Exciting stuff

Hey--- you--- guys----!,
      This week my baby was the size of a lemon! That might not seem very large to some of you; but when you've been tracking it's growth from the size of a poppy seed, it's pretty amazing. It has been very difficult for me not to cheat and look ahead to see what the next chapter of What to Expect When You're Expecting holds for my baby and I...or to change the due date in the 5 apps I downloaded to my phone so that I can see one day ahead of where I'm at. I feel like I am rewarding myself for a job well done each time I get to read more information about my pregnancy.

My husband hates that I always have my nose in a book or my face glued to my phone's screen. The day I found out I was pregnant, I ran out to the book store and bought a arm-load of books on pregnancy. My husband was quick to question my purchase. "Why do you need a book to tell you about being pregnant? Women get pregnant all the time; my sisters didn't have books to tell them how to be pregnant.".....ahhh, Alex.....You know who you married....why do you ask such silly questions. Each piece of information I get keeps me from going completely nuts waiting for my baby. I found out I was pregnant so early that it feels like I am waiting FOREVER for each of the cool little things that happen in a pregnancy; like hearing the heartbeat (which we heard 4 weeks ago), or the "gender revealing" ultrasound (near a month plus away).

However, I did get to some of the exciting "milestones" already.

Firstly, I got to see my baby again via ultrasound (photo to the right) in early December to make sure the baby was ok after all the cramping I had early on. Honestly, it wasn't much to look at, but at the time, it was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen. The little blob had melted my heart. I got all teary as the ultrasound tech pointed out the baby's heart and head...there wasn't much else to point to, but it was enough to choke me up for the next day.

Secondly, I have a tendency to get tension headaches and migraines in general...Turns out when you're pregnant, the headaches can increase. Last week I had a tension headache from Tuesday-Saturday. By Friday I was feeling dizzy and sick. If I weren't pregnant, this wouldn't have warranted a call to the doctor. However, my uterus started cramping. I hadn't had that happen since the first month of knowing I was pregnant. It freaked me out. I was worried, so I called the doctor. I told Alex I was going in because of the headaches (there's something about voicing a concern that makes it seem more real, so I didn't mention anything to him). He told me to call him if the doctor said anything important. I went in to the clinic and got checked out by the doctor. The first thing they did was check for the baby's heartbeat with a Doppler...The doctor couldn't find the heartbeat. I was trying to choke back sobs, fearing my worries had been correct. The doctor was quick to reassure me that this didn't mean that anything was wrong. She stepped out and grabbed a little machine that looked like a mini-karaoke machine. Turns out it was a bedside ultrasound machine. She had the screen turned away from me and wasn't saying anything....I wanted to scream. Finally she said "well, no wonder we couldn't find a heartbeat. The baby's just swimming around in there". When she turned the screen towards me, I saw my tiny baby throwing it's own little dance party. It's tiny feet and hands were waving all over the place. It had clearly been growing from my little blob to my tiny dancer. The head was still large in comparison to the rest of the body, but my pelvis is hoping that it will grow into it. I called Alex right after the doctor's appointment and told him about it. He was super bummed that he had missed out on seeing how far our baby had come from being a "fetal-pole"/little blob to a little more human looking. Sadly, now we have to wait another month or so before we get to see our baby on the big screen again. But I know that will be amazing!

Lastly, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day I woke up at 6am with a terrible stomachache. I hadn't had morning sickness in a couple of weeks, so I was hugely disappointed to have it return. I was in and out of bed until 7:15 when I got up for work. Alex grabbed me some water and crackers to help me fight off the tummy ache. When I was ready to leave, the car wouldn't start. I told my boss that I would be a few minutes late while I waited for the car to get running. He replied "it's a holiday"....UGH! I was so peeved that I had got up and ready (make up and all) to go to work when I could've slept through the morning sickness. I got up and ate an apple and yogurt, made Alex an egg sandwich.....and crawled back under my blankets. As I lay there trying to fall back asleep, I felt an odd sensation in my lower left abdomen. I was laying on that side and thought "great, now I have to fart or else this is going to get really uncomfortable"....nothing happened and the sensation continued. It felt like little really really soft tapping. I thought that was weird, but quickly feel into a sleepy-coma. When I woke up I was suddenly very excited. I ran out to the living room and yelled to Alex (who was watching Storage Wars....for hours) "I think I felt the baby move!!!". I quickly backed that up with "I mean it's really early to feel it move and it's still really tiny, but I think I did." We looked online and in my pregnancy books for a description of a baby's first movements felt by the mother. It was said that it would feel like: gas, butterflies in your stomach, popcorn popped, and tiny bubbles bursting. I debated whether or not I could call the doctor to ask about it with out being "that mom"....I voted against it. I was worried that I was wishing it into being the baby moving. After all, it's still really early in the pregnancy, it's my first baby (which supposedly means you are likely to not feel the first movements), and I'm a Big Girl....but the sensation felt like what the books described. We had a family dinner that night, so I asked my aunts about it. They said it sounded like I had definitely felt the baby move. I was so happy. I haven't felt the baby move again, but it's early, so hopefully soon it will become more consistent.

Questions for you readers:
What would you like to hear about in my posts?
If you haven't had a baby, do you plan to and when do you think you'll be ready? (Lou & Meg *cough* cough*)
If someone close to you has been pregnant, what was the first most exciting part for you?
 Do you have any safe remedies for a tension headache?
If you've been pregnant before-
When did you first feel your baby move?
When did you finally feel like "yeah, there's a baby in there"?
What was the first exciting thing you went through with your pregnancy?