No such thing as sympathy weight gain...

So Ryan has decided that there is no such thing as sympathy weight gain for the father of the expectant baby...

We were at the mall on Sunday morning, and we needed something to eat before heading up to Temecula for Keira's 1st Birthday Party. We went to McDonalds, and I knew I wanted fries, but the big mac also looked pretty good, so we got the 2 big mac deal with fries to share. I took a few bites of the burger, but it didnt taste as great as I thought it would so I pushed it off to Ryan and stuck with the fries.

Ryan looked at me incredulously and pointing at the burger said, "What is this??? Ok there is no such thing as sympathy weight gain, it's all this!" Later that night I proceeded to taste 3 different kinds of cookies, none of which tasted good enough for me to finish and ended up in Ryan's stomach instead. Obviously there is something to his theory! At least I don't have to worry about my husband starving... :0)

It's a Girl!

Wow, the last few days have been a whirlwind! Tuesday started off with the marker of 19 weeks pregnant. Ryan and I both had work, and were getting off a little early to head to the big US, which was scheduled for 4:30. First of all I had to have a full bladder (Drink 32 oz of clear liquid 1 hour prior to the apt) which is really hard to tell a pregnant woman to do! We got to Kaiser and found the ultrasound department down in the basement. The rad tech was really nice, and started the US taking all these measurements and pictures of the baby, labeling different things. After like 15 min I am thinking "ok, how long is this going to go on???" I guess there are for more things they are looking for to make sure the baby is developing properly than just "penis or vagina?" Fine with me, but I really have to go pee, and sliding this stick around my stomach with moderate pressure doesn't help things! She did let me go pee after about 20 min (I guess the full bladder not only holds the intestines out of the way but also sort of holds the baby in place, less room for her to wiggle around while they are trying to get certain shots and measurements.) I felt sooo much better after that. The tech was pointing out all these things like the bladder that looked to me more like bad film footage circa the 1960's of a smoke stack than a baby or baby parts of my future child.

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So we finally get to the place where they show the bottom side of the baby. (Like you are sitting the baby down on a copy machine), and she is saying, "there are the legs, there is the butt, there is this, that, blah blah blah" all the time my heart is ready to bust through my chest and I am sure that I am going to have a heart attack and I am about to yell "come on lady, what the hell is it???" and she says, "well it looks like a girl to me!" and explains that if it were a boy, there would be some kind of lump between the legs signifying a penis or testes, but the absence of that in combination with the white lines around the crotch area looked like labia to her, so she was about 85% sure it was a girl. Of course there is a possibility that there are boy parts there we are missing. (When I showed the US pictures to Cheryl and told her this, she said, "Oh yeah, its a girl. If it was any son of Ryan's you would be able to tell, trust me!!!" And I can attest to that... ;0) However, it is possible "he" takes after my dad, and then... well we will just say all bets are off.)

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*Some Details*

-Heartrate: 147bpm

-12 oz (big girl! I am glad she is gaining her weight, bc I am still on the low end of weight gain)

-~15 cm, or ~6 in

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Anyway, we are walking out of the hospital, and I ask Ryan if he is surprised at all... because the whole time I thought it was a girl, and everyone else had their opinions, but he really wasn't willing to guess. He stopped, looked at me like I was crazy, and said very seriously, "Really? You are really asking me that? With your hostile uterus? Come on, Loralyn. Your uterus had a checkpoint set up with big pushy bouncer-women who only let female sperm into the party inside with proper forms of id. All male sperm were turned away at the door. And you think there was any chance it was going to be a boy?"

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In all honesty though, I think that a girl will be best for us. I have a special bond with my Mom because of the way I was raised (for any of you who don't know I was a love child, and my Mom wanted a child so "arranged" it with my Dad and raised me on her own, just the two of us until I was 9 and she married my step-dad,) so having a daughter would mean something different to me in a nostalgic way. And for Ryan, who is a very a-typical man (no, I did not say a-sexual) who is not into baseball, football, loud music and big trucks in the way most manly-men are, I think a girl to start with will be better... there will not be the "pressures" to teach and foster the first Daddy and son "let's play catch" moments, etc. He can get practice with a girl for the basics of kids and children (feeding, dressing, bathing, friends, school, etc.), then if our next is a boy he can figure out all the boy stuff instead of having to deal with those basics at the same time.

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Ok, so the next step (since Nicole and Jason already bought theirs which is a sure sign and because next week is halfway through the pregnancy and it's all starting to get pretty real for us,) is to find a suitable sleeping container for her, since I think they might call CPS on us if we use one of our spare rubbermaid bins...

Blue or Pink?

Ok so Laura put up a post with all the wivestales and the results, headed into her big US this week, and I thought it was fun so I am copying her! (Sorry Laura!) As for the results, the jury is still out, as these show 11 Girl, 8 Boy... about the same percentage as the voting results!

1. Heart rate over 140 bpm - GIRL
3. Carrying high(ish?) - GIRL
4. Carrying out front & round - BOY
5. Not craving salt (actually having an aversion to it) - GIRL
6. Tons of morning sickness - GIRL
7. Ring test (side to side) - BOY
8. Chinese gender test - BOY
9. Lots of headaches - BOY
10. Cold feet - BOY
11. Dad not gaining "sympathy" weight - BOY
12. Color of urine - BOY
13. My face not rounder and rosier - BOY
14. Craving fruit & OJ - GIRL
15. Face is breaking out - GIRL
16. Moodier than usual - GIRL
17. Larger left breast - GIRL
18. Won’t eat the heal from a loaf of bread – GIRL
19. You add your age at the time of conception and the number for the month you conceived and the sum is an odd number – GIRL
20. http://www.babygenderpredictiontest.com/ - GIRL

Turning a New Stone

18 weeks, and I feel SOOOOOOO much better! I am actually eating now (just in time for the holidays). Some stuff still makes me feel yucky just thinking about it (turkey, chicken, large slabs of meat in general) but all in all, I am ok with food again. HUGE relief. Besides the gagging with tooth brushing, some random stuff that doesnt smell right to me and getting too hungry, the nausea has gone away too. And those headaches that morphed into migraines most evenings? Washed away and only bug me a few times a week now. (It only took me a month and a half into the 2nd trimester to get there.) I feel like a WHOLE NEW WOMAN!

I look like a whole new woman too. I'm poppin like a street hip-hopper. I wonder how long it will be before strangers feel confident enough that I am pregnant enough to comment (as opposed to just being fat). Most people think it is rude to ask someone if they are pregnant for the chance that they may not be, but hey, now that I am pregnant, I am thinking it's rude to NOT ask; because what, you think I am this fat just because I got a head start on the holiday meals? I am offended that you think I could look like this normally and it is not due to a 6 inch squirming fetus swimming in a cantaloupe sized uterus! :0)

Anyway, I have been talking to beansprout telling it to show us what it is next week so Mommy and Daddy can call it a he or she, and call it by name and tell all their friends and family... so hopefully it listens so I can stop calling it IT like an inanimate object.

Ok, well the rest of this week will go by really quickly; a lot going on at work, at home (have to get those xmas letters/cards out), so before I know it it will be a week from now and I will be waiting to leave work in an hour to head to the big US!!! Hopefully I dont have to stretch my bladder in a goodyear blimp to get through it like Nicole did... we will see!

Howdy...

17 weeks strong... nothing really new with me, but it's been a while, and I do have news! Nicole is going to have a little baby boy!!! I had a feeling it was going to be a boy, so now with me thinking I am having a girl I somehow feel more secure in my guess. We will see. :0) Less than two weeks now, so it won't be long. My nausea is pretty much gone (still random gagging with various triggers, but I don't think that really goes away totally anyway.) and eating is much better; I can go for longer periods of time without eating, so I am up to eating about every 3 hours instead of every 2 hours (Yes that is a HUGE difference!!!). The headaches are bearable now, esp since I got a beauty mask I keep in the fridge and wear on my forehead when it gets bad; hopefully that was the worst of them. AND I gained weight finally! So I am up 4 lbs total from the beginning. I am keeping track of it on an excel spreadsheet, and have created a graph of it. (Uh, I am Ryan's wife, is anyone surprised???). Ryan has been awesome by the way, doing tons of chores, helping around the house, etc. so the next time anyone sees/talks to him they should congratulate him! It is really helpful and makes me appreciate him so much more. Anyway, I think that is about it... I dont think there will be too much more news until the big US unless I start to feel the baby (should be anytime now) so until then...

Russian Roulette of Symptoms

Week 16. So I feel every morning like I am playing a sick game of Russian roulette with the awful pregnancy symptoms I have encountered. Some days are good, some days are bad. Today, will I get the skull splitting migraine? The "my nose works too good for my own good" nausea? The exhaustion by the end of the day that makes me sad I don't have one of those old person bath tub-spas and a personal attendant to clean me? The "my head is filled with cotton" stuffiness that comes from the increased blood flow to my mucus membranes (didn't someone tell my body there wasn't room for that to begin with?) OR if I am lucky, jackpot, ALL OF THEM!

The migraines are the worst. I am pretty sure they are related to the weather and pressure from the changes from rain to santa anas, 0% humidity to 75%, etc. And it's not like I can take anything for them! (Oh, yes, I can take Tylenol, great. Because that does NOTHING. Might as well give me a placebo pill.) The only thing I can do is go to bed early and hope that it is gone in the morning.

Other than that, I feel much better! Besides the increasing migraines, the other symptoms have been steadily decreasing. I am waiting for me to feel bean sprout in my tummy, should happen any week now! My tummy sure is showing. People have been really good about 'feeling the tummy'. I don't care at all, I'm like, "touch all you want!" but most everyone starts to go for it then catches themselves and asks, "Is it ok if I touch it?", so that is good for all those mothers who DO care.

Another thing. Ryan and I are so not getting into the buying, decorating, planning thing yet... I have cleaned the house a bit, started moving stuff around in the baby's room but we have not purchased one outfit, one piece of baby furniture or had one discussion about baby room theme, color or otherwise yet... and I somehow dont think we will? Does this mean part of my mommy instinct is out of wack? Or maybe our 'cheapness' is coming across and I am pawning it off as being 'practical'. I dont know. I figure I can just throw the baby in a dresser drawer, and wrap her (yes, her I am convinced it is a girl) in scraps of old sheets. Juuuuuust kidding. :0)