Teddy Graham

so, chad and i went to the doctor today for my ultrasound and to talk about the results of all the lab tests i had done last time. basically, everything was (and is) fine. i've gained exactly 1 pound since my last visit 2 weeks and 2 days ago (which seems ok since you're only supposed to gain 3 or 4 pounds over the first trimester - and it could have been because i wore shorts last time and jeans this time), i don't have any std's or other infections (not that i thought i did or anything), i'm not anemic, my blood sugar and pressure are both fine (even though i think a bp of 126/58 is a little weird), my blood type is O+, and the baby looks amazing. the ultrasound technician likened it to a teddy graham, which i kind of liked.

they gave us 4 pictures from the ultrasound, along with a video. here, have a look at thetinytina (as kelly has taken to calling it).


















you can't really see a whole lot, but i like how they conveniently labeled the head (which looks ginormous!) and the body. it's probably about the size of a teddy graham right now, too. i was really relieved when i saw the baby on the ultrasound. all the books i've been reading have been freaking me out over what all can go wrong. but thetinytina looks pretty much perfect, just like an almost 10-week old embryo (soon to be fetus) should. we could see him/her waving his/her little arms around, and we could hear the heart beating (at a healthy 167 bpm - man, that's fast!). it was pretty amazing. chad was surprised that we could hear the heart beat this early. he said it seems small to have such a strong heartbeat already. then i informed him that heartbeat begins at 18 days (i saw it on an anti-abortion billboard along I-10).

so anyway, that was pretty much my day. i guess you can tell that i'm going to be posting tons of baby pictures later on if i'm rushing to post an ultrasound photo. at my check-up in 8 weeks, we'll get to find out the sex. i can't wait!

Uninspired

i know, i know. it's been quite a while since the last time i bothered to write anything, and for that i apologize. i've just been a bit... uninspired lately. i've been spending all my time in the lab at USA running samples or at DISL checking on my seagrass culture stuff (still going strong, knock on wood!). i went back to port st. joe this past weekend, and i'll be heading back there on sunday. but this time it will be for fun... well, there will be a small amount of work. but it will mostly be for fun. chad's parents wanted to go camping for the 4th (because they bought this camper when their house got messed up by hurricane ivan, decided to keep paying for it after their house was fixed, and have used it exactly once since then, which leaves them feeling that they aren't getting their money's worth - which they aren't. and for some reason they insist on not using it unless chad and i go on a trip with them. only they never want to go anywhere but gulf shores, and to me gulf shores is just not worth staying overnight). anyway, chad suggested port st. joe would be a good place to go camping, and the in-laws have never been there. so we're going over there on sunday and coming back on wednesday. we'll probably also drive over to st. andrew's state park in panama city one day and go snorkeling along the jetty there... and i'll make a stop at the NOAA lab to pull up the shoots i marked for growth measurements last sunday.

yeah, so that's pretty much it here in latina-land. i have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, and i'm kind of excited about this one because i'm having my first ultrasound. i mean, the baby's like, the size of a grape or something, but still. exciting.

Flippin' Out

so, i'm sorry to break big news here on my blog and then fall into silence for so long, but man have i ever been busy since then. kelly and i went over to port st. joe last weekend to collect samples, then we went to perdido key to do the same thing on wednesday, so it's been a long and tiring week or so, but i had three really good field days. i also got my seagrass culture system set up, although it still needs a little tweaking before i'll be satisfied with it (i know, me and my stupid high standards...). i ran into a few problems with the water system clogging up and stabilizing the salinity, but that seems good now, and hopefully the system won't require a lot of intense maintenance.

but enough about work. damien brought dylan down this weekend (his divorce has finally been finalized, though the custody arrangement for dylan leaves much to be desired and will have to be reworked in a few years when the little guy starts school), so i went over to my mom's house to see the little guy yesterday. he just turned two a couple of weeks ago, and let me tell you, they are not called the 'terrible twos' for nothing. dylan seems to have entered that phase where he likes to say 'no' to absolutely everything. even when he really means yes. and he absolutely hates to have anything done for him because, by god, he is convinced that he can do everything himself. he might eat his pizza upside down, dropping pepperoni and cheese into his lap, but that is his way and to him it is right. and besides, he is impossibly cute! how can you not want to hang out with him?

moving on, i have my first prenatal doctor visit tomorrow. i've been reading all this stuff on webmd, and it's freakin' me out, man! i am totally flippin' out over all the things that can go wrong early on in pregnancy (when i apparently have a 15-25% chance of having a miscarriage just because), even though there is absolutely no sign that i should be worried. the weight of everything just seemed to hit me today. i guess because i've been too busy to really worry before now (which is a good thing, or else i'd be a total basket case by now). so when i finally get to the doctor tomorrow, i'll be horribly nervous and will probably have convinced myself that my kid will be born with all sorts of terrible birth defects, even though there's no history of that sort of thing in either my or chad's family, and i'm perfectly healthy.

another pregnancy-related thing that has been a lot worse for me today than ever before is that whole nausea thing. i refuse to call it morning sickness (because it's actually been worse for me in the late afternoons/evenings than any other time). i have managed to avoid vomiting at all (so far, knock on wood), and the nausea bit has been pretty transient (thank heaven). i think i've been pretty lucky with all of that so far. but today i've pretty much been having the same conversation with myself all day. it goes like this:

weak me: "oh god, i'm gonna hurl!"
strong me: "no you're not! think about something else!"
weak me: "no, i'm really going to vomit. this sucks!"
strong me: "you just feel nauseous because you haven't eaten in a while. you're just hungry. have a snack."
weak me: "but if i eat anything, it'll just come right back up."
strong me: "oh, stop being such a baby. suck it up and eat something."
weak me: "fine, i'll try a little something."
strong me: "good. and you aren't going to puke."

so i haven't been eating much for the past week or so, but i also haven't vomited in about 3.5 years either, so i'm ok with that. i don't know if i should be concerned that i seem to being eating less instead of more now that i'm pregnant. but as chad accurately observed, i'm just afraid that if i eat too much i'll puke. part of this stems from the fact that when my mom was pregnant with me she puked off and on for the entire 9 months, including labor (and she gained so little weight that the docs thought i was gonna weigh something like 4 pounds, but i came out a healthy 6.5 lbs, don't you worry). i don't think i could possibly handle that kind of upchucking action.

oh, and something that people don't really mention about being pregnant is that you're always tired, no matter how much you sleep. i mean, i guess supporting another human being is tough on a body, but still. i have never napped so much in my life - and i'm still falling asleep by 10:30 every night. chad made fun of me when i went to bed at 10:30 on a saturday night, but i couldn't possibly have stayed awake any longer. sad, right?

i guess with all this normal pregnancy stuff that's going on with me, i shouldn't really be flipping out so much over tomorrow's prenatal exam, but somehow i can't stop myself from imagining the worst.