Pregnancy Update – 8.28.13

Warning in advance, this is WAY too much to read but it is a lot to write about… I will try not to make the others so damn long…

So a lot has happened, I have freaked out, calmed down, freaked out again and so forth… there is A LOT to learn when you have not really taken any interest in having kids to date… then wham, better learn fast!  The good news, I feel LOADS more comfortable after picking and meeting with my midwife.   The bad side, this pregnancy crap is not for wimps!   I relate it to having the flu constantly for… 10 weeks now.   It just flat out sucks.  I imagine this would feel different or at least be made to feel different if we were trying to get pregnant… I would be better prepared for it… but no, I am just sick and tired all the time!  I don’t mean this to complain, it is just the facts of the matter.   I’m sure it is fine and all will be fine, I hear it will let up in a couple more weeks and I will start to get my energy back, for now though… not so much.  It was seriously all the energy I could muster to go get some dinner and take Denny to the park last night.  and we drove!  Normally that would be a bike ride or a walk… no we drove and it was still so much effort!

So, since this is really my first post, at least on the details, on how this all went down here is the updated to date… It get’s personal, not gross but feelings and stuff… hopefully if you are reading this you don’t mind…

How I found out:

So generally I am a complete over-reactor.  Any time I am slightly sick my first conclusion always seems to go to pregnancy symptoms… I have only really had one scare in my life, also with James like a year ago… turns out all was well.  Well, this time I had every symptom in the book, almost instantly, like the day after conception (I only see this now looking back).  I was instantly moody, I sort of determined something needed to change in my life but I didn’t know what or why or how.  I was sick, thinking I got the rare and elusive summer time cold, you know, all those 100 degree plus days… My body was beyond sore, that part was ridiculous! But pregnancy never crossed my mind yet.

Right after James and I had one of the most epic fights ever, like ever ever for me (I threw crap and screamed and he did stuff that was equally as childish but yet somehow held his head only slightly better than me, neither of us had any idea at this point) he was to be heading out of town with his family for a family trip… so the most logical thing at the moment was to flip the hell out and break up with him… The next day he goes out of town, I head off to work… generally sad and mad and tired and having no idea what the hell is wrong with me, just feeling like crap I sit and work all day long, lucky to have had a deadline to distract me.  Then I head home.  On the way I get a nose bleed.   To me, for personal reasons which you can ask me about any time that is a tell-tell symptom of pregnancy and though the thought had never entered my mind before it made complete and perfect sense… I stopped by on the way home to pick up a test… sure enough, BAM, preggo…  Everything suddenly made so much sense.  I am NOT typically this moody girly type and I certainly have been!   Just because it makes sense and I know that now does not mean things have changed, hence this pregnancy thing is not for wimps, I am about tired of being sick and tired and pissy ALL. THE. TIME.  I can’t imagine how James is feeling (I do my best to just stay away from him honestly).

So, the first thing I do is call my brother Nate, who I just spent time venting about James to to freak out and tell him why I think things have gone so wrong…  James is out of town in the boonies, out of cell service so I can’t talk to him.  Nate, handles thing in the most perfect way all of the time, I am so grateful to have my brother be my friend and confidant!   I have no idea at this point how things will go with James, I just have a weekend to dwell on things by myself for now.

Telling the family:

So, I had resigned myself to staying home and thinking about things that Friday night but Nathan being the awesome person he is instead convinced me to come hang out and work on the kitchen shelves for my tiny house like we had planned (I got to get better at this Friday night thing!).  So I headed over to Nate’s.  I spent most of Saturday over there as well working on the shelves and he decided to have a BBQ and invite Dan and Jeff (my other brothers) over.  We went and picked up some cooking supplies, he called them and I said to tell them i got them something.  Their reaction is ‘is it a puppy’, Nate said ‘close’.  They come over and in the first six seconds the secret is out.  I am SUPER surprised at how excited my brothers are to be uncles, it makes me more excited honestly.   Dan has even helped mom make the baby quilt (which is turning out super cute, I’ll update on that again soon!).

My folk’s didn’t come over because they were both out of town, for a week!  People who know me know I cannot keep a secret… I did not want to tell them over the phone so I just avoided that all together, though dad did call one time and it was tough not to let it slip… I had to wait on them…

So late on Sunday James got back, I had sent him a text with a picture but I guess he doesn’t get those.  I thought he would on his way back into town but when he got back he was still just as pissed as ever…  I had no idea what to expect though so I just tentatively went into the situation.   I went inside and he was in the shower… he barked something at me so I just flat out told him I was pregnant and that he should come out and talk when he was finished up… He came out instantly apologizing for everything and asking how I was doing and being excited and everything.  Still, it was a little weird for both of us for a bit.   I was happy to see he wanted to be a part of the process, that certainly was not a requirement.

So fast forward a week and a lot of heavy conversations and mom and dad are getting back in town from separate trips.  Dad coming back from a camping trip, mom coming back from a week in Salmon with her folks.  We go as a family to the Shakespeare Festival every summer and this Saturday they got back was one of the days we were going.  They literally didn’t get back until right before the show so there was no time to ‘prep’ them and I know I couldn’t got the entire show without it coming out… Mom had called me to see what we were bringing for dinner just before hand, I told her that I got her a present.  She asked what it is and if she will like it.  I said I couldn’t tell her and I sure hope so!   I figured that way it was sort of like prepping her!

So at Shakespeare Jeff was itching so bad for the news to spill… I just kept waiting for the right time… Eventually I said ‘hey mom, did you want your present?’ I said ‘I’m still making the rest but here is part of it’ and handed her the bib.  The reaction was priceless.  Best face ever!  Turns out the DID like it and both of my folks are pretty excited to be grandparents for the first time, I think they thought they would miss out on that all together, me being the youngest at almost 30 and with no plans on the horizon. 🙂

So that is how the fam found out, I am so grateful to have full support (not that I thought I wouldn’t for even a second) and such an amazing family.

How things have been since:

For honesty sake, things are hard!  Really hard.  It’s exactly like dealing with some really big important life changing news when you are and have been sick as a dog for weeks and have no patience for anything.  Literally anything.  I am SO tired, I have no patience, no niceties to give out, to like, anyone.   Almost everything pisses me off and I can’t even help it.  I get pissed off that I am always so pissed off!  It’s just insane I am ready for that phase to be through.   James and I fight and fight even though he no longer picks those fights and sees the importance of sometimes just letting sleeping dogs lay (me).  It still doesn’t seem to change the fact that I have zero tolerance combined with my already limited filter… leaves me with lots of crappy things to say.  Two of the things that have pissed me off, and guys, NEVER do this, ever.  Do not wake your pregnant significant other from a nap to ask her ‘if she needs anything’.  While this may be very well intended, what she needs is sleep if she’s sleeping and you are likely to get your head ripped off, if not literally you may wish it was literally.   Second, do not call her ‘hormonal’ (or any variation of the term), even if she is, you are more than likely going to see what actual hormones look like if you do.  (I do say all of this in good humor now, but it was NOT funny at the time…)

Picking a midwife/doctor:

not having any idea where to start and probably having watched too many documentaries like ‘The Business of Being Born’ left me with a lot of what feel like life altering decisions to be made.  Doctor verses midwife, why where how etc.   There was just a lot of information to take in, to read to pick through and digest and eventually, like most decisions I just got overwhelmed with the options and picked what made the least bad sense.  I have no idea if it is the right choice but I feel pretty comfortable with it right now.  I decided to go with a midwife because I feel like child birth should be ‘treated’ as a natural occurrence, because it is! and less like a medical condition.   With that being said I know that I have about the worst medical luck possible as proven through my history so I want there to be doctors accessible IF they should be needed.  My solution was to go with the local hospital which staffs midwifes.  One of these midwifes was also the only suggestion I got from a friend who had recently had her daughter at the same place.  I picked their ‘next available’ midwife and made an appointment.   Unfortunately they did not want to see me until I was about 10 weeks along by my calculations.  I found out about 6 weeks along, made the appointment at 7 and had to sit on my hands kinda terrified for three weeks.  My only complaint is that I wish I was able to go in sooner to set my mind at ease quicker.  But I got through that with the help of some girlfriends and my family.  After meeting with her last week I feel WAY more comfortable.  I think the midwife I was assigned and the facility are perfect.   It is right between my work and my home and everyone is so nice and helpful.  She took lots of time to sit with James and I and answer all of our questions and has a sense of humor which goes a long way in situations like this!  It’s nice to be assisted by a real person, not just a doctor interested in my charts and stats.  I was able to talk through all of my concerns, like twins (which it isn’t!  She double checked 🙂 ).  She demystified everything for me and made me feel really comfortable and excited!  I think for me a midwife was definitely the right choice.

When looking for a midwife I did learn a few things, mine is a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) which means she was actually a nurse first, she had to go to school and knows lots of medical things… after that she had to go to graduate school to get a masters degree in Midwifery.  NOT ALL MIDWIFES HAVE TO DO THIS.  There are limited regulations for what it takes to be a midwife, this is one area (unlike architecture) where it is very important to look at the certification and the letters after the name.  This is also why midwifes are not accepted by insurance as much as you would think, they are not necessarily medical professionals.  The ones that are are usually covered by insurance though.   Part of me just really lucked out I think with the midwife I found, but after the fact I did learn a bit about the whys of things.  As always if anyone has any questions shoot me an email, I can try to figure things out with you, I like to learn and also I bet your questions will benefit me :).

The ultrasound:  Going in for the ultrasound was cool, I didn’t know if I would get one, when I called to ask they said sometimes they do sometimes they don’t.  It was the first thing Renika (my midwife) did after she got all my questions answered.   She used it to confirm the pregnancy even though I already knew.  For James this seemed to be the moment things became ‘real’.  He squealed like a kid at Christmas, it was awesome.   I was almost as fascinated with his reactions as I was that there was a little person inside of me, I think I watched him just as much as the kiddo, I mean the kiddo is old news to me, it was pretty ‘real’ for me a while ago :).   ‘The kid’, which my cousin makes fun of me for calling the baby, sat still for a bit but then scurried off into the black obis that is my tummy before Renika found her again.   She took a still so she could take her measurements, which confirmed exactly what we thought, to the day.  Due date is March 21st.  I asked to make sure there wasn’t another hiding in there and she double checked and confirmed there is just one baby.  HUGE sigh of relief for me.  I am the daughter of a twin and have loads of twins on both sides of my family.   Honestly, that experience was pretty cool.  James took me out to lunch after to celebrate and I headed back to work.

Finding out the sex:  We don’t know the sex yet, I think it’s a girl, James thinks boy at this point, there is nearly zero rational behind that, mine is a gut feel and I think James is because it isn’t ‘cute’ yet, even though it looks exactly like other ten week old fetuses, ha!  Or maybe he just wants a boy… I had heard of this way to predict the sex early and we tried to explain it to Renika but it didn’t work, she had no idea what we were talking about. Next time I will print it off and bring it in with us even though we may just be able to tell next time.

So I think that is pretty much everything about baby at this point.   Well not everything, but certainly more than enough!

Oh, one thing I should mention because I am already starting to get baby gifts, I live in a tiny house and will continue to.  Please don’t get gifts out of obligation, I don’t have much space for them and babies really don’t need a lot.  Kind words are the best gift you could give and are appreciated a lot.  

I got to go out to eat witha bonified Midwife just two days before my appointment, what a nice and much needed night out for me, and completely random!

The big debut, this is the little parasite growing inside me. I think I only get to call it a parasite for another week or so before it starts contributing to it's own development but I will probably call her (I only think it's a girl, we won't know for a few more weeks) a parasite for the next 18 or so years 😉

I have no idea why I was laughing so hard... the nurse had to hold the blood pressure thing up because my arm we too skinny... yeah, it's really not THAT funny 😉

And on the way home from work there was a cool storm, apperently everyone in boise had some crazy story about the lightning and rain but I never got touched by it, it was rainy in the distance but all I saw was rainbows, coming from the hood of my car, I don't think I will be the type of parent to perpetuate the whole 'gold at the end of the rainbow' story...

And, completely unrelated, James and I went to the park with Denny last night and the Boise Police Patrol cart came by and we met a very nice gentleman who wanted to take our picture. Mostly because Denny is so handsome, he's hared to resist ;). I guess they sometimes put these on the city website and marketing stuff, so maybe we will be famous! 😉

Another, we don't have feet... just kidding, we're just curled up on the bench 🙂