21w u/s - a boy!

Yesterday was our 2nd trimester u/s, at 21w3d. My mom had come over from Holland especially to experience the u/s (and to start on some sewing projects for the nursery). Of course hubby was there too. Lots of required measurements of organs, bones etc, so many detail shots but not a lot of cute pix of the baby's face (this was also partly due to the fact that there was always either a hand, an arm or the umbilical cord in front of it). Everything measured just fine. Baby has a large head and long legs - hmmm, sounds familiar...! Measured at 22w2d so almost a week ahead of the (French) curve (and just slightly ahead of the Dutch one, as far as I can gather from the Dutch pregnancy book I have).

I won't bore you with details of brain, heart or femur, but we did also get this 3D shot, which I think shows quite a sweet face, even though I'm not so fond of the 'candle wax' 3D images.

And then of course, the big news (although I already spoiled it in the title): we're expecting a boy! I already had a feeling beforehand that it was a boy (don't know why, just a gut feeling), and my hubby too, so no big surprises here, but it was nice to have it confirmed. It was kind of a funny situation: the u/s doc asked us if we wanted to know, we said 'yes', so she moved the image toward the baby's bottom from the legs up. It was immediately quite obvious. So she said 'do you understand what it is?' and we said 'yes', but apparently she would have preferred us to say 'yes, we do, it's a boy', because we noticed the hesitation in her voice when she again asked if we understood (which we confirmed) and then she said herself 'so it's a boy' and wrote it on the u/s image (below). Quite hilarious!

Happy and more talkative

That's what my dad said I sounded today (and ever since I'm pregnant) when I spoke to him on the phone.

He's absolutely right. I'm usually not a big talker, and the past years my phone conversations have been very brief. I always inquired about the other person's well-being, but tried to avoid having to talk about myself. I didn't have anything to say - no job, no baby, just slowly eroding self-confidence - so I just said I was fine and moved on to the next topic.

But now it's different. I am happy and I do like to talk about what's going on in my life, and with the pregnancy in particular.

And today I am extra happy because after over three years of fruitless and frustrating job searching I finally have a job! Yeah!! Of course this might seem awful timing, being five months pregnant and all, but luckily the company is very flexible with everything (my hubby works there as well, so they already know me a little bit, it's a small company). They allow me to work part-time (26 hrs/week) and I start out with a 6-month contract (of which 2 to 2.5 will be absorbed by my maternity leave) and then if I want to come back after the baby is born, they'll give me a permanent contract - but if I want to take some time off first, even after the maternity leave has ended (total of 16 weeks here, 6 weeks before, 10 after birth), that's OK too (but of course I won't be paid during that time).

So yeah, I was quite talkative on the phone today...

20w check-up

Today was my 20w check-up and I was sooo glad about being able to go see the doctor, because since yesterday late afternoon I'd been having constant abdominal cramps again and I was freaking out a bit. I did lay down, drink lots of water, use a heat pad etc, but it didn't really help. Seemed that getting up was actually making me feel a bit better (which should not be the case when you're having contractions - so maybe it was intestinal, but my uterus did feel rock solid) and I also felt the baby moving around quite happily, so both reassured me a little bit, but still, I didn't sleep much during the night and was not happy at all when I woke up this morning and it wasn't gone...

Called the OB to see if there might be a possibility that I could come in earlier (my appointment was not until 2pm), but that didn't work. She told me to lie down and take it easy. Hubby was very sweet and decided to work from home this morning, get my results from last Friday at the lab and come with me to the appointment with the OB this afternoon.

So, first thing she did was take a urine sample to check for infections. Result was negative. Friday's results from the lab were negative too. I told her the itch was still not gone (although barely noticable yesterday and today, but I won't say it's gone until it hasn't appeared for at least a week) and she said it probably would stick around for the remainder of the pregnancy, nothing we can do about it. Asked me if I maybe had some constipation - yes, not super bad, but still (I already decided to decrease my extra iron-intake again because of this). OB said that that's probably causing the belly aches and advised to drink a specific water brand that has lots of magnesium in it (but apparently doesn't taste that great) and eat prunes...

Then the usual check-up: gained 1 kg since last month, BP still fine at 112/60, baby's heart rate was 136 bpm. Uterus height OK, but I'm apparently carrying really low. Uterus felt very tense/present/tonic (no kidding!), she asked if that was always the case, I responded that yes, at least yesterday and today. So those are small contractions, but apparently the baby doesn't care ("il s'en fiche", she said) because it was moving around happily. On to the cervix, which was maybe worrying me the most - I already saw myself on bedrest, having to cancel our trip to the US etc... but no, my cervix doesn't care about my contracting uterus either and remains long, strong and closed!

Pfew.. sigh of relief! I'm already feeling better, even though the belly and lower back aches are still there.

Before we left I asked her about our travel plans to the US and she said that was no problem. Also asked about midwife/birthing classes, but she said it was really early for that and we would discuss that next month. But what she did already say was that the hospital would probably not be the best place to go to for the classes, because there would be too many people in the class with a less quick understanding of things, so I would be bored...