Julessilver

It’s pretty wild that it is now 2008. What do we have planned for 2008? our first child! This time last year we were not quite thinking that we would be expecting our first around now. It is amazing how life changes so quickly. In 2007 we bought a new house and found out we were expecting our first child.

Christmas season was busy as usual. I was happy when my family arrived safely home. My brother had a car accident on his trip from Calgary, and luckily no one was hurt. They took the bus the rest of the way home and arrived a day later than expected. My parents were also travelling home from Europe. Their first flight got cancelled, and they were re-routed to arrive a day later. Arrived just in time for Christmas, which was 11pm on the 24th! Their 30th wedding anniversary was on the 24th. Ha, ha at least they got to spend it together! My husbands 30th birthday was also this past month, happy birthday sweetie
The past month I have been experiencing an odd sensation in the middle of the night. I would wake up to a heat rising feeling in my ears, and a blackness coming over me almost - feels like I am fainting. I have spoken to my midwife about it. I have a relatively low blood pressure, of about 100/55.  Fainting can happen in pregnancy with the increased amount of blood in your system. She assured me the danger of fainting is falling and not the lack of oxygen. Since going to see her it has been happening more regularly, not sure why. When it happens I sort of wake myself up and then go back to sleep. Sometimes I wake up and start to worry about what is happening, which just exacerbates it. I had another horrible night last night, and decided to go to my regular doctor today as I am still concerned about it. He confirmed everything my midwife said. He said the heat sensation I was feeling in my ears is from my blood vessels dilating, letting more blood through and my blood pressure is dropping, which is why I would be feeling that blackout sensation. The dilation is caused by the increased amount of hormones in pregnancy, particularly estrogen. I asked why it happens in the middle of the night, and my Doctor’s reponse was that is similar to when estrogen surges happen in menopausal woman who get ‘hot flashes’ in the middle of the night. I am particularly worried because I am pregnant and worried that a drop in my blood pressure means a loss of oxygen to my baby. The doctor confirmed that the baby has a way of maintaining his own blood pressure even though mine does not. One of those miracle of nature things. He confirmed what my midwife said, that the danger of fainting in pregnancy is falling and thereby injurying myself/baby physically with the fall. It is not from the blood pressure drop. Most of the time blood pressure goes up in the third trimester, thus far mine has not. He told me to drink more fluids and have more salt in my diet, which could possibly help.

Estrogen softens and relaxes things in pregnancy, blood vessels and esophagus included. I suffered from heartburn a little in my first trimester. In my wisdom, I thought the blood pressure drop could be related to drop in blood sugar throughout the night. So I put a cup of o.j. (orange juice) beside my bed, which I was drinking throughout the night (last Thursday night). I woke up at 4:21 AM to turn over and by moving experienced some severe heart burn. Ouch did it hurt! I got up and took a spoonful of liquid calcium. After sitting up a minute seemed to help a lot. O.j. I guess is just too acidic when had alone. Last night I also had bad heart burn, after having a half glass of o.j. after dinner. Guess I need to eliminate the o.j. and anything more acidic for a while. Heartburn sure isn’t fun either. And as baby grows bigger it is not supposed to get much better.

My round ligaments and muscles have still been hurting (near my hips). Mostly towards the end of the day, probably just tired from the day of holding my belly up. Does not help much when baby decides he is going to kick them. Ouch! 

Currently baby is the most active at night and after dinner. Starting to feel bigger movements, like rolling. The latest is pushing. I can feel baby push his feet on one side and body on the other. A neat feeling.

It’s amazing I only have 14.5 more weeks until my due date.
Here is a most recent photo of belly:

It is amazing how quickly it is growing. At my last midwife appointment, she measured my uterus to be just under 23cms, at my 24.5 week appointment. Typically the number of cms you are match the number of weeks you are pregnant. 1-2 cms less or more is still considered normal and fine.

Congrats to my husbands’ colleges with recent additions to their families at the end of November and end of December! How exciting.

P.S. I used “he” to refer to baby in this post. We do not know the sex of the baby. My husband says “she” and I say “he”. Easier and nicer than referring to baby as “it”, or “he or she”.

In the first trimester I was super tired and really thought that in the second I would go back to feeling like I had as much energy as I did before pregnancy. Not so. I am not as tired, but still tired. I still need to nap occasionally when I get home, especially on the nights when I go to deep water aerobics class. I am in bed by around 9:30 PM most nights, where before pregnancy it was around 10:30 or 11 PM.

With the second trimester also come different aches and pains, and the first trimester stuff (like nausea) diminishes a lot. I have been getting round ligament pain on and off. Also discovered that I cannot do prenatal yoga, my back just does not like it. I had been working with an Athletic Therapist who is also an Osteopath since last May. She has helped me out a lot! We basically started building up my core strength as if I had nothing. I had to do my exercises regularly but it really paid off. As well as increasing my regular cardio exercise in order to get the positive endorphins in my body, which she told me are as powerful as morphine. My back was doing SO well! ………..up until I tried Yoga. At my last therapist visit she adapted a lot of the Yoga moves so I could do them. My back was a little soar after trying them, then on Tuesday I did them on my own and had shooting pain on my right side (I think it was my sciatic nerve). Since then the sciatic pain has subsided a lot, but not entirely, and gets worse after sitting all day long. I think it was associated with the yoga exercises and seems to have subsided since I’ve stopped them, I really really hope that is all it was. Having had lots of back pain I am scared to go back there. The sharp sciatic pain on one side is not my typical back pain either. Before it was more of an ache pain across the whole lower back.

I have also been having muscle cramps in my feet and legs. I have heard it can be the lack of calcium/magnesium in your diet. All of a sudden my foot will cramp up and the muscle will go super tight. Very strange! I just started taking liquid calcium this past week and hopefully that helps subside it.

It feels like in the past 2 weeks my belly has “popped”. I definitely have a pregnancy belly now. I also look more pregnant I think because I am also wearing all pregnancy clothing, which is so much more comfortable! Many people are noticing now. People around the office who don’t official know are looking a lot at my belly (probably thinking… she must be pregnant with her belly like that

I have to go get a mole removed on Wednesday. Another part of pregnancy is your hormones can cause things to grow, including moles. I went to my regular doctor to get it checked out and he said it appears to be fine, but to be on the safe side lets take it off. Even though I am terrified of needles, it is fine by me. It is a raised blood mole on the back of my right shoulder (yea yuk!). I also worry about getting it caught on something, but it would be even more ‘yuk!’ if that happened.

My husband came down with a bad head cold a little less than 2 weeks ago. He is feeling better now, but still a little congested. I don’t feel I got what he had, but I don’t feel one hundred percent either. My nose is a little more runny and I have a couple spots on my throat/tonsils, though it does not hurt (yet! knock on wood). Hopefully this is the worst of it and it just goes away (please!). I worry about getting sick and the cold taxing my immune system when I know baby needs all he or she can get. My midwife reminds me that baby will take whatever he or she needs; it will be me that will be left deficient.  

I have this strange urge to clean house and get everything organized. I want to re-do closest spaces, go through boxes in the basement, and re-organize in general, so everything is “done” when baby arrives. This seems like it’s a nesting instinct, however from what I’ve read it says nesting is a sign that you are about to give birth and doesn’t normally happen until much later in pregnancy. So is what I am experiencing nesting, or could there be something wrong, or perhaps I am just odd that I am trying to prepare so far in advance?

My husband has finally felt baby move, first time about one week ago (around 20 weeks), then yesterday and today. It was kinda funny because yesterday I was on the couch, and asked him if he wanted to feel it. He put his fingers on my belly and baby kicked (or moved) big! He looked at me and said did you do that? He thought I might have exaggerated the movement (which I did not). He couldn’t believe that baby could kick so hard. He was like, “even if I didn’t have my fingers there I think I would have seen your stomach move!”. It is quite amazing that something so little can make such large movements. 

We had our ultrasound this past Monday; I would have been approximately 19 weeks and 2 days (give or take) pregnant.

I was scheduled for ultrasound weeks ago, and they scheduled me for it way out at Saanich Peninsula Hospital. I guess they are really busy, because the Save-On-Foods center where I know most OB ultrasounds are scheduled was booked and they were booking into December when I tried to change my appointment to be at a closer location.

We got a really nice technician, which I was super happy about (as per recent post I was worried about that). Baby’s head was way down, right next to my cervix, which she mentioned if baby was to be born today is a good place. Baby’s spine/back is along my left side, and feet are up in the top of my uterus, near my belly button and a little to the right. Hands are often up by baby’s head. This all makes sense now with the kicks and punches I have been feeling!

For taking pictures and measurements baby was not such a great place. The technician tried and tried (and pushed and pushed on my full bladder!) to get a proper measurement of his or her head, even tried to place me on my side, and halfway through the exam I emptied a little bit of my bladder - all done to see if baby would move out of that spot so she could get a head measurement - nope!

She went through the rest of the body, showing us as we went along (which was nice as I’m sure she did not have to do that). At times she would say “oh and there is ____, can you see that?” often my response was “yea, um… no”, and she would try to point it out. Definitely lots of smudges and spots on the screen that I didn’t really know what were. She pointed out the heart (4 ventricles), bladder, tiny kidneys, arms legs, spin, back of neck etc. It was also a little bit of a challenge for the technician to get a good photo of the heart, because baby had his or her arms up in front of his/her head. She did all her other measurements (besides the head), and let us know that I was on track for my due date.

We did get a couple print outs of some photos, though they are a little blurry, one is posted below (and the rest are posted on my flickr page):

When the technician was done, (and I was running to the bathroom, OMG I did not know my bladder could hold so much water!) she said she did not ask if we wanted to know the sex of the baby because she could not see it, baby had his or her legs crossed! We said thanks but we did not want to know anyway.

I am starting to feel bigger kicks from baby now. My husband still has not felt baby kick, most of the time I put his hand to my belly and baby just does the smaller kicks or movements. Sometimes I actually jump a little because I am kicked more strongly. I just put my hand on my belly and felt a kick and my hands moved a little, so I know they stronger movements exist, but few and far between currently. Now we just have to get the right timing for Daddy to feel it too. I am very eager to share the feeling of baby moving with my husband.

In Victoria for clothes styles, when you find a cool shirt or outfit there is a big possibility there could be 2 other people in your office wearing the same thing. I feel Victoria does not have many of the major retail chains, and there are slim pickings sometimes. Personally I don’t like to have the same outfit as someone else. As I was thinking if pregnancy styles and clothes, the one good thing about it is unless you have many pregnant women in your office, you are likely to be the only one wearing your new pregnancy top

My husband and I both got a flu shot this morning. Yesterday I was supposed to get one with my work ‘flu clinic’, but last minute I started to look into the safety of flu shots in pregnancy again. I found that there is a different flu shot for pregnant woman in California. I thought I would call my regular Doctor’s office to ask if it was safe. I called and the receptionist mentioned there is another shot with pregnant woman, which the flu clinic at work did not carry. The ‘other’ flu shot is for pregnant woman and children from 6 to 36 months of age. It contains less of a couple preservatives than the regular flu shot. This morning I brought my husband in with me to my Doctor’s office to get the ‘pregnancy flu shot’, and discovered he could get a regular flu shot as well at no charge. Actually there was no charge for either of us, because we will be caring for an infant in flu season. The doctor that was giving us the shots also let us know that anyone caring or going to be around our infant regularly is also covered for a free flu shot (and in her opinion definitely should get one!). Something I did not know! My arm is soar where I got the shot (feels like I’ve been sucker punched), so far that is the only side effect I’ve felt. 

I am now 19 weeks pregnant. Today we go for our ultrasound appointment (in Canada unless there are concerns, standard is one appointment between 18-20 weeks). I have to drink an entire 32 ounces of water by 1:15 PM for an appointment at 2:00 PM. I am not looking forward to it. I can only imagine what my discomfort will be. I have been a little nervous about the appointment. I have heard of friends who have gotten nasty ultrasound technicians, I even had a bad dream (vivid dreams are part of my pregnancy) that I forgot to drink my water before my appointment and I couldn’t find any water anywhere to have.Last Wednesday I started to feel a sharp pain in my lower abdomen (not severe just sharp). Initially I was really concerned and called the midwife office the next morning. After speaking to a midwife, she is pretty sure it is just round ligament pain. For me any type of pain, especially from down there, concerns me because I think it means something is wrong. It continues to happen on and off. Sometimes on my left side, radiating towards the center of me, it feel more like a sharp pain (not really an ache), and it only stays for a little while before it goes away. It can go on and off for a while sometimes. The midwife said currently nothing to worry about, unless it gets worse, starts to feel different, or is accompanied by bleeding.

So now I am pretty sure that what I am feeling is baby moving. When I first felt baby kick like one and a half weeks ago, I kind of didn’t like it. It made me feel weird and kind of freaked me out a little. I think I started thinking about labour a lot, especially since we were interviewing Doulas at the time too. Then yesterday I didn’t feel baby move - or at least I did not notice if he/she did move. Today I am feeling baby move and swish about, taps and nudges and I feel sooo much better. I was pretty worried yesterday when I didn’t. Most websites that I have looked at say that during these early stages moving is not yet consistent so sometimes you will be able to feel it and sometimes you won’t. Still does not feel like much comfort when I expecting it. Not sure how many times I asked my husband yesterday if he thought everything was okay, he said he was sure it was every time. Today I am pretty happy to feel baby move and it gives me some reassurance he/she is okay. Feeling baby move, especially when I feel taps or nudges, which feels like it could be more a foot or an arm instead of  her/his body. It makes me wonder what position they are in. Is baby upside down all day long?

I cannot feel the movement from the outside yet, and Lloyd has not felt anything. It will probably be another few weeks before anyone can feel anything from the outside of my tummy I think. So no touching the belly yet folks! And even when baby does start moving it will be asking first and people I know well.

We chose and booked a Doula. I found the choice to be quite difficult, we had interviewed about 5 Doulas and everyone brought something unique with them.

I called BC MSP yesterday and spoke to their benefits line. The woman told me that epidurals and c-sections were covered under BC MSP (and kinda laughed at me for asking actually). I do not have extended medical/dental until May 1st, which is 3 weeks after baby’s due date. Makes me a little relieved, however things like an ambulance ride or a private, semi private hospital room is not covered by BC MSP. We will have to figure out if we want to buy extended medical for me just in case.

I will be 18 weeks or 4.5 months pregnant tomorrow (well estimated). This week I have found my pants to be getting a little uncomfortable. I went and bought a belly band and am just unbuttoning the top button and find it quite a bit more comfortable. I am also very grateful for Nadia/Ali and lending me their mat clothes I have tried on a couple maternity clothes in the stores, but besides bras and undies I just can’t bring myself to buy any just yet. I am feeling that I have just now started to “show”. If you didn’t know me you’d just think I’ve eaten too many donuts (which is something my girlfriend Nadia described herself as when she was pregnant with her first son around 4-5 months). My cravings are not fierce, but I do tend to enjoy different types of foods more some weeks than others. This week it has been orange juice. I was really loving cottage cheese for a couple weeks, now don’t really want it. I am also really liking eggnog - which I confirmed with my midwife that if it is the store bought stuff it’s okay, but home made with raw eggs I am best to stay away from.When I was in living in Cali I experienced sort of a heart flutter or little palpitation. Almost like my heart would skip a beat then get going again. My doctor at the time did all sorts of test which were all negative, and said it was normal. She said it will probably just go away (which it did), but I will be able to notice it again when I get pregnant, and she is right! I asked my midwife about it and because there is more blood pumping through your body when you are pregnant, sometimes the little electric current just takes a millisecond to process it and it feels like I am missing a beat. It is nothing to worry about and is completely normal. For me it is exacerbated by caffeine, which I am not supposed to have too much of in pregnancy anyway (and when I was non-prego by alcohol too). Typically I stay away from caffeine entirely, however get some in chocolate or decaf coffee (when I very occasionally have my decaf eggnog latte ;-). I am noticing that little bit is effecting me now too

I am surprised at how quickly things are changing in my body now. On Monday midwife asked if I had felt anything yet. I said no, and then a couple days later I started to notice! Not sure if it is because she has mentioned it that I am paying more attention, or what. Things are definitely starting to feel different, like I could actually have a human inside me now. My front (from pelvis to just below belly button), feels more dense now. It almost feels like I have a balloon of water in my pelvis, and there is a cork inside it. The cork moves inside moving the liquid, and very occasionally bobs against the walls of the balloon.

I do not know for sure if I am really feeling the baby move, or if it’s something else. But it does feel different than gas would feel, and is not followed by gas and is not close to when I ate or am hungry. Some websites have described it as a flutter – which makes me think that I am not feeling it. Because I don’t think I feel any fluttering. I feel a soft nudge, normally when sitting for some time, often just once. It is below my belly button and close to the front of my body. Sometimes I think I feel the ‘cork’ (baby) move around like a swishing but not really a flutter.

I guess I will just have to wait for more confirmation to see if it is what I am feeling or not. I was reading on one personal blog that I came across, that once a woman feels baby move their due date is estimated 147 days after - which would only bring me to 37.5 weeks. Which for two reasons I don’t want to happen 1) my midwife is off in March 2) sounds too early. I know I should have no reason to worry, not sure if this is a actual scientific based or more folklore, but more first babies tend to go past the 40 week ‘due date’.

We have been interviewing potential Doulas this week. I am finding it really hard to choose. Each woman brings something unique with her. I also need to take into account the support Lloyd wants, and ensure we choose someone that won’t step on his toes. For me it currently is between two of the Doulas. They are definitely both very different, one has quite a bit more experience, and the other is a new Doula. With the experienced Doula Lloyd is concerned that I won’t look to him for as much support, and he really wants to be very involved. With the new Doula I am concerned I will not feel confident enough and it will cause me more anxiety. Ah decisions!

We have an ultrasound scheduled for when I am just over 19 weeks pregnant. Currently I am 17 weeks. I have decided that I do not want to find out the sex of the baby.  I was almost convinced that I would be okay finding out the sex before  the birth. I think when couples I know who have babies, it is a nice surprise to tell people if it’s a boy or a girl. And I do not need/want any of the preparation for blues or pinks. My favourite colour is green, and I really like yellows too! And if we are going to have more children won’t it be nice to be able to use many of the same things again without them being gender coloured?

Here’s the full story of our little “bear encounter” story (as I now know it) from when we were kayaking in Desolation Sound from August 3 - 6th:

Friday and Saturday night we stayed on a little island. Sunday we packed up and paddled and were trying to go to Grace’s harbour. The day before we missed the lake we were looking for – on the accounts of an old map. So we missed Grace’s harbour too. We instead paddled into the next inlet (called Lancelot). It was pretty deserted. We finally found a place that had a beach line (the rest were rock face), and we put in. There was a small clearing on top, you can see the top of our tent in this photo: 

That we put our tents on. I was concerned from the beginning about animals because it was so remote and no one was around.

Around 9:30pm the one boat that was in the little bay, this one: 

came over to chat to my parents and told them that years previous they have seen bears in the area, but that was in September. They offered to put our food on their boat. But we had already stashed it along with anything smelly high in a tree). We kept everything out of our tent but ourselves and our sleeping stuff.

We all went to bed by about 10pm. I must have fallen asleep. Around midnight I woke up to a big yell (I thought it was in my dreams at first). I guess my Dad had heard something and yelled (to scare it off). A couple times my parents came out of their tent (which was only about a meter and a half away from ours). They told us it was just sea otters (though they had heard something more and did not want to let us know). The tide was coming up so then also heard the boats move/crash on the beach.

Then around 1:30am or so I heard crashing in the woods behind my parents tent (but more off to the left) quite a few times. I asked my parents what it was and they said I don’t know.

2am I gave up and snuggled up to my husband, who I was for once very delighted was snoring – because made me only hear him and not all the other noises.

3am I woke up to my parents chatting, and don’t remember drifting off again, but I must of.

3:30am I woke up to my husband yelling over and over at the top of his lungs, sitting up in the tent, and frantically pulling and grabbing at me to pull me towards him. I started to scream as well. The first thought I had was “the bear is upon us” and squeezed my eyes shut and grabbed onto my husband. We stopped yelling (my parents also started yelling at exactly the same time – they must have heard the same thing).

(My husband’s version – which he did not disclose to me until we were safely at home Monday night was: He woke up, I was sleeping. He looked at my side of the tent (across from his, and the side that was in between my parents tent and ours), and saw a large animal leaning against the tent (yup it was most likely a bear). He thought it was sniffing at something (it was not being violent or trying to get into our tent or anything nasty we think). My husband started to yell, grabbed at me (to get me away from the side of the tent), and the animal must have moved off (shaking our tent – which I sort of remember now when I thought the “bear was upon us”).

Then I said why were we yelling? And my husband asked what was that, and my Dad said THAT was a bear.

I wanted to get out of the tent and go to my parents. My husband said no, stay here (not knowing or actually haven seen the bear, thank GAWD!). Then Dad said ok lets all go light a fire. So we all got out of our tent to light a fire on the beach.

We waited until dawn, and at first light around 5am we went and grabbed our tents to pulled them down to the beach, where the tide was now way out. My husband and Dad had a snooze while Mom and I stayed up to stoke the fire:

Then Dad got up and Mom and I tried to nap.

We wanted to leave, but the tide was so far out, that we were not able to. As soon as you went past a certain point you’d sink in clay like sticky mud. We packed up and waited and were able to move out by 8:45am.

I had nightmares for a couple weeks about it! It really bothered me. I’m sure I will soon put it further away in my memory though I wanted to document this so I would remember and others going to Desolation Sound, try to stear clear of camping in Lancelot Inlet.