Of maternity pants and tests, tests, tests! 4/24/11

I bought my first pairs of maternity pants last week! I was resistant to the idea at first, because I've seen some frumpy, dumpy maternity clothes on mom's-to-be and didn't want to sacrifice my fabulous style ;) But finally, I couldn't even zip up my biggest courderoy pants anymore, let alone button them up. The buttons had been sacrificed to the belly gods weeks ago. So with Barry dutifully tagging along, we went on our first baby-related shopping trip. We went to four or five different stores and they didn't even have a damn section. We even went to a fat lady store and spent all of forty seconds there-as much time as it took to walk to the back and then out the front door again. Eeww. Finally, Liz, the ever wonderful fountain of baby related information texted me some hot, new information! Kohls has maternity gear! We went, and woo hoo! Jackpot! I got three pairs of maternity pants; jeans, khakis and black cargo pants. Comfy, not dumpy! It feels so good to have pants on again, especially ones that aren't attacking me as I sit down.

Another bit of excitement that we've been simultaneously looking forward to and fearing terribly were getting the results back from the genetic tests as well as the Ultra Screen visit to mom's office. We went for the genetic tests about four weeks ago, and they took about a gallon of blood from each of us. They tested us for genetic matches for a whole host of genetic disorders (Tay Sachs and a bunch of others I can't remember). We got the results a few days ago and we're completely mismatched for everything! That means anything wonky in my genes doesn't match anything wonky in Barry's genes, therefore we have nothing to worry about on that front. Another woo hoo!

Finally, we went for the Ultra Screen on April 14th. That's where they take even more blood from my poor, blood-let body and they do a sonogram of the baby, checking something called the nucal (sp?) fold. They looked at the thickness of the skin on the back of the neck and checked out some stuff in my blood. When they put all that information together, they can come up with a likelihood for Down Syndrome, along with several other abnormalities. We came back with a 1 in 10,00 chance of a problem! That's the highest number the doctors will give. Woo hoo number three!

This baby is one healthy little bean!

After we got all this wonderful news over the course of  a week or so, Barry had some awesome words of wisdom he imparted to me on our way to Portland, Maine for a bit of a road trip vacation. "This baby's comin!" And we couldn't' be happier!

Oh 2 a.m., when did we get to be such good friends? 4/12/11

OK, OK, I'll admit it! I have forsaken caffeinated tea (tea fergodsakes!), coffee (entirely), never had a 5 hour energy slug nor any crack for that matter, but you've got me! I ate some chocolate before bed. Someone, somewhere, sometime may have mentioned that it has a bit of caffeine in it. Or sugar. Or little dancing gnomes whose job it is to keep me awake all night- for a week.

There were a lot of things I expected to experience through my pregnancy.  Nausea (check), belly getting bigger (check), odd food things (check and double check) but no sleep? C'mon, really?  I got a mostly full night of sleep on Friday night, but I've been up for at least a few hours every night for about a week. Before that I had a few days, but it was spotty at best. I can't take anything that will really knock me out, but I've been allowed an itty, bitty Benedryl. Woo hoo, little pink pill the size of my pinky nail. You'll save me! Harrumph I say. Harrumph!

Well, at least it's given me a minute to check in here. Some cool stuff has continued to happen. First, I never thought I'd be happy to say that none of my pants fit. But, woo hoo! I have a belly! It's not that big so far, but it's definitely there. I can't suck my gut in at all anymore, and probably shouldn't squish the beansprout anyway. I've been wearing stretchy-waist skirts to work and sweatpants when I'm not. Who ever thought it would be so awesome to have an excuse to wear sweats all day! The belly is rounding out but I don't quite feel like a beached whale yet.

I still don't have food cravings, but some aversions are certainly there. I don't like jellybeans. What's up with that? Also, those Popcorner chips that were the best before are no longer so. Thankfully most of my staples are still tasty, and I'm just not going to forsake chocolate, so screw that.

Otherwise, we're still happy and incubating along :) I found a "gestation calculator" that makes me sound like a science experiment, but it's a pretty spiffy tool. As of right now, I am 12 weeks and one day along, with 27 weeks, five days and 21 hours to go till baby bean should pop out. Pretty cool. Hopefully I'll be posting some more pictures of something rad soon. For now, let the gestation adventure continue!