20 Weeks Today [Updated]

With luck and G-d willing, today marks the half-way point in this pregnancy.

Half-way there! Yahooooooo!!

I am counting the seconds until I get to meet my daughter. Here's hoping the last 20 weeks go a lot faster than the first 20 weeks!

[Update: So shortly after I wrote this post, D and I headed to bed. On my dad's suggestion, I thought I'd try playing some music to my belly to see if I could get the baby to kick. I loaded up my iPod with a bunch of mellow Beatles songs and sitting in bed last night, I pressed the headphones to my belly. It took about two minutes and then I felt her kick! I told D to put his hand on my belly and sure enough, he felt her kick too, for the first time! It was so magical I almost cried. My husband's first real connection to his daughter.

And can you guess which Beatles song got our little girl kicking? "Something In The Way She Moves"... Appropriate, no?]

Worth Every Penny

My mum called yesterday to excitedly tell me that she went out and bought "the cutest baby girl outfit you've ever seen."  Between my parents and D's, I have a feeling this little girl is going to be very, very spoiled.  Speaking of outfits, there is a great collection at Cafe Press for babies conceived through IVF and other forms of ART.  Check out what I ordered yesterday (I couldn't resist):

I'm so glad you all like the name we chose.  Everyone we've told has seemed to like it (or they're just being polite - but either way who cares).  Unfortunately, the battle surrounding the middle name continues.  D and I simply cannot agree.   I want it to be a symbolic name, representing a family member or someone (or something) important to us; and D, I think, is going for more of a nice sounding name.  It truly is becoming The Big Baby Name Debate of 2008.

Lastly, our little girl's kicks and movements (still just flutters at this point) have become s-l-o-w-l-y more frequent but I still can't seem to sense a pattern yet.  She was totally quiet for past two days until last night - we were watching a movie and she went crazy.  For the second time ever, I got to feel her from the outside.  While I'm truly grateful for any movement at all, I'm jealous of those who are getting routinely kicked and punched on a steady basis.  I know every baby is different, but I can't help but wonder when we'll get there.  Still so many milestones to look forward to!

Reeling

I haven’t touched the ground in almost 24 hours. D and I are both SO HAPPY to be having a baby girl. It’s weird actually, I really thought in my heart that Scrappy was a boy. And now that we know she’s a girl, I can’t imagine it any other way.

It’s still hitting me in waves. Finding out this amazing news has made this experience feel so much more real. It’s really happening! I’m going to have a daughter! A DAUGHTER!! I am literally seeing pink.

D is thrilled too. I think he was a bit shocked at first but now that the reality is setting in, we’re both getting more and more excited by the minute. When D was leaving for work this morning, he rubbed my belly and said “Bye my little girl! Have a good day!” So sweet.

We can’t stop talking about her, dreaming about her, thinking about her and planning for her arrival.

We have already decided that:
-She will never date (no guy will ever be good enough for her I’m afraid)
-She will never wear makeup
-She will never wear dangling earrings, or have her ears pierced for that matter
-She will never stay out past 7pm

Thinking about this baby as a girl just makes me want to protect her.

Also, last night, we made a firm decision on a name. I am really happy with it. I haven’t decided it I’m ready to share it with the world yet… Well, OK, maybe just with you guys…

Our daughter will be Maya.

Just Got A Call From My Doctor's Office...

And if you can't tell from my new blog design...

We're having a GIRL!!!

I am so happy, so thrilled, so excited, words cannot express...

I'm going to have a daughter. My daughter.

My baby girl.

How Cute Is This???

Baby is sucking his/her thumb in the first picture. The profile in the second picture looks amazingly like my husband (guess we can rule out the mailman!). Lastly, I give you Skeletor Baby. I just adore this kid!!


*So hey, listen...
I didn't want to ruin the scan by blocking out my name with pen, and I couldn't figure out how to do it on the electronic version (I don't think I have the software)...So if there are any creepy internet freaks out there who are thinking of stalking me...please don't. I'm really not very intersting. Thaaaanks.

A Sigh Of Relief...And We're Having A Girl? Maybe??

Sweet relief!!!

Today's ultrasound went great. Unfortunately we had quite an unfriendly technician - a Chinese lady with broken English who was definitely NOT into making small talk. The first thing she said to us was "do you want to know the baby's sex?" Both my husband and I simultaneously replied "YES!". She then said, "Well I'm not going to tell you today, but I will write it on your chart and you can call your doctor's office next week to find out." You know I will be calling first thing on Monday!

But those are not the important details of this post. These are:

-The baby measured "good" and "normal" (tech's exact words) on all counts according to the technician.
-The baby was moving all around, kicking and punching and being extra cute.
-The baby had all its parts and organs, right where they should be, and everything looked great.
-At one point, the baby reached up to suck its thumb, which made both D and me just melt.
-The baby measured one day ahead (19w3d) of its actual gestational age (19w2d). This bumps my due date ahead by one day but really, how often do babies actually arrive on their due date? (Answer: 5% of the time) I'm still keeping my original due date of August 17, 2008, although I guess technically now we can expect our little one on August 16, 2008 instead.

I was so mesmerized by seeing the baby, I forgot to ask the tech to measure my cervical length. I'm kicking myself about it now. I don't know if they automatically measure it or only if you ask them to. Either way, I'm going to call my doctor's office tomorrow and ask about it. Or maybe I won't. The numbers freaked me out so much last time, maybe it's better if I don't know the details and instead just accept those two most wonderful words ever uttered in broken english by a Chinese sonographer: "Good" and "Normal".

On a side note, the technician did let us get a good long look at the baby's "in between the legs" area and based on my "internet ultrasound observational expertise", I am pretty darn convinced we're having a girl. We'll know for sure next week!

I'll post some pictures from the scan tomorrow. No offense to any of you out there in blogland who are currently pregnant or have babies, but I gotta say - my kiddo is the Absolute Cutest Baby Ever. Consider yourselves fairly warned.

A Heart-Racing-Dry-Mouth-Clammy-Hands Kind Of Nervous

Only one more sleep until the big ultrasound. T minus 29.5 hours.

I am a complete and utter nervous wreck at the moment.

I wish, hope and pray that everything goes well and that we hear nothing but good news about our Scrappy. I’m finding myself incapable of concentrating, or even thinking about anything else. I’m putting off all other thoughts and decisions until after the ultrasound. My attention is a white-hot laser beam of focus right now and I find myself barely capable of going through through the motions of being at work; I am not at all present.

I just called my husband and babbled something completely incoherent to him. I have no idea what I was trying to say and now both of us are confused. What a state I'm in. I feel like I'm going insane.

Every minute that ticks by feels like at least 20. Could it even be possible that time is going backwards??

By the time 4:30pm tomorrow rolls around, it is entirely likely that I will have dissolved into some sort of hideous, crazy buzzing neon foam entity.

Behold, Hilary in just 29 hours from now (note the buff arms and atrophied legs due to the prolonged cultivation of my 'fight or flight' anxiety response):

19 Weeks Today

Wow almost half-way there! Crazy how sometimes time really does seem like it's flying.

Scrappy was quite active yesterday and I felt more taps and flutters than I've felt any other day so far. In fact, at one point Scrappy moved, and I quickly put my hand on the spot where I felt the movement. A few seconds later, s/he did it again and I could feel it, albeit lightly, from the outside. So cool. D had just left the room so unfortunately he missed the show. I am really excited for the day that D will be able to feel our baby move from the outside. I think he is too.

While I'm trying to remain positive and optimistic, I am pretty much FREAKING OUT about our upcoming ultrasound on Tuesday. This is "the big one" and is probably the most meaningful milestone during this entire pregnancy so far. I can't help but be nervous and anxious about it. I am also really excited and totally terrified all at the same time. In a nutshell, I'm kind of an emotional wreck about this ultrasound. I think besides the obvious reasons, I am partly so nervous because we've declined all other testing up to now, so this ultrasound also represents the outcome of the triple screen and the AFP test that we never had.

Please let everything go well. Please let our Scrappy show perfect development in all areas. Please let this kid measure right on target. Please let my cervix measure long and closed. Please let my placenta look normal. Please.

If you guys can spare a good thought for us on Tuesday at 4:30pm, I would be sincerely grateful. I am taking the entire day off work on Tuesday because I know I won't be productive. I'll just be curled in a ball in some corner of my house, rocking back and forth, chanting over and over "Oh my G-d, Oh my G-d, Oh my G-d...".

We may or may not find out the gender at this ultrasound. On the one hand, we might get a groovy tech that sees that we're devoted parents and doesn't mind breaking the "20 week law" that we have here in Canada about finding out the gender. (We'll only be 19w2d at the time of the scan.) On the other hand, we could get a really officious tech who doesn't bend or budge on the rules at all. This actually happened to my friend last week who went in for her scan at 19w6d and despite the fact that she was only one day away from 20 weeks, the tech WOULD NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES disclose the sex to her. However, I have another friend that went in at 19w2d and they did end up telling her the baby's gender without hesitation. So as you can see, it could really go either way.

But honestly, finding out the gender, while it would be great, is really not such a big deal to me right now. All I really care about is that Scrappy is healthy and developing properly. Gosh I'm so nervous. Must remember to breathe.

Speaking of developing, take a look at these belly pics - taken at 18w5d. There's no hiding it now!

Sooner Or Later, We Are All Going To Die

I apologize for the morbid title of this post. This post has been on my mind for some time now and I’ve been trying to find the words to put it together.

I have recently discovered that Nalgene water bottles are dangerous, especially to pregnant women. Now, as I have been using my Nalgene bottle EVERY SINGLE DAY since I’ve been pregnant – filling it up at least twice a day – I was quite ready to dismiss this “warning” and chalk it up to the countless other ridiculous, alarmist warnings that seem to come out of the woodwork during pregnancy.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, the Nalgene scare is real and it is one worth heeding. It has been shown that Nalgene bottles made of #7 plastic do indeed cause harm. A substance called BPA leeches from the plastic and, once in the body, mimics the hormone estrogen and may cause hormone imbalance for the mother and the fetus. Side effects can range from miscarriage, birth defects and genital/sexual problems for the babies, and all sorts of cancers once the children reach puberty and adulthood.

There are numerous factors that can accelerate the leeching of BPA out of the plastic, including letting the water sit in the bottle for long periods of time, exposure to sunlight and washing in the dishwasher (which I have done every week with my bottle). It is also worth mentioning that BPA isn’t limited to Nalgene bottles; you can also find it in a zillion other food packaging-related plastics, almost all “large water cooler bottles”, as well as virtually every canned food in some amount. Studies have shown that something like 93% of every man, woman and child has traces of BPA in their systems.

The reason I post is because I’m finding myself extremely frustrated lately. There are SO MANY foods, activities and items that pregnant women are told to avoid. Some of them are common knowledge, some of them are not. Some of them are truly dangerous, while some warnings are simply overblown, under-researched, alarmist scare-tactics. I learn about a new dangerous “something” I’m supposed to avoid every week it seems and wading through the fact and fiction is tiresome, frustrating and sometimes I just want to cry. All I want to do is take care of this precious life inside me, and it’s proving more challenging that I thought. It isn’t as simple as “eating right” anymore. There are levels of complexity to being pregnant and friends, I am utterly daunted.

Here is a brief list of some of the foods/activities/items I’ve heard or read we’re “supposed” to avoid as pregnant women. Some of these are real, some not so real.

-Soft Cheese (Unpasteurized)
-Deli Meats
-Raw Meats, Raw Eggs, Raw Fish
-Peanuts
-Non-Organic Dairy and Meats
-Salad Bars, Packaged Salads
-Soft Serve Ice Cream
-Smoked Fish, Smoked Meat
-Alcohol
-Herbal Teas
-Underwire Bras
-Canned Tuna
-Sleeping On Your Back
-Tap Water
-Bottled Water
-Paint Fumes, Chemical Fumes
-Lifting More Than 20 Pounds
-Sitting In The Hot Sun
-Squatting
-Bubble Bath
-X-Rays
-Ripe Green Fruit
-Lotions Containing Vitamin A
-Nalgene Bottles
-Pineapple
-GMO Soy
-Close Contact With Sheep
-Douching
-Nitrates
-Aspartame and Other Sweeteners
-Kitty Litter
-Ultrasound/Fetal Doppler
-Aspirin and OTC medication
-Hot Tubs/Saunas
-Hair Dye
-Nail Polish/Nail Polish Remover
-Caffeine
-MSG (Monosodium Glutimate)
-Stress

Which ones do YOU believe?
What other pregnancy no-no’s have YOU heard?

I am beyond frustrated to the point of just having to laugh at this whole thing. It seems no matter how hard I try, I am always doing something wrong. I not even 5 months into this parenting thing and I’ve already screwed up more times than I can count. It seems impossible that I could have a normal, healthy baby with all the packaged salad, Doppler sessions and Nalgene water I’ve subjected this poor kid to. It’s overwhelming separating fact from fiction and I just can’t keep up.

I ASK YOU: Are we, as pregnant women, supposed to live in a glass case existing on nothing but organic broccoli and boiled tap water? I certainly don’t know the answers, but I can tell you that in the meantime, I’m ditching my Nalgene bottle and buying a stainless steel one.

I’d love to hear your opinions on this subject, as well as any other real or ridiculous pregnancy no-no’s you’ve heard.

18 Weeks Today

It's been a crazy and exhausting weekend, I am just getting ready to head up to bed but wanted to post a quick update before the end of the day. We got all new appliances delivered on Saturday BUT not installed. They took away our old appliances and the new ones are sitting in our living room. If all goes well the installations will happen, one by one, over the next couple of weeks.

I'm finding it a tad frustrating living without appliances. I thought it would be easier. It's amazing how dependent I've become on having a dishwasher, oven, microwave and refrigerator. We are basically living on take out food and single-serve meals, which is fine for a couple of days but will most certainly get old fast. Ah well, I'm quite certain it will all be worth it in the end; our new appliances are gorgeous. In the meantime, our living room looks like the showroom at El Furniture Warehouse.

Nothing new to report on the pregnancy front, which I think it is a good thing if you adhere to the notion that no news is good news. Scrappy's movements are still very, VERY random and infrequent, but hopefully they will pick up now that I'm 18 weeks. Everyone is telling me to be patient, which I finding to be a challenge, as I am so looking forward to feeling our little one move around all the time. With very few exceptions, most the movements I've felt thus far have been so vague that while I think it's the baby, I can't be 100% sure. I can't wait to feel lots of movements and be sure and certain about them.

Other than that, I'm into a new peeing phase of this pregnancy. I feel like I have to go ALL the time, but when I go, very little comes out. I think the baby is hanging out on my bladder.

Lastly, good readers, I leave you with this: My usually coin-sized areolas have recently grown to the size of sand dollars. I discovered this sudden development whilst I was changing into my pajamas a few nights back. I couldn't believe my eyes - I had to make D take a look to ensure that I wasn't hallucinating. Unfortunately, D excitedly thought this might be an invitation to touch the girls, but no, his advances were dismissed but fast. We are on a strictly look-but-don't-touch program these days.

Good night!

A Fuzzy Rainbow-Coloured Easter Bunny Peace Offering

I had my OB/GYN appointment yesterday and much to my relief, all went well not only with the appointment but also with Dr. R. Although I was reassured by Monday’s phone call from her nurse, I was still a little unsure if Dr. R was upset with what I had done (please see Friday’s post for full story). To help counteract any negative feelings, I had brought two fuzzy rainbow-coloured Easter bunny toys for her girls. I thought that if she was mad at me, it would be hard to stay mad at someone bearing fuzzy rainbow-coloured Easter bunnies. But she wasn’t mad at all and the Easter bunnies were appreciated.

I’m happy to finally, once and for all, put that stupid stunt behind me and get on with life. Trust me on this one, the lesson was learned.

The rest of the appointment went, very well actually. As usual, I had tons of questions and concerns but Dr. R put each and every one of them to rest. She even re-checked my cervix (manually) because I have been so concerned about it and said it felt long and closed. Let’s hope it stays that way! My cervix will also be re-checked at “the big ultrasound” on March 25th.

Oh my goodness I already so extremely nervous for “the big ultrasound”. 12 days and counting. Eeek!

Scrappy’s movements have continued to be erratic at best. I thought I felt some flutters yesterday but it’s so hard to tell. I’m finding it frustrating because I really, REALLY want to feel steady constant movements and even though I know better, I’m worried because we’re not there yet. A flutter or two every 2-3 days seems to be what I’m getting right now. I know Scrappy’s up to something in there because I’ve heard his beautiful heartbeat several times already but is he growing? At 17.5 weeks, why aren’t I feeling more? Am I being impatient here??

An Idea That Sprung Forth at 1:00AM

I was being a total TWAT yesterday. That's right, I said it. I was just in a bad mood, but I don't like complaining like that. Especially to YOU guys. My apologies. I did end up leaving work an hour early and going home for a sweet nap. I slept HARD. I needed it.

As I was tossing and turning last night, trying to get comfortable, I had the most incredible idea for an invention. Let's call it the "Pregnancy Mattress". I think it will be an insert that goes on the top of your mattress. The idea is that it will have holes cut out of it for your breasts and belly, thus allowing one to sleep on their stomach - WITHOUT annoying pressure on all the parts of your body that are sticking out. Being a habitual stomach sleeper, I am having a really hard time not sleeping on my belly and just can't seem to get really comfortable in any other position.

And perhaps this little magical contraption could double as a nursing pillow? Yeah, you could put the mattress on your lap and stick your baby in the tummy hole and wedge him right up to your breast. Uh huh! Yes, I do believe I'm on to something here!

The only drawback is that if this would work, you'd have to sleep a good 1-2 ft higher than your partner. But that's okay, it puts you that much further from the source of snoring. Yes! The Pregnancy Mattress! C'mon!!!

Do I hear any investors out there??

Crap Crap Double Crap [Edited - TWICE!]

At work right now.

I am crabby. I have a headache. My neck and shoulders are tight. I am exhausted. I am uncomfortable in my clothes. I am so over this work thing. I have most definitely chosen the wrong bra. I am teeming with pregnancy hormones.

I think I might feel better if I got to feel some baby movement. I didn't feel anything yesterday and nothing so far today. I know it's still so early and I shouldn't worry, but I can't help it. I even did the whole orange juice thing (and I NEVER drink juice) but it was to no avail.

All I want to do is go home right now and take a nap.

I am seriously in a bad mood. Watch out Vancouver. Don't even f*ck with me.

Blech.

[Edit 1:] To clarify, in NO WAY am I complaining about being pregnant. It is the best thing in the world and I'm so incredibly grateful for it. I'm just crabby in general. Momma said there'd be days like this, there'd be days like this my momma said...

[Edit 2:] It's about 20 minutes later and I'm re-reading my post and giggling about how dramatic I can be. I am really so ridiculous sometimes.

Unscathed? Fiasco Update...

Well folks, I think the stars are aligned for me right now because I just may possibly have come out of Friday's "incident" unscathed. I can't believe it.

I just got a call from the nurse at Dr. R's office. The very same nurse I spoke with on Friday. She said, "I confirmed with Dr. R that indeed there is a locum coming in next week so I went ahead and moved your appointment up to [this] Wednesday [March 12th]." I thanked her and asked if Dr. R was upset with me for being such a "scheduling nazi" [insert awkward laughing ha ha] and she said no.

So no one seems to be upset with me and I got an earlier appointment WITH MY REGULAR DOCTOR to boot.

This seems all too good to be true. Is it possible I got out of this without any sh*t fallout or repercussions? In any case, I'll be making a point of profusely thanking both the nurse and Dr. R when I see them on Wednesday. I may even bring in a little gift for the office (box of chocolates?). Or perhaps that's overkill.

In other news, I haven't felt Scrappy moving that much over the last two days. I know it's still early (17w1d) and I did check the baby with the Doppler yesterday so I'm pretty sure everything is fine. But I can't help from feeling the teeny-tiniest bit concerned. Hopefully there will be more action later today.

Also, my breasts are KILLING me right now. Their mere existance equals pain. And they're even bigger than before! Last night while watching TV, I went to scratch an itch in my armpit and inadvertently squeezed my poor unsuspecting breast. I almost jumped off the couch in pain and D said I was howling as if I'd been stabbed. Ah, the surprising aches and pains in pregnancy....I'm loving ever minute of it.

17 Weeks Today

17 weeks pregnant today (yay!) ... Not too much to report at the moment, I'm enjoying a lazy Sunday.

My mum came over yesterday to help clean (read: totally take over the cleaning of) our second bedroom which is destined to become the baby's room. She did a great job, and after a couple of hours and a trip to the Salvation Army, I can finally say that room is nearly ready to start furnishing with baby stuff. Thank you, MUM!

As for Friday's "incident", thank you all for your input. I am hoping that I'll get really lucky and everything blows right over with nary a minute of sh*t fallout to rain down upon me and my worry-weary soul. We shall see. I'll definitely keep you all posted over the next week or so.

I feel out of it. The time change has really screwed with my brain!

Icky Situation - Need An Outsider's Opinion

Most of you probably aren’t aware of this, unless you’ve read my blog from the very beginning. My OB/GYN is also my boss’s wife. It’s a long story how I came to be her patient, but it was essentially due to my boss kindly “calling in a favour”. I’ve been my boss’s wife’s patient since my first pregnancy, so I guess for about a year now.

I am very careful to keep the relationships separate. I don’t talk to my boss about appointments with his wife and I don’t talk to my doctor about work stuff. For all intensive purposes – my boss and my doctor are not even related in my mind.

However, today, I think I may have crossed an inappropriate line and I need your opinion.

I am my boss’s executive assistant. Today, he forwarded me an email from his wife noting the days that she would be travelling out of town and he asked me to put these dates in his calendar. No problem, right? Well, I happen to notice that one of the dates she will be out of town just so happens to be the very same date that I have an appointment scheduled with her.

So, with that in mind, I called my doctor’s office and asked if my doctor (boss’s wife) would be available for my appointment or if I would be seeing a locum. Her nurse assured me she would be available and didn’t know why I was asking. I informed her that I work for her husband and I have become privy to some dates that she plans to be out of town and I wanted to reschedule my upcoming appointment if that was the case. The nurse said she had not heard this and would have to check with my doctor and get back to me, adding, “Well if that’s the case, then I’ve got a huge scheduling mess to clean up because no one told me she’d be gone!” Yikes.

My heart fell into my shoes. I suddenly came to the very yucky realization that I may have crossed that boss’s wife/Hilary’s doctor line that I try so hard not to tread on. In other words, if I didn’t work for my boss, I’d have no idea that my doctor was planning to be away. I feel weird and icky and stalker-ish for calling the nurse about it. It’s just that I am comfortable with MY doctor and I don’t want to see anyone else. She is very good, knows my history and is kind to my insanity. If she’s going to be away then I would like to reschedule my appointment.

Typing this out, it sounds less bad than it seems in my head.

Anyway, then I started wondering if inadvertently cancelled my next appointment (Wednesday March 19th) by suggesting with the nurse that I reschedule. As far as I know I don’t have a new appointment time and my doctor is very hard to get in to see. Did the nurse actually delete my original appointment when I called asking to reschedule? Do I still have an appointment? Is anyone going to see me? Did I just f*ck things up royally?

Not wanting to be a further pest, I decided to wait for the nurse to call me back as she promised. I waited and waited all day. Knowing that the office closed at 4pm, I called around 3:45 just to “check in” to see about my appointment. No answer. The office had closed early for the weekend. I guess I have to wait until Monday to sort out this fiasco.

So my friends, tell me:
In your opinion, did I cross the fine and sensitive line between being my doctor’s patient and my boss’s assistant? Do you think I might have just gotten myself into some trouble with one or both of the parties? Were my actions inappropriate or I am freakin’ over nuthin’? Why do I feel so icky about this?
Please be honest, you won’t hurt my feelings, I really want to know from an outsider’s perspective what this looks like.

Thoughtlings

The little flutters I was feeling have continued, albeit very sporadically. There are very long periods between those quick seconds of movement, and sometimes I go a whole day without feeling a thing. I am very much looking forward to when Scrappy’s movements are strong and consistent. D is especially excited to feel the kicks from the outside. At this point, while I’m pretty sure what I’m feeling is indeed the baby moving, I can’t be 100% sure because it’s so brief and random and usually feels akin to a quick inner-tickle.

I’m finding work to be a real challenge for me these days and not because it’s difficult or stressful or anything. Well okay, yeah, it is a bit stressful but nothing I can’t handle. It’s just so hard to focus on work stuff when my mind is so completely focused on the baby. I am literally counting the days until I go on maternity leave (12 weeks and 1 day!). It’s a thrilling feeling to know that after that, I will be done with work for the foreseeable future. Good stuff. I feel bad for D though, having to continue slaving away to support his family. His work is really stressful but at least he gets paid through the nose to do it.

Our big anatomy scan is in about 2 and half weeks and of course, I’m going through my usual routine of getting more and more anxious every day as it looms closer. I am really excited about it at the same time, though. It’s a weird combination. I just hope everything goes well and the baby is developing normally. Secondarily I hope that we get to find out the gender, but that is far less important to me at this time.

Speaking of gender, I still have absolutely no inkling about what we’re having. I don’t know if this means anything, but when I dream of the baby I always dream of a girl. However, I just read a study that said that 56% of IVF babies are male. This is due to the fact that male embryos’ cells divide more quickly than girls and these fast-dividing embryos are the ones that are usually chosen for transfer. Who knew? But I really think it could go either way.

I used to think it was such a cliché when pregnant women would tout the old standby “I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, just as long as the baby is healthy”. I’d think to myself, “Ah c’mon you KNOW you have a preference!” But now, I understand how they feel because it’s exactly how I feel. Turns out it’s not a cliché, it’s a matter of priorities. Strangely, gender actually doesn’t matter at all.

Anyway, sorry if you’ve fallen asleep while reading these boring random thoughtlings plucked from the brain of this hormone-addled Canadian gal…

PS- By the way, I’m totally breaking out. 16 weeks pregnant and my face looks like a pizza right now. I thought this was supposed to be the “glowing” trimester!

Ask & You Shall Receive

I want to document this. Today, at 16w2d, I believe I have felt Scrappy moving. Actually, I felt it yesterday too but I couldn’t be sure of what it was until I felt it a little more.

I’m pretty sure what I’m feeling is indeed fetal movement; I can’t think of how to describe it except to say that it feels a bit like a gas bubble, but in the wrong place - more towards the surface of my lower abdomen rather than in my intestines, where gas is usually felt. Another way to describe the feeling is like major butterflies or a weird muscle spasm – it's a sensation that would be impossible to go unnoticed.

I love this. My baby is moving. It’s nothing short of magic. Whoop! There it goes again!!

---

In other news (thought not nearly as exciting), I just have to share this. I’ve taken a huge step in my constant effort to try to stave off my crazy levels of anxiety.

Flipping through the pages of Pregnancy magazine after work (love the pregnancy mags), I ran across an article about the horrors of preterm birth. Skimming down the list of “risk factors”, I found that one of the primary indications for preterm birth is a SINGLETON pregnancy by IVF. Of course, I flew into a panic and immediately made an appointment with Dr. Google, who had no reassuring words for me and in fact, managed to exacerbate my fears and concerns.

By the time poor D got home from work (late, after a long excruciating meeting), I had worked myself into a lather. I told myself I wouldn’t bring it up with him, I didn’t want to spread the worry...but before he could even take his coat off, I was regaling him with quotes from what I’d read and pushing the Pregnancy magazine article in his face for him to read.

I calmed myself down enough to get through the remainder of the evening by assuring myself that I would ask my doctor about it in two weeks when I go for my regular appointment, but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it right then and there. We ate dinner, watched TV and went to bed early. But unfortunately, I dreamed all night of preterm labour and bad news.

This morning I woke up crabby. I re-read some of the articles that I had poured over last night, in hopes that I would find some reassurance that I was too worked up to see the night before. The reassurance came, but not from the articles. It came from me and my own logical brain. As if a bright light bulb was turned on. Duh. Once I thought about things with my head and not my emotions, making sense of this newfound “scary” discovery was easy.

Q- Who are, most commonly, the recipients of IVF?
A- People with fertility problems or “older” women who have passed their most fertile time.

And of course, people with these issues are, in general, more predisposed to preterm delivery anyway. It all made sense.

Now that’s not to say that I am not at any risk for pregnancy and delivery problems, just because I’m 31 and my main fertility issue is PCOS. Anyone can have problems at any stage, predisposed to issues or not. Nothing is risk free in the world of baby making; not for IVF pregnancies, or ART pregnancies, and not even for natural pregnancies. My point in all these meandering ramblings is that for once, I have let my brain take over where my crazy emotions left off. Logic won out, for the first time in my pregnancy.

And guess what? I feel better.

16 Weeks Today

16 weeks = 4 MONTHS!!! Cool, huh?

I feel like I can officially start referring to my pregnancy progression in months now, instead of weeks. That's a cool milestone in and of itself, I think.

The baby shower today went off without a hitch. It was a small group of girls, but all very nice and it seemed like everyone had a good time. Most importantly, I think L really appreciated it.

---

...Drumroll please...

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for: Behold the belly pics, as promised. The progression is slow, and still not much to speak of, but I think I'm finally starting to show a little tiny bit. Here goes...

8 Weeks Pregnant


9 Weeks Pregnant


10 Weeks Pregnant


11 Weeks Pregnant


12 Weeks Pregnant


13 Weeks Pregnant


14 Weeks Pregnant


15 Weeks Pregnant


16 Weeks Pregnant


...And there you have it! More photos to come as the baby and the belly continue to grow...