Another milestone(s)

So I’m 14+2 weeks along today. Apologies for this post as it will be brief, apparently between work, the masters and Jack moving at the end of the month my brain is completely fried, I feel like I barely have time to fart let alone have thoughts and feelings about what pregnancy means to me and all that jazz.

However. I am very happy to report a few milestones up until now:

• I am now officially more pregnant than I have ever been before. Sounds like a funny thing to mark, but it means something to me as every day is a blessing- we only had 13+6 with our daughter after all.
• Baby has a nickname. I’m not sure how this came about, but we call babe "Critter". It started early, maybe around 9 or 10 weeks? Anyways, we now refer to baby as Critter almost exclusively. It seems to fit. Jack’s Aunt (whom I think is great) even defended the name when family said it was a poor choice (I don’t think so!) by saying that we could always read Critter the Mercer Myer books about Little Critter. Great idea! I hadn’t even thought of those books though I certainly read them when I was a kid.
• I found the heartbeat on doppler at 10+4! Recall in our previous pregnancy we never heard the heart on doppler as we couldn’t find it/she was in failure so it didn’t register. Good job Critter!
• NT measurement was May 30. 1.8 -2.0mm, excellent! The range because they do an average of three measures, but baby was being active with hiccups so they couldn’t get the right angle of the neck for very long in order to measure. Recall our last NT with baby girl was 8.0mm. Happily this now means I get to skip amniocentesis as Jack only wanted it if we had other reasons to suspect chromosomal anomaly, and with a normal NT we basically don’t have a high risk for that anymore. Either way, I was going to do the MSS (they don’t offer IPS in this province) but I am not the terminate for anything other than catastrophic diagnosis type, so there we have it, it will just be for information purposes as Jack wanted it done (and I am acquiesing based on a mutual agreement that we won’t act on it).
•  We saw the genetic counsellor, who said based on my lab data (chronically low hcg for dates) and ultrasound data (cystic hygroma, hydrops fetalis and less than active fetal movements) baby was almost certainly Turner’s syndrome (45XO karyotype) which is a totally meiotic fluke not genetically inherited. Excellent.
• Morning sickness is GONE. Hallefrickenluja. I still have food aversions to what I used to love (ie shrimp tonight was a no go) but no longer do I feel like dying might be a more viable option than living through morning sickness for 6 weeks. And all without diclectin and only 2.5 days off of work (hard to drive to work when you keep barfing). I’m not supermom or anything but I’m proud that I did it, even if it was just a bit of sickness and fatigue. I read a study that said the intensity of morning sickness is similar to that experienced by oncology patients enduring chemotherapy, and I would agree. I even awoke from sleep in the middle of the night, gross! I also barfed into my mouth while talking to patients and colleagues at work. Gross.
• Weight gain! I have finally gained back the 4 pounds I lost during the first trimester, almost. I am 0.5 pounds below pre pregnancy weight. As I was a bit chubby to start, and I’m now eating three meals a day with snacks, and baby is growing ahead of time by about 4 days or so (and has through weeks 11-13 on serial ultrasounds) things are going well in that dept. The goal is to keep the weight gain to about 25 pounds or so, in the interest of sparing my cardiovascular system too much overload. However, if I gain more, I will be okay as I know it is for Critter’s sake provided its healthy foods causing the weight gain.
• I’m pretty sure, though its too early, that I’ve felt baby move. Its similar to the one time I felt our daughter move and only happens for just a moment and then its gone. It doesn’t feel like gas, more like a ripple in my tummy, but way below the belly button. I keep trying to get it to happen again but for now its just a fluke thing it seems. No worries, I have plenty of time for the kicking to be felt!

I also received Critter’s first gift and card, and I *might* actually start writing in the baby book soon. I never felt ready to with baby #1 but I think this one is here to stay, and I want to have nice memories of the pregnancy to tell Critter’s story to him/her one day… which reminds me, I totally think this is a boy baby, but we won’t find out till birth day!

And just because a post like this would be pretty dry without photos, here you go: *EDIT* Sorry for the giant pics, I am technologically challenged!!

Trying to find that thumb!

Mid hiccup jump

FGirl