Pregnancy Check-in

KH826 · January 2014

How are all of the pregnant folks feeling/doing? Any updates to share? Please remember to remind us how far along you are and what your EDD is!

QOTW: Let's talk birthing classes! Some of you may have already taken them or be in the middle of taking them, while others may not have even started thinking about it yet. Tell us where you are in that process as well as what you are looking for in a birthing class. Recommendations for classes in your area are a plus in case others are close by!

KH826 · January 2014

19w6d (20 weeks tomorrow)! - EDD is June 3rd

Our anatomy scan is this Wednesday. I am excited, but nervous. I am always nervous to see baby again when I haven't for a couple of weeks.

The theme of this past week for me has been more sleep challenges and lots of "strange feelings" ... I will explain the strange feelings first, b/c I know that sounds ominous (it isn't meant to, but I just don't know what else to call it). So I have been feeling lots of pulling/stretching/cramping/fluttering the last several days. I think it is likely that the cramping feeling is in fact stretching of some kind and/or round ligament pain. The fluttering could be a mixture of gas and early movement, but I just don't really know for sure so I am hesitant to call it movement. It is kind of unsettling, only because I am admittedly a worrier when it comes to this pregnancy, and any new feelings that I cannot explain are worrying. Unfortunately, I am not able to label each feeling and say "oh that is stretching and it is normal, oh that is movement - yay!" - so to me right now it all just feels like unknown strange feelings. I know I will feel loads better after I see baby on Wednesday.

In terms of my sleep challenges, it seems to stem from two things: 1) Having to get up to pee 3+ times a night (that just started last week. I was at 1-2 times a night before that); 2) I am totally unable to get and stay comfortable. Laying on one side for more than 45 min to an hour is uncomfortable, so I toss and turn all night.

Oh, and one more little gem... on Friday night I had my first episode of swelling. My left foot/ankle swelled to twice the size of my right one. I think it was b/c I had worn heels twice last week and on Friday I was on my feet a lot and worked a stressful 11 hour work day. Neither the heels nor the longer work day on my feet had been my norm for at least a month, and I think my body was just not used to it. I elevated my feet a lot this weekend and drank lots of water and by Sunday my left foot/ankle had returned to normal size. My BP remains normal and the swelled foot did not hurt at all. I don't think I need to be majorly alarmed, I just need to keep an eye on it, and I will mention it to my OB at my next appointment. I was originally nervous that this was too early for me to have swelling, but I did google it (I know, I really should stay off google), and I found a lot of women who said they started experiencing swelling around 20 weeks. So that made me feel a little better...

QOTW: We haven't signed up for birthing classes yet, but I know the 2 that I want to take. Both are offered through the hospital where we will deliver, and my OB said that I should sign up about 25 weeks and plan to take the classes around 30-33 weeks. So that is my plan at the moment. I have also been looking around to see if I could find an LGBT specific birthing class in our area, but I haven't been able to find anything (we are in Philadelphia). I really like the idea of a class that is centered around families like ours and partners/non-birth parents who are not necessarily "dads" -- I think it would be nice, but I haven't found anything... I am hopeful that the classes offered through our hospital will be welcoming and inclusive, but only time will tell, I guess.

trisholio · January 2014

I love all the updates on the growing babies!!! :-)

I will be 7 weeks tomorrow and my EDD is 9/2/14. We had our first ultra sound last week and it was totally surreal. We keep staring at the pic of our little blueberry. I am so lucky to not have any morning sickness at this point and very little nausea. I only notice it if I haven't eaten in awhile and it is very minor. My boobs are HUGE and I am exhausted these days, but I am trying not to complain too much. Though I am sure my wife would disagree with me, I am such a whiner and being tired all of the time has made me feel pretty useless, especially on the weekends.

QOTD: We haven't looked into any birthing classes yet. Heck we haven't even picked an obgyn. We have one that would do our yearly exam, but her office is 30 minutes away and I am not a huge fan of her. So we are currently looking for one in our area. I kept saying we had plenty of time, well here I am knocked up and need a Dr! We live 5 minutes from a huge hospital and tons of Drs offices, so I am not that concerned. I just want to find one that is LGBT friendly and has decent office hours, even possible evenings, is that too much to ask? I babysit multiple children and I don't want to have to "take off" every time I have a Dr appointment. We will see if I get my wish :-)

ball.and.chain · January 2014

14w1d -- EDD 7/13/14

Just realized while typing my EDD that it's exactly 6 months from today. Eeek. My EDD from my second pregnancy is also in two days. Bleh.

I am trying to organize my daycare research today as I was starting to get overwhelmed. I started a spreadsheet and have been doing more research, contacting places for rates, and comparing them. It's interesting that the places I thought would be our best options are starting to fall toward the bottom of the list.

I have to go back to the orthopedist to have my foot checked -- yes, the one I broke in August. It started getting sore recently and then I noticed it was bruised on the top. I didn't do anything to injure it so I'm guessing that as my joints and ligaments are loosening, it is causing stress on the fracture, which is probably not 100%. Ugh. A word of advice -- do not break your foot two months before an embryo transfer! I was just getting back into exercising (walking, not running, which my OB told me not to do due to the risk of re-injury) and I feel like what I'm allowed to do might become very limited, which is not going to make it easy to control my weight gain. Or, worse, I am afraid they are going to want me to go back in the walking boot, which screwed up my hip (and would probably screw it up even more now). My wife keeps reminding me that in the history of shitty things that have happened in the last couple of years, this is pretty minor. And it's true, I'd rather have a bum foot, a bum hip and a live baby than a perfect foot and hip and no baby. But I'm not happy about it.

Other than the foot, I feel good. Just SUPER impatient for those Mat21 results to come in.

QOTW: This is SO not on my radar right now. Sounds like I don't need to sign up for about 10 weeks or so, so I'm officially not thinking about it --AT LEAST until I have my fetus signed up for daycare!

twobrooklynmoms · January 2014

We had our first ultrasound today (DW is 6 weeks) and everything looks fine according to the doctor, but we couldn't really see anything on the monitor except for the sac. He said it was too small the hear a heartbeat yet, and told us to come back in two weeks for our last appointment with him (the RE) and then we graduate to an OB/GYN which we're currently scrambling to find.

My wife is feeling good except for being exhausted and her pants feeling tight. I need to find her maternity clothes that are not too feminine since she's very much a tomboy. Anyone have any advice on where we can find stuff besides maternity skinny jeans?

I can't wait until 12 weeks, I just want to know that everything is ok. I'm having a hard time keeping my mouth shut!

2MamazInSeattle · January 2014

I'm 8w5d and EDD is 8/20!

Oh, little baby is keeping me aprised of her living status but making me feel gross, for which I am grateful. The nausea has been distracting for sure, but no barfing thank goodness. My smell and food aversions continue to escalation which is just *weird* but I'm choosing to think it interesting and focus on the novelty of it vs. how annoying it is. I'm re-learning how to be vegetarian and have now limited J to cooking any meat on the grill outside. She made bacon and collards today and I had to go outside 1 minute after coming in, and then worked in our small front bedroom with all the windows open at 40 degrees. Fun! But I'll take it! My big win was last night, when I slept from 10:30 - 6:30 and woke up feeling like a million effing dollars. I don't know how I did it but it was heaven!

My IRL friend M took my yoga class w/ me Saturday and thought it was hard! She's 31w and been doing yoga all along - so tonight I tried her normal studio and I thought IT was hard! But all relative/what you're used to. The teacher at hers is a wise older woman who I loved. She made me tear up after class - she said "this baby is already teaching you a lot, and the baby you lost is still teaching you a lot." I loved her, and the class. I'm going to alternate studios as her Monday class is earlier and I love that, but I've grown attached to my other place too. I'm going 2-3x/week total. Or that is at least my stated goal

.

Tomorrow I'm going to see the counselor who specializes in reproductive challenges, including loss. My yoga teacher tonight knew this woman well and said "she has lived a long time and will help you." I'm hoping. Oddly I've been less anxious (due to the reassuring m/s) but still feel like there is some grief I need to address. I'm excited for her to guide me as it sounds like she knows her stuff.

Next appt. is Wed. at 9w! Yay! And I had to move my NT scan/Mat21 blood draw up 2 days to 1/29 due to a work trip sprung on me today but no complaints on that front! We'll get to know the gender 2 days sooner

.

QOTW: Seattle has a pretty amazing childbirth community. Doulas are everywhere, I had about 8 prenatal yoga places within spitting distance to choose from, etc. I am a big fan of childbirth educator Penny Simkin - she's an amazing woman - and lucky for me she lives in Seattle. Her childbirth classes usually fill up well before the class hits end of first tri (if you wait to sign up past 10w you will be waitlisted), so we are signed up for her hospital birth classes. Her book, "Pregnancy Childbirth and the Newborn," imho, blows "what to expect" out of the water. I know her personally as I did her doula training way back when, and also sat in on/assisted her childbirth ed classes for several years. I've heard the content 10 times but it'll be so different being in the drivers seat so-to-speak! So, that's our plan.

Another tidbit - she has a pretty great book called "The Birth Partner" that is the only book I'm asking J to read. It is 100% focused on supporting the birthing mom in labor, and a great reference esp. in early labor. We'll have a doula because I don't want J under pressure to remember everything, but it's a great base knowledge for your mate with or without professional labor support, and esp. at home before you are allowed to go to the hospital.

2MamazInSeattle · January 2014

We are doing the cell-free DNA test (Materniti21, Harmony and Verifi are the three name brands). Its typically for moms over 35 or anyone with a loss due to trisomy or genetic risk factors.

It looks specifically at Trisomies 13,18 (both fatal) and 21 (downs), as well as Turners'/sec chromosome abnormalities...which is how you "get" to find out the gender. I believe its not possible, or iffy for twins but that could be old info. Its a simple blood test, no intervention. Its done between 11-13w. My doc prefers earlier in case there is a problem you have more tome to make "difficult decisions"....

Results take 1-2 weeks, last time we knew by 13w (it only took 1 week). I did have a friend get a false positive for turners, because as women age they develop more XXX chromosomes which the test misread as the baby's; so that is the risk. She had the amnio and baby was/is perfect.

Jazibel · January 2014

Checking in past midnight PST - whoops a little late but we'll call Monday anyway.

I'm 24 weeks & 6 days EDD 4/29/14.
I feel pretty good except more tired than usual, I took naps both weekend days. Baby is hopping around, right now I'm lying on my back in bed and it feels like he's pushing off my cervix to bounce into my belly. Must be fun. ;-)

I have to take my glucose test before my next appointment on the 23rd. Not looking forward to that. I had a hard time choking that gross syrup down last time :-(. Other than that I unpacked & put away a bunch of newborn stuff this weekend. I feel much more prepared now (I think my back pain from the other week scared me into being afraid that at any point I could be out of commission).

EV & I are meeting with R (our midwife from Kaden's birth) on Wednesday. I'm hoping to get some advice and feedback on either having a home birth or recommending a doula for a hospital birth (if she herself is not available).

QOTD- no birthing class this time. Last time we took a great LGBT class in the East Bay (there's one in Seattle too) through Maia Midwifery. I will however read lots of books. Thanks @2mamazinseattke for reminding me about the birth partner book. :-)

Pinkspark · January 2014

Coming in late to the check in!

I'm 20w6days with boy/girl twins. EDD 5/28.

Had our appointments at our local children's hospital this past friday to check on my boy. Things went well with him for the most part. It's pretty likely that he indeed has club feet, but they still told us that there's a 20% chance they could be wrong. Other than that, things were going awesome- until the last 15 minutes of the day when we were told that our baby girl has a heart defect that they found during the fetal echo at the end of the day.

So, we're pretty sad.. and now we wait until feb to go back and have another echo done to see if things stay the same, get worse, etc. Such a bummer. Other than that, we are finally getting moving on the nursery and I get to start monitoring my blood sugars on thursday to determine if I do have GD since I kept barfing the glucose drink up every time.

QOTW:

We haven't really looked into them.. the only ones around us are Isis, and even then the ones focused on twins are way further away from us than we'd like to travel. (I just can't sit for long distances anymore!) I'll be a C-section mama.. so I'm hoping my years of yoga and meditation will come in handy prior to the c-section!

yachee · January 2014

My wife is at 31 weeks 4 days with twin girls. I am so ready to be at the magic 32 week mark! Adjusted twin due date is Feb 21st.

We did a 7-week twins class through the University of Washington and there was one other lesbian couple there. Our instructor was awesome at always using gender neutral terms (partner, sig other, spouse) in all the classes. Some of the classes were definitely more useful than others, specifically the ones about pre-term birth and breast feeding.

@FlyGirll1228 - What class in Seattle are you considering? We also did the cell-free DNA test and were able to find out that we had two girls at around 14 weeks. For twins you can only find out if you have two girls or if there is A boy. They can't tell if there are one or two boys when they detect a Y chromosome, but they can tell that there are two girls if they don't detect any Y chromosomes at all.

2MamazInSeattle · January 2014

@Flygirl1228, ots the Maia Midwifery class right? It looks cool! If you come up, especially closer to "our" due date!

candimc26 · January 2014

Just peeking in after many months away. Congrats, everyone, on your upcoming bundles of joy!

I'm 35 weeks, due 2/18/14, with my second daughter. Feeling good! It's much easier to enjoy pregnancy the second time around, knowing how fleeting it is (and how much tougher it is to take care of them on the outside!).

Good luck to all.

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