July 26, 2004
How I've been feeling (update)
I spent most of the past week with a headache of varying intesity. Nausea/vomitng was intermittent, but the headache was pretty steady. Friday night, I even ended up napping from about 8pm-10pm, getting up for a quick dinner, then going back to bed until 11am. My head was killing me. :(
For most of my pregnancy so far, I've had very few headaches or sinus/allergy problems, which was a blessing despite the nausea. It looked like that was ending. :(
Yesterday, however, was great! I woke with a mild headache that some Tylenol cleared up before it could get any worse. Despite the fact that Dale was leaving town that day, I was in a good mood and felt the best ever since my operation. I was headache and nausea free all day. Late in the evening I started to feel a little congested in my head, but it wasn't a big deal. I ended up staying awake until about 3:45am, first waiting for Dale to call before he went to bed in California, then just reading my book a little more.
This morning afternoon I woke up with a mild headache again. It wasn't too bad though. And I was hungry so I fixed myself two fajitas from Friday's leftovers. Some mild nausea started up before I ate, but it passed quickly. I took some Tylenol again and that's mostly wiped out the headache.
However, for the past 30 minutes or so, my sinuses have been swelling shut. I don't know if it's allergies or a summer cold, but BAH!! It's getting hard to breathe, but I can't even take anything for it yet since it's only been a couple of hours since I took the Tylenol.
I hope the whole pregnancy doesn't end up being a trade-off. What will it be today? Nausea/vomitting? Bad headache? Or sinuses swollen shut?
If I do have to pick, I'll take the sinuses though. At least I can function despite that.
July 20, 2004
How I've been feeling lately
More of these cute yet warped Sh*thouse Comics are at Pipingrad.
July 16, 2004
Prenatal visit #2
This morning, Dale and I found the digital recorder I'd bought earlier this year. We were surprised to discover that it had no output port for connecting it to a computer or anything else. So we decided to get a new one to record the baby's heartbeat at today's appointment. We decided to get lunch at Chik-fil-A first, and to our surprise, it took way longer to get there than expected due to construction all around the intersection we needed to get to. And poor Dale had to sit in the hot sun on his bike in full gear the whole time.
By the time we'd finished eating lunch, it was about 2:15. Since my appointment was at 2:45, Dale went to Fry's to shop while I just went to the clinic. I hoped it wouldn't take him long, but I was called back before he arrived. I was first sent in to pee on a small strip of paper. When I came out of the bathroom, Dale was there. I asked about the strip of paper and the nurse told me it's to check blood sugar and proteins, and mine looked fine. My weight and blood pressure were also checked and were deemed fine, even though I'm down a pound from my last visit.
Once a room was available, Michelle the nurse had me pull my pants down low on my hips and lie down. She then tried to pick up the heartbeat with the Doppler. There seemed to be a lot of white noise and an occasional strong heart beat, but it was just mine. During this time, Michelle asked if I've ever been told I have a tilted uterus. Yup, I replied. She said she should have asked that first. Sometimes a tipped uterus can make it harder to get the fetus's heartbeat. After several minutes of trying, she gave up. I had to strip from the waist down and wait for the doctor.
Side note: While I was in the waiting room, I noticed a plaque on the wall that showed the cover of a magazine that proclaimed "Top Obstetricians and Gynecologists in the US" or something similar, and under that was the name "Dr. Linda Litzinger." This made me happy, since she's my ob/gyn.
Dr. Litzinger came in and applied the Doppler again. She didn't have any better luck so she had me "assume the position" and tried to manually shift my uterus from the inside while working the Doppler with the other hand. That didn't work either, so she had me get dressed. Then I checked out, scheduled an appointment for three weeks from now, and then I was sent upstairs for an ultrasound.
I had been kinda hoping for an excuse to get an ultrasound, because Dale and I are very curious as to the sex of our baby. But my next ultrasound wasn't scheduled until my 20 week exam, and the Renaissance Women's Group literature states they only do them for medical diagnosis and not for "entertainment purposes." Still, I didn't like being sent for an ultrasound because we couldn't hear a fetal heartbeat. Dr. Litzinger assured me there was likely nothing wrong, but we needed the ultrasound to check just in case.
The checkout process was mildly amusing. My estimated costs prenatal and deliver costs are about $3200. I knew insurance would cover a lot of that, but the woman handed me a form showing an amount due of $110. The funny part was the form also said that I would be responsible for 95% of the costs. The women behind the counter were baffled but figured that they'd just bill me the $110 and let insurance figure out its own math.
Upstairs, we got to wait around a little while before I was escorted back to an exam room. I was surprised to find out I didn't have to strip from the waist down, because she was doing an abdominal sono. I warned the technician that I didn't have a full bladder, but she said we'd give it a shot. She also told us that the doctor who 'reads' the ultrasounds was gone for the day. I asked if this meant that we would have to wait until Monday to get the results and she said yes. Then she added that she was allowed to tell us what she saw, so we wouldn't be left in the dark. Dale commented that it wasn't so when I went to the emergency room, and she said that those techs aren't typically allowed to discuss ultrasounds with the patients. Diagnoses are left up to the radiologists.
As she started, I had my head craned to the right trying to see the screen. I couldn't make out anything and was about to ask her if she'd turn it a little when Dale tapped me. I looked at him, and he pointed up in front of me. My eyes followed his finger to a monitor mounted just below the ceiling directly in front of my. And there, right in the middle, was an identifiable baby.
Like the drama queen in a soap opera, I gasped, my hand flew to my mouth, and I burst into tears. I couldn't stop crying as I saw that baby moving on the monitor. I think I was squeezing Dale's hand hard too.
It was just so amazing to see. The major parts were easily identifiable. Head, body, arms and legs. And then the probe shifted and we got a beautiful profile view of our baby. Forehead, nose, lips, and chin. I could even make out the ear. I was still crying.
The technician was thrilled. She said she'd gone over my file before we came in and was surprised by the note from Dr. Vaughn describing the ectopic pregnancy, the surgery, and then his surprise at finding this pregnancy in tact. She was also very amused by the baby's legs. The baby seemed to like kicking them out and then bending them back. The baby was so active, but I can't feel any of its movements yet. The tech said that the placenta was at the front of my stomach, so I may not feel any movement as soon as other women do.
She also assured us that everything about the baby looked fine and healthy. She measured the heartbeat with the ultrasound and said the rate was good. She also gave us four pictures from the procedure and told us the doctor would review another on Monday.
As I dressed, we checked out, we took the elevator downstairs, I still kept sniffling. In the lobby, Dale and I hugged and I cried a bit, and we kissed, then we went out opposite entrances. As I was leaving the building, an older man sitting on a bence spoke to me. He smiled and said, "isn't is so nice to be in love?" I said it was, smiled back, and wished him a good day.
I started crying again as I walked to the car. I was sobbing by the time I got in, and I missed the ignition with the key a few times because I couldn't see. Once I had it started, I just sat and cried and sobbed. Anyone walking by would have thought I'd just gotten the worst news of my life, but it was the opposite. For weeks I've been nervous and scared that something was wrong with the baby, or that I wasn't even pregnant any more. Silly fears, but I had them.
Seeing the baby, seeing it move, and knowing it was alive and healthy inside me lifted such a great weight. The relief and love I felt for this tiny creature I can't even feel yet just overwhelmed me. Everything we've been through, all the doctor visits, all the tests, medications, injections, going through retrieval without anesthesia, it was all worth it for the baby that's inside me.
Well, without further ado, here are the ultrasound pictures from today. Click a thumbnail to open the gallery page for the image. (They will open in a new browser window.)
July 07, 2004
The first baby dreams
Perhaps induced by my renewed confidence in my pregnancy (see the previous post), I had a couple of baby dreams last night. Unfortunately, they didn't reflect too well on my mommy skills.
In the first one, the baby was maybe 3 or 4 days old. It was a beautiful little boy. I kept wanting to call him Ben or Benjamin, but I knew that wasn't my baby's name, but Steve and Christina's. I didn't know how to breastfeed the poor baby, so I was talking to a (male) nurse about it. At that point I realized it had been three or four DAYS and I hadn't fed my baby anything except right after his birth when he got a little mushy stuff from a tin that resembled the soft kittenfood we used to buy.
The nurse was quite disgusted with me, but under his tutelage I was able to get the baby to latch on and begin to feed. It was so sweet! Then it got really weird.
About a 2" wide section of the skin on my breast (from nipple up towards my neck) changed appearance. It started to take on a pattern like a miniature section of wood flooring. I questioned this oddity and the nurse got all excited. He told me that meant the baby was getting milk through "the third hole in the nipple." See, a nipple doesn't have just one opening, but several. In reality, the baby feeds through them all at once. In my dream, I guess just one hole at a time opened up, and based upon the skin change, you could tell which one.
Weird. Very very weird.
The second dream was more of a continuation that began after I woke up a little then fell back asleep. In this one, the baby was still a beautiful little boy, but he was a little bit older, to where he could hold up his own head. I was at a park or something with my parents. I thought the baby might be hungry, so I tried to breastfeed him but he didn't want to eat, so I wrapped his blanket around him a little more snugly, then laid him belly-down on the grass. My mom said something (I don't remember what), and that made me realize I didn't have a diaper bag with me or ANY sort of baby gear.
Despite the fact that I appeared to be quite neglectful of baby's necessities, I woke up this morning smiling and happy, remembering the overwhelming love I felt for the little boy.
Paranoia and reassurance
Even though the morning sickness has continued to make me miserable most days, I'd become slightly paranoid that I was no longer pregnant. That something weird had happened, like the baby had just evaporated, and the nausea was all psychosomatic. That maybe the hardness just above my pelvic bone wasn't my growing uterus, but wishful thinking.
I had another week and a half to go before my next prenatal appointment, but I decided I couldn't wait any longer.
Last night, I stopped by a drugstore and picked up a pregnancy test. I used one a few hours later and felt rather comforted by the positive result.
Silly behaviour, I know, but I couldn't help it. I'm at that stage where there isn't really anything tangible to my pregnancy except for the tummy problems, so it was reassuring to have an impartial test say, "yes, you crazy woman, you are still pregnant."