The Frankenbaby Chronicles

Two girls, three cats, some frozen sperm, a doctor's office, and a big dream.

Monday, February 26, 2007

How low can you go?

Every once in a while I get tired of wearing the same three pairs of maternity pants over and over and attempt to put on some of my pre-preg pants with a belly band. I can wear all of my "fat pants" from 30lbs+ pre-preg but I really prefer the nice trendy pants I was wearing right before I got knocked up. I put on one of my favorites today. I can still wear them (with the button and zipper wide open) because they are super low rise, wrap around your hips sort of pants.

Anyway, so I put them on today for the first time in a long while, and have learned a couple of valuable lessons:

1. I have put on some weight in my butt/hips. And probably thighs. Ugh.
2. The kid has pushed any bits of fat I had below the waist into above the waist locations, giving me a most astounding case of muffin top.
3. I am only not really showing in most clothes because this kid is really REALLY low. Sitting on my pelvis low. Because in these ultra low-rise pants, holy crap, there is a big-ass baby bump jutting out like Mt. Everest below my waist.

Perhaps I will have Jen take a picture tonight with accent on the muffin top area. Because it's really quite impressive.

(Of course that means that all of the above the waist pooch action is displaced fat and organs which is not nearly as sexy as a nice, high-riding baby!)

Gosh I would really like to wear these pants again someday. The normal, hot-looking way. :)

Friday, February 23, 2007

Photo Friday - Our bedroom

I've never done a Photo Friday before, but hey - there's a first time for everything!

bedroom big bed

bedroom dressers

So far, it's the only room in our new house that we've painted. Although we have plans to do the dining room and of course Frankie's room as soon as we get rid of the awful wallpaper.

21w belleh - 02-21-07

21w belleh

I wonder if quitting Metformin has helped with the popping, or if it was going to happen anyway...

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

21w

We have successfully completed half of a 40-week pregnancy. There were definitely times when I did not imagine that this would be possible. Certainly not with this pregnancy. But here it is.

It has now been seven weeks since I stopped spotting. We spotted and bled for seven weeks straight, which seemed like SO long. But now that we've been seven weeks off, it doesn't seem as long. In fact, I still look every time and expect to see bleeding or spotting. It's almost like a weird PTSD reaction, I have to keep checking.

Frankie has been doing quite a bit of movement which makes me happy. A lot of the times I still play the "baby or gas?" game but there are some times when it is quite obviously baby. Or that it feels like gas but there is no gas, you know? Either way, Frank seems to love cookies, raisin bran, milk, and orange juice. Because of course my baby has to be a sugarholic, too.

My newest fear, and one I see becoming prominant in the many weeks to come, is pre-term labor. I thought it would hit me a little later than this (like around 24 weeks) but there it is. A gal online on FF who is also due in July (she's 2 or 3 days ahead of me, actually) is now on complete bedrest in Labor & Delivery because all of a sudden out of nowhere she had NO cervix and her membranes were about to rupture. They now have her in a bed that is head down, feet up, and have basically told her they probably can't do anything for her. Talk about terrifying! Her only symptom was that she "felt like she was constipated when she knew she wasn't, like there was pressure in her bowels." I don't even know what that MEANS but now I'm paranoid about feeling constipated, too.

It doesn't help that my belly was feeling super tight last night - probably from gas but could have also been Braxton-Hicks. But it was like that for quite a long time and all I could think was, "Oh wait, next will come that constipation feeling." Gosh, I never knew I was so suggestible. Maybe I should take a break from that part of FF.

Otherwise things seem to be going well. Belly is growing, have some on-again off-again butt pain depending how I sleep, am trying to adjust to not sleeping on my back, have a kicking baby, still craving junk. And by "junk" I mean BK cheeseburgers (and I am not a beef eater) and BLT sandwiches. Thankfully Jen and I bought some turkey bacon and some fresher lettuce and tomato from Trader J0e so that I don't have to go to the greasy spoon diner to get my fix!

Saturday, February 17, 2007

State of the Belleh

This morning, 20w3d:

proof - pregnant, not fat!

Thursday, February 15, 2007

I felt the baby

Yesterday while we were snowed in I spent a long time with my hand on Jude's belly, hoping to feel the baby, but mostly just enjoying holding the belly with baby inside....

And yesterday I felt a "pop" of sorts, twice and it wasn't gas I swear! It popped into the palm of my hand....and it felt so wonderful. It was worth the shoveling of ice and snow that I did because we were home for bad weather!

Oh my god it was so wonderful. I have been way jealous taht Jude can feel the baby and I cannot.

I am so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Dreams

The wacky pregnancy dreams have started. Ugh. I am not usually a nightmare person but I have now had a nightmare last night and the night before. The first nightmare involved labor and bleeding and a math test. (Yeah, I know...) The second involved Jen and I being pregnant at the same time, and she went into really pre-term labor and gave birth to a horribly misshapen rubbery baby. YUCK.

I also tried the Snoogle for the first time last night. It's comfy, but a lot harder to roll over in than our old body pillow. And I woke up from the rubber baby dream to discover that Fin was happily snoozing away on my belly and it was HOT. I hope Fin's not a sauna cat!

We have to drive two hours each way to go to a baby shower today. It should be fun, but kind of reinforces to us that no one will probably throw us a shower. I'm not a big shower person, but that's kind of sad anyway.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Ultrasound pictures 18w2d

profile 18w2d

foot 18w2d
Talk to the foot!

frontal 18w2d

I think Frankie looks like me. What do you think?

18w and 19w belly shots!

18w belleh

*****

19w belleh

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Big Ultrasound

We had our "Big" Ultrasound (aka Anatomy Scan) on Friday. We had an enormous argument the night before that carried over into that morning, so the whole thing was pretty much doomed from the start. The ultrasound was kind of inconclusive because the baby was sitting breech on my cervix like a buddha and would not move even when I rolled over, when I poked my belly, when I got up to go to the bathroom, nothing. So the tech ended up not getting a good look at the tailbone end of the spine, part of the heart, and of course the genitals.

She said she would guess the baby was a girl because she could see what looked like a vulva, but without movement from the baby it was also possible that it was a scrotum with a penis tucked away on the belly or somewhere that we couldn't see.

Because they need more pictures of the spine and heart, we have another ultrasound scheduled for March 5th. I am so tired of having ultrasounds. I feel like we're frying our baby. Ugh.

But I guess the other parts all looked good. At least no one mentioned anything to us. I guess someone will call if something comes up.

From 14w to 18w2d, I gained exactly ONE pound. How is this possible? Is the kid even GROWING?