Pregnancy as a Weight Loss Method!?!?!

Today, I had my first appointment with my obstetrician. I was quite leery. Since she's a high-risk OB, I thought she'd see me as an "easy" patient and not really spend much time with me but, she was fantastic. She answered all of my questions and then some. Recently, I've been considering having the baby at the High River hospital, as long as the kidney disease and my blood pressure stay under control. She's not at all opposed to that idea, she just wants to wait until I'm further along so that we can make a good decision. I'm really happy that I like my OB, not only was she great, but her assistants were really helpful too.

Of course, at the appointment, they weighed me, and I'm down 1/2 a pound from my normal weight. I'm not really sure where I've lost the weight, because I've certainly got a baby belly!! She said not to worry about the fact that I haven't gained anything yet, as she's sure it'll catch up to me as I get further along. As for my kidney issues, I'm still symptom-free and I'll be completely off the medication this Friday! We also got to hear the baby's heartbeat, that was pretty cool!

I'm scheduled for an ultrasound on Nov 6, so we'll upload new pictures then. Right now, we're really leaning toward not finding out the gender at the ultrasound, but as I told Stef, I'm a pregnant woman, I reserve the right to change my mind at any time without notice.

At work, we hired someone to help us cover the two upcoming maternity leaves, he starts Thursday, and I feel really good about the decision, plus, it's made my boss breathe a little easier.

Other than that, not much has changed, I'm still eating us out of house and home. I'm still feeling really good, I've been staying up later than Stef most nights, which if you know us, you know is unusual but, it's good to have energy. I'm still managing to take the train to work everyday, which is a good thing, because it means I'm walking every day.

Now I have to go eat, it's been 15 minutes!!

Especially for the Ever-Excited Aunt-To-Be

My sister hounded me today, because there was nothing new up here, so here's another random post, just for her.

I have my first appointment with my O.B. on the 30th, it was supposed to be the 24th, but they moved it. I'm quite eager to go to this appointment for a few reasons, I'm hoping they can narrow down my due date for one thing, but more importantly, after this appointment, I can schedule THE ultrasound. What makes this ultrasound THE ultrasound? I'm so glad you asked. This would be the ultrasound where, if the baby were to cooperate, we could find out the gender.

This has brought great debate to our home. Originally, I did not want to find out the gender, I wanted to be surprised. My husband convinced me that it's a surprise no matter when we find out, so why not find out sooner, and keep it a secret. I agreed. Now, he's rethinking it. His theory is if we're painting the nursery green anyway, does it really matter if we find out ahead of time, but now I'm really curious. So, we have 2 more weeks to decide...

I've been trying to take the train to work for the last couple of weeks. It's about a 10 minute walk from the train to my office and then back again after work, I figure any exercise is better than nothing. Every day for the last two weeks, I've managed to take the bus, so that's good. Also, for the last two nights we've gone for a walk in the evening.

I'm eating everything in sight all the time. Everything looks, tastes, and smells good. Except for cheese, the smell of cheese is revolting, but it tastes good, especially with apples (Yes mom, I'm actually eating apples!) Meat is finally tasting good again. That's nice, because for about the last two months I've been forcing myself to eat meat to get protein, but now, it's tasting great.

I had my weekly blood work yesterday to make sure that I'm still symptom-free as far as the kidney issue goes, and everything looked good.

We've started looking for people here at work. We've got ads in both the major papers (Yes, RK, I'm calling the city tabloid a major paper) this weekend, and two interviews set up for Monday. Hopefully we find one or two qualified people quickly. It would make my boss relax. He's out of the country all of December, so he'd really like to have a solution to our baby epidemic, as it's being referred to, before he leaves.

When my sister asked why I hadn't post anything, I said it was because I had nothing to say, and look at how much I've managed to ramble! Once I finally have something to say just imagine how long the posts will be!

(And RK, now bug the father-to-be, he hasn't posted in even longer than me!!!)

Do you realize what this means?

So, it's been an interesting week.

First and most importantly, I had been having some kidney issues since March (not pregnancy related at all). These issues turned my pregnancy into a high-risk pregnancy. My nephrologist was hoping to treat the problem as early as possible in the pregnancy as most of the associated complications wouldn't come up until the third trimester. He figured it would take 2-3 weeks to respond to treatment. I began the drugs last Wednesday, and as of this Wednesday, I'm symptom-free!! This is a very good thing as it means I can get off the drugs, and the complications we were concerned about probably won't even be an issue. So, that's a relief. Now, because I responded so quickly to the treatment, they want to taper me off the drugs, so it'll take another 3 weeks until I'm drug-free, but at least the dose is decreasing and I'm making progress.

Earlier this week, I had a shocking realization. Obviously, I knew I was pregnant, I'm really excited about being pregnant. But it just hit me that this means we're going to have a baby. That's TERRIFYING!!!! Now, my parents did explain the birds & the bees to me, so I'm not quite sure why it's taken me almost two months to put together the fact that me being pregnant will lead to me having a baby, but it did. Now that I've put two and two together, I'm panicing a little. We'll just blame it on the hormones! I think part of what freaked me out is I did a little math, and we're at 16 weeks, which is 40% of the way there, that's almost half...eeek!

We have a book that gives us week to week updates on our baby. This week, our baby started to get the swirls and creases that will form his/her finger prints. How cool is that? Our baby is still so tiny, but already has so many things that make him/her unique and special.

Steffan has been working his butt off all week on the house. We've moved the office downstairs, so that the room that was the office can be turned into a nursery. We're also changing around the guest room. I think we might get that done this weekend! At first I didn't like the idea of having the office downstairs, but now that it's all set up, it's actually a really nice room.

I've never been good at eating fruits and vegetables, so I was a little worried about my eating habits while I was pregnant, but I've been doing really good. It helps that I don't keep cookies in the house! Steffan's been great, he cuts up my apples for me! For some reason munching on apple slices while you're watching T.V. is a lot more appealing than eating a whole apple. I think I'm going to double our grocery budget though, I'm eating soooo much! But, at least now, the nausea's gone.

Well, this turned into another random, rambling post, but it had been almost a week, I had to get SOMETHING up here!

Thanksgiving 2007

WARNING: Sappy Post Ahead!!!!

This Thanksgiving, it's pretty easy to be thankful! I'm a pretty lucky girl. I have a roof over my head, in a city where a roof is very expensive. I have a car that starts every morning, as long as I can find my keys. I have a steady, reliable job that I honestly love.

I have a husband who loves me unconditionally, even when this week I've been a self-admitted hormonal-mess. He always takes care of me and makes sure I'm comfy. The picture above, is the very first picture of our family of three, even though we didn't know it at the time. I know that Steffan will be an excellent father, and I can't wait to watch him with our child. It's something I've looked forward to for years, and I only have to wait a few more months.

I'm also incredibly grateful for our little Alien Invader. We have wanted a baby for so long, but we were waiting for the right time, and now, the time is right, and we have this huge blessing. I love this baby so much already, and I'm really looking forward to watching our little family of three find it's way in the next year. Oh, I know things won't be perfect, and there will be plenty of bumps and tears along the way. But I also know that God has given this gift, He already loves this baby more than I can even imagine, and He has entrusted him/her to us, if He has that much faith in us, who are we to doubt?

I'm also very grateful that we are surrounded by so much loving family. We're not the only ones who are already in love with the Alien. There are grandparents and aunts and uncles (by blood and friendship) that can't wait to welcome our little spawn into the world. With that much love and support, our baby's already more blessed than most.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Three Weeks Can Really Fly By

So, it turns out the baby is three weeks older than we thought! We went for the ultrasound Wednesday, and they gave me a due date of March 23. This has totally freaked me out. I feel like I've already missed three weeks of the baby's life!!! But, it does mean that we passed the all important 14 week mark with no problems and that as of tomorrow we are in week 16. The ultrasound was REALLY neat, we got to see the baby moving all over the place. I was worried I wouldn't be able to see what was what, but it looked like an actual little person. After the ultrasound, I went into about two days of panic. Do you realize that we're going to have a baby?? Yes, and I call myself a smart girl!

Today, we went to my mother-in-law's. She gave us a crib & mattress and a bunch of furniture that will work well for the baby's room. We have a TON of work to do, but we do have a lot of time to do it, and a ton of people we can call on to help us. Now that we have the furniture in the house, it's a little easier to picture what everything will look like.

On the plus side, my nausea is FINALLY starting subside, I"m eating enough to feed a small Latin American country, and I have more energy!!!

On Monday, we're going to my parents for Thanksgiving dinner, my grandparents will be there, so we'll make the big announcement that they're going to be great-grandparents. I think that's going to be a lot of fun, they're going to be thrilled!!

Last Monday, I told my boss that I'm pregnant. My department is quite small, and the girl I work most closely with, who covers my holidays etc. is also pregnant, and due Feb. 10, so they're a little panicked about that! But, they are a fairly family-friendly company, so once they get over the shock, and we hire another person, hopefully everyone will feel better. I've done my best to convince them that I really do intend to come back from maternity leave, but they're skeptical, and I guess really, they have to be.

I need to start posting here on a more regular basis, then it wouldn't be such a mish-mash of thoughts...