First name problem

So... we're slowly starting to talk about names. I had a few in my head, of which one clear favorite, and first was hesitant to share it with my hubby, afraid he would shoot it down immediately. I finally took up the courage a few weeks ago, and he reacted quite positively, so that was great! But... one of our colleagues just had a baby today and... yes, you guessed it... also had a baby boy and gave him the name that's on the top of my list! Now we can't use that anymore (well we could, but I think it would be weird to do so). Beh!

25 weeks - last week's glucose test + 24w check-up

OK, I'm exactly a week too late with this post, but I'm finally feeling better (although still coughing) to do a decent update.

Last week Tuesday, while sick with the flu, I had to go to the lab at 9 am for my glucose test (+ a number of other blood and urine tests), on an empty stomach. I wonder if it wouldn't have been better if I'd have just postponed it, but oh, well, I went anyway... feeling quite miserable.
I don't know how they do it in the US or in other countries, but here in France you have to go to the lab, get your blood drawn, drink the yucky super sweet stuff, and then stay at the lab for two hours before they do the final blood draw and you're allowed to go home again.

As everyone who's ever had a glucose test knows, it's horrible. I got the choice between 'a little bit, but very sweet' or 'not so sweet, but a bit more'. I chose the latter: two plastic cups were both half filled with glucose powder and then mixed with water. It was still disgustingly sweet, but I got it down. Then they moved me to another room where I had to sit/hang out the two hours (luckily not in the general waiting room, as I had imagined). I tried to sleep a bit, but that didn't really work. After about an hour the lab technician came to check on me, to see if I didn't have to urge to throw up. That wasn't the case, but I did feel pretty lousy and had developed a nice headache. Finally after the two hours were over another lab technician came in to do the final blood draw. I was in a bit of a daze and was feeling very hot. She was super sweet. I could finally go home. Got a croissant at the bakery downstairs (in a nice coughing fit) and went home to eat and sleep a bit before my 24-week checkup at 2 pm.

While in the OB's waiting room I almost fell asleep two times... She was also very nice and understanding. I was still in a bit of a daze, so forgot to take of my undies for the exam (...). Baby was clearly trying to hide every time I coughed. His HB was 155. My BP was 110/60 and I had gained a healthy 3 kg since last month's appointment. Cervix had softened a bit (probably due to me being sick), but still long and closed.

I asked her if she would have anything against us going by car to Holland for Easter (as she had mentioned something about long drives last month) and she cleary did, so we decided to abandon that plan (my mom will now probably come to us that weekend).

As for the birthing classes, we didn't talk extensively about it, but one of her recommendations was a midwife not too far from me who was already on my list, so I called her later in the week and made an appointment for April 14 (first of eight). Also got a form to fill out and bring to the consult witht the anesthesiologist on May 19. Next check-up is on April 2.

Awards!

Emilythehopeless honored me with two awards earlier this week:


Rules: put the logo on your blog or post. Nominate at least 10 blogs with great attitude and/or gratitude. Be sure to link to your nominees in your post. Let your nominees know they have received the award by leaving them a comment on their blog. Be sure to link this post to the person who nominated you for the award.


Rules: put the logo on your blog or post. Pass it on to 7 blogs. Say 10 random things about yourself.

I'll do as Emily did and combine the two.

And the awards go to... (drum roll please!):
Busted Babymaker
eye heart internet
Fighting Infertility
For the Flavor
Hijacked...by a baby in waiting...
Infertility on the Brain!
Seriously!?!?!
The Maybe Baby (Babies)
Waiting for the Ukulele

Apologies to those who already received these awards from Emily or someone else. I just don't follow that many blogs...

And now for the 10 random things:

1. I watch a lot of movie trailers online but I almost never go to the movies
2. I hate scented candles and shops that smell like them
3. I love following RTW sailing races but can't sail myself (and am too stubborn to learn)
4. Apparently I have rock-climbing talent but I don't do anything with it
5. I'm horribly behind on reading my copies of the New Yorker and am afraid I will never catch up again (but have to read them all entirely before I can put them away!)
6. I thought I'd have two or three kids by now (but feel very blessed that I'm finally pregnant!)
7. I hate having my close family so far away but am glad I don't have to go to every family gathering or birthday anymore
8. I love living close to the mountains but miss the Dutch flatness sometimes
9. I dream of cycling the USA from coast to coast one day (which of course I should have done while I lived there, but then I didn't have enough vacation days...)
10. I'm grateful for the great new online friends I've made through blogging!

Sick (+ jet lag)

Wow, I've been wanting to post forever, but oh well, things happened... First we went on a 2-week vacation to the US! Yay! Visiting my sister + family in California for 8 days while I was still allowed to travel on airplanes and before my miles would expire and then on the way back a few days stopover in Chicago to visit old friends and colleagues.

All great, except that, I always, really always get sick after visiting my sister (or better, my niece and nephew), and this time was unfortunately no exception. The kids were coughing and sneezing already when we got there, but I tried hard not to get infected - so refused all the food my niece lovingly offered me after she had taken a bite first and taking some homeopathic stuff as preventive mesure, but alas, to no avail... I still felt relatively OK when we left for Chicago (just a bit of a weird-feeling throat every now and then), but add a germ-infested plane ride, one day getting soaking wet by the constant downpour in the Windy City, not getting enough rest (you want to see everyone, right?), and by the time we left I was already coughing pretty badly. The 9-hour plane ride home of course didn't help one bit and by the time we were finally home I my whole body hurt and my sinuses were completedly blocked.

The cough is horrible and I feel very guilty towards my baby who's getting all these nice belly contractions thrown at him every time I have a fit, and it keeps me from sleeping well (add to the jet-lag which already makes for weird nights and strange sleeping hours).

I went to see my general practitioner on Monday afternoon. Felt like the flu, but without the fever (although my temperature is elevated but just not quite that high), eyes were glued shut in the morning (yuck!), and the coughing's just unbearable. She gave me prescription for cough syrup, eye cleaner, tylenol, nose spray, and antibiotics, just to be sure.

Couldn't start with the antibiotics until Tuesday afternoon, because I had my 6-month glucose test scheduled for Tuesday morning (more on that in a next post). Also had my 24-week checkup yesterday, so not much time to rest, but today I finally caught up on some sleep, between the coughing. First didn't think that I was improving anything at all, but this afternoon realized that I no longer have the feeling my whole body hurts, so that's already a good thing. Now if only that stupid cough would go away soon, that would be so nice (and I'm sure my baby will appreciate it too!)...

OK, it's well past my bedtime (you see, I'm still not over this jet-lag, I just had dinner 1 hour ago). So posts about 24w-checkup and awards (thanks Emily!) have to wait until tomorrow. Hubby should be home soon from his business trip. I got him all worried this afternoon because I hadn't heard my phones (both home and cell were on vibrate and I was coughing too much to hear them from the other room), so when I finally answered after he'd already tried four times, he was almost mad. I felt very bad for him and apologized profusely (as much as his dying phone battery allowed).

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...