Pregnancy Check-in. Week of September 21

[wittyandwaiting]

Good morning everybody and happy Monday!

1. General overview (examples--answer what you like: How many weeks? First baby/, second, etc.? Do you know the sex of the baby?

2. Appointment Updates (recent appts? ones coming up?)

3. General symptoms/rants/concerns/exciting things?

QOTW:
1. Have you bought anything for baby yet? If so, tell us about it. If not, tell us about something you plan to buy.

2. Tell us about about something, baby related or not, that you are looking forward to this week.

Due Date List

Let me know if you'd like to be added to the list and go ahead and jump in with your update!

officerofthelaw - November 11

ionaerebor - November 23

amandflo - January 16

cetcar - January 16

kh826 - January 22

daisyflower - January 26

wittyandwaiting - March 28

honigbiene - April 24

crazyaunt84 - May 15

[ionaerebor]

1. General overview (examples--answer what you like: How many weeks? First baby/, second, etc.? Do you know the sex of the baby? I'm 31 weeks pregnant with my first baby, Ailsa.

2. Appointment Updates (recent appts? ones coming up?) I have an appointment with my midwife on Thursday. I'm not supposed to have any more scans, but I'm going to ask if I can have a growth scan at some point, because I want to see my baby! I'm also going to my first antenatal class this week. I was supposed to start last week, but wasn't feeling great.

3. General symptoms/rants/concerns/exciting things? I have such a squirmy baby! She moved around almost all the time. She's kind of squashing my lungs though, I feel out of breath most of the time.

QOTW:
1. Have you bought anything for baby yet? If so, tell us about it. If not, tell us about something you plan to buy. I have ALL the baby things. I'm just stocking up on nappies and clothes now. I might get some more bedding as well.

2. Tell us about about something, baby related or not, that you are looking forward to this week. My friend that moved to London a couple of years ago is coming over at the weekend, so I'm looking forward to seeing him.

[kh826]

1. 22w2d
Baby No. 2
Team Green!

2. My only real issue at the moment is exhaustion from lack of sleep. Some nights are better than others, but some nights I will wake up every hour and then spend 1-3 hours wide awake around 2am. I just can't get comfortable, and then when I wake up enough my mind starts racing and I just can't go back to sleep for the life of me.

Other than sleep, I don't really have anything else to talk about in the rant/complaint department. Heartburn is under control with Nexium, and it is making a night and day difference in my life! I haven't had any swelling yet, which is different from my last pregnancy, so I keep waiting for the swollen feet/ankles, but so far so good! I did have a killer headache last night that forced me to bed a bit early because I just felt like I needed to lay down and close my eyes. I don't think the headache was pregnancy related though. I get strong headaches seemingly out of the blue from time to time.

Baby has been much more active in the last week or so. Yesterday morning I think he/she was having a dance party in there. Morning is definitely the most active time at the moment for this little one. I have also been feeling many more hard/abrupt jabs this time around than I did with my last pregnancy. It is interesting. With William, I would feel a constant motion of him wiggling in there, and closer to the end I would feel stronger movements, but nothing that caught me by surprise. With this baby, if I move a certain way (usually if I bend toward my right side, or if I am trying to reposition myself on the couch and a lean over to the right more) I will get a super strong punch that literally makes me yell. It doesn't hurt, but it always surprises me. It's like baby is jabbing me with an elbow as hard as possible right under my ribs. I will often yell "WOAH!" and then my wife looks at me like I'm nuts HAHA.

In other news, my boobs are GINORMOUS! Like out of control huge. I am busting out (no pun intended) of the largest bras that I own. I don't want to pay money for new bras, and I definitely don't want to go get fitted right now to see what size I should be wearing, but I think I am going to have to do something. I was never more than a DD when I was pregnant with William, but my DD bras are no longer cutting it this time around. I think it is because my breasts really never returned to "normal size" for me after I had William, so they started out bigger this time around. This is NOT ok.

3. No upcoming appointments for a couple more weeks. Next OB visit will be October 8th.

QOTW #1: We have purchased a few outfits, two winter hats, a blanket, and a winter coat for Dosey so far. We won't need much since we have all of William's baby clothes and 8 bins of girl clothes in the basement from when we thought William was a girl. We just need a few warmer/winter things since this baby is due in January, and William was a June baby. The last few weeks we have been picking up some warmer things here and there that are on sale. I don't think we will buy much more in terms of clothing, especially since we are team green. We have been buying lots of teal/aqua for Dosey, which I totally love. I think that will be his or her color!

In terms of things that we plan to buy, our only two large purchases will be a double stroller and a new video monitor that has two cameras so that we can watch both kiddos when they are sleeping in different rooms from the same monitor.

QOTW #2: Oddly enough, I am looking forward to being "Poped in" later this week/this weekend. The Pope will be here in Philly, and the City is closing down a lot of transportation and putting in place lots of travel/security restrictions. The seminary where the Pope is staying is less than 2 miles from my house, so I expect that travel near us will be close to impossible. My office (which is downtown) will be closed this Friday and next Monday (work from home), since the trains won't be running and the street that my office is on will be closed to all non-emergency traffic. I think the City has likely overblown this and is making it a bit too difficult for residents, but I am not complaining. We are viewing it like a snow storm, but with good weather. We are planning to stock up on groceries later in the week, and we bought William some new books and puzzles over the weekend. We are just going to stay in, cook/bake, have lots of family play time, and J & I will rent some movies/get caught up on our DVR. I am actually looking forward to it!

[bexincanada]

1. First baby. I'm still quite confused over dating... which is from the first day of your last menstrual period. We KNOW when sperm entered the equation, so it's interesting. IUI was on the 8th, yet I'm 4 weeks? We just started discussing if we want to know the sex, not sure yet.

2. Tomorrow is beta number two, come on doubling!

3. I go here now!

QOTW 2. Looking forward to the weekend! And it's only Monday...

[crazyaunt84]

1. First Pregnancy - expecting Twins! 6w1d

2. Had an ultrasound this morning and heard heartbeats! Baby A is measuring 4.56mm with a HB of 115. Baby B is measuring 6.07 with a HB of 107. Next checkup is a week from today.

3. I get to stop taking Dexamethasone! I'm still on quite the cocktail of drugs (PIO, Endometrin, Dexa, Estrace). I'll take the PIO and Estrace for 4 more weeks, and the Endo for 6 more weeks, but it's nice to be off the steroid. I've been feeling a bit queasy over the last week - some days worse than others. Thankfully I haven't puked, but it's early yet. It's odd how morning sickness can make your gut feel so crappy but make your heart feel so good. We also got scheduled with our 1st choice OB. We've decided to deliver more than an hour away from home. The hospital is the closest one with a NICU, and especially with two it feels super important to have the services available immediately if we need them.

QOTW:
1. We haven't purchased anything yet. I'm honestly not sure where to start! One crib or two? Bassinet? Pack and play? Stroller and car seats? What's realistic to get at a shower - any of this?? Yikes.

2. I've got a pretty light week at work, and I'm looking forward to naps!

[wittyandwaiting]

1. General overview (examples--answer what you like: How many weeks? First baby/, second, etc.? Do you know the sex of the baby?
13 weeks today! Baby is the size of a kiwi. DS really wants to know what we are having, I had left it up to C to decide but I think that DS has really influenced her. The other day, somebody asked if we were planning on finding out and she said yes and then looks at me and smirked. Had a feeling she was wavering from team green.

2. Appointment Updates (recent appts? ones coming up?) I don't have another appointment until October; it feels like so long after having so many appointments early on. At our midwife appointment last week, we got to hear baby's heartbeat which was 165. I've also lost some weight which I am blaming on morning sickness (all day sickness) so although it's not anything to worry about yet, I need to really try to hold down as many calories as possible.

3. General symptoms/rants/concerns/exciting things? See above. Morning sickness runs my life. They won't diagnosed me with HG until after 14 weeks, but I'm really hoping that this puking goes away before then. I'm happy as long as baby is looking great which s/he is.

QOTW:
1. Have you bought anything for baby yet? If so, tell us about it. If not, tell us about something you plan to buy.
I have purchased one onesie that says "I'm told I like hockey". I need to purchase all the things.

2. Tell us about about something, baby related or not, that you are looking forward to this week.
My birthday is this week and I'm really looking forward to that. I love my birthday I also like that at the time that our family all gets together. We are big on birthdays!

[bexincanada]

Oh my god, witty! I saw the same onsie and we ALMOST purchased it, but since we were still TTC, H. vetoed it. Seriously, we were so close to buying it. That's hilarious.

[cetcar]

So exciting there are some new people in the pregnancy check in. The more the merrier


1. General overview (examples--answer what you like: How many weeks? First baby/, second, etc.? Do you know the sex of the baby?
#1
23 weeks 3 days
1lb 6 oz


2. Appointment Updates (recent appts? ones coming up?)
We had our fetal echocardiogram (standard for IVF babies) this morning and everything looks good! At first, they weren't cooperating and wouldn't shift positions but eventually they got into the textbook position and the doctor could see everything. We even saw their tongue wiggling around....pretty cute. Next week we are seeing our OB. After being away and out of my routine for 1.5 weeks, I'm not looking forward to being weighed.

3. General symptoms/rants/concerns/exciting things?
Overall feeling pretty good! Lots of bumps and other kind of movement and the strong ones are starting to be visible from the outside. Recently my calves and feet but not really my ankles have been swelling when I sit too long, like if we go out to dinner. And I'm still waking up for the day pretty early.

QOTW:
1. Have you bought anything for baby yet? If so, tell us about it. If not, tell us about something you plan to buy.
It was kind of early, but for a number of scheduling reasons, we had a baby shower on the east coast on Sunday (we live on the west coast). It was a nice celebration and you can already tell they're going to be loved so much. Everyone was very generous and I feel like things are starting to come together. Some of the basics are- BOB jogging stroller (it's on sale at babies r us), Britax stroller and car seat, Ergo 360 baby carrier, Solly wrap, pack n play, My Brest Friend Nursing Pillow, Angel Care Baby Monitor, activity mat, nursing wrap/scarf, and a white noise machine to name a few of the gifts. We bought a 4moms mamaRoo that was on sale a few weeks ago.

We haven't done much in terms of setting up a nursery. We have a vague idea for what we want the decor/style to be but haven't bought anything. Since we live in a two bedroom house, we are thinking we will need to keep the guest bed so we don't have too much extra space. We don't have any furniture and aren't sure where we want to look for it. Thinking solid wood, natural finish, non-toxic. Any crib recommendations or good finds? I keep looking at Craigslist.

We still need to buy some of the basics, like bottles, thermometer, etc but will work on that later. First up is organizing our house and going through our clothes and closet. Oh and looking for furniture in case it will take a while to get.

2. Tell us about about something, baby related or not, that you are looking forward to this week.
CET stayed home from work today after our appointment this morning. She wasn't planning on it but we got back from the east coast late last night (1am) and had a morning appointment so it was a short night. We went out to lunch, paid our bills, unpacked some gifts, and made a to do list. I feel like we haven't seen each other very much lately so this is a nice unexpected treat. She's currently napping on the couch. On Saturday, she is heading to Sao Paulo for a couple days.

[bexincanada]

Just a random from work yesterday... I predicted the strangeness. A colleague announced her pregnancy (I knew it!) and then in the afternoon two different co-workers came to check in and see if I was O.K. It was super sweet, and I just said "I'm fine" but inside I felt very, very sneaky.