroid it is compared to at this point.

I've heard some interesting stories from the guys at work about the "nesting" instinct. So far, mostly just sleeping, but I'm getting nervous about what I'm going to have to paint, and how many times I'm going to have to paint it.

Gardening

Jim says I can't use this blog for gardening talk, which is fine because I have a work-related blog for that. (Sharingseeds.com -- You don't have to log in to this one!)
I'm going to sneak in a little bit here, though, because that's really the only news from the past few days. I was feeling sleepy again Sunday I napped pretty much all day. But yesterday I woke up full of energy. The baby let me finish digging up the garden beds, helped me plant all the vegetables and then probably cringed as I struggled to put up a chicken wire fence to keep out the wild rabbits that have been eating everything. My hands are all blistered, I have little cuts on my legs from the chicken wire and I'm sore all over. It was a fantastic day!
I hope some of these veggies make it and I hope that if they do, I'll have the stomach to eat them. One of the big food aversions I've been having is to vegetables. I was getting pretty crazy about nutrition before we got pregnant, so it's very frustrating to be regressing. The books say this is OK. The baby takes nutrients from the stuff that was in my body from before. Some women eat nothing but saltines for the first trimester and apparently this is OK. I hope they're right.

Lex's Birthday

We went up to Vermont for Lex's birthday yesterday and had a very nice time. We haven't told Alan and Tessa about the pregnancy yet, and would probably have yesterday, except there were a lot of other people around so it didn't seem like the right time. Even so, just in casual conversation with either Tessa or Alan I almost gave away the goods. At one point there was a baby name book floating around and I almost let fly with a "you know what names I'm thinking about...". After that I tried to be more careful, but it was tough.

We also had the winning birthday present of the day (though I can't tell you what it is because certain people who read this blog may be getting the same thing when their daughter...er, I mean child gets a little older). Lex was giggling insanely and I'm sure he was good and over stimulated by the time he had to go to sleep. Eve pretty much just slept the whole time.

Feeling better

It may be too early to be excited about this, but I'm feeling a little more like my old self. I did a bunch of gardening last night and was still so alert that I considered staying up later than 8:30. This morning I don't have the usual level of nausea.

I want to add to what Jim said about the appointment yesterday because everything went so well. We met a midwife named Susan, who was very friendly and gentle. She gave us the warning that it's normal to not hear the heart beat at this stage. Then she put the little wand thing on my belly. To me it just sounded like static transmissions from space, but right away she got excited and said we found it. And then you could kind of hear a fast pulsing of the fuzzy noise. She seemed surprised and happy that it was so strong.

It was great, but really insane at the same time. How could there be a heart beat in my gut? I know the baby's there in the abstract -- it's the critter that makes me ill and tells me it wants pizza. But to think of the baby as a real body inside my body is really hard to get my brain around.

The midwife did the rest of the exam and told us that the due date seems to be exactly right based on whatever weird things she feels around for in there: December 20. She also said I shouldn't have any problem having enough space in my body to carry the baby. (Or as Jim said, enough womb, heh heh)

We finished the appointment with one of the least painful blood draws I've ever had, and that was it. We go back in four weeks for our next check-up.

Food and Appointments

10 weeks and 1 day: "The baby wanted pizza for lunch."

Julie had her first actual appointment/exam this afternoon. We got to hear the baby's heartbeat. Apparently the baby is the size of a kumquat. I have no idea how big a kumquat is, though apparently it is bigger than an olive. The checkup went well. All signs (including the heartbeat) were good. Then we ate Taco Bell on the way home.

Sleepiness continues. Julie took a nap in the back of her car at work yesterday.

Yet More Sleeping

It is now 1:30 P.M. and Julie is asleep again. On the up side, I'm getting plenty of time for video games these days.

The earliest signs point to an apple that won't fall far from the tree. The baby has instilled in Julie a new appreciation for beef tacos. Fortunately we haven't hit any serious food aversions yet. I think Sun chips are out, but that's no big loss. If tomato sauce becomes an issue (as it was for Julie's mom - 9 months with no pizza, spaghetti, etc.), madness won't be far behind.

Sleepy

The most surprising thing about being pregnant is how tired I am all the time. I took two marathon naps yesterday and still had no problem collapsing at 10 p.m. and sleeping 10 hours last night.

I have these rare moments when the fog lifts and I feel like myself again, and I run around the house emptying trash cans or doing laundry or cleaning the garage because suddenly I see all the things that need to get done. But usually lately I look at a mess and it makes me want to go sit down somewhere and hide. It's almost like having the flu, except this has been going on for weeks!

The baby is about an inch long right now and it's starting to look more like a person. Its tail is gone and it has wiggly arms and legs, eyelids and earlobes.

I can't way to find out if it's a boy or a girl. It's hard to knit baby things when you don't know (though I already have one sweater done and a second one on the needles).

9 weeks

Today we hit the nine week mark, and it seems like a good time to start a blog.

We have our first appointment tomorrow morning with a nurse. Our midwife had to change her schedule at the last minute so we won't meet with her until next week. The good news is that we should be far enough along by then that we might be able to hear a heart beat.

In the meantime, we're just hanging in there. Jim says time seems to be going by fast, but it doesn't feel that way to me. I'm still feeling icky about food, still going to bed by 9 p.m. and still getting irrationally angry about things at work. I also feel fat already, even though the baby's only the size of a grape. I've skipped some exercise classes because I'm so tired and I've been devouring random foods that suddenly taste delicious, like beef tacos and egg noodles with butter. I think it makes the baby happy, so I'm just going to go with it.