15 Weeks Pregnant

So today is my 15th week. I can't believe next month will be 4 months. Well actually I can believe it. It has been a long sickly hormonal journey so far. I'm happy that my days aren't filled with nausea and gingerale anymore. I've officially put on 1 lb that won't come back off. F and I went to dinner and a movie last night which was nice. We haven't spent much time together with me being busy and tired and him being busy and a night owl. He's taking another grad class this semester but it seems a bit easier than last semester. He's not staying up all night at our kitchen table cranking away on projects like last semester. I'm happy he likes school now and is excited about doing his Masters part time.

I'm trying to plan out how I am going to have a baby and finish my disseratation. I wish I knew other women who have been successful at having a baby and being in grad school that I could talk to for support. I don't know how long it will take me to recover after the baby, or how I well I will be able to focus on writing while being at home with the baby. If there is anyone out there that has done this send me some tips on survival.

I've been doing really well otherwise. We continue to have baby items given to us from our friends who have had kids, which is nice. We have a little pile in our guest room soon to be baby's room. That's another thing I don't know, when do you put together a nursery?

Hopefully people have some good advice. I'll leave you with that today. This rainy weather is giving me the worst headaches ever.

14 Weeks Tomorrow

Thursdays are pretty crazy for me so I thought I'd leave a little note today. Tomorrow is our 14 week mark. I was trying to think of other times where we see our lives in weeks. It's kind of a strange way to count down. My husband is confused by the whole "weeks" thing, I think most men are.

Things are pretty good now, not much to report. I have been getting lots of work done trying to set the pace for the next few months, per my boss's request. I have been sleeping a little better and feeling really energized throughout the day. I felt a little sick yesterday morning, but it soon faded. I have been having some lower back pain, but just on the right. I'm going to try the stretches the trainer showed me or call my massage therapist. We're having dinner tonite with my friend and her partner, her partner is going to Africa for 6 months to do her dissertation research. I can't imagine being away from F for 6 months. What if he realized he didn't miss me? Or what if we grew apart, or he realized he didn't need me? Or what if I'm just so miserable without my best bud? I'm happy it's them going through it and not me! The last time she went to AFrica it was for 6 weeks and my friend was crazy everday without her. We'll see how she survies the next 6 months.

I feel blessed that I have F here with me in Gville in our little house which was 60 degrees this morning! lol

Gaining back my energy

Hey all,

Well I'm 3.5 months pregnant and I'm still a pound down from my start weight! I think I'm finally out of the woods as far as morning sickness goes. I seem to have a lot more energy lately too. I can make it through the day without naps and headaches, and I can brush my teeth everyday without gagging! So delightful. I'm really psyched about my weight. I have been getting about 2000 calories a day and working out 3 days a week and trying to get two three-mile walks in the other days.

Yesterday F said he's not too thrilled about maternity clothes. He says he's really happy we're having the baby, but he thinks I look frumpy all the time. I asked him if he thought he might be able to censor what he says, or perhaps think about my delicate feelings before he lets such things slip out. I have finally resigned myself to maternity pants. My regular pants are too tight by the end of the day and they push on my belly a little hard.

I finally had the balls to talk to my boss about my pregnancy on Friday. The last thing your phd advisor wants to hear from you is "i'm pregnant" when you're half way through your degree. When I told him I think he thought I was joking around at first. When he realized I was not, he said that he was happy for me but I would have to work really hard to get my degree done on time. Overall he seemed okay with it, and I felt a little more at ease after telling him. Now I don't really care who knows or who finds out, because I had the balls to tell him myself first! lol.

Baby is healthy...so far :-)

Well today was my 13-week appointment. I was feeling really optimistic this morning. F met me at the midwife's office for my appointment. He missed my first ultrasound where I saw the little bean with the heartbeat. I was hoping he would get to hear it at the apt. My intial workup went fine. My bloodwork was all really good, no STD's or anything lol. My iron levels were normal and I even lost 1 lb.! When the midwife tried to find the heartbeat with the doppler device, she couldn't. My heart sank. F looked a little upset too. She assured us that it is normal to not find a heartbeat at 13 weeks with a doppler. I'm thinking to myself "then why the hell put pregnant woment through the worry when you can't find it!?" I think she could tell I was a little upset. She called up to the ultrasound tech's and got me an apt. in an hour to have it all checked out. It was the worst hour of my life! I sat at the hospital alone because F had to get to campus for his grad class, and thought about how terrible it would be to tell everyone the baby was no more. I know what you're thinking, geesh she's so cynical and morbid. I just find it's easier to prepare for the worst and be pleasantly surprised is something else happens.

At 1:30, they promptly took me in for the ultrasound and everything was fine. The baby measured perfect and the heartbeat was 171! I cried because I felt so happy. It's kind of the first time I felt so protective and loving towards the baby. Before today it just didn't seem real. I just felt like I had a terrible flu everyday. Now I feel confident about my pregancy. I am working up the balls to talk to my boss at the end of this week. There's one thing your graduate advisor does not want to hear 1/2 way through your phd..."i'm pregnant" so It's hard to talk to him about it. I know he'll be supportive, but I also know in the back of his head he'll know i'll be distracted and less productive. Wish me luck and enjoy the pics!

Go Gators! National Champs Again!

The Florida Gators beat the Oklahoma Sooners on Thursday night in the SEC Championship game. Since I have been at UF, I have seen us win 2 footbal championships and two basketball championships (I think). I'm not really into the college sports thing, but when your team is playing in the championship and the entire town is crazy, it's hard not to pay attention.

F's friend Matt came down for a visit to talk to the admission people at UF so he stayed for 5 days and got to take in some Florida rays and Florida football crazieness! We watched most of the game at a pizza joint downtown because we don't have cable. We turned our cable off when we realized how much we were paying to be vegetables, but that's another story.
We had some good pizza and watched the first 2 quarter, then we met some friends at a bar closer to campus. After the game ended, we went down by campus to see all the nuts. Something like 20,000 college kids fill the streets shouting "it's great to be a florida gator!". We enjoyed watching the crowds for awhile, but then it got a little rowdy and we kept getting pushed and separated. We stayed about an hour then headed home for the night. I'll post a video of the people by campus and some of us celebrating our victory!

Matt left this morning, even though I enjoyed his visit, It was nice to have things back to "normal" this week. Although Matt did play monopoly with me, which no one ever will, so I was pretty happy. Of course I won. I never lose, except to F's baby sister once, but that was a fluke!

12 Weeks Pregnant Tomorrow

Well tomorrow is my 12 week mark! Which doesn't mean too much because I don't go see my midwife until my 13th week. I did have an ultrasound at 7 weeks which showed a heartbeat of 135 bpm. I think that at this next appt. she'll use a doppler device to try to get a heartbeat. So my fingers are crossed until then. I have no reason to believe that anything is wrong, but you never know, so many things can happen in your first 12 weeks.

Tomorrow is the UF championship game..GO GATORS! BEAT OKLAHOMA! I'm not really into football but when you live in a college town and your team is in the SEC championship, you can't help but get excited. F's friend is coming for a visit this week so I've just been tidying up the house a little.

I've been so tired this week. I feel like a zombie. I'll get up at 7:30/8am after having atleast 8 hours of sleep and all day I feel like I pulled an all-nighter. I actually left work the last two days at 3pm and came home and took a nap. If I don't take a nap, by 9pm I'm passed out on the couch or in bed. My gym class started back up again monday. I finally told my classmates about my pregnancy, they seemed really surprised and happy for me. They all kind of wondered why I would sign up to do the "Get Fit Challenge" again if I were pregnant. My midwife told me that as long as I had worked out before I was pregnant at this level, which I have since last feb, then it is perfectly fine to continue. It helps me so much to go to the class. It's 3 times a week for an hours and it's light weights and cardio and stretching. I think I'll do this class until I'm 5 months along then I will switch to a yoga or swim class. The class improves my mood and helps me sleep at night. Plus...I'm 3 months in and have only gained 0.8 lbs as of today! Which is great, because I'm technically overweight to begin with, so I'm only supposed to gain 10-15 lbs total. This is a good start.

Classes started back up, so I'm back to being busy again, F is taking another grad class too, so we're going to have a fun spring. We booked flights in March to see his family in Sacramento. Hopefully it will be a nice trip.

Soon to be a dink no more...

We're just about to pass our 12-week hush hush period....

In July we'll be a Double Income No Kids (DINK) no more. F and I are expecting our first baby in the end of July. Kind of crazy to think that next week we'll even be a third of the way there. Hopefully this miserable third can be left behind! I've spent the last three months feeling like I was circling the drain and lieing to my friends and coworkers about why I look and feel like shit, or why I won't have a beer, or why I fall asleep at my desk at 4 in the afternoon.

Part of me is afraid to tell people because of what they might think or say. Like "wow, didn't you just get married???" But to tell you the truth we're really happy and excited, we both are really looking forward to the whole experience. Luckily, I was able to confide in a few close friends, one of which just had a baby 6 months ago, so she can empathize with all the discomforts of being pregnant. My other good friend let's me take 10 minutes naps in her office, which has more comfortable chairs! Anther part of me is frustrated when people make cracks about how much it sucks to have kids, or they are so annoyed by babies, or something and I've had to pretend to laugh and agree, knowing these people won't want to be around me and F in 7 months. The last fear I have is that if something goes wrong and I lose the baby, I'll have to have the painful duty of informing anyone I told. But I've realized that that isn't a very positive way to approach my situation. Out families seem really excited for us, so that feels really good.

Things have been okay so far I guess. I've had such terrible morning sickness since about week 7, that I've actually lost almost 3 pounds. Which frustrates me because when I was trying to lose weight, I would have to watch everything I put in mouth and work my ass off at the gym just to lose a pound a week, now I drink gingerale and eat sandwiches all day (only thing that tastes good) and keep losing pounds. Besides the nausea I've just felt really sleepy and fatigued and generally crappy. I sleep like crap and wake up all night to pee. I used to think only big ol pregnant women about to give birth peed all the time, but apparently your blood volume increases by about 25% when you're expecting, so your kidneys and urinary system are on overtime.

Now I guess i'll have more to talk about than pictures and recipes.

Holiday Events

Hey all,

It's been awhile since I have posted. The Holidays have come and gone. We had so much fun this Christmas just hanging out at home. Christmas Eve we went to midnight mass with our friend Tina, it was 2 hours of torture. I thought midnight mass was supposed to be short and full of candles and nice music? Oh well.

We slept in Christmas morning until 10:30 am, which was really nice. We opened presents next to our tree with Buddy. F and I didn't do many gifts this year because we had just bought a new dining room table at Thanksgiving at Ikea. Santa did bring F a nice popcorn popper though! He was so thrilled when he opened it. He didn't even guess it, which he generally does.

It was so nice outside (sunny 80, got to love FL xmas!), so we went for a 3 mile hike at the state forest near my work with Buddy. Unfortunately Buddy ran into some ticks and needed a bath when we got home. But he needed one anyway.

We spent New Year's Eve out with our friends downtown. F and I went down early and had dinner at one our favorite restaurants. We both had fish and chips and we shared a piece of honeycake. Our friends met us out later and we all had a good time. It was good to see everyone.

Next week it's back to reality. School starts up Wednesday, I'll have to stop staying up to 3am watching movies and sleeping until 11! It is going to be a good year, I just have a feeling about it! Anyone make any new years resolutions?