Baby size: Lemon sized which is a huge jump from the last time I wrote. That's according to the 13 week measurements from the ultrasound yesterday. Baby has little limbs and appendages and looks a lot more baby like. With a huge head. I can also feel the top of my uterus low on my stomach, I noticed earlier in the week.
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| Baby face |
Morning sickness: Still hanging in there. I'm hoping it goes away second trimester but realistically I'm betting I'm in for the long haul again.
Food cravings/aversions: Super cliche but I made Travis go buy like 4 types of pickles one evening.
Other symptom: I had the worst headache ever this week. It's been on and off for about a week and a half at this point. It set in hard for good on Wednesday afternoon and by Friday morning I was in urgent care. I ended up trying a muscle relaxer (safe for pregnancy, category B) and basically slept the day away and felt better by Saturday morning finally. It did come back with the stress from spotting on Sunday but I was too freaked out to take more meds, even though they were supposed to be safe. I took some last night though because I've had enough headache and I'm thoroughly convinced they aren't the cause of my spotting now. I'm hoping it's finally done now.
Weight gain: Nada. But I feel the bloat on and off for sure.
Mood: So stressed and not a good week overall. Sunday during the middle of our sex reveal party, the day before my birthday, which was also the day before family came to visit, a few days before my planned girls trip, a few days before the 12 week milestone where I last miscarried, basically the absolute worst time for it, I started spotting. I felt a gush and I was just like, "Nooooo, that can't be what I think it is." But sure enough when I went to the bathroom to check, blood. I freaked out harder than any of the previous times. Every time you just think, this can't possibly be happening. I started shaking and hyperventilating a bit and called Travis back to the bathroom to call the midwife and my friend who was at the party sans kids to come comfort me. Then I just tried to move on with the day and see how it went. Luckily, my friends all know and I didn't have to pretend everything was perfect, so that worked out. Still a bummer to bring down my party mood a lot.
It just sucks the more often this happens because you feel less hopeful every time. I feel like I was less hysterically upset and more contingency planning from the get go. Like "Ok if this is another miscarriage, this is the plan, this is the testing to talk about, this is what I want to push to get done." Etc. It's way more morbid too, I immediately started thinking, this is how big the baby is, this is what you need to prepare yourself to see, potentially. Pack bags for the ER in case we need to go there in the middle of the night and notify the friends we would leave Lyra with. I knew I'd have trouble sleeping and Travis suggested unisom but I wanted to be alert enough to be able to differentiate between drowsy from drugs and drowsy from blood loss. Miscarriages really put a damper on your pregnancy experience.
But the ultrasound place got me in quickly at least. Baby is measuring even more ahead so I don't know yet if my due date will change. Measuring at 13 weeks instead of 11 weeks and 5 days. Wiggling a bit and a heart rate if 152. So that was a good birthday present even if the rest of the news wasn't. The complete placenta previa they found is very likely the reason I was spotting. And I may or may not keep spotting due to that. So that's a big bummer. Hopefully, the placenta moves but frankly, I have shitty luck lately and I don't want to bank on that and just be disappointed. So I'm processing that. And mentally preparing. I had Lyra unmeducated at a birth center and it was a great experience. Pregnancy kind of sucks for me to be honest, and the birth thing was what I was looking forward to. With placenta previa you can't give birth vaginally and you don't want to go into labor because you'll bleed and put both yourself and the baby in danger. I had a fairly quick labor (at least the dilation part) with Lyra and we live 45 minutes from the hospital so that makes me nervous.
I just can't seem to 100% win in the placenta department. I had an anterior placenta with Lyra, not a big deal just a bummer because it dulls movement in the front at first so I had to wait longer to feel her move. Then with that second miscarriage I had retained placenta that landed me in the ER. Now this placenta previa. Stupid jerk placentas.
Obviously, I'm glad I have a healthy baby right now but my birth experience matters a lot too and I'm upset about possibly losing my homebirth and having a c-section. Not to mention the epidural part of birth and surgery are at the top of my list of "things I'm incredibly terrified of" and at the top of my "exactly how I do not want birth to go" list. The universe is testing me once again it would appear. I mean there's still hope but I'm preparing for my worst case scenario.
I got the double whammy ultrasound too. I had the bladder crushing stomach ultrasound and the awkward twat wand ultrasound both. "I'm just going to put this protective non latex covering on the wand." Let's just call it what it is, a condom on a stick, slathered in KY jelly. Plus I can't see the screen from that angle so where am I supposed to look? What am I supposed to do? Just lay here and think about life? What a fun day to turn 29.
Gender: We had our sex party! It turned out ok, even with the drama. We had a taco bar and meatballs and weenies. I forgot to set out the pork for the tacos. My friend later was like, "I thought it was kind of weird you didn't have meat for the tacos but I didn't say anything." What a time to get polite on me.
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| I made everyone wear pins with their guesses. |
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| Nuts or no nuts? |
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| Turns out it's hard to make balloon penises and vaginas but an effort was made. |
We had penis cookies and vagina fudge. Technically more like vulva fudge but whatever. They didn't turn out the best, they were mostly a little mangled with made for some great jokes.
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| The cookies and the slightly mangled fudge |
"The first batch turned out the best, there's nothing like your first vagina."
"Those ones just look like they went a few rounds with big red." (Referencing the giant red balloon penis Travis made out of those ballons you use to make balloon animals.)
"These ones are just fine if you dim the lights a little."
And everyone felt like terrible parents for letting their kids innocently eat the ginger snap penis cookies. I decorated with penis and sperm confetti It's annoying how hard it is to find vagina confetti. And by that I mean, impossible. There's a kickstarter for some called "Clitter" but that's it.
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| The confetti |
Right before the party started, Travis managed to drop a single piece of sperm confetti in the meatballs and weenies. We never did find it, unfortunately. And we did our actual reveal with a baking soda/vinegar experiment.
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| We're having a boy! XY chromosomes this time. |
Lyra stats: Lyra scared the shit out of me one night this week. She sleeps in her own room but when she does wake up, she's generally loud, slamming her door and then mine and stomping down the hall like an elephant. So I know when she is on the way. But one night this week she went for stealth. I rolled over and must have opened my eyes and half woke up. It was one of those times where your brain registers you're seeing something before you really process what's happening. All I knew was I woke up to someone standing in the dark next to my bed, staring at me. So I screamed, hit Travis to wake him, realized it was Lyra and yelled, "Oh my God Lyra what are you doing? Travis, put her back in bed!" and ran off to pee before I wet myself with my heart racing. I calmed down a bit, realized I'd scared Lyra and went to talk to her. But sheesh. One of my nightmares is waking with someone standing over me like that. It was terrifying.
Best moment this week: Reassurance that this baby is doing ok right now. Both with the home Doppler and the ultrasound. That was nice to know this week. I feel like i made it past my last miscarriage mark
Looking forward to: My first visit with the midwife tomorrow, I have a lot of questions now. And the girls trip I'm going on this Thursday. It will tie with Vegas for the longest I've been away with Lyra and will be a weekend of relaxing, chatting, massages, spa treatments, and good food.
