growth spurt

if you look at the week 16 growth post last week, it said that "In the next three weeks, she'll go through a tremendous growth spurt, though, doubling her weight and adding inches to her length."

looks like it is so true!!


i take a pic every sun morning and all previous week pics were very similiar to week 16's. one more week until the ultrasound!!

maternity jeans

i bought my first pair of maternity jeans!! haha i actually don't really need them yet, but i found a good deal on a pair of paige maternity jeans on ebay so i bought them. they were already altered too. got them for about $60 when retail is almost $200!! they are quite interesting, you basically just pull them up and there's a stretchy waistband on top. no buttons or zippers to fuss with! so yay, i might get one more pair, we'll see. i dunno how much i'll be wearing jeans in the summer, i actually kind of dread it. i'm going to be big, uncomfortable and hot, on top of which our house has no A/C! lovely.

week 16 update

nothing really exciting going on here, but symptoms to date:
-pretty frequent headaches (usually worse when i don't drink enough water) have had to take tylenol twice when they were really bad
-have to eat small meals throughout the day, if i eat too much at a time it feels REALLY uncomfortable and i feel sick. it's really hard to control how much i eat when we go out to eat though. i probably should only eat about 1/5th of my dish but end up eating at least 1/2 which makes me feel terrible afterwards. hopefully i'll get better at it.
-don't really drink enough water, i'm trying though! every time i get up to get more water, i end up going to the bathroom as well!! luckily i've still been able to make it through the night without having to pee. i guess there is no pressure on my bladder when i'm lying down or sitting, whew!
-however, i do wake up several times throughout the night trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in. i'm not supposed to sleep on my back because it supposedly puts pressure on some artery, so you're supposed to sleep on your side. the whole first trimester i slept on my back because sleeping on my side was so uncomfortable. but now sleeping on my back is not feeling that great either, so i try to sleep on my side, but it kind of makes my back hurt so i wake up a few times at night to shift positions.
-my stomach is getting hard and round, but i think for the most part you still can't really tell. to me it feels like my stomach is getting big though =) jeans are starting to feel tighter but i can still wear them for now. i'm really curious to see how much i weigh- i should buy a scale. i don't really over eat or crave unhealthy stuff yet, but it's still early.

week 16 growth

I get these weekly updates from babycenter.com about how the baby is growing. I'll copy it here so people can see that the baby is still super super tiny!! (PS those pronouns they use are random, sometimes they use he, sometimes they use she.)

At 4 1/2 inches long (head to bottom) and 3 1/2 ounces, your baby is about the size of an avocado. In the next three weeks, she'll go through a tremendous growth spurt, though, doubling her weight and adding inches to her length. Her lower limbs are much more developed now. Her head is more erect than it has been, and her eyes have moved toward the front of her head. Your baby's ears are close to their final position, too. Some of her more advanced body systems are working, including her circulatory system and urinary tract. Her heart is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood each day, circulating her total blood volume through her body many times. (By the end of your pregnancy, this will increase to about 190 quarts.) The patterning of her scalp has begun, though her hair isn't recognizable yet. Although closed, her eyes are moving (slowly), and she's even started growing toenails.

2nd trimester

i'm officially in my 2nd trimester now. my stomach is starting to get round and hard. i think i'm now entering the phase where i look a little pudgy with a big tummy instead of pregnant.

i've had one dream so far about the baby. it was a very strange dream, but i've been having a lot of very bizarre dreams lately. this one was the only one that was baby-related though. in this dream, my SON was about 3, his name was "Hero" and he was sitting on my lap. I gave him two strands of my hair and asked him which was one thicker. HMM, weird no? so umm, i'm pretty sure this dream is not going to come true, except for maybe having the son part. his name is definitely not going to be Hero, haha. we've finally come up with 4-5 possibilities of boy's names. we'll probably try to narrow it down later if it is confirmed we'll be having a boy, and maybe even taking a poll! i am thinking that it is very likely that the baby is going to be a boy, so i'm preparing myself for it hehe

one thing i wish is that i had more appts just to ease my mind that the baby is still alive in there. a lot of women actually rent baby dopplers so they can listen to the baby's heartbeat at home whenever they want. i was considering it since it's only $20 a month, but j seems to think that is crazy and i'm being too paranoid. since he is not the one carrying the baby and having to worry about it, i don't think he really understands, but whatever, i *should* start feeling the baby moving around soon, so that will help. i've actually still been hesitant to tell people i'm pregnant until i actually SEE the baby on the ultrasound. 4 more weeks, hopefully they pass by quickly!!

gender prediction

just for fun i've been trying to see if i can find anything online about gender prediction. Here are some old wives tales about being pregnant with a boy:
* you are carrying your baby low
* the baby is very active
* you are craving salt
* a wedding ring suspended on a string over your belly rocks back and forth and not in a circle
* the baby's heart rate is less than 140 beats per minute
* you didn't have a lot of morning sickness in the first trimester
* your feet are cold
some of these don't apply to me because it's still too early in the pregnancy. i haven't tried the ring thing either, seems kind of hokey?? so i guess i'm craving salt (more than sweet at least), not much morning sickness, and my feet have always been cold!! so a boy could be very likely.

but there's also a chinese astrology test which just uses your age when you give birth and the month of conception to determine the gender. according to that, i'm having a girl.

for some women, they have dreams about their baby and the gender is usually correct, but so far i haven't had any baby-related dreams. j had a dream last night that we were having a girl, so we'll see if it comes true or not!!

5 more weeks until the ultrasound. i don't really believe any of those old wives tales or the chinese astrology test, but it was fun to look them up. one is saying i'm having a boy and one is saying i'm having a girl, no help at all!!

freakouts

i think every pregnant woman has these freakout moments where she thinks "omg what have i done??" it's definitely a life-changing event to have a baby, one i'm not sure anyone can really prepare for. yes you hear all the stories, but it's not really "real" until you actually experience it yourself. i've been reading up on what to expect in the last trimester, the labor & delivery, and the aftermath. wow, it's quite overwhelming and very scary. but it looks like there's no turning back now!! i mean, a woman's body is made to handle having a baby, but imagining something approximately the size of my dog coming out of me?? it's hard to wrap my brain around it. and of course there's the whole body image thing. seeing your weight on the scale in numbers you've never seen before is not cool. i'm just hoping i don't end up weighing as much as j!!! i'm really hoping to keep it to a modest 30-35 lbs. i also don't look forward to the mommy badge of extra skin/fat that i'll have on my mid-section after birth either. ah well, i'm sure once the baby comes i'll say it was all worth it, but as of now, i don't think i can say that yet =P

i have ~6 months before i have to say goodbye to my life. as everyone says, once you have kids, you can kiss your own life bye!! everything you do will now be for your kids. i think there will always be a part of me that will wonder if maybe we should have stayed DINKs to be able to travel whenever we want, spend our income on ourselves instead of college funds, and not have the huge responsibility of shaping someone else's life. but i've always wanted kids and i think i'm up for the task, so time to live it up until the baby comes!!! and brace myself for the craaazy rollercoaster ride i'll be on for the next 20 years..........

sigh of relief

well, i had my appt today and it sounds like the baby is still alive in there because we heard the heartbeat using the doppler! i think at kaiser, if you don't have any complications in your pregnancy, the only ultrasound you get is the 20 week one to check the sex and it's done at the santa clara facility. (at my first appt i had a vaginal ultrasound-not the tummy one- which was used to date the pregnancy) i had to take another urine sample, i tried to drink as much water as possible after i woke up (my appt was at 9:20am) and managed to squeeze some out. the dr also took a pap smear and whatever else they usually do during a normal gyno exam. she also went over my lab work that i had done last fri and everything checked out ok except I have an UTI. i don't have any symptoms, but i have to take antibiotics for 7 days.

so everything looks to be going well. no noticeable weight gain, maybe 2-3 lbs so far. not showing yet, just bloated for the most part. throughout the day my stomach seems to get bigger from the food/water, but after going to bed and waking up in the morning, it's back to normal. i can still fit in my normal clothes with no problem and the dr thinks i probably won't show until 6 months. i don't really have an increased appetite or real cravings yet, i actually don't really feel pregnant at all except for the fact i get tired very easily!

looks like i've breezed through my first trimester without too much suffering and can probably start telling people that i'm expecting, whee! next appt is not until april 1st for the ultrasound.

prenatal class

I had my early pregnancy class today, it was pretty uneventful. The teacher just gave some pretty basic information. We had to get some blood drawn and give a urine sample, so I was stressed about the pee test the whole time. I bought a bottle of water and finished it in 30 minutes haha. I still only filled up about 20% of the cup but hopefully that was sufficient. I finally have my next few appointments lined up though. Every appt from now on will have a urine test, so I'll have to prepare myself each time. Getting a urine sample is no fun...ugh.
2/13 is my next appt, if everything checks out ok then i've made it through the first trimester. i'm hoping and praying there will be a heartbeat!! i've been worried about it lately because the few pregnancy symptoms i had are gone, eek. plus i'm not sure if this is good or bad, but i haven't gained any weight. so i guess we'll see how it goes. it's only 5 days away.
4/1 is the ultrasound appt where i can hopefully find out the sex (if the baby cooperates!!).
4/30 is my mid-pregnancy class, but i just realized that is the day we're leaving for puerto rico so i'll have to reschedule it.

WARNING!!! Too Much Info post ahead!!!

since i've been preggers, my bowel movements have been few and far between. i think i go every 5 days or so??? i've been trying to increase my fiber but it doesn't seem to really help. i might have to start eating prunes ew. i really wonder where all the food is going, i'm hoping the baby is absorbing it all hehe. coffee works really well on me as a laxative, but i'm trying to limit caffeine and all that. ugh ugh. i'm also retaining a lot of water. even when i drink a lot of water, i don't go to the restroom very often. it's quite odd since an early symptom of being pregnant is having to go to the bathroom a lot, but for me it's quite the opposite. i guess my uterus is not putting pressure on my bladder yet. anyways, so the result of these two lovely symptoms of constipation and water retention have me feeling bloated all the time. fun fun.