Pregnancy Recap

I realized that I am great at keeping track of the boys once they are born, but my records at pregnancy / birth are kind of week.  So, since I am full-term now, seems as a good a time as any to write out Pregnancy #3.

We really liked the spacing between Seth and Andrew, after all.  But it didn’t seem like we could do because there was no way on earth that I wanted to have child #3 before finishing my PhD.  I felt like I was kind of fading out on my PhD and I knew I just had to finish.  So, it was a bit of a (happy) surprise that I found out I was pregnant at the end of February (that makes Seth and the new baby about 2 years, 4 months apart).  Which meant that the race was on to finish my PhD.  Within a week of finding out I was pregnant, my advisor also decided that I should finish my dissertation and defend this semester (Winter 2011).  So, the first trimester certainly started off with a bang.

My ObGyn, to my surprise, did not see OB patients and so I chose a new doctor, Dr. Bryan, from the same practice.  He has been great – of course, I haven’t had many issues/concerns with this pregnancy, so the visits are easy.  But his wife got a PhD, so he was understanding of that whole thing and we scheduled stuff the first trimester accordingly so I could devote the most time to finishing my PhD.  I had my first appt on March 29 and then another appt and ultrasound on April 13.  The baby, of course, just looked like a little bean – not too exciting to me, but the technician was excited.  The due date from that scan was Nov. 5, so they just left my due date Nov. 3.

The first trimester was a blur.  I felt sick to my stomach all the time, with only brief relief by eating.  And I don’t throw up.  So between the two, I always gain way too much weight my first trimester.  Oh, well.  It was making it difficult to work on my PhD – finishing my research, writing my dissertation, getting ready for my defense – but I didn’t have any options, so between lots of saltines and SeaBands (which did offer a bit of help), I got the work done, and thanks to a friend babysitting the boys A LOT while I worked in the basement.  I also got some new work out videos (I love the Pilates for pregnancy) and tried to do good at working out /eating well.  Of course, the main thing that I was craving was pizza – actually, throughout the entire pregnancy.  I swear, I could eat pizza almost every day!

My dissertation defense was on April 28th and also the date that I hit 13 weeks.  From there, my nausea started to get better but almost to the date, my pelvic pain and sciatica started.  Luckily, the sciatica wasn’t too bad and mostly lasted just for the second trimester.  The pelvic pain on the other hand … it was very bad through the second trimester, started to ease up a little bit half way through the third trimester, but is back with a vengeance, now.  I have also been pretty exhausted almost the entire pregnancy.  Probably from being pregnant and taking care of two little boys and finishing a dissertation.  The heat of the summer was especially hard (note to self: having a baby in the late spring is way better!).

The big ultrasound was scheduled at 18 weeks on June 6 and the technician was sure the baby was a boy.  Seth and Katsu came along to this scan and enjoyed watching, and everything looked good.  Andrew was at Vacation Bible School and was very sad that he missed it.  However, he was much more sad that we were having another boy.  From even before I was pregnant, he wanted twin girls (“one for me, one for Seth”).  I told him from the first ultrasound that it was only one and he has mostly gotten over not getting twins, but still will tell the whole world he wanted a sister.

Otherwise, the second trimester was uneventful but horribly hot and I was miserable.  I don’t remember EVER feeling as hot as I did this pregnancy.  Boy, it was hot here with heat advisories for half the summer, plus, even now in October I still just feel so hot.  Luckily, not too much swelling, but still … YUCK.  I also measured big through the second trimester (by fundal height), by 4ish weeks for a couple months, so I had a third ultrasound again on August 15th.  All the measurements looked good (Katsu came along, just in case something looked wrong, but almost missed the scan because he had to urgently use the bathroom) and it was again a boy, so we were feeling pretty sure.

This baby has also been extremely active, at least as much, if not more, than the other boys.  I started feeling movement pretty early in the second trimester (something I probably should have written down … oops) and it hasn’t gone away much since then.  This baby seems to do more like flips, head jabs, and butt jabs more than kicking.  And the movement seems a lot more painful than I ever remember from the other boys.  Katsu is always worried I am having a contraction – but no, that is just the baby sticking some body part into my abdomen very very hard.  And leaving it there.  During the active times of day (most especially around 10 pm and 4-5 am), you can certainly see my belly move a lot.

We finally made a hospital tour on Sunday Sept 11 at Missouri Baptist hospital where we plan to deliver.  The hospital seems nice and I LOVE that it is not a teaching hospital.  And so nice that this time around my own doctor should be there.  You do have to switch rooms after delivery, which is new to me, but they still have you keep the baby with you (unfortunately, not when they do exams/tests on the newborn, but the rest of the time).  But it seems like a very good hospital and very open to letting you do birth your way.

The third trimester is a little more miserable, of course.  I have had difficulty sitting on any hard surface for more than like 10 minutes (makes church very interesting … lots of roaming the halls and I don’t even have a baby!), so that is hard.  And of course, sleeping can be a challenge, but I think I am sleeping pretty well this time.  My weight gain sure picked up since the weather turned cooler – I didn’t have too much of an appetite for a lot of the summer.  And this pregnancy, I have heartburn, which I don’t really remember before.  I have had a few Braxton Hicks contractions here and there, I think, but I still have a hard time telling what is or isn’t a contraction since I have never really had out outside of the hospital before.  I do have a bit of anxiety about what it would be like to go into labor naturally.  I also have had what feels like pregnancy-induced allergies.  I swear, I only get them when I am pregnant, but they were thankfully only around for a couple weeks.  And I had another horrible sinus infection this pregnancy to the point where I was crying from the pain (and I don’t cry easily), but thankfully antibiotics cleared that up.

The only real complication I had was some tachycardia, a very high pulse.  One day early in September, it was really hot again and I guess I overextended myself (I don’t remember anymore than usual), but I did NOT feel good.  I could feel my pulse vibrating in my head and I just felt really sick and lightheaded.  My pulse was pretty high – like 120 or something, at least.  So, I laid down for awhile and drank lots of water, but nothing really helped.  It was still high a few hours later when Katsu got home from work early to take care of me (but I was starting to feel a little bit better).  By the time the boys went to bed, my pulse was down.  It hasn’t happened again, but my doctor said if it happened again for more than like 20 minutes, I needed to go to the ER.  I have been a little worried/paranoid about it since than and have really tried to take it easy and have also basically stopped exercising because I have been worried about elevating my heart rate too much.  But otherwise, this pregnancy has been normal.

The boys both seem pretty excited about the baby, but Seth definitely more so.  He likes to talk about being a big boy and a big brother.  He loves to lift up my shirt and kiss the baby and he will just come over and say “I love you baby” to my belly.  It is so cute.  Lately, the boys have been fighting over who will get to take care of the baby.  Seth has already picked out a little gift to give to the baby when he gets here (and the “baby” has picked out presents for the boys, too).

I don’t look as pregnant as I am.  Everyone today was expressing amazement that I am less than 3 weeks to my due date.  I definitely carry small compared to other people (I swear, I said that like 20 times today) and I think also that my rib cage expands tons during pregnancy (my bra band size goes WAY up when I am pregnant), so that kind of hides it.  Plus, the baby is never terribly high – I never get that feeling of someone kicking me in the ribs (yay!).  But I still feel just as pregnant, let me tell you.

We still have not totally decided on a name.  I was kidding (sort of) in the beginning that if we had boy/girl twins, the names would be Luke and Lorelai (yes, I have been watching Gilmore Girls almost all 7 seasons this whole pregnancy).  But alas, such easy names was not to be.  Boys names are SO hard.  I think we have mostly decided on a boys first name, but still working through what to do for the middle name (all Japanese boy names sound So foreign to me, so Katsu mostly picks with me getting the veto, like “yeah, that kind of sounds like a cuss word” kind of thing).

I realized that this is a fall baby (duh) and so going through the clothes, we really had nothing warm for the 0-6 month stage.  But luckily, I ended up with a HUGE amount of onesies, sleepers, socks, etc. that looks immaculate off of Freecycle.  Almost all Carters and looks brand new to me.  I swear, their kid must have never needed to do laundry (or maybe we just live off a lot less clothes than other families do).  So, we have totally scored.  And we bought a new crib (with money from studies and such, we only paid like $30 for it and it was a nice one, too!).  I really like it, though it really just barely eeks into our room and that is with 0 floor space between the futons and the crib.  I guess I will just have to step on Katsu to get the baby out to feed at night.  We also have some diapers and I feel like there isn’t much to get.  We don’t have any of the big baby equipment this time around (bouncer, swing, exercauser, etc.), nor do we have any room for it, so this baby better like being in a sling or on a blanket on the floor.  It feels kind of weird to feel like there isn’t much to do to get ready.

Even with all the yucky symptoms, I have been a lot more relaxed this pregnancy.  It has been so nice that the last 2/3rds of my pregnancy, I have not had to do school work!!!!  Such a relief.  And I have really tried not to try to take on too much.  But I do feel like I have spent every evening vegging with the TV and my cross-stitch, but hey, I deserve it right?  On the happy note, this baby’s stocking is almost done!!!!  I started pretty much as soon as I found out I was pregnant.  It’s a cute but very very full cross-stitch of baby Jesus with Mary and Joseph.  I can’t totally finish it before the baby is done because there is no way on earth, I would take out the stitches if we decided to change the name, but I am hoping to do all the rest.  I also think this baby is going to be instantly calmed by hearing the theme song to Gilmore Girls since I have been doing a marathon since I finished my PhD.  But so nice to be able to relax during pregnancy.  Now if only that would translate to some new napping superpowers … why do I feel like the only person on earth physically incapable of taking a nap?

I still feel like it is a little unreal that I am pregnant and now I’ll have a new baby sometime in the next month!  Crazy!