On Being Pregnant: Second Trimester

And so we move onto the...

2nd Trimester:

Brenden and I decided to announce our pregnancy to the general public the first day of the second trimester. We had decided on this day long before we realized that my second trimester began on April Fool's Day. We considered waiting to announce it until the day after April Fool's Day because we didn't want people to doubt us but then we realized we didn't actually care if people doubted us. We thought it would even add to the fun of the announcement. So on April 1st, the first day of the second trimester, right around midnight, I posted a little puzzle to announce the pregnancy. We loved the responses and congratulations. 

My morning sickness mostly subsided during the second trimester. I did discover my gag reflex is much more sensitive than before. But I'm glad I don't feel like throwing up every day anymore.

The first time I was sure I felt the baby move was right around the middle of 17 weeks. I was attending a trumpet recital and as soon as the performers began, I could feel the baby moving. The baby kept moving throughout the remainder of the recital. I don't think the baby's hearing is developed enough at that point to be the explanation behind the sudden and sustained movement for the duration of the recital but it's fun to think about. Baby continues to be super active and makes sure I know about baby's existence; I get good kicks and punches pretty regularly. At every ultrasound and heart tones check up, Baby is constantly moving around, sometimes making it difficult to get a good heart rate reading or a good ultrasound picture. When I first noticed Baby's movements, I would burst out laughing because I found the sensation so strange and exciting. Brenden joined in my laughter because I apparently looked like a crazy person. I've grown used to the movements now but I still find them exciting every day and enjoy the sudden reminder that I have a sweet baby growing inside me.

At 18 weeks we had our big exciting ultrasound where we could find out the sex of our baby. Brenden and I were adamant about keeping it a surprise but when we saw our little baby on the screen we realized we had to know. We took back what we said to our ultrasound technician and asked the doctor if he knew what we were having. He told us and we told our family. Everyone else will have to wait until we do a big gender reveal at the baby shower. Be excited! It's either a boy or a girl! 

Near the end of the first trimester, I started expanding. Now in the second trimester I feel like I am ballooning. I have three pairs of maternity pants and a few shirts I can wear in public. I wear drawstring and yoga pants and Brenden's t-shirts while I'm at home. I think the only pre-pregnancy clothes I can still wear are my socks. By the way, I love my maternity jeans. I think I might wear them for the rest of my life. 

I think my biggest struggle during the second trimester has been getting comfortable enough to sleep through the night. Since Brenden has been away at Philmont for the last two weeks, I've been able to utilize our entire queen bed and all EIGHT of our pillows. For the first time in a long time, I've been able to sleep through the night on a semi-regular basis. We'll have to see how things change once he returns.

I'm not sure if the concept that Brenden and I are going to have a child has fully settled in my mind yet. I feel like I should be more scared than I am right now. I expect some of the fear will show up in the third trimester and certainly once we take our sweet baby home from the hospital. I guess right now I'm purely excited for this new chapter in our lives. It's a feeling I want to soak in as long as I can.

On Being Pregnant: First Trimester

I am 27 weeks pregnant this week and our baby is somewhere around the size of a rutabaga, apparently. I get weekly email updates about my pregnancy and in each one some item of produce is used as measurement for the size of my growing child. I just thought I should mention this for anyone who doesn't get weekly updates like these. They're not very good measures. For example, it could easily say:  27 weeks: "This week your baby is the size of a rutabaga!" 28 weeks: "This week your baby is the size of an even larger rutabaga!" Or like the week when I was told my baby was the size of an avocado-- okay, well is that an avocado from Walmart or the Mexican food market? There's quite a difference.

Anyway, I thought I would give a little update on my exciting experience of growing a human being inside of me. Next week marks the beginning of my third trimester and I figure I should share some of my experience with the blogosphere.

Here's a little recap on what went down this first trimester:

1st Trimester: 

Brenden and I found out we were expecting a baby on January 26th. I took a few different pregnancy tests to confirm it and Brenden laughed at my excitement with each positive answer. It was a wonderful day! 

I contacted an OB/GYN in Athens the next Monday. Because of my chronic illness and other exciting health things, I'm considered a high-risk pregnancy. I've had more check ups and ultrasounds than a normal pregnancy would. I had an amazing rheumatologist in Atlanta who took great care of me and stuck me with needles every single visit I had to keep track of basically anything and everything. We learned our baby is at risk for fetal heart block. This is something we are currently keeping tabs on. Also, I have a particularly large uterine fibroid which is basically a noncancerous tumor. It can grow during pregnancy so my doctors are keeping track of that as well. Luckily, its location shouldn't be a problem for a normal delivery for me. It just takes up a bit of space that the baby could use so I get to grow especially large and uncomfortable during pregnancy. It could become particularly painful sometime during the pregnancy but it isn't likely.  

I experienced quite a bit of morning sickness during my first trimester. I learned to be okay with throwing up. I became adept at distinguishing when I was just feeling sick and when I was about to expel my last meal. I prided myself on always knowing the exact right time to run to the toilet. 

Even though I didn't throw up ALL the time, I did feel sick almost all the time. I had plans to volunteer and work during Brenden's last semester at UGA. Those plans fell through as I spent much of my time in bed, feeling miserable. But happy miserable! After my illness and stint in the hospital last year, being pregnant sick was awesome. I had a wonderful reason behind my sickness.

While being sick, I was unable to hold down a lot of my favorite foods so I discovered some "comfort" foods that I found tolerable. I stockpiled those particular items. I am opening myself up for judgment here but I don't care. All I could eat some days were cheap pizzas from the frozen aisle at the grocery store and Spaghetti-o's. I literally mean "all I could eat" since there were days I would make myself healthy meals with all of the nutrition and nourishment the baby needs to grow big and strong just to throw it all up while the only thing I could hold down at the end of the day was a can of Spaghetti-o's or a Totino's pizza. I tried my best to be healthy-- I bought the calcium enriched Spaghetti-o's. I figured not starving while pregnant was a better alternative to starving while pregnant. I think in general not starving is a better alternative to starving but particularly so whilst pregnant. 

So first trimester I was sick a lot and ate junk to stay alive. I had doctors' visits and blood tests galore. The End. 

An Update from a Month Ago!!!

Here's a post I wrote when we first moved back to Spring:

Blog Post 5.16.13

Looking Back, Catching Our Breath, & Looking Forward

                These past few weeks have been ridiculous. In addition to finishing up one of the scariest semesters I’ve ever had (chamber music recital, Master’s orals examinations, four term papers and a final – all of this over the course of five weeks), we also packed up all our stuff and moved. Also I graduated with a Master’s degree in Music performance from the University of Georgia and we had a lot of family visit us to celebrate and help us move.

                The last semester saw some huge changes for our family. I decided not to pursue a Doctoral degree in music or even a career in music. I’m going to keep playing the tuba and plan to put on a recital every summer because it would be a horrible waste to have put in as much work as I have and then stop playing. Also because I would probably go insane. I’m also looking into starting a small private teaching studio. I’m considering a lot of things for employment over the next year. I’ve started looking into other career options and am planning to go for another round of school at University of Houston after gaining Texas residency status. I have my eye on a career in dentistry because it would allow for an ideal work family balance, we’d be comfortable/secure financially, and because I have an uncle and a grandpa who were/are dentists. They’ve both warned me that it’s not all cake and roses, but I like to think I could handle it. We decided to start a family and have our first child on the way (with an ETA of late September/early October).

                A smaller-scale bit of news that I learned recently and am super pumped about (I don’t get super pumped, so this is kind of an anomaly on my excitement scale) is that I get to go to Philmont with my Dad in mid-June. Philmont is often referred to as “scouter’s paradise” and for good reason. It’s a huge camp where crews go backpacking for a bit over a week in the mountains of New Mexico. I had the good fortune of going to Philmont back in 2006 when I was 16 and now I get to go again as an adult leader. Having done scout camp a few summers ago as an assistant scoutmaster, I can say from experience that the adults get some sweet perks. That is, as far as perks go when you’re roughing it in the backcountry. I think you’re supposed to start training for Philmont at least 6 months in advance. I get 6 weeks. So now I have to recover from the steady stream of sugar and caffeine that got me through the end of the semester. So far, so good.

Some thoughts on Boston

This morning I was writing in a journal I started keeping since I learned I was pregnant. I haven't been very diligent about it but I've been having this nagging guilty feeling every time I've seen my journal sitting on a table in the house and this morning I finally picked it up and started writing while I ate a bowl of cereal.

I felt inclined to write, particularly after hearing about the bombings in Boston. I had feelings I wanted to sort out and I didn't think it would be right to completely ignore such a tragedy in a journal I hope this baby will someday read. I don't want this child to think his/her mother had some falsely optimistic view of this scary world we live in. I want my child to know I am aware of the evils of this world and even though they exist, I did deliberately bring him/her into this world.

I think it's significant that this is the first entry in this journal that I addressed directly to my child. As I was writing, I realized the entry turned out a lot different than what I had originally anticipated. I imagined explaining my confusion and despair over the events that occurred two days ago. I thought I would write about how I cried for an hour after hearing about the attacks and I couldn't completely understand why. I thought I would apologize for how terrifying and evil the world is and how sorry I was that this is the life we, as a society, have created.

What I wrote instead both surprised me and didn't surprise me:

My sweet little baby, sometimes scary things happen in the world. They happen a lot actually and some people might even wonder why we are bringing you into such a scary world. I hope you will be able to see the good in the world as you grow up and that you will never become weary. Even when there are so many bad things happening, they cannot compare to the good things in life. If you took all of the bad things and somehow added them all up into one big gigantic bad thing, it would still not compare to the glorious joy and light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Did you know that? I hope you will come to know it. There is nothing bigger or more consuming than the Gospel. It is for everyone everywhere and can bring joy and peace throughout all of the world. If you are ever frightened or saddened by the scary things in the world, remember the joy and peace of the Gospel and the love Heavenly Father and your Savior have for you. Remember that because of them, good will always prevail in the end and darkness will be cast out by radiant light.    

When bad things happen, sometimes people ask where is God in all of this? Because God has given us agency to choose right or wrong, He will not stop people from making bad choices but He will help us fix them. God is always there. You can see Him in everyone who is trying to make things right.

You can see Him in the first responders at the scene and medical personnel at the hospitals. You can see Him in the bystanders turned heroes. You can see Him in the family and friends comforting one another. You can see Him in residents offering their homes and food to the stranded. You can see Him in those mourning with those that mourn. God is there with the people affected by the bombings in Boston. He is with us always.

Best Spring Break Ever

Hi Folks! I know it's been a long time since I wrote anything on this blog. You probably know that too, so let's cut to the chase!

(Regarding the title of this post: the thoughtful reader may do well to note that I never had Spring breaks at BYU and Natalie was severely ill during spring break last year. So the only legitimate competition for the title of Best Spring Break Ever occurred way back in high school. Your spring break experiences are automatically disqualified.)

This past week was my spring break and Natalie's & my longtime friend, Missy Bethke came to town (she has family here in Athens). Resplendent shenanigans ensued.

It all began last Friday because my classes were all cancelled. I don't remember what Natalie and I did on Friday. Now I remember. We went to the library and I checked out an entire series of comic books and stayed up really late reading them.

On Saturday, Missy came into town. Natalie and I had to clean our house a lot before she got here. But we slept in instead so I had to clean when Natalie and Missy did stuff. For Dinner we went to the Last Resort Grill, which is a fantastic local restaurant. We also visited a local bookstore and an antique store.

On Sunday, Missy came to church with us and then we went to the State Botanical Gardens of Georgia. There wasn't much blooming or even leafy at the gardens, but it's still a beautiful place and we had fun. It was a beautiful day.

On Monday, we watched Les Miserables at the $2.50 Theater (which was until recently the two-dollar-theater). I don't think you need me to tell you to watch this movie if you haven't yet. I'm going to have to read that book some day. But first I have to get through Atlas Shrugged and a handful an armload of other books I'm already reading/planning to read.

On Tuesday, we went to Treehouse Kid and Craft, an arts and crafts store, so Natalie could sign up for a beginning sewing class she's going to take. It turns out that this store has some of the most amazing children's stuff I've ever seen. They had a two-foot tall monochromatic brontosaurus statue (for shelf decor), a hand-tuned 16-tone silver heirloom rattle, little bow ties that can unroll into superhero capes, awesome art prints, a wooden chalkboard-laptop, and a technicolor inflated rocking/bouncing horse/donkey called Rody (among other things). After visiting Treehouse Kid and craft, Natalie and Missy went to the Georgia Museum of Art on UGA campus while I practiced tuba. After that, we went to the Athens Visitor Center to get information for our future adventures on Wednesday and Thursday.

On Wednesday, we went to Tallulah Gorge State Park. It was a lot of fun. It wasn't a very long hike in terms of mileage, but it was one of the most exhausting hikes I've ever been on in terms of exhaustion units per mile. It was only a five-mile (ish?) hike down the gorge floor along the river to the end of the trail at Bridal Veil Falls and then back up again. Along the way we went up and down 531 stairs, crossed a suspension bridge, crossed a river by jumping from rock to rock (except for when we had to tread water because the river was too high), and climbing across a very slippery boulder that was a cliff face above and went down straight into the river. Missy actually fell in the river at this part and had to swim downstream a little to get to a place where she could climb out of the water. The water was very cold. Luckily, Missy was planning to swim and we had all our electronics in sealed plastic bags. After Missy, fell in, Natalie decided not to do the slippery climbing and waited for me and Missy to hike the rest of the way and back. When we got to the end of the trail, there was a natural waterslide and Missy went for an intentional swim. When we had to climb back across the slippery climbing place, Missy had a much easier time than before and did not fall in. I did not fall in but I had a really hard time climbing across. And I mean a really hard time. I even tore a huge hole in the front of my shirt (and it was my Philmont shirt too!). After that we continued back up the way we came (climbing over boulders, crossing the river, and then up the stairs). It was a lot of stairs and we were all exhausted at the end. Then we got ice cream to refresh ourselves.

RIP Philmont Shirt

Draining the water out of my boots after crossing the river

On Thursday, we went to Atlanta. We visited the place where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born. There was also a museum we visited where we learned about the civil rights movement. We visited the Atlanta LDS Temple. Then we went and got dinner at Gladys Knight and Ron Winan's Chicken and Waffles. Pretty much everything I had there was the best of that thing I've ever had. Fried green tomatoes, fried chicken, waffles, mac & cheese, green beans. It was awesome. They played lots of funk and soul and such, so I used my Shazam app and now I have a list of all the songs we heard there. There's a special place in my heart for this kind of music because my mom always played Earth, Wind, and Fire when I was growing up. And because it rocks.

"Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in this house; January 15, 1929"

 

 

After Dinner, we went to the Shakespeare Tavern and saw a fantastic production of Much Ado about Nothing. They took some surprising interpretive liberties, inserting some contemporary references and humor. It's amazing to me how much life actors can give to the texts they're reciting. There was even a hurdy gurdy.

On Friday and Saturday Natalie and I watched the entire season of Firefly for the first time. SO GOOD. We also caught up on sleep and continued recovering from our hike. "You can't take the sky from me-ee..."

On Sunday we had dinner with Missy's family again. It's always fun to visit them. They have a new puppy named Maple. She's beautiful and very enthusiastic, but she has no idea how big she is.

Go Dawgs!

Well that pretty much wraps up my account of Spring Break 2013. We had excellent adventures with excellent company. Aside from the travels I've written about, we had a great time with Missy just relaxing, conversing, and eating good food.