Pregnancy update from 8 weeks (1/23/12). Previously sent by email to select audience. :)
It sucks.
I've recently come to the conclusion that despite nutritional value and past tastiness, vegetables are the spawn of the devil, as are cooking smells. I absolutely cannot stand walking through the produce aisle at the store--the horrors of being bombarded with the beastly odors of lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, and worst of all, green chiles--nothing is worth that. Nothing. Unfortunately, despite my previous positive opinions about James' second love and primary diet staple--three bean chili--there is absolutely nothing on planet Earth that smells worse, except perhaps rotting corpses and body odor. James often smells of metal and man-sweat (metal being the offensive smell, which is curiously cancelled out if I drink licorice tea). Merely walking into a kitchen that was used to cook something two days ago can trigger retching and such. It's totally adventurous!
This is an especially tragic development because before the nausea, smell sensitivity and food aversions hit, I was doing so well! Vegetables, fruits, and legumes were the tastiest things on earth, partly because eating so many of them eased my muscular pain, headaches, depression, and pretty every physical malady I've ever had. I was on top of the world! (Which is why it was a good time to get pregnant, right?)
So after thriving on a superior diet, suddenly switching to a diet 90% comprised of Saltines, graham crackers, French bread, muffins, ginger ale, fruit juice w/ seltzer water, Coca-Cola, peppermint tea, and licorice tea... it should be no surprise that I am super tired, headachy and moody.
And I'm sure the hormone thingies aren't helping with the moody. I found myself so emotionally moved by the song "Thank You for the Music" by ABBA that I began to tear up. And then "Dancing Queen" came on and I totally lost it. I mean, she's only seventeen and she's a dancing queen... doesn't everyone tear up when they hear those lines? No? Oh.
Despite James being as wonderful as ever, he also has to tread more lightly. I think I got upset at him for something like... I don't know. It was dumb. I think he put on a shirt that was not my favorite color. And then he was only 98.5% as attractive as he usually is. Plus he needs a haircut, so that knocks it down to 96.5% as good-looking. And then I was sad. And then I cried. And then I thought, "This is stupid." So I cried some more, because it was stupid.
I also get teary when I'm writing a dictation at work about a patient who had an abortion, even if it was 30 years ago. This at least is actually sad, so I only cry a little and don't weep. (I reserve weeping for irrational emotions, only. Plus, it is bad form to cry in front of patients.)
With all that said, all else is well. The baby is somewhere around the size of a kidney bean or a gummy bear. And depending from which angle you look at it, it looks like both a kidney bean and a gummy bear. We of course haven't had an ultrasound yet, but if we did, we would see newly forming dentation centers where its teeth would someday be, and I'd be tempted to name it Skeletor solely based on its appearance by ultrasound.
Speaking of names, we have none picked out. I can readily think of many girl names that I would find acceptable. If I had to pick a girl name right now, I'd say Adella Dilts, but I am by no means committed to it. I am more lost in the boy name department. I'd leave it to James, but if it were up to him, we'd have kids with middle names like Trogdor and Skeletor and Megatron. Not that Samuel Skeletor Dilts isn't a great name, but I'm not confident the kid could pull it off. You have to be quite a someone to trot around bearing a name like that proudly. I figure if the kid is really sad we didn't name him/her Skeletor, that's what legal name changes are for, right?
No, I haven't started showing. Ask again in a month and a half. I'll prolly looking somewhat pregnant at that point. After that, it's likely bowling-ball belly from there on out (at least, that's what is to be expected given my cyborg spine). Speaking of the titanium rods fused to my spine (wow, so many of you have asked about this)... The rate of C-sections in women who had the surgery I had is exactly the same as it is in the general population. This translates as no additional delivery complications. Pregnancy itself should actually be somewhat better--since my spine is so... rigid, I should not experience the characteristic back pain of pregnancy. Hooplah! I'm all for news like that.
The only thing that may be a bit complicated is the whole pain management option. Those ever-popular epidurals may not be an option for me. If I want one, I would need the #1 anestheliogist around to do it. But depending on how much scar tissue there is right there, they still might not want to do it due to increased risk of infection. And some women who had my surgery report less-than-successful epidural results, with only one side of their bodies pain-free, or off-and-on numbness. For those reasons I might prefer those morphine-button machines.
The due date is September 2nd, so we'd expect him or her to show up around that time, plus or minus two weeks. This couldn't be better timed, insurance-wise. We have an out-of-pocket max $1,000 per insurance year... and the year starts over September 15th. Due to all the physical therapy I've done and random things like H. pylori infections, I've already hit $850, and I'm likely to hit $1,000 a few months before delivery. Basically, this means the delivery (and OB care actually) should be 100% paid for by insurance. This was verified when I called the insurance company (the woman on the phone didn't sound nearly as excited as I did). I was pretty sure there was no such thing as a free delivery. I thought they cost everyone AT LEAST a few thousand out of pocket.
Ta-ta for now,
Jenna and Baby Alpha :)
