Now, for those of you worried that my grasp of Roman mythology is hopelessly inept, never fear. You may or may not remember that when Nathan was still an unknown little bean we referred to him as "Pluto." While Pluto is by far my favorite Disney character and my beloved stuffed animal from the tender age of 3 (a gift from my daddy while I was in the hospital getting my tonsils out) the reference is to the planet rather than the character or mythological god. The story goes that after we had our first ultrasound confirming the pregnancy and saw that little reassuring flicker that was missing from our first pregnancy we sent a picture of the sonogram to Lori (now, Lolo). We called her (or she called us...the memory is a little fuzzy now) and we asked her what she thought it was (thinking it was pretty obvious). Her response, "I don't know...some kind of space planet?" Hence, Pluto.
So, once we found out we were pregnant again we jokingly started referring to baby #2 as Venus, perhaps in some small hope that we could subtly influence the (already determined) gender of Nathan's future sibling. I admit it did make it harder to speak of baby using gender neutral terminology when the nickname was obviously female but it stuck anyway. Now, let me take a step back and talk about some of the things you don't care about but I want to remember. Feel free to skip down a few paragraphs if talk of morning sickness and placenta location aren't your cup of tea.
I found out I was pregnant on the morning of Wednesday, November 14th. This puts our due date at July 22nd. I was pretty surprised since we had just stopped preventing in October. I say "stopped preventing" since we weren't really "trying" too hard. I wanted the kids to be at least 2.5 years apart, but I also expected it to take 3 or 4 months to get pregnant so we "took the goalie out" as my brother-in-law so eloquently put it. Anyway, I told Jimmy the exciting news and we broke the news to Nathan over breakfast. Even though he had no clue what it all meant, I felt like it was important he was one of the first to know. The plan at this point was to keep it a secret until I had a chance to go to the doctor and have an ultrasound where we could see and hear the heart beating. Well, that plan didn't last too long. On Friday I was texting with Finity about something completely unrelated and I made some random comment (I can't even remember what now) and she lawyered it out of me! One of those, "you didn't say no" moments. Drat! The only other person on my side to find out early was Kimberley. They stayed with us for Thanksgiving and I had to tell her then. It was agony keeping it from her until they were up here in person!
Even though I was surprised I got pregnant so quickly I wasn't actually surprised when the test came out positive. I was already experiencing some tell-tale pregnancy symptoms and had recently joked with Jimmy after one day of being particularly grumpy that I hoped I was pregnant so I could blame the mood swings on something legitimate. I was also already feeling exhausted and starved all the time! I don't remember eating nearly this much with Nathan, but from the first weeks of my pregnancy I've felt like a bottomless pit. The unfortunate thing about eating like a bottomless pit is the effect it has on your actual bottom. At least it's for a good cause.
The nausea started late week 5/early week 6 and was random throughout the day, not just in the morning. It was also much worse than it ever was with Nathan. My weight at my first appointment (6 weeks) was 132.6 (hooray). This was the day we got to see the "flicker" of the heartbeat and I breathed a sigh of relief. Although I was pretty sure my symptoms wouldn't have been so strong with a pregnancy that was already over, the shadow of our first experience still cast a little doubt in my mind.
The early part of this pregnancy was zero fun. At week 8 Nathan shared his stomach virus with me. At week 9 Nathan caught Hand-Foot-Mouth at school (see the Christmas in Mathis post for more on this) and Week 10 I got a head cold (see Christmas at Home post). Then busy season started....the joy.
At 10+ weeks we had our second appointment and Venus' heartbeat was a strong 155 bpm. At week 13 we did a genetic screening ultrasound and got to see our little miracle in action. Heartbeat was 142 and baby clearly had the hiccups. The doctor also told us at that appointment that my placenta was a little low and could be contributing to the mild spotting I started having around week 12. Of course with the first speck of blood I was panicked because that's how our first miscarriage manifested itself. Just a few tiny specks was the only warning we had. Fortunately the ultrasound reassured me that everything was okay, which was really good because the spotting soon increased in frequency from every 4 or 5 days to every single day for a while. The doctor put me on "pelvic rest" for about 5 weeks to see if the placenta would move out of the way. Fortunately by our week 16 appointment (where we found out Venus was going to be true to her namesake...at least as far as gender) everything had moved and the spotting went away. Heartbeat at Week 16 was still 142. For the record, the Chinese gender prediction calendar was wrong as were friends who thought we were having a boy because of the "low" heartbeat. I am still SO excited! I am also glad we paid extra to have the ultrasound at 16 weeks because it gave me something to look forward to in the last days of busy season besides filing day!
We agreed on a name shortly after finding out we were having a girl. We had actually talked about this name beforehand and surprisingly agreed that we both liked it but weren't committed to it yet. It didn't take long after learning the gender to set that in stone (even if it was more like gypsum for a while). Hence we have miss Olivia Marie. Olivia is just a name we liked (not knowing about the growing popularity) and Marie is a family middle name on my side (specifically, the middle name of the first born girl since my great-grandmother Artie Marie Mason). Olivia technically won't be a "first born" but she's my first girl so I'm counting it and carrying it on anyway.
So that gets us to March. A few days ago I started feeling Miss Olivia quite a bit. I had only been feeling her sporadically every couple of days and very lightly. The kind of movement that makes you wonder if you are still digesting lunch, have gas or are feeling baby. I'm not sure if she was especially enjoying the Frosted Mini Wheats I had for dinner, reviewing audit workpapers or laughing at the Big Bang Theory (yes, I was multi-tasking as only a mommy can). I felt Nathan move around 21 weeks so I wasn't surprised to feel Olivia only slightly before that timeline. Today we had our 20+ week anatomy screening and I got to see my Livy-bug again. Jimmy was home with Nathan, who has a virus of some sort and an accompanying fever, but the tech sweetly took some extra pictures for me to bring home for him. Her heartbeat was 147 and her weight estimated at 12 ounces. "Measuring right on track" according to the tech and everything looked "beautiful and boring" according to Dr. Schmidt. Hooray!
I think that catches us up. I have only 1 belly picture so far from 12 weeks. I'll get another one taken in the next couple of days and we'll call it 21 weeks. My weight at this last appointment was 149ish. Not thrilled. I feel like I already look like I'm 6 months or more instead of around 5 months. I'll blame busy season for now.
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| 12 weeks (January 7, 2013) |
Whew! That was a big catch up. I have notes about a post for Nathan's favorite things and I expect that will be my next one. In the mean time, here's a picture of my sweet boy for those of you who stuck it out to the end of this post. It was taken yesterday while we were home sick. The day was just too beautiful to stay inside, even with a fever.
[Editors note: for those who didn't do well in college geology, gypsum is a particularly soft type of rock. You see what I did there???]
1 comment:
Yay for baby Olivia! I can't wait to meet her. :). Nathan is going to be such a great big brother!
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