Baby size: So the majority of sources say avocado sized which is what my phone app said last week. My phone app now says dill pickle. How useless. That's the vaguest description I ever heard. So somewhere between avocado and dill pickle of unknown size.
Morning sickness: Still feeling it. Mostly it seems to be in the actual early morning now and it fades after a bit. I run into trouble really only when I have a headache now. Which is like at least 1 out of 3 days. If I have a headache then I feel more nauseous which makes me throw up. That makes my head hurt even worse which makes me feel more sick and I get locked in this cycle of not being able to keep anything down for a couple hours. So I have a pretty rigid routine of trying to ice or heat my neck any chance I get, several times a day. And sort of self osteopath treatment. Painful massage basically. It sucks.
Food cravings/aversions: I've eaten way too much corn on the cob. I can't stop, it's so good. And our Easter dinner was basically a hodgepodge of cravings I had. Currently, I'm on the hunt for rosquillas, this Nicaraguan pastry thing that I think is corn based and has some sort of sweet stuff baked onto the top.
Other symptom: The heartburn/acid reflux stuff is starting up. I'd gladly trade morning sickness for that though.
Movement: Nothing yet I don't think. Every now and again I get a questionable maybe baby feeling. But also I have this crazy weird muscle twitch that's been coming and going for weeks now up by my left rib. It's crazy, it's like having hiccups in my ribs. 100% not baby, just super weird.
Weight gain: 1 or 2 pounds, but I definitely popped this week. With Lyra I remember it being more gradual. I feel like there was longer of the "Do I look pregnant or not?" stage. This one it was like that but then one morning I woke up and it was like, "Yeah, no...I can't suck that in anymore." And now I look for sure pregnant all the time. I also found a pretty cool breakdown of weight gain. It makes me feel tired just thinking of all the work that goes into making that stuff.
For an average 25 to 35 pound gain (super generic blanket reccomendation there by the way) here's the breakdown.
Baby: 6-8 lbs
Uterus: 1-2 lbs
Placenta: 1-2 lbs
Amniotic fluid: 2-3 lbs
Blood: 3-4 lbs
Maternal fat/protein storage: 8 to 10 lbs
Breasts: 1-2 lbs
Other bodily fluid (I'm really curious what this is exactly): 3-4 lbs
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| I think my body has given in to the inevitable. |
Sleep: I've been done sleeping through the night for the next few years since finding out I was pregnant basically. I'm mentally accepting it slowly.
Mood: Eh, not too bad? I feel more mood swingy than usual but less grumpy generally (I think?) since I've felt better some days.
Names: I think barring some drastic change of heart, there's 2 names in the final running. Really at this point it's the order that's up for debate. We had originally had Orion tentatively picked out as a boy name since way back, before we knew if Lyra was a boy or girl. But we're still undecided on the number of kids we'll have eventually. If we have more than one boy, we'll run out of constellation/space boy names anyway since Travis has questionable taste and doesn't agree that Draco and Scorpius would work. If we have another girl, the top favorite name (Lyra' s almost name) has never been a space name. Plus when you get down to actually naming kids, you change your mind from theoretical names a bit. I know we went with Nova for the last loss which is still kind of a theme but eh, I'm ok with just going with individual favorites over over-arching themes. So anyway, this boy is (99% probably) either Everett Finley or Finley Everett. Travis and I are not in agreement about which is best right now.
Lyra stats: She's been hanging out with me too much. I have a tendency towards drama lately when I feel crappy and I may have said the phrase, "I'm dying," during one or several of the puking/headache episodes. Lyra was getting fussy in the car this week and all of the sudden started complaining loudly, "I'm dying! I'm dying, I'm dyyyyying!!!" when I wouldn't let her out of the carseat on the highway. It was too funny. Also due to an unfortunate accidental mispronounciatuon by Travis while reading Mulan, Lyra thinks the main villain is called "Sham-Poo."
What I miss: I want a beer.
Best moment this week: Well Travis got a promotion and is now Chief Metallurgist at the mine he's been at since we moved here. Which is quite an accomplishment 6 years out of school, well before he's 30. So that's cool.
Also, I found a doula I want to use. A doula is the emotional and physical (not medical!) support during pregnancy, labor, postpartum and even loss, that you might have from female family members or close friends back when humans lived more in close communities and everyone birthed at home. Not that I don't have family and friends but some aren't close by and having ones who are trained is helpful. I really like her and hopefully will either have extra support no matter which way my birth turns out. I also think I really am going to do my doula training after this baby is a bit less of a fetus/newborn. I was totally derailed in that plan by moving. But that was possibly for the best, I couldn't have handled it while having miscarriages.
I went on a hospital tour as well and probably picked which hospital I will use if necessary. I'm hoping for a homebirth but a c-section is still very much a possibility. If my placenta moves off my cervix but isn't very far off, I may well want or need to be in the hospital if I'm going to attempt a vaginal birth. Or if some unexpected other complication comes up, who knows. So I want to know all my options and have my research done for as many scenarios as I can. I'm still waiting on another tour at the end of the month of the other hospital my OB uses to make a final decision. This one I just went to is the smaller of the two but there were several things I really liked and my doula had some helpful advice and things to consider. This hospital is smaller and less busy. The OR, nursery, labor and delivery rooms, and postpartum rooms are all on the same floor. There isn't a limit on how many people I can have with me during labor, at the other hospital you're limited to three. That seems like a lot until you consider I want a doula and birth photographer, plus my mom and Travis' mom may both be around in addition to Travis. This hospital also has wireless fetal monitoring (so I could move during labor) and tubs. The larger one doesn't, which surprised me. The way the doula put it, "When this hospital had money, they put it into things to make women more comfortable and not new paint to make it look fancy like the other hospital." That's stuck in my head for sure. Plus, the doula said she's had more luck with being allowed as a second person in the OR during c-sections. Not a garuntee, but that's a big thing for me. If Travis has to go with the baby to the NICU, I don't want to be left alone, wondering what the fuck is happening, I want someone who's priority is me and can help me get info and explain what's happening. Plus, the nurse we met there was really nice and mentioned she loved working with the doula I picked out.
Looking forward to: Movement! I want to start feeling this one for sure. I felt Lyra for sure about 3 weeks from this point and her placenta was in the way. I want some dang baby kicks already. It's been almost exactly a year since I found out I was pregnant the first time since having Lyra. It was Easter last year. It's weird to think about how much longer the process has been this time around compared to having Lyra. I've been pregnant 34 weeks out of the last 52. Only 22-26 left. SHEESH.
