June, 2008:

There’s not much to report on the pregnancy home front…so far so good I suppose!  Yesterday we were so busy trying to have Jacob’s birthday party that I pretty much forgot that I was pregnant.  I tried really hard to make sure I was drinking a ton of water because the humidity and heat here in Toronto was record setting.  I’m feeling totally and completely blah on some days and on other days it’s as if I am not even pregnant.  I am still losing a bit of weight thanks to the diet change and the elimination of diet coke but I think (hopefully) that things should settle down a bit here soon.  I am already reminded of how little there is in terms of options for beverages when I am pregnant and not drinking diet coke….I am not a huge juice fan so I have one small glass of apple or orange juice every 2-3 days, one glass of milk per day, and about 12 cups of water (at least a day) – I’m pretty sure I’ll get bored of this pretty fast, but I just remind myself that it’s better for me and the bambino and it makes the time go by more quickly.

We are still sort of undecided about when to tell people that we are expecting a baby because frankly we both are dying to tell our parents but we really want them to be surprised!  Both of our mothers at one point in the last 2 weeks have asked us if I was pregnant and our response has always been “when Melissa is pregnant you’ll find out at the appropriate time”…..what we mean by appropriate is when Jacob’s darn shirt arrives that we ordered for him to make the announcement!  I hope the silly tee gets here soon because I have a funny feeling we’ll really be wanting to tell some people after our ultrasound on Tuesday.  We both have the day off for other medical appointments so it’s going to be nice to go to the ultrasound together and hopefully get to see our January baby’s heartbeat pounding away! Ahhh!!!  I just cant’ believe our ultrasound is only 2 days away – I’m filled with a whole whack of emotions about it because I just want everything to be ok and I really feel that all will be well – at the same time I know that things can go wrong but I have decided with this pregnancy to just accept that I cannot prevent something horrible from happening aside from doing the things that are my part – diet, exercise, prenatal vitamins, sleep, etc.  I’m hoping that we’ll see the little flicker of a heartbeat and get some cute (although most likely not baby looking yet) pictures that we can scan and share on the blog!

Well I guess that’s the update for now….like I said there is not much change from the last time I updated!  Stay tuned for an update Tuesday after our ultrasound!

Yesterday was Jacob’s 2nd birthday party and it was such a success that we are all so exhausted today and have spent much of the day trying to recooperate!  The weekend was filled with record breaking temperatures and after spending yesterday (party day) outside in the scorching heat, we were all happy to be at home in the air conditionning with our feet kicked up!  Thanks to all of our family and friends who came out for the party!  We love each and every one of you and Jacob is so lucky to have so many great people to share in his special memories!  We’re happy to report that we did not come home with “too many toys” and a lot of the things that Jacob got were educational so while we are scrambling to find space for some new things…..it’s actually not as bad as we had anticipated!  Here’s a few pics from Jacob’s special day!

And last but definitely not least…this is how the adults were cooling off!

I haven’t written in the past couple of days because our household has basically been on lock down!  I fell very ill with a sinus infection that just won’t go away and then to make matters worse Jacob has become sick with a cold too……….so we’ve been trying to have everyone get rested up because Saturday is Jacob’s 2nd birthday party!  I’ve been making lists of the things that need to get down before then (like picking up food, loot bags, picking up the cake and balloons, etc). In addition to making sure everything we need for the party gets done I also need to wrap Jacob’s presents and work on his 2 year letter (for those that dont’ know I’ve been writing letters to him as he hits certain milestones).  So the reasons for my absense from the bloggy world are legit and accounted for!  I can’t wait to share pictures from Jacob’s party day on Saturday!

We’re still pregnant!  Hooray!  At this point we’re not sure exactly what our due date is because there is some issue around a late ovulation that we haven’t exactly figured out yet!  What we do know is that we are somewhere between the 6-7 week mark as of tomorrow (we think).  On Tuesday we heard back from our doctor that our blood pregnancy test came back positive just like we were anticipating!  The doctor said that all of our blood test results came back normal (when you’re pregnant you get tested for things like HIV, toxoplasmosis, etc) so we were happy to see that nothing in my body was working against our little snowflake.  The doctor thinks that on the day of our test (last Wednesday) we were about 5 weeks pregnant because our HCG (the pregnancy hormone) was at 781 which is consistent with between about 2-3 weeks past conception – we can hardly wait for our ultrasound next tuesday – I think after that we’ll both breathe a lot easier knowing that our little baby is safe and comfy in the uterus where it should be!

I’ve been doing ok so far in terms of pregnancy symptoms – I try to remember that everything that happens to your body during pregnancy happens for a reason and that I’m doing my job of helping our baby grow an thrive.  For a few days I had the “poops” but now I’m back to the constipation that I had when I was pregnant with Jacob!  Grr!  I have acne on my face like crazy which I did NOT have when I was pregnant with Jacob and I am having morning sickness (rather ALL day sickness) which I also did not have with Jacob!  All my old tricks from being pregnant with him that had to do with avoiding morning sickness are not working!  In fact after hurling at work (how pleasant is that) I needed to come home from work today and when I got home I fell fast asleep from 2 pm until 5 pm.  CRAZY!  I’ve been eating exceptionally well so far and I’ve managed to cut out diet coke cold turkey again!  In fact I’ve lost about 8 pounds since becoming pregnant – but I promise I’m eating!  I really am!  I’m feeling a bit more short fused with “stupid people” these days and I find that I’m easier annoyed and more likely to be “snappy” or “snarky” – poor people.  Thankfully as previously with Mike and I am not more emotional or snappy with him and I think that’s because I just really love him so much and appreciate that we were able to make another beautiful baby together!

I’m still in quite a shock at how fast we were able to get pregnant – we had hoped for a January/February baby and we got our wish!  I feel really blessed to have gotten pregnant on the first try although I’m wondering if Mike is a bit bummed that the “trying process” didn’t last a bit longer then just one magical try on his birthday!  Ha!  Poor fella!  I can’t help but love him!  At this point nobody at all knows that we are pregnant and while we’re DYING to tell people, we’re also enjoying the fact that right now, at this moment, this pregnancy and this baby is only OURS and nobody elses!  We get to be excited alone for a while and that really feels fantabulous (yes I know that’s not a word but it works for me).  We anticipate that we might tell our immediate family members shortly after our ultrasound – this greatly depends on if Jacob’s special big brother announcement t-shirt arrives!  i was hoping to hold out until my birthday on July 1 but I don’t know if we’ll be able to keep the secret with me feeling as blah blah as I do today.

I’ll leave you today with a few cool pics that I found on another blog and I’m hoping that it’s ok for me to use them here!  Here’s some cool comparison pics to the size of the baby right now at 6 and 7 weeks gestation!

So I got to thinking….

Dangerous pass time I know but still I got to thinking about my c-section with Jacob this morning.  Some of you may know and others may not but I was giving a medication to induce amnesia following a nightmare c-section so my thoughts about Jacob’s birth have always been kind of wishy washy.  The truth is the medication was rather a stupid idea on the parts of the doctor’s who provided my medical care -  I suspect their hope was to have the medication help me to forget the pain I experienced during a c-section where I felt every last cut, pull, stitch but instead the medication made me forget the aspects pertaining to my son’s birth.  I don’t have that memory where they pulled him from my stomach and held him up proclaiming him to be a boy, nor do I have a memory of them telling me how much he weighs…every memory of those moments are gone – indeed my experience was unique I’m sure but still now that I am pregnant again the old fears of those momennts and their absence from my life comes back to haunt me and discourage me.

So I guess that’s why I got to thinking about the c-section experience and more specifically about the recovery – the odds (apparently) were stacked against me from the get go.  I was made well aware that overweight women have a hard time recovering from C-sections because they are “less likely to get out of bed and get moving after a c-section” and after hearing this three, four, five times leading up to  Jacob’s c-section I was determined to prove everyone wrong – that just because you are overweight it does not mean you are lazy and won’t get out of bed… I guess the thing about me that those doctors didn’t know was that I do not like to be told that I am incapable of doing something.  Jacob was born at 7:03 pm and by 7:30 am the following day I was begging Mike to help me out of bed so that I could get moving around and boy oh boy did I…I walked up an down the halls of the post-partum ward, out to the elevator and down to the NICU and back up again, I walked and I walked and I walked until I probably couldn’t walk anymore but I was determined that nobody was going to tell me that I couldn’t do something – the doctors were in disbelief because every time they came to see me I was out of bed either walking or sitting up in a chair.  I was very very proud of myself and as a result of my determination I had a remarkable recovery from the c-section.  I never had a single problem with my c-section scar because Mike helped me take really good care of it…Mike and I are a really good post-operative team!

I truthfully don’t know what will happen at the end of this pregnancy but I know that I am taking it one day at a time and not deciding now whether it will be an attempt (and hopefully successful) VBAC or a booked c-section.  I am committed to thinking, researching and investigating what is best for baby and me in the long run and I have a great team of doctors to help me along the way I think.  My doctor is pro-VBAC and pro me trying to have a doula in the room to advocate for me, to help make sure that my voice is heard this time around and we are talking about this idea, thinking hard about what’s most important to us about this pregnancy but truthfully we just live in the moment and right now we’d really just like to hear the official “congratulations you’re pregnant” from the doctor – and then we’d really just like to see our little bambino at our ultrasound on June 10th…..

Symptoms still come and go, bad nausea, acne, exhaustion and just yesterday my right boob really starting to hurt – but only the right!  It’s been really hard to feel any of these pregnancy symptoms because I’m so sick with a sinus infection and sore throat so I’ll have a better idea of what’s happening with my body in a few days when the non-pregnancy related sickness passes.  I don’t tend to complain about pregnancy symptoms – I welcome them with a gracious outlook because I know its all part of the process to bake a beautiful healthy baby!