I’m getting bigger (18 weeks 1 day)

I am feeling almost like normal again except I have gained 7 pounds! I have more energy again. It is really a great feeling. Also I don’t feel like I am going to vomit all the time. I am still eating more than if I was not pregnant but I don’t have to eat every two hours like before.

The only real issue I have is trying to wear clothes. Every morning I try to find something to wear. It is a great feeling when it still fits. I can still fit into most of my clothes (although they are tight) however some are now too small. I am at the “fat” stage of my pregnancy. I don’t really look pregnant. I have a little baby bump but it looks more like a fat roll depending on what I am wearing. I just look much bigger than I use to be! Yesterday I had my first crying episode on what to wear. I just could not find a shirt that looked cute. Finally I found something but it was a lot of work. I’m going to have to go buy some clothes soon.

After work this past week, I would come home change into comfortable clothes. I wore Brian’s T-shirts most evenings because I could not fit into any of mine without wearing a bra. Wearing a bra has become extremely uncomfortable! Finally Thursday night, I made Brian take me bra shopping. I got measured in the store and my breast size went up 2 cup sizes! No wonder why wearing a bra was so uncomfortable. I have three new bras. Now can wear my shirts again (those that fit anyways).

Baby’s room is all fixed up from the insulation issue. I was cleaning it up yesterday and realized we only have three pieces of furniture that we need to move to our lower bedroom. I was thinking we had so much to move but we really don’t. We are going to start looking at baby furniture today. It will be fun to put baby’s room together.

We have finished cleaning out our entire house. We went though each room to see if we really needed everything in them. We donated a lot to goodwill and threw some stuff away. We have never been clutter people. But like everyone, we accumulated things that we don’t really need. Now with baby coming we need even less clutter than before. I know baby’s stuff is going to take over my entire house. Oh that is a scary thought for me.

I still have not felt baby kick yet (at least I have not realized it). I have all kinds of different aches and pains but nothing severe. It is amazing how many changes your body goes through when you are pregnant. I am excited to feel baby kick for the first time. Maybe it will be this week!

Also it is 5 months from today until my due date!

Stressful week (17 Weeks 2 days)

Last week was a very stressful week for me. I went to work early. Most days I also worked late and things at work were extremely busy and stressful. It was almost too much for me at times. I was getting stomach pains and felt miserable. It was not a very good week.

I tried to relax at home but there is not enough time in the day to get everything done. Brian has been really great at helping around the house but I still like to do a lot. Brian was in graduate school for the past 2 years. He graduated this past May (thank goodness). During that time, I did all the housework. I would always make dinner, pack lunches, clean the house, do laundry, etc. It was fine because I had a lot of time on my hands because Brian was in school or studying a lot. Now that he is done, he has a lot more time and has really been helpful to me. Especially since most of the time, I don’t feel like doing anything. Some days just making dinner seems like an impossible task.

It is a weird feeling of not having much energy or motivation to do things. We have always been really active and almost workaholics at times. We are always doing something. We do not spend too much time watching TV or movies. Lying on the couch all day Sunday would never happen in our house. Brian still has all this energy however baby has taken all of mine.

My favorite thing to do is plan our crazy vacations. We leave in a month for The Panama Canal and I don’t even have everything for that planned out! Oh my! At least this week is starting off a little better. So maybe I will get something accomplished.

One of our more crazier projects is our Christmas lights that are syncorized to music. Brian designed the entire thing. However I am his helper and it is A LOT of work! The past week we have been building new arches for our yard. Our old ones were metal that ended up rusting so we had to throw them away. Brian made new arches out of PVC piping. Brian lets me do the easy jobs but they take work too. I’m interested in how the Christmas lights get set up this year. I'll be 8 months pregnant in November so this could be an added challenge to the set up.

Last night, we had our families over for dinner. It was nice to have everyone together. Unfortunately Melissa and Jonathan were not there because they live in Myrtle Beach. Brian’s mom also lives in Myrtle Beach but she was up for the weekend. She usually comes up every few months. We used to have family dinner at least once a month. Now they are every few months. I hope after baby is born will be get back to doing them more frequently.

We have signed up for Bradley Natural Childbirth classes. They are once a week for 12 weeks. We start at the end of October. We also are going to baby basic class and breastfeeding class because we may miss those classes in our Bradley Method since they are after my due date. We should start the Bradley Method class in September but we will be on vacation so we are postponing starting them until October. Also Brian, my mom, and maybe my dad will be going to an infant CPR class. Since I am a nurse (I know infant CPR) and my mother in law is a CRNA so she knows it too. We all need to be prepared for baby!

Construction in baby's room (16 weeks 2 days)

Brian somehow figured out there was no insulation under the window in one spot in baby's room. So he tried to insulate it with "Great Stuff" by drilling a hole and spraying it in. Well that did not work too well. It expanded too much and cracked the drywall. He said he knew that might happen, but the alternative was to take down the drywall anyway so it was worth a shot. He tore out the piece of drywall, put in new insulation, and replaced it. Since he does not want me to inhale anything, the room has been closed off and he has been doing all the work in there without air conditioning. It has been so hot! It has been in the 90's for about a week now. I feel bad for him. At least now, baby's room will be nicely insulated.

My stomach is beginning to grow. I am 16 weeks and 2 days. Some people cannot believe I am am this far along, but trust me I feel like it. My stomach seems pretty big to me. I actually went shopping for maternity clothes and I am wearing some of them just because they are comfortable. I do not want anything tight fitting right now especially since it is so hot!

I am still feeling much better without nausea and vomiting. I am still tired more than usual but other than that I am pretty much back to normal except a little bigger.

Auntie Melissa - We loved your comments!

Also Melissa is convinced that baby is a girl. However we have not officially found that out nor do we plan to! Brian says that you should only trust Melissa if you believe in witch doctors, sourcery, and Harry Potter. He contends that Melissa believes in all three.

The tests results are in... (16 weeks 1 day)

I had to work yesterday (Saturday) and Brian was at home. When I got home he told me that he had good news and bad news. The bad news is that he stayed up late last night and wasn't able to sleep in this morning because somebody called at 8am. The good news was the call was from the doctor's office. The bloodwork results were back. Everything was normal. Our baby does not have any chromosome defects. This concludes the initial screening tests and everything came back okay. We were both so relieved and happy.

Brian worked on projects around the house today including fixing up the Christmas lights. When I got home from work, my parents came over and we went out to dinner. I got 2 free Indians tickets from work, so I bought 2 more so my parents could go with us. They like baseball more than we do. It was fireworks night after the game, so that made up for the Indians poor performance and 9-3 loss against Seattle. The 2010 Rock'n'Blast fireworks are absolutely phenomenal. It is a 30 minute show synchronized to music. We all really enjoyed it.

Starting to Feel Better (15 weeks 3 days)

I am 15 weeks pregnant. Yesterday, we went to the doctor for a normal check up. Right now everything is okay and seems healthy. We are waiting for some blood work to come back for the first trimester screening. That should be back in 2 weeks or less. Hopefully that will be good. We listened to baby’s heart beat and that really is an amazing thing.

I have had 4 days without significant nausea or vomiting. I have only really vomited 3 times but that was more than enough. I felt like I was going to vomit constantly! I am hoping “morning sickness” is finally over for me. It is great to actually feel somewhat normal again. It has been awhile since I have felt this good!

We started looking at our baby registry since Melissa is going crazy already for baby’s shower. (Or I should say “Mattie’s” shower in Melissa terms - she named the baby Mattie and decided that she thinks it's a girl. Mattie is short for Matilda according to Melissa, but it could also be short for Matt). I love looking at all the baby things however it is also I little overwhelming. We don’t want to get stuff that we don’t really need just to have it. I am finding that would be really easy to do.

We are still going to cruise the Panama Canal at the end of September. I checked with my physician and he stated that I could even kayak as long as the conditions were not too rough. I am excited about that. I have been working on planning our trip. I love planning vacations! I am going to plan fun family vacations too once baby is born!

In four weeks, we go back to the doctor. At that visit we could find out the gender of our baby. It will be interesting to be able to see so much detail of the baby. We still think of it as seen during the 12 week ultrasound. Baby has surely grown since then and an updated look in a few weeks will be exciting. We both want to be surprised about the gender though and are sticking to that. I really don’t want to know! This is really an exciting time. It really helps that I feel so much better. I am still tired but not that severe. I am now waking up twice a night to potty. That is a little annoying, but hey, baby is worth it. My next adventure is learning how to sleep on my left side. I sleep on my stomach and love it! Sleeping on my side even with a body pillow is quite the challenge.

I have gain 3 pounds so far. I feel much bigger than that. It was worse earlier because I was so bloated however that has clamed down some. I can still fit in all my clothes however they are getting tighter. I do not like anything too tight fitting either.

I am so excited about baby. I am so happy right now!

Now Everyone Knows about Baby (13 weeks 6 days)

We have told all of our family and friends. It is now posted on Facebook.com. So basically everyone know we are having a baby. We told most of our friends via email with the postcard attached. I told people at work verbally. Brian told most people via email with the attachment. We have realized that it was best to send them the postcard rather than standing next to them as the read it. Amazingly it took some people a while to get it and the pressure of staring at them doesn't help.

It was fun telling people. I was so surprised how happy and excited most people were when they found out. I was giving people hugs that I never thought I would. It is pretty cool.


Comments from Amy's Initial Posting on Facebook.com


Comments from Brian's Later Posting

Melissa is still the most excited. That still surprises us a little bit. She is in contact with us several times a week. She even bought me some natural wrist band thing for my nausea and vomiting. That's another update: The naseau has turned into vomiting now. It started a week ago. We went to Penn Station and I got a Philly Cheese Steak. Bad idea! I was vomiting that up later that night. Then Wednesday while I was brushing my teeth I had another episode of vomiting. AH! I still don’t feel that great. I am tried all the time and nauseous a lot. I now fear vomiting in public. Oh I almost forgot early this week I was having significant abdominal discomfort. Luckily that has gone away.

We have cleaned out baby’s room last weekend. It went well. We still have furniture in the room but we have not bought baby furniture yet so no sense moving yet. I don’t know what color I want the furniture to be in baby’s room. I also need to start looking a blinds because right now they are pink and that is not going to work (we don't plan to know the gender in advance, so we need the room to be neutral).

Brian’s friend Stuart at work was helpful today. He talked with Brian about child birthing classes and dualas. Brian emailed the lady today. We are waiting to hear back from her. I guess the child birthing classes are 12 weeks. That is a long time, so we need to figure out when they start.

Hope everything is okay with baby. I wish I felt better but the most important thing is baby is healthy.

Announcements to Family (12 weeks 4 days)

We told my parents on Saturday morning. They came over to help with the yard and before we started we gave them the picture. My dad got it right away but he did not say anything. It took my mom a while. In fact she handed the card back to me initially and said yeah that looks nice. Dad said I don’t think you get it Carrie. Then we even told her there are really three people in the picture. She hesitated and then said, no I only see two! The last clue was: Where is Brian's hand? Then she got it. Boy was she excited! She quickly screamed You're Pregnant! However she is not allowed to tell anyone and it is driving her crazy. She will have to wait about a week.

Next we told Brian’s mom and Mike on Sunday. They came over after spending the day with Mike’s family. It was convenient that they were in town and we were able to move up our doctor's appointment so we could notify them in person instead of by mail as we had originally thought we would. Carol got it right away. She was excited but did not really say much. On Monday, she took us to JoAnn fabrics to pick out material for baby’s blanket. That was a lot of fun. Baby’s room theme right now is monkeys. I think that is really cute idea.

On Monday night, we went to see Grandma and Gramps. Before dinner we showed them the card. Grandma got it right away. They were excited. They even started calling us “mom” and “dad”. That is scary! I am sure it is pretty cool for them to be great grandparents.

We started mailing our postcards to my brothers and Melissa. Melissa got hers today. She called both of us but we did not answer until we got off work. We wanted to talk to her together. Melissa surprised us the most. She is one of the most excited. We could not believe it. We did not how she was going to react. A lot has changed with our relationship since they have moved down to South Carolina. We knew it would but she was sincerely excited about baby. She was already talking about the baby shower and trying to come up around the birth. It was really great to hear her excitement. We are still a little sad because they live so far away but it is what it is and we will just see what happens.

We have not heard from anyone else yet. Brian and I told our bosses this week so at least they know too. Kathleen was supportive of me which was nice. My job is still really stressful and it is wearing me out but what can I do. Brian has been great helping out around the house.

We are still trying to clean our home room by room. We are organizing everything and throwing a lot of junk away. We now have the office and our bedroom done. The downstairs bedroom is basically done until we move the spare bedroom down there. We have to start cleaning out baby’s room so we can go buy furniture. I am excited about that.