Baby Spena Week 11

So I had a bit of a scare earlier this week. Only scary to me, and everything turned out completely fine, but it seriously shook me up emotionally and I’ve kind of been weepy about everything ever since.

I went for my standard prenatal checkup on Wednesday and was really looking forward to getting to hear baby’s heartbeat for the first time. My Dr. asked if I had any questions for her and I said, honestly, I’m just really nervous, so can we listen to the heartbeat first before we do anything else? So she was like, sure! As she always says, “Let’s listen to this child” (For some reason I love that)

Anyway, she put the doppler on my stomach and there was nothing there….except my own heartbeat. And she moved it all around…and still nothing. She said something like, “oh well, when they’re this little still they can be really hard to find!” and kept searching…and the sound of my own heartbeat filled the room.

She said, “come on baby, come on.” and paused for a moment to do this smush my uterus move and tried again, and there it was. For like a split second. And then it was gone again. Then she searched some more and found it. And then it was gone again.

She told me that “this child is a mover! I can barely count the BPM because as soon as I find the heartbeat, it’s gone again.”

But, count it she did and declared it a rapid 170 beats per minute.

In the lifetime that she couldn’t find the heartbeat I wasn’t upset, I was just kind of thinking, “is this seriously happening to me right now?” but the way things played out, I wasn’t flooded with instant relief because I still kept hearing my own heartbeat and there was never this loud, ringing and certain heartbeat that belonged to the baby(to my ears) I know the Dr. got what she needed because she wasn’t concerned or worried or anything, but I wish that I had asked if we could listen just a little bit longer, because I was so shocked by how it was all happening that I didn’t really get to savor and enjoy listening to baby like I was expecting.

And naturally, I cried in the car on the way home because the emotions of it just kind of caught up with me. I was so glad everything was fine and it probably only felt really dramatic and scary to me, but both of my girls were always easy to find and easy to count and so this really caught me off guard and got me all emotional.

But like I said, all is good. And so now I’m looking forward to my next appointment in a month and I hope that with a few more weeks of growth, it will be A LOT easier to find it next time!

Weight Gain: Do any of you watch the show The Biggest Loser on NBC? (Actually, is that show still even a show anymore?) ANYWAY, you know when they would do their weigh in’s at the end of the show and the scale is like the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen because it fluctuates up and down like 20 pounds either way just to build the drama of what their weight is going to be and you have NO idea where it’s going to land?

That’s my Dr.’s scale apparently.

I stepped on it and was like, “sweet!” I lost a pound! And then it shot up like five pounds and I was like, WHAT!? and then it dropped back down three pounds, and then it went back up and back down and the nurse just randomly grabbed one of the numbers…so okay.

My chart says +3, but I’m totally going with -1

Symptoms: Emotional, skin breakouts, crazy hair, peeing all the time, my fingers are swelling(???), nauseous, tonnnns of saliva(so, so gross. why is this a symptom)

Cravings: None. It goes on a completely day by day basis. I crave nothing but have to search deep within the depths of my soul every meal time for something that might be mildly tolerated. Typically something filled with carbohydrates.

Aversions: All of it.

Missing Most: At the risk of sounding like a lush(oh well) I miss wine and I saw a commercial for margaritas the other day and I’m thinking we’re going to need to find a way to craft delicious virgin versions for me to make it through this summer. Fo sho.

Size Of Baby: A lime!

Sleep: Pretty good minus the trips to the bathroom. Thankfully I can still sleep on my stomach(I’m a big stomach sleeper) but since my stomach is growing rapidly I’m considering finally investing in a pillow like this. Does anyone have one? Is it worth it?

Clothing: Ingrid & Isabel sent me a package of maternity clothes this week and I am LOVING them! They sent me three pairs of pants and a dress(BLESS THEM) and I can’t wait to show them all to you. I have hardly any maternity clothes, so you’ll definitely be seeing them on my Instagram at some point in the near future.

Gender: I have zero intuition about this. The lack of vomiting that I had with the girls makes me think boy, the super high heart rate this week makes me think girl. Jim says our little boy was probably just in there working out and doing some crunches or something, which is what made his heart rate so high. I said it must be because it’s another little girl :p

Abigail says she REALLY wants a little brother, but “she’s pretty sure it’s just going to be another girl” and therefore has started actively campaigning for the baby name, “Zoey”

Looking Forward To:  I have a ladies fellowship with my church friends tonight and I can’t wait to go(hopefully, assuming the dinner time sickies don’t knock me on my butt too harshly) Last month I was way, way deep in the throes of first tri sickness, but I’m hoping I can manage a visit with my friends tonight for the first time in weeks!