26 weeks, 1 day: almost into third trimester!

I can’t believe it’s been three weeks since I wrote anything! November didn’t slow down at all after my last post; in fact it became so busy that it flew by. My poor NaNoWriMo got abandoned just before I hit the 10,000-word mark, and it wasn’t because of procrastination either. December is going to be equally frantic, so I’d better write while I have a spare moment. Let me try to sort out the pregnancy-related November stuff from the blur of everything else that happened…hmm…

We’re starting to solidify our parental leave plans. We’re down to two basic options: one where I take all my leave and then NT takes all his leave when I’ve exhausted mine, and one where I take the first three weeks off after the birth and then work two days a week and stay home three days a week, and NT stays home the other two days and works three days. Both of our jobs are amenable to an intermittent  kind of leave, but NT needs to sit down with his and figure out what would be less painful for them–him working short weeks for three months, or being gone for six weeks straight. He’s very instrumental in the day-to-day operations of his company. I guess I am to mine too, but at least there’s one other person who does my job too. At NT’s it’s just him; plus he’s the backup for someone else who hardly has any backup.

Either way, we’ve recently decided that we want to take the last week of our available leave together. Yes, it will shorten the time we keep figlet out of daycare by a week, but if AS takes the week off too, we’ll have a week together as a family, and that won’t happen again for a while.

We came to this decision in a roundabout way. We’ve promised our families a visit in 2010 so they can all meet the new baby. Paid time off will be in short supply due to taking some of it during our parental leave, and times when NT won’t also be in college are rare, so we were thinking the obvious best solution would be to visit NT’s family over Labor Day and mine and AS’s over Thanksgiving. But one day I mentioned how it would be kind of sad to miss two Thanksgivings at home in a row (since we were going to Thanksgiving at my sister’s home this year), and AS’s feelings spilled over. She really didn’t want to miss two of our own Thanksgivings, especially when they were 1) the last Thanksgiving with just the three of us and 2) the first Thanksgiving with figlet. So we thought about it some more, and AS suggested that we visit our Virginia relatives during the last week of our parental leave, which would occur near the end of June or beginning of July. The baby will be three-plus months old by the end of parental leave, no matter when it’s born and when we start the leave. Old enough to travel by plane, I think, and talk about a cute age at which to show it off! So we still have to clear our final plans with our jobs, but that seems to be the best option for us. If all goes well, our little globe-trotter will have taken two plane trips and visited another country by the time it’s six months old!

Figuring out health care has been an absolute nightmare, full of speculation and trying to understand worst-case scenarios. But I finally settled on two possible options, thank goodness, and enrolled in my company’s plan with NT. The other option is to keep NT on his own company’s health insurance, but we don’t have the details of his plan and we know their provider wants to hike up costs by 18%. My HR department has agreed to let me drop NT if we decide that his plan is better for him as an individual. Either way, figlet is coming on my plan, because I have more (as in, any at all) health problems than NT, so it’s better to have me and the baby chipping away at a deductible together versus separately (since I’m sure figlet will have medical needs in its first year). I’m sure NT will have medical issues at some point down the road, but I think his total health costs last year, minus dental, were less than $50 combined. The year before that we set aside $120 in his flex spending account and we ended up having to buy loads of OTC painkillers and cold meds so he didn’t just lose the money. As for me, my health care costs could easily reach $4000 before the year is over. Next year I’m thinking it would be nice if me and the baby stayed under $5000 out of pocket for the year. And to think I’m one of the lucky ones. Sigh. I feel so patriotic. Go America!

This month, the goal is to call around and start gauging daycare costs; what our options are for vegetarian-friendly, cloth-diaper-allowing places; and how soon we need to reserve a spot somewhere. I’m really wanting to stick to a $1200-per-month budget for early daycare, but the one place that’s open about its prices is more than that. So we’ll have to see. AS and I have this pipe dream that all our friends who are currently pregnant and the ones with small children will someday want to band together and get some kind of co-op nanny deal going. Seems too hard to manage, but we will probably ask around. First off, though, we need to get a sense of what traditional daycare centers have to offer and what they cost.

I think that’s all the money stuff out of the way. Oh, I did figure out a big cost savings last night. NT’s job is having a cocktail Xmas party this week, and I was flummoxed as to what I was going to wear. Well, AS’s clothes are a few sizes larger than mine, so I raided her closet last night and found a few pretty dresses made of stretchy material. Voila! Two of them fit and were even kind of flattering. So depending on what she wants to wear, I’m going to get to wear one of those. Cost of maternity cocktail dress I’d probably only wear once: $0. Woo hoo! On the down side, the task of cramming my breasts into my regular bras is getting harder and more comical every day, so I’m probably going to have to buy a couple new ones today. Sad, but oh well. Since I’m only going to need them for a few months, I’m going to cheap out on them. I should probably just bite the bullet and buy a nursing bra, but I can’t bring myself to think about that yet!

OK, on to my pregnancy. Another reason I haven’t felt the need to blog all month is that nothing new has been happening except my belly growing. However, at Thanksgiving, I got an inkling that’s about to change. First off, it was nearly impossible to get comfortable in the rental car, whether I was driving or just a passenger. My back hurt constantly and my belly felt squeezed in my lap. Then, being with my family really emphasized the physical changes, because we’re a group that likes to  play tons of games in large groups, and usually the floor is the best place to do so. Playing cards, or just sitting for long periods of time on the floor for other games, proved to be a challenge. Same problems as the car, achy back and squashed-feeling belly, combined with a certain awkwardness trying to get up afterward.

When I have to run, I can feel myself sort of waddling a bit. Legs held a bit wider so as to support my middle. And I get easily winded. Now I know part of it is that I haven’t been getting much exercise except for the hour of wandering around at lunch, but I think another part is all my organs starting to get crowded and cramped. My heartburn yesterday was so constant that I exceeded the recommended daily maximum of Tums. Vacuuming makes my back hurt. Tying my shoes makes me pant for breath afterward. My snoring has grown so loud — from a combination of being constantly congested, everything being pushed out of place inside me and only having a few comfortable sleeping positions — that I even wake myself up sometimes.

Our new cat’s meows (he seems to be growing more and more clingy and demanding) early in the morning wake me up. I mean completely awake. I’m a sleep-till-the-last-minute kind of girl, always have been, and I go to work a good hour after NT, but now I usually just get up and hang out with him at 6:30 or 7 instead of clinging to the snooze option until about 8 or 8:15. I really do think that it’s because my body and mind are so attuned to the cries of small creatures.

I’ve started to circle the question of labor in my dreams. Before, as I’ve probably mentioned at some point, my dreams were all about pregnancy followed by the baby being already born and at home. Even my dream-self found this odd and would try to remember what labor and delivery had been like, but it was always a complete blank. Now I’ve had one or two dreams about being in a hospital with back and stomach pains (the closest my body can come to figuring out what contractions will feel like), lying down, sitting on a bouncy ball, waiting for a doctor to arrive. Nowhere near the worst bits yet, but this is the closest I’ve come to labor in my dreams. I think my mind and body are trying to prepare me gradually without scaring me too much.

Talking to my sisters and my mom a little bit about pregnancy, I’m actually feeling a bit reassured. Despite how crazy and foreign all these maternal instincts I’m getting seem to me, I realize more and more that the women in my family are sort of completely oriented toward childbirth. I’ve read tons of blogs and forums where many many women complain of feeling disgusting, hating every second of pregnancy, not being able to be excited about their future baby, etc. I really haven’t experienced any of that. Yeah, I know this trimester has been a walk in the park compared to the one I’m about to enter. But I’m a hypochondriac and a big baby when it comes to physical problems, yet I’ve been cheerfully taking every bizarre symptom pretty much in stride, and I used to have this phobia about being tied down, but now feel excited about the prospect of having another human being completely dependent on me for years and years. I know this blog probably seems like I worry all the time and obsess about my physical symptoms, but really once I get things out here I don’t dwell on them in my everyday life. I’m starting to think I come from a real childbearing-oriented line of people. I’m starting to think that everything could be OK, even the labor and delivery. Yes, maybe even the breastfeeding.

23 weeks, 1 day: frantic November

This is just an attempt to play catchup and get some thoughts down before any more of my pregnancy goes by in a blur. What with NaNoWriMo, my other blog, and work being much busier than I’m used to, this blog is in danger of falling by the wayside. And I don’t want it to! I was looking through old posts the other day and there are already things I’ve forgotten about the early stages, so I’d love for this to be a complete record of the whole process.

Things are going absolutely swimmingly. Textbook pregnancy? It’s starting to feel like a storybook pregnancy! I have three main gripes these days and that’s it: excessive burping, frequent (and easily brought on) heartburn, and increasingly frequent back pain. The burping is more funny and gross than anything, the heartburn is just an escalation of my normal life (the past couple years I’ve been fairly susceptible anyway), and the back pain is just when I’ve been sitting in certain positions for more than a few minutes. It’s nearly always in the left upper part of my back, oddly enough. I can usually alleviate it by putting pillows behind my lower back, or standing or leaning over, or putting my arms behind my back and leaning agains those. It’s not pleasant, but it’s really not that bad either. Maybe I have happy hormones coursing through my body telling me all these things are just fine; if that’s what it is, I don’t mind my body fooling me!

I still would probably not get pregnant again (although look how that “probably” snuck in that wasn’t there before!), but I honestly am really enjoying it. Sometimes I get impatient for figlet to get here so I can hold it and pour out some of this maternal love that’s filling me to the gills; and sometimes I do get stressed out that I’m not ready, or that this will changes our lives forever, for the worst; but for the most part I feel…just right.

It feels so long since I’ve written that I can’t remember if I mentioned that we’ve picked out names. Of course there’s four more months to change our minds, but we picked them weeks ago and I still really like them. We had this long list we shared in Google Docs, and we’d add names whenever we thought of them. So NT got the idea to go through and put his initials by his frontrunners. AS did the same, and then I went through and did it as well. Oddly enough, there was one boy name and one girl name that all three of us had initialed! Then I paired the winning boy name and girl name with some of the other names, and NT named his top two combinations, and AS picked her favorite of those. So suddenly we had a first and middle name for a boy and also for a girl! The names seem  unexpected because they weren’t my No. 1 names at any time; I don’t think any of us had them in mind as our first choices. But knowing that we all really like them is more important to me than any of us getting our top name. I can say, since I’m almost positive we won’t go back to these names, that my consistently first choices for the past couple months have been Wiley for a boy and Pandora for a girl. So now you know what our child won’t be named! They’re still on the list for when AS gets pregnant, but you will have forgotten them by then, so it’s OK to spill.

We had our second ultrasound last Friday, when figlet was 22 weeks and 4 days along. I thought it looked totally babylike in the scans taken 4 weeks earlier, but the difference is really astounding. Now I can see that the skull was kind of short and the head really round in the earlier scans, because it’s more elongated in the newer scans, and the forehead and chin are much more prominent, and it looks even more like an adorable baby. The 3D pictures of the face look a lot more normal; those were sort of freaky and alien-looking the first time around. Now they reveal a really babylike face; maybe not as chubby-cheeked, because it still needs to gain a lot of weight before it’s done developing, but with real features. What’s frustrating and great though is that in the two 3D pics they gave us to take home, the face looks more like me in one, more like NT in the other. The baby is making two different expressions and it changes the appearance of the lips and chin completely. So we know it’s gonna look like one or both of us, but we can’t really pinpoint the specifics!

Figlet has been moving around more and more; I feel it every day, and now NT and AS have felt it a couple times each. They’ve also seen my stomach quiver a bit with one of the harder kicks or punches. But we’re a long ways away from being able to see the shape of the foot sole or anything like that! I found out from the ultrasound that it could be moving even more than I think, because it was squirming around, moving its arms and legs, touching its hands together, moving its tongue, opening and closing its mouth, all sorts of things, and I wasn’t feeling a thing. I felt a couple of movements toward the end of the scan but other than that, I guess these were smaller movements that I can’t really detect yet.

I think that’s all. I hope I don’t let this much time go by between posts next time, because there are so many things to write about, and my condition seems to change slightly every couple of days.

21 weeks, 2 days: a little venting to release pressure

I posted this on a pregnancy forum on whattoexpect.com, but what the heck. I want to spread my annoyance far and wide. I am learning from my kitten, who is a vocal advocate for his own wants and needs, even when he’s not sure what those are.

I don’t mind opinions/advice, but what’s with the teasing/hazing?

Whattoexpect.com sent me an update that I might be feeling anxiety. I am, a little, but mostly still good pregnant happy feelings.

Still, sometimes I wonder if the worry is creeping in because friends and co-workers have gradually changed their behavior. The first few months it was all “congratulations!” and “how are you feeling?” and “this is what helped me during my pregnancy.”

But in the past couple weeks, more and more “friendly” teasing has started to come in. Anytime I say anything innocuous like “I didn’t sleep well last night,” I get “oh welcome to the next few years of your life–actually the next 18–actually, forget sleep for the rest of your life!” Seriously, I can’t mention a night of normal insomnia without this chain of joking happening.

Someone mentioned bloody marys this morning in a staff meeting and I joked, “Mmm…just 5 more months!” Someone else piped up “What do you mean? This doesn’t all end once you have the baby!” and everyone laughed. I didn’t mean I would go back to being an irresponsible bachelorette, for crying out loud, I just meant I would like to have a bloody mary again after I’ve given birth.

At first it was cute and funny but honestly, all this constant reinforcement that my life is going to be a living hell forever is not exactly conducive to a relaxed, happy pregnancy. Do people honestly think that pregnant women who are trying to face the future realistically yet optimistically want to be constantly told that there’s nothing they can do; their lives are ruined and they’ll never be happy or well-rested another day in their life?

Is anyone else getting this vibe from well-meaning people? Am I just being overly sensitive? Before I got pregnant but talked about wanting to conceive, most people were more like, “It’s a lot of work but it’s the greatest joy ever.” Now I hardly ever get any kind of encouragement that this is, y’know, a positive step I’ve taken.

21 weeks: more and more movement

I’m nearly recovered from my bad cold that started last Tuesday, but even though the coughing and congestion are winding down and the achiness ins completely gone, yesterday and today I feel like I’ve taken Nyquil. My limbs feel heavy, I don’t feel like moving or thinking too much, and I yawn constantly. I guess just weakened from baby-producing plus germ-fighting. NT got me out for a brief walk yesterday, and I was the lead chef on a pretty awesome dinner last night, so I know I CAN move, I just don’t feel motivated to do so. (AS, who doesn’t feel a connection to cooking non-bread dinner-type foods, was my sous chef; with me occasionally out of commission and NT away at class most weeknights, she’s really stepped up and, surprise surprise, she’s actually pretty good at cooking savory foods.)

In other health-complaints news, my heartburn occasionally reaches epic proportions these days. We went to a party Saturday night, and I was going to have my one weekly glass of wine that I’ve allotted myself, but my heartburn was so persistent that I knew even a sip of wine would make it unbearable. I hit my daily limit of 10 Tums that day, and still the heartburn never quite went away until the next afternoon. I already was prone to fairly regular acid stomach, and it’s normal to get more heartburn during pregnancy, so I’m not worried, just annoyed. But considering how mild my other pregnancy symptoms have been, I can’t really complain.

I had a pretty neat idea for our baby the other day that I want to put down here in hopes of not forgetting when the time comes. Figlet will have a large extended family, all out of state (or country). I thought that, to enforce the idea and keep it a little bit connected to all its relatives, we could make a little picture book that has all the grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in it, with their names underneath. We could update the photos occasionally so they would hopefully always recognize their relatives when they do get to see them. I also want to see how many people we can get on board with using Skype and webcams.

Oh right, and as you can tell from the title of this post, the baby now moves every day, several times a day. The sensations are getting stronger and stronger and are now unmistakeably something moving around in me; no more ghostly little flutters. There have been a few times when I’ve put my fingers on my belly and can feel some movement from the outside, but so far I’ve yet to get AS or NT to feel it. Usually I get one or two kicks or pokes strong enough to feel at a time, so by the time I call them over, figlet has settled down again. But I can tell it won’t be long at all before they can feel it too! I know it’ll become routine, but I’m so impatient for that first time I can share the sensation with them.

20 weeks, 4 days: Past the halfway point?

Well, I was very excited on Monday to reach the projected halfway point of my pregnancy, but I was too busy at work and at home to blog on that day.

Tuesday I was busy all day at work and coming down with a cold by the end of the day that just made me want to curl up in a useless blob. The blobbiness lasted all day Wednesday and Thursday. Today I’m slightly less useless, but already dreaming of bed and/or couch at 4:30 pm.

Let’s see, pregnancy-related stuff from the past week or so…hmm…well, it’s quite stressful deciding which (if any) medications to take when you’re sick. When I really needed something (about 3 am on Wednesday), I didn’t have the energy to get up and start doing research. Then, I started doing research online because I didn’t want to go back in the bedroom and possibly disturb AS. Well, every medication’s got some detractors and some people that say it’s fine. Lots of saintly pregnant women, too, proudly boasting how THEY were willing to SUFFER for a few days rather than pose the slightest risk to their baby, so they wouldn’t even take a cough drop. Well, OK, but if the aches are bad enough to cause insomnia, I’m not really getting the rest I need, and thus the healing is going to be slower.

Finally NT went and got the list my clinic gave us, and it listed several Tylenol variations–cold, sinus, multi-symptom–as OK to take. We had a generic that said “compare to Tylenol Sinus Pain” so I took that. Sweet relief; I got three more hours of sleep! NT went and got me some Tylenol Cold with the day & night pills. I took the daytime stuff a few times, and then, since I was planning to drag myself to work on Friday, decided to take the nighttime stuff Thursday night. It got me to sleep, but I woke at 3:30–not achy, but dazed and a little paranoid. Thought I was feeling pains in my belly; knew they were most likely imaginary and/or gas/indigestion/whatever. Couple of healthy punches or kicks from the figlet put my mind at ease a bit. I don’t think the pain was related.

But anyway, I’m not going to take the nighttime stuff again, since it doesn’t do the one thing it’s supposed to do that the daytime stuff doesn’t. And the doctor’s list didn’t mention whether it was OK or not specifically.

Today I’m not miserable, so I’m trying to go without any medicine. For one thing it makes me a little dopy, which isn’t good at work, and for another, not taking it helps ease the paranoid little voice in the back of my mind. But I’ll take some tonight if it seems like stuffiness or other symptoms will keep me awake.

Oh! And we think we’ve settled on the first and middle names for figlet whether it’s a girl or boy. I’m quite excited about both name combinations, which makes it even more impossible to have a preference as to which gender we actually have. Depends on which names I’m more excited about at the moment. I hope it likes its names; we put lots and lots of time and thought into our choices. Oh, and I can’t remember if I mentioned this on my blog, but we’ve already decided on the last name too. That one I will divulge (to those who know our last names): We’re giving the baby my last name. If AS has a child, it’s getting NT’s last name. Unless we decide to go for the gusto and have a third child (VERY unlikely in my mind), AS’s last name (which she’s never had a huge connection to for various reasons) will get the shaft. This is how it’s gotta be when you’re determined to outnumber your kids; it’s like musical chairs.

19 weeks, 1 day: lots of good news

Friday was our long-awaited ultrasound appointment. Before it, I had searched online for how many U/S’s people usually get; I’ve seen so many blogs where people seem to get them all the time. Some people get 20-30 over the course of a pregnancy, for no good reason except they like seeing the pictures and their insurance covers it, so why not? One commenter on a discussion thread made the very good point that even though it doesn’t cost the person directly, it does contribute to rising premiums.  There’s also been no study to ensure the safety of frequent ultrasounds that I could find; I mean, it’s probably fine, but why take the chance? So I was feeling pretty good about our following our doctor’s direction and just getting one.

Reading these discussion boards also made me remember that the reason for the ultrasound isn’t to take cute pictures of the fetus; it’s to measure fetal development and look for any problems. So I was a little nervous when we got there.

The appointment was really interesting. For one thing, I thought it would be rather short; take one pic and go. But the technician moved around on my belly a lot, getting cross-sections of the brain, heart and torso, checking blood flow, measuring various organs, and taking tons of pictures. For another, I didn’t think the U/S would be a live feed, so to speak, though I have no idea what else it could have been, now that I stop to consider it. We saw all four chambers of our little one’s heart, beating furiously and regularly at just the right rate! That was when my eyes started welling up and I was glad to be facing away from our taciturn technician. Tears trickled for about five minutes while I struggled to grasp the enormity that we were bringing another human being into existence.

Then the fun part began, with pictures of the whole fetus, arms, legs, hands and feet. Our baby was pumping its legs and moving its arms around, seeming to touch its face, opening and closing its fingers and its mouth. We got several great pictures, but I have some favorites, which I’ll try to add to this post or somewhere on my blog.

We also got to see a 3D picture, which was cool but made the baby look kinda like an alien. Couldn’t tell if it’s because it’s not a real photo, or if it’s due to the gooey stuff the baby is covered in right now (can’t remember the name, but I read about it in a What to Expect e-mail).

We did have to schedule one more U/S, because apparently Figlet wasn’t cooperating and the tech couldn’t get the right picture of the spine for measuring. (We did see the spine quite a bit, so that doesn’t worry me.) So that’ll happen in another 4 weeks.

Then on Saturday, we went to tour the birth center of the hospital we were thinking about using for the delivery. We liked everything we saw, and none of us felt uncomfortable about any part of it, so we’re going to pre-register for that hospital soon. We liked that the tour guide consistently said “your husband or partner” even though there were no same-sex couples (though maybe she didn’t know what to make of the three of us; I assume she thought it was me with husband and friend); that shows a sensitivity that I hope will extend to a three-person relationship. Seeing a birthing room was really crazy, because it was so small and ordinary-looking, in contrast to the blindingly white, bright, machine-filled rooms they show on TV and in the movies. This had its share of contraptions, but the delivery bed was just a teeny little thing with a thin mattress, and the room felt cramped compared to the Hollywood version (of course, because they need to make those rooms bigger to film from different angles). They don’t have a birthing pool but they do have a tub for laboring in, and they have an exercise ball in each room. They encourage moving around; you aren’t constantly hooked up. And they have a policy that the baby never leaves your room if there are no complications and if you so choose; they will even bring in a tub and wash the baby off right there. I REALLY like that idea because one of my most irrational recurring thoughts is that after going to all that trouble, I do NOT want some switched-at-birth scenario to go down!

My third piece of good news: We’re almost to the halfway point! The predicted length of pregnancy is 40 weeks, so we’re just 6 days away.

18 weeks, 3 days: cost update

Over the weekend I bought a bunch of maternity clothes that have plenty of room and should last me awhile. I got three sweaters, a business jacket, two pairs of slacks and four shirts. $177.91 total (lots of it was on sale).

Also saved $20 not buying birth control meds in October.

Total pregnancy cost so far: $813.62

18 weeks, 2 days: The quickening?

About a week ago, I woke up in the middle of the night (not uncommon these days). As I lay half-awake, I thought I could feel fluttery little movements inside my belly. I tried to lie more still, but my heart was pounding from waking up suddenly, so I couldn’t really tell if I was feeling something or not.

Two nights ago I woke up again. This time my belly was experiencing a sensation similar to when a car goes over a small hill with an abrupt dip downward; a sort of breathless, stomach-turning-over sensation. Again, I was in a dreamlike state. Just like my intense-seeming cramps of early pregnancy, I didn’t feel later that I could judge them accurately since I wasn’t in a completely lucid state when they happened.

Today a co-worker (L.) was asking about my pregnancy, and I told her about these experiences. (She called it “quickening”; I’d forgotten that word. It’s an exciting word!) She told me that the first few movements had felt to her like a fish flipping over in her belly. That sounded similar to my second nocturnal experience, so I told AS and NT about it over lunch.

When I got back from lunch, I was sitting and clearing my mind between assignments when I thought I felt a slippery, swishing movement in my lower (slight left) abdomen. I sat very very still and tried to breath deeply and evenly so my heart wouldn’t start pounding harder. I rested my fingers gently approximately where I’d felt the sensation. I felt a similar sensation, more pronounced, and I swear I felt it on my fingers, just a slight sensation of something happening in my belly.

I sat there for about 20 more minutes and thought I felt it a few more times. Since I’d just had a rather large lunch, I could feel gurgling in another part of my stomach. This served as a contrast so I could tell how completely different this lower-abdomen sensation felt from normal digestive feelings.

It’s happening again as I write this! It’s a little like having a quick muscle spasm (like an eye twitch), but inside the belly. It’s a little like a trapped butterfly might feel like fluttering around, bumping its wings against surfaces. Is it too far to the side to be figlet? I know it’s about 5 or 6 inches tall by now, but all curled up and mostly head, I think, so I’m not sure where its limbs might be. It’s such a tiny sensation that it almost seems like I could have been imagining it when it stops. But I think it’s my baby!

18 weeks, 1 day: Various gripes

Today I considered staying home sick. I have what AS is confident is a sty–a pimple on my eyelid, basically. It’s been there for three days, and today I woke up with a puffy dark bag under my eye that looks bruised. I don’t think it’s too noticeable, but it’s distracting because the swelling pokes into my line of vision. For a proofreader this isn’t great because you constantly notice it. But my vision’s not blurred or anything, and it’s not too painful if I don’t touch it or blink too much, so I dragged myself in anyway.

We adopted an abandoned kitten last Thursday. We named him Noodles. Since he was abandoned we didn’t know anything about his health history, and we couldn’t get in to see the vet until Monday, so when I woke up with a sore, swollen eyelid on Sunday, my first thought was to blame Noodles. But all of my Internet searches couldn’t pull up a connection between this symptom and cats, unless it was a weird manifestation of cat scratch fever, which isn’t typically dangerous. Then AS spotted the blemish and we’re pretty sure it’s just a random sty, nothing to do with Noodles.

Then I realized if we didn’t have a cat, I’d be freaking out relating it to the pregnancy instead. But if I had neither a cat nor a pregnant belly I’d be calmer. So I’m trying to not freak out and let it take its course. I have an appointment on Friday, so if it’s still there I can ask about it then.

We’re trying to comprehend the concept of outside child care, without knowing how AS’s job situation is going to work out, whether my job is going to allow me the option of intermittent FMLA leave, and thus when exactly we’d have to start using daycare. This is not helped by the fact that nearly all care providers are canny and secretive about their rates online, and there don’t seem to be any sites where parents reveal the prices to help others out. AS has called one or two and they tend to want to withhold rates information until you come in for a tour. This all sounds so shifty and used-car-salesman-y; doesn’t exactly make me want to give any of them my, you know, child.

We’ve decided to compile a list of questions–about vegan options, cloth diapers, part-time options, prices, etc.–and then divvy up a list of the providers we can find convenient to our home, work or commute. We’ll try to wrangle prices out of them if at all possible and if not, I guess we’ll have to visit. It just pisses me off that some place that might be totally out of our grasp pricewise might make us come in and do a whole song and dance before letting us know that we can’t afford them. Maybe the really stubborn ones will at least give us a ballpark. I’ve figured that we won’t pay more than $1200 per month for infant care, which averages out to $275 per week. So maybe if we say “we aren’t able to pay more than $275 total per week,” some of the high-end places will recognize having us in would waste their time and not get them any money and will tell us they’re higher than that.

That’s all so far. It’s weird searching so blindly for something we probably won’t need for eight months or more, but I think you’re supposed to figure this stuff out early so you can reserve a spot, so we’re trying to forge ahead. I can’t at all tell how this will go, but my vague impression is that this search is trying and frustrating and stressful for most parents, so I don’t expect our experience to be any different.

17 weeks: been awhile

I haven’t really had time to post lately, and nothing too exciting has been happening until the past couple days.

For the most part, no weird symptoms, and if I have them they’re not very long-term. Some congestion, including clogged ears and extra snoring at night; greatly increased appetite; a little bit of dragginess coming back recently after a burst of energy; belly definitely growing bigger (I’ve been gaining about a pound a week); brief spates of things like bleeding gums, headache, nausea and insomnia. Oh, and I drink water like it’s going out of style and also pee about 12 times a day.

I bought a belly band and have been able to fit into most of my pants again! I just leave them unbuttoned, and the belly band covers that up (and holds them up). $16.99 to the cost total and worth every penny.

I got a bill for my first visit (including blood tests) and rest of OB contract (whatever that is; I’d already paid $127.04 on that): $1012.62. Yowza! Definitely going to take a closer look at my plan vs. NT’s plan during open enrollment. I’m putting $377.43 on the expenses page because that’s the portion that’s due immediately. Good thing they’re breaking it up, because I only have $470 in my Health Savings Account right now.

On the good side of finances, scored some free things: 3 Winnie-the-Pooh books and stuffed animals, baby spoons and a travel case to carry formula powder, some nice flowy slacks that will work well as maternity pants. Have also heard of things one of the grandmas is buying, as well as got a look at a nice dresser, crib, changing table and VERY nice high chair that will be ours for the taking as soon as the current owner grows out of them (he’s just over 2, so he’ll be done with them by the time figlet is born). Not sure about the changing table, but we’ll probably snatch the other stuff up!

Met with HR provider and benefits are slightly better than expected. I don’t get 2 weeks at 100% paid as I thought, but I DO get 6 weeks at 60% of pay, as short-term disability. That’s much better overall. I asked her about sporadic leave and she’s going to check into it, but I haven’t heard from her yet. It may be moot if AS doesn’t get this half-time to full-time job, so I’m not pushing to find out yet. We’re working on scenarios and the good news is, our budget is looking strong enough to deal with some unexpected expenses (of which I’m sure there are going to be a lot), so I feel confident about that. I’d better, because with my pregnancy conveniently falling into two years, if I do stay with my current health plan I’m going to have to shell out $3000-$3500 both years (not counting meds or dental) before I hit my max out-of-pocket.

I went in last week for my quad screen (or tetra screen), which tests for the probable risk of certain birth defects. Dr. O. called today to let me know I have a very low risk of Downs, Trisomy and neural-tube defects! Downs risk is 1 in 2343; Trisomy less than 1 in 5,000; neural tube defect 1 in 3,404. As a comparison, my age group has a Downs risk of 1 in 263, so I feel much, much relief at these numbers. No need for further testing as long as my ultrasound looks good, which is in a week and a half!

So this week looks to be uneventful, but next week we have the ultrasound and then, next day, a tour of the birth center we plan to use.

Wow, I guess I had more to report than I realized!