First Time, Second Time, Third Time Charmed

I had a wonderful UC last month and finally am satisfied with how I've written about it. :)

( The Amazing, Unassisted Birth of Brigid Eleanor )

xposted lots :)

Reading the UC board on MDC today, I came across this in a post:

"So, anyway, trust your insticts. The buck stops with you. Even if you have a midwife or an OB backup, listen to your body and don't rush things. Each birth is set up to be the perfect birth for your baby and your body and don't listen to how things 'should' be."

I think I'm anemic. Functionally so, even if not technically so.

I say that because all of the signs that are pointing me towards this conclusion were present during my last pregnancy. I had my iron tested during my last pregnancy and had absolutely no sign of anemia. However, in retrospect, it seems likely that I should have paid more attention to my iron stores. I was poking around in my favorite pregnancy book today (The Natural Pregnancy Book, Aviva Jill Romm) and decided to look up "dizziness," just to see what she said, and then I found one mention which referred back to the section on anemia, and I read a bit about some of the signs of anemia and it seems likely I should pay strict attention to my iron over the remaining bit of this pregnancy.

The good news is that I had already decided to get some supplemental iron and started that yesterday. I may or may not get some Floradix in addition to it, simply because I'm not sure I would actually drink the Floradix. I mean, the best supplement in the world does you no good if you don't actually consume it.

I did a bunch of cooking in my cast iron dutch oven tonight. I'm going to make beef stew in it later in the week. Yum.

( 'Symptoms' I Don't Have, That Is )

( The Absolutely Must-Do List )

Seriously, nine weeks from Tuesday is forty weeks. How'd that happen?

( Just So I Have A Record, Somewhere... )

I've had a pretty strong suspicion that, once again, I wasn't on track to gain more than 20 pounds during pregnancy. Since I don't necessarily feel knowing my weight is beneficial, I haven't been tracking it. I will be able to tell if I start suddenly swelling in a multitude of ways apart from my physical weight increasing, I figure.

So, I don't get on the scale much. I don't know exactly when I got on it last, just that it was pretty early in the pregnancy. I also don't exactly remember how much I weighed.

To make a long story short, I randomly decided to weigh myself today. At most, I've gained eight pounds. I think it's actually either four or six pounds. Either way, if I were to gain at the 'average' rate from here until the end, we're talking around ten more pounds. I honestly think it might be four pounds so far, so yeah. Fourteen pounds. Wtf, body? I know I haven't had a huge amount of appetite, and I know I started out with some extra, but not that much extra.

Overall, just... how bizarre.

test

There was birth discussion during my day today, and I did say at some point that I was going unassisted - unassisted pregnancy, unassisted birth.

A few minutes later, one of the other women turned to me and said, "We're just in awe of you unassisteders."

Awe? For gestating?

I'm not doing anything special. I'm just growing a baby, and then I'm going to birth it. No, no one is monitoring my baby, so according to the definitions of such things, I am operating without prenatal care.

Ironic, since I probably have more 'care' for myself & Tiddlywink than I have in any other pregnancy.

At the end of the day, though, I'm the person with whom the buck stops. Not anyone else. I suppose that could be something to be in awe of, but well - like the name on this journal says right now. If I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free.

I heard the heartbeat!

Not with a doppler, not with a fetoscope... just with dd's child-size working stethoscope. I was playing around with it on Thursday and managed to hear the heartbeat a couple of times for about five seconds each. I passed it to my mom who was visiting, and she could hear it too.

This is awesome. Never would have heard it like that, and this early, with my anterior placentas the other two times. Posterior placenta ftw!

Never sleep on your back past x weeks pregnant, well, I am pretty sure what they didn't mean.

I am pretty sure they didn't mean to make sure your three year old wasn't sleeping on your back in the middle of the night, while you were comfortably on your stomach. :P

( What's Currently on the To-Buy List )

More for my own future reference than anything else, since currently this list resides only on a piece of paper in a notebook, and once I have all things on the list, I could easily see myself throwing it away... only to wish I had it a few months or years later. This is the way of my life.

( The Great Big, What I Want To Have On Hand For Newborn Stage List )

So.

I did something pretty much out of character and went to one of those 3D/4D "keepsake" ultrasound places. I wanted to find out the sex, for a lot of reasons. Not least of which is my daughter's mental health. ;)

At any rate, she can now rest assured that she will not be tortured by having two little brothers. Because Tiddlywink is definitely a girl:

Srsly.

So over the weekend, my mother and my daughter decided to start calling the babe "Tiddlywink." So far it seems to be sticking so Tiddlywink it is, I suppose.

Alert the pregnancy police... we went to an amusement park and I rode the ferris wheel. Also the antique cars, the train, and the carousel. I did skip the tilt-o-whirl and the scrambler, both of which made me sad.

Other things I do that you aren't supposed to do... I've eaten sushi and lunchmeat, I've drank raw milk, and I've eaten raw milk cheese. Oops. Not.

I haven't been to MDC in ages. I think it's because on LJ, I expect to feel like the odd woman out in my DDC. I expect to be one not getting ultrasounds, not seeing a midwife, not getting testing, et cetera. But the MDC DDC made me feel the same way. There were a lot of early ultrasounds and beta tests and other things that I just didn't jive with, and feeling like the outcast on MDC is much more lonely than on LJ. Seriously. Maybe I'll go back after the first trimester and I am feeling better? I know I want to go back to the carseat board because I have carseat angst. I found a great seat for Jacob for my mom's car but I know she won't spring for it... At least I can get her to get the new Graco seat that harnesses up to 65 pounds but I WISH I could get her to spring for the new Britax that harnesses to 80 and then converts to a booster for up to 100. I'll probably get it for J when he outgrows the Boulevard (which harnesses to 65). I want to get Tiddlywink a Britax Companion but I may have to get a BabyTrend Flex Loc (still a good seat) because of width issues. Seriously, though, I want this one:

Apparently I have gas occurring tonight, because I keep thinking I am feeling the little one move. It feels just like those initial flutters, and more or less in the correct spot. If I were four weeks further, I would totally believe it... instead I just have to make faces and try to figure out why I am gassy... bah.

People are really aggravating me this morning.

01. The person on birth_is_normal who is bitching that her insurance will only cover the cost of her midwife, but not the cost of the birth kit or the birth pool. Now, we aren't choosing a UC because of cost, but let's be clear here - we paid $2200 to the midwife for my second. The birth kit and birth pool and hose for filling the pool and all of that, cost probably a total of $100. I love the entitlement. "My insurance won't reimburse me for optional things like the birth pool!" I just went and looked and now she's edited her post to 'acknowledge how fortunate she is,' which is nice, but she put that in after a few people commented.

02. The person on my other flist who is whinging about her son not fitting in her backseat any more because he had a growth spurt, and then finding out he should still be in a booster seat for another two years. She doesn't care that it's safer to be in an actual seat or at least a booster seat, it's annoying that the law says she's wrong. WTF, she says, this is my car and dammit I want to use it! It's a 2006 model and I clearly bought it when I already had three kids, so who cares that I made my choice to buy it recently! They shouldn't force me to keep my kid safe!

03. All the people who think that DVD players in cars are essential equipment for car rides. We've never had one, and I doubt we ever will. We still manage with sanity intact. Fine, YMMV, but don't act like every single family needs one. I think it's a waste of money, frankly, but hey, whatever floats their boat.

Ugh.

I have to type this out so I'll remember... remember just how bad I've felt this week. I guess it started Monday, and it's not really let up. I had some strange spotting Tuesday morning, but when you're as tired and nauseous as I am, you don't worry about it.

I'm essentially considering myself to be doing well if I get one meal a day... I have given up on making sure it's anywhere near balanced. It's all about the calories and not outright collapsing due to lack thereof. I'm so tired yet around 9:30 every night I get a burst of energy, so I go to bed later than I mean to, sleep later than I mean to, and still feel like crap all day long.

Timeline-wise, it started right at eight weeks. I read somewhere that HCG peaks at nine weeks, and it's thought that HCG does have some impact on nausea. I guess I can believe it.

Nothing sounds good for more than a little while at a time. Eventually I get hungry and I pick something to eat. Everything leaves a bizarre coated feeling in my mouth. So I'm brushing my teeth plenty. I guess that's some kind of up side or something. Healthy teeth.

Mmm, stereotypical pregnant woman, with strange food cravings and aversions. On the good list are meat, pickles, lime sherbet, grape juice, and tomato juice. On the bad list are most Girl Scout cookies (wtf?!?), chicken, ranch anything (not that I am usually a big fan, but I have a big-time aversion now), and a lot of strong tastes. "Cajun" tastes are the only ones that are appealing, and preferably when served with, well, a big slab of meat.

My purchases of last week have all arrived now. I will post pictures tomorrow. I need to finish taking pictures of a few of them, plus I have major picture-organizing work to do tomorrow, anyway, after ds's birthday and Easter both this weekend.

I did find a dress for my high school reunion. I bought it, a swimsuit cover-up, and some shorts at Target, and then I bought two new bras. Hooray for new bras that make maternity clothes (which all seem to have the just-under-the-boob empire waist) wearable. What I haven't done is order what I wanted from Old Navy. This is partially because one of the shirts was on clearance and it disappeared in the good colors between the fourteenth and the seventeenth. Plus, I realized I had a big concern. I loved their shirts with my last pregnancy, but since then, their clothes in general have gone to the 'tagless' neck area with a tag on the lower left of the shirt.

I would one hundred times over rather have the tag at the neck.

So while I did buy a couple of tank tops there, in person, my mom's going to actually take the seam apart, remove the tag, and sew it back. I don't want to do this with more clothes than necessary, so I figured I would wait and see what I could find at other stores. Yes, I have clothing issues. Well, they are sensory issues in general, but they play out most significantly when it comes to clothing.

My most exciting purchase is that, well, I went ahead and purchased my HypnoBabies home study course. It's extremely early, but to be honest, I had strongly considered buying it with my last pregnancy, and then as it got time to buy it, I was spending the money set aside for pregnancy and baby stuff on maternity clothes and baby necessities, and I don't want that to happen again. So, I went ahead and purchased it. There are a few benefits to that, though. There's a "Pregnancy Affirmations" track that you can listen to daily, from any point in pregnancy towards birth, and it's not a full hypnosis/relaxation track, so this gives me time to integrate listening to it into my daily schedule. Plus, the first week's information and tracks can be started at any point. Most of the nutrition and exercise information, I already knew, but I still like having everything ready. Then, when I start it, I can take two weeks for each class, and still have six weeks for maintenance. I think I'm really going to like this.