Tuesday, March 23, 2010

18 Week Update

At the risk of jinxing myself yet again, I think I'm out of the woods on the morning sickness front. Since last Tuesday, the only time I've found myself leaning over the toilet was thanks to coughing myself into some dry heaves. And I've even skipped the morning saltines a few times without any repercussions. Knocking on wood will now commence.

(Of course, now I'm feeling very paranoid that something has happened with the baby, so it's a trade off.)

Still no progress on the boob front and DH is feeling very gypped. I'm just wondering if it means we should plan on bottle feeding and not even worry about trying to breastfeed, which I'd hoped to give a try. I guess there's still plenty of time for things to change on that front, huh?

My bladder - it has returned from hiding. All of the coughing & sneezing I've done over the past few days, plus the additional liquids I'm forcing on myself to help keep the cold from settling into bronchitis (now standing at 3/4 at my company) have made me realize I really need to figure out how to do Kegels. No full out floods yet, and I'm hoping to keep it that way!

Food aversions seem to have quieted down as well, though I'm still not sure about green pepper. I find myself actually happy to munch down on a well constructed green salad which also includes a protein source. Last night's dinner, for example: a blend of iceberg, baby spinach and field greens topped with some truly delicious grape tomatoes, cucumber slices, julienned carrots, and some left over steak sliced thinly. With Ranch dressing (would prefer blue cheese, but hey, it's not the first sacrifice I've made along this journey). My jaw wore out before my hunger did.

I've started to contemplate nursery furniture and bedding, and all of the other accessories which seem to be 'required' equipment. Once again, I have been made aware that what I like is not necessarily what manufacturers make. That, or my tastes and my budget are out of alignment. Out of the 1,000's of crib sets out there, I liked fewer than 10 and DH has vetoed about half of those. The best thing I can say is that once we know gender, our decision making on that will be made much easier! As for cribs, since I'm hoping (still under negotiation) to use the existing maple dressers, I'm leaning towards white.

In addition, all of our bedrooms are on the 2nd floor, so I'm 100% certain I will want some sort of changing system in place downstairs, but whether that consists of a pack & play (though the weight limits on the changers with those don't seem like it's going to be the longest lasting solution and I'm not sure having the baby nap in the main living area is what I want, and the more I look into the different models, they don't really seem that easy to transport, and again the available fabric patterns are not exactly inspiring me), or DH designing and finishing a wooden top for our 3'x4' wire dog crate so it can have a changing pad and supply basket placed on top, or even just re-purposing another piece of existing furniture in the same way, I don't know.

The next ultrasound is next Friday, so we are very much looking forward to that and hoping that the baby cooperates and lets us take a peek at his/her reproductive bits so that once DH finishes his current round of travel (mid-April, please God!) we can really get moving on getting things started in terms of room planning and registering.

Oh yeah, we've gotten our first baby gift and first hand-me-down equipment - the former is an adorable egg shaped ceramic bank and the latter is an older-model Peg Perego stroller (similar to this, but still older) - in excellent condition less the fact that the folding mechanism on one side is fubar. So, still good for walks around the neighborhood, but not so good for taking anywhere. DH is a little disinclined to keep it because he doesn't want 'crap' cluttering up the place, but was a little shocked when I told him it's not unusual to have more then one stroller for different purposes, and the price of the new models! I've contacted Peg Perego to see if there are any options for fixing it as the rest of the stroller shows very little wear, if any, despite having a few years on it. So we'll see how that goes...

Whew. It's amazing what comes out when I get my fingers and brain moving together. So, summary: physically healthier (sans cold) & looking forward to nursery/house changes.

How/where are you?

4 comments:

  1. Glad to hear trips to the loo have calmed down. I'm with you on the bladder front. I have suffered a few minor incidents lately, one being in the middle of an important meeting when I sneezed a little to vigorously. Pass the Tena Lady!

    I guess it's more of a USA thing to have a register. I've not heard of us folk on this side doing them. Maybe it should become more of a dual continent thing, much like the baby showers that are becoming increasingly popular over here.

    As for bedding, the lovely boys set I found is not avaibale in the UK anywhere so to save ourselves £95 of import costs we're going to look elsewhere. This is such a shame. Have fun persuing for sets!

    Wishing you good luck for the scan a week on Friday. Ours is a week today and I'm very much looking forward to finding out what we're having (my moneys' on a baby but there you go!)

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  2. Oh my...you are making me realize how many decisions there are to make!!!

    Can't wait to hear what the gender of your bean is!!! I am sure that will make nursery planning a little easier.

    Not sure how you feel about this, but have you thought about a used or consignment crib?? You might be able to get something a lot nicer than you would if you bought new!!

    How often is your hubby traveling? Sounds like our DH's have a lot in common.

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  3. I'm with you on the boob front. ;-)
    I am normally a B cup (in Europe), now I am in between B and C. They are not much bigger, although fuller somehow, but the nipples, honestly, they have a life of their own! bigger, darker and so effing irritable all the time...
    Good to hear you are warming up to food again. I agree, salads rule, no doubt about it.
    We have decided the nursery will be orange, along with crème and beige nuances, no matter what we have, the furniture perhaps will be light coloured. Haven't done anything yet in this respect, but at least the plans are in place. Hardest part is done, right?
    I hope you maintain a good relationship with food from now on. I leave you to your Kegels. ;-)

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  4. Don't worry about your boobs, one day soon they will get a mind of their own.... And if they don't get watermelon-ish now, wait until your milk comes in! Voila, instant implants lol. I thought something was wrong because my boobs didn't grow at all, and they didn't leak any milk of any type in the 3rd trimester like they said they would. No worries, though, everything was good after I had my daughter and we breastfed for a full nine months with no issues. You will do fine.

    I waited until our gender revealing ultrasound to buy everything, since I wanted to know whether to buy pink or blue. Unfortunately, my darling girl was moving so much and had her legs crossed that we were unable to tell her gender. So we had to go with gender neutral everything, but leaned more towards the masculine since I was 100% sure we were having a boy. Ha ha ha. Needless to say, we re-purchased a lot of stuff once we found out she was a girl. New pink bedding, curtains, blankets, receiving blankets, diaper shirts...

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