Week 17 -- Day 3 and feeling puffy

10:53 a.m. SEVENTEEN WEEKS! Holy crap. In less than 5 mths, we will have a little life to care for, nurture and love for eternity. I keep picturing this little girl (still don't know the sex, but I still think it's a girl!) with big round colored eyes staring up at me and calling me "Mommy." Mommy! It's hard to think of myself -- a tiny 4'10" person who still looks up to her parents -- as someone's Mom. I will always have my worries about being a good parent, but I'm gaining more and more confidence as the days go by. I'm still reading a lot of stuff online and in magazines, and I've been watching "A Baby Story" on TLC and a lot of that show "Wife Swap." It's amazing how much you can learn from other people's mistakes! Some of those parents on Wife Swap are INSANE! I've seen a range of personalities, from overly strict parents to those who literally tell people that they live to serve their children.(One dad actually said that verbatim.) I've seen lazy kids, rude kids, children with no social lives, spoiled kids, you name it, I've seen it. I've been taking a lot of mental notes from this show and have even decided to use some of the families ideas of making chore lists, giving out allowances, setting aside family time and generally creating a somewhat structured lifestyle for their children. I believe children need some sort of structure, but they also need room to grow and try new things. I would never hold my child to one particular activity. I would let her/him try several things (provided that they are not dangerous) until he/she found his niche.
I've finally gained weight! Two pounds to be exact. I know it's not a huge amount, but it's pretty significant to me, given that I actually lost weight during my first trimester and have had so much trouble eating lately. I'm seeing a new doctor now, the doctor who's running my exercise study (did i tell you guys about that study?), and feel SO much more comfortable with him. My husband took to him instantly as well. My new doctor actually listened to everything I said, including what would be considered "normal, unpleasant pregnancy symptoms" such as vomiting and headaches, and took them seriously. He offered me a variety of ways to alleviate symptoms and assured me that he would look further into the symptoms (especially the vomiting), if they got any worse. I told the doc that my anti-nausea medication, Phenergan, hadn't been working. All it does is make me sleepy. So he prescribed something stronger called Zofran, that comes in a dissolvable (is that a word?) tablet form. You put a tab on your tongue and begin to feel relief in minutes. Since using the Zofran, I've been able to eat a lot more than I was before. The nausea hasn't completely disappeared, and I still get sick every now and then, but I feel so much better.
At my first (and so far, only) appointment with my new doc, he performed a VERY THOROUGH ultrasound that not even my first doctor did. She had already given me 2 or 3 ultrasounds and didn't do a whole lot but look at the baby, smile, and point out the head and body. This guy took about 10 to 15 minutes taking measurements of the skull, body, femur, and other parts I can't remember, and telling us in full detail what was what. He pointed out baby's round tummy, which was full of amniotic fluid (baby can swallow now!); baby's entire spine (you could literally count the vertebrae, it was unbelievable); baby's 10 fingers and toes, femur, arm bones, spinal cord, and other individual bones on it's body. My husband and I were speechless over how this tiny 5-inch person could be so completely formed. We could also see the miniature heart beating in it's chest as well as the brain and organs. The baby was moving more than ever during the ultrasound. She was constantly doing the bicycle kick like her Mom used to do!!! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. She lifted both arms above her head and then kicked her legs out and opened them and closed them. She was making little fists with her hands and tossing and turning. It brought tears to my husbands eyes. I asked the doctor if he could tell us the sex (I was about 15 weeks or so at the time) and he said, "Well, I could guess, but I'd rather send you to the experts at the perinatal group when you're at 20 weeks." "Please!" I pleaded with him. He began to move the ultrasound wand downwards, put on his glasses and took a long, hard look at the baby's "parts" and said, "Hmmm, welll, ahh, I'd rather not say. I might be wrong." I was sooo upset!!! I didn't want to keep pressuring him, so I just sighed and said, "Okay, doc. We can wait." Earlier that week at our exercise class, the doc told me that usually if it's a boy, you can tell right away on the ultrasound. He said that if we had a boy, we might get lucky and be able to tell on the day of our appointment with him. So I figured if it had been a boy that the doctor saw on the screen, he would have said something, but he didn't! I definitely couldn't see the boy part, and when I compared the ultrasound pics to ones I've seen online, I felt like I was looking at girl parts. I'm sooo anxious to find out!!! We visit the perinatal group on Nov. 12 for an anatomical screening, which not only determines the sex but also checks for structural abnormalities as well. I'll be 21 weeks along. The doc listened for the heart again via Doppler and sure enough, it was beating strongly. He said a normal range is between 120 and 160 bpms, or typically twice as fast as mommy's heart. Baby's heart was at about 132 bpms. Again, listening to the heart beat brought tears to both of our eyes. I can't describe the relief I feel when I'm 100% positive that baby is alive and moving around in there. The days between doctor's appointments seem to stretch on forever!
I finally felt the little duck moving! A little over a week ago, I was lying on my back on the bed, trying to go to sleep when I felt this tickling sensation going on inside my lower left abdominal area. It would last a few seconds and then disappear and then come back again. This went on for about 30 minutes I'd say, and kept me from sleeping for a while. I thought that it MIGHT be the baby, but I wasn't positive. I posted my experience on babycenter.com and was ecstatic to find out from other moms that it was definitely what the "fluttering" sensations of baby's kicks initially feel like. I was still a teeny bit skeptical until the next day came around and that tickling feeling came back again. This time it was more towards my right side and lasted even longer. I finally believed that the belly tickles were in fact baby quack doing her dance moves! Since then, baby usually likes to move when i'm lying down or leaning forward. I think I squish her whenever I try to bend over, because she never fails to start wiggling. It's actually quite cute! I think she's saying, "Gees, lady! I hardly have enough room in here to begin with, and you have to go bending over and making my house even smaller!" Every once in a while, baby kicks hard enough for her daddy to feel it. On the second or third day of me feeling her move, kent put his hand on my belly and kept it there for a while. I told him to push on it a bit, because i read that baby responds to touch. I could definitely feel the tickles but i didn't want to say anything to kent. I wanted him to feel for himself. I kept watching the expression on his face to see if it changed. After about the 5th time that baby moved, she let out a HUGE kick or punch and i watched kent's face go from calm and collected to being in disbelief. "Holy shit!" he exclaimed with saucer-sized eyes. "Oh my god! Was that the baby!?" I laughed and said that yes, that was in fact his little baby. It was such a great feeling. The baby hasn't kicked that hard for either of us since then, but I know it will happen sooner or later. I read that moms usually don't feel baby moving consistently until 20 some weeks or so. And the kicks still feel like tickles. On rare occasions, I'll feel a "pushing" sensation but it usually doesn't last for too long.
I'm going to rest my eyes for a bit.