14 Weeks Pregnant

Welcome to week 14! Look at my belly! I can see a difference now, can you? I was excited last Thursday when my sister, Laurie, who hadn’t seen me in a couple of weeks, immediately noticed the change. Yay!

Baby is now about 3.5 inches long from crown to rump, and somewhere between 1 and 1 ½ ounces. That seems huge to me! Again, there isn’t much new going on in there since organ development is just about complete, but I’ll tell you about the midwife appointment I had today!

My weight, according to their scale, was 115 pounds, which I think is a good place to be if you’re looking at my pre-pregnancy weight of 111, but at my 10 week appointment I was at 115.5. My midwife concluded that I probably need to start eating and drinking more, which I’m sure is true. Eating is another thing I’m lazy about. As much as I like food, I often don’t eat because I don’t feel like making anything. She gave me a nutritional guidelines handout, and the sample menu on the back includes three meals and three snacks totaling 2200 calories. (Travis has always said I eat like a Hobbit: first and second breakfast, first and second lunch, afternoon tea, etc. etc…) Anyway, I guess it looks doable. Oh, and I need to start exercising again, too! She gave me a few specific exercises to do in addition to just walking or whatever else I want to do.

We brought the video camera to try to record the heartbeat, and she was happy to let us do that, but she couldn’t get the Doppler to pick it up clearly enough to bother. L The problem was that the baby was right underneath one of my arteries, so it was picking up my heartbeat instead of the baby’s. She said it was great that I have such good blood flow in there, though. The other problem was that when she was able to pick up the baby’s heartbeat more clearly, it would move and she would lose it after a couple seconds. That was actually really funny, though, and we were glad the baby was moving around so much. She said it seems like a very active baby, which is great now, but I hope it isn’t a sign of what’s to come in the toddler years! Anyway, we got to hear tons of little thuds, and she told us the heartbeat was about 156, which is good. I can’t wait til I can feel all of that movement! Should only be another month or so!

Earlier today, I went to a place called Accurate Diagnostics to have my prenatal blood tests done. They test for Rh factor and all kinds of other things that pertain to pregnancy. I guess I’ll finally find out what my blood type is! Anyway, I always have a hard time with blood tests because I have tiny veins and low blood pressure. She poked me once with a regular needle and once with a butterfly needle before we collectively decided that I should come back tomorrow and work on being better hydrated in the meantime. I’ve been drinking water all day since then. I hope it helps!!!

I talked to the people at the doctor’s office about that $500 bill. I asked them to break down the charges for me so I would know exactly what I was paying for. After I insisted that I had specifically asked not to have a full panel of blood work done, which was one of the charges, they discovered that because of a type-o on their part, I was overcharged. However, that only takes about $50 off of the bill. I guess the good thing is that they have to re-process it and send it back to the insurance company and everything, so if nothing else, we get some extra time to come up with the money. She also advised me that if I ever want a check-up again, I should give them a specific reason why. Like, even if I just said I was tired all the time or something, then they would bill the insurance company differently and they would probably pay a lot more of the bill. Good to know.

Since we have no way of knowing whether our house is going to sell before the baby arrives, I’ve been thinking a lot about where we would put the baby if we are still here. We really wanted to set up a nursery, but it would have to be in the room where I teach some of my piano lessons, and I really don’t want to move my piano and all of my books and everything downstairs where there really isn’t any room for it all. I guess my current thought is, if we haven’t sold the house yet, we’ll just put a bassinet and a dresser with a changing pad on top in our room until the baby is big enough to need a crib, at which point we will have hopefully sold the house. We can put a lot of the baby’s stuff in the closet in the piano room, which is filled with a bunch of random junk right now. I’m starting to feel the nesting urge to clean it out before we have a bunch of baby things that we need to find a place for. I might start that project this weekend.

Travis and I have been doing better (but not great) with our commitment to better ourselves. At least we’re heading in the right direction. Travis has been doing a little painting and working on a short children’s book that he hopes to publish. It is the cutest book ever (!!!), about two cats and their humans. The title is Maynard and the Quest for Solitude, and he says he hopes to write more (Maynard and the__________). He is also doing better than I am with the exercising.

I have been working on music here and there, though not for an hour a day as planned, and I have posted my music playing services on Craigslist. I did happen to get a $15 gig accompanying for a voice student at this Thursday’s recital (in which I have seven piano students performing). That was pure luck, though. I’m not even on the accompanist list. I had some traumatic accompanying experiences in college. I could never learn the music as fast as they wanted, so eventually people stopped asking me. I had a lot of traumatic college experiences that I wish I could get over.

Sorry, I’ll try to stop being depressing. You know what? I need to thank you all for taking the time to read about my experiences, thoughts, and concerns. Even though I don’t hear back from most of you, I know you’re there, and it means a lot. I would enjoy getting some feedback from you all, though, if you feel like offering it. Most of you have my email address and/or my facebook…

Lastly, my poor dad had an accident on some crazy contraption at work last Thursday and ended up with a broken arm, a broken heel/ankle, and a sore back that is hopefully just temporarily knocked out of whack. He has to be in a wheelchair/in bed for several weeks (like, 12), and all he seems to be worried about is everyone else! He doesn’t want anyone to worry, and he feels bad that he has to rely on other people (mostly Jen) to do things for him. We saw him on Sunday and he was in surprisingly good spirits and seemed optimistic. Today he had surgery on the broken heel/ankle, which apparently went well, but it was still numb when I talked to him after. I just hope the pain will subside soon and that he’ll heal up fast! Anyway, keep him in your thoughts please.

That’s all! Sorry it was such a long one! J