I thank the good Lord (very literally) for Rolaids Softchews and very salty potato chips.

OB Visit Number One

My friend Tricia made a good point to me today - it's the "OB" now, not the "gynee". HeeHee!
I seriously barely have the energy to type this. If I didn't know I was pregnant, I would think I was dying of fatigue!!
So my appointment went well today. For some reason I got really nervous as soon as Mom and I walked into the doctor's office! Had to pee like a racehorse when we got there, so asked the receptionist if I could use the bathroom and ended up doing the urine sample then. About fifteen minutes later I got called in and the nurse asked me a bazillion questions. She took my blood pressure and I told her, "It's probably through the roof right now 'cause I'm so nervous"! But it was perfectly normal.
Then about 20 minutes later, Dr. Nakanishi came in. She is THE sweetest lady - so easy to talk to. She did a full exam and everything looked peachy-keeno (my words, not hers!). Then she asked more questions and answered mine. I asked her if Tylenol-PM is safe and she said it absolutely is. She said that Tylenol-PM is actually Tylenol with Benadryl in it. I never knew that! Both of those drugs are safe for pregnancy. That was GOOD news cuz sometimes I need a PM to help me get to sleep. I also told her that my mom had three miscarriages and that she had to have hormone injections once a week for several months in order to carry me. She asked if I wanted them to test my progesterone levels and I said definitely. So if I have the same problem my mom did, they'll find out and let me know and we'll go from there.
She wants me to switch from Paxil to Zoloft. I'm a little scared about that cuz Paxil has been my wonder drug for like four years now. I'm currently on a super-low dose (10mg/day) but she said Zoloft has a longer "track record" and is proven safer for pregnancy. So I shall give that a try.
She said major fatigue is very normal. Wow. I can't wait til this trimester is oveeeeeer!!
She gave me three weeks worth of prenatal vitamins and a Rx for more. They are horse pills, man. HUGE! I might take half in the morning and half at night.
If they find anything goofy in any of the blood tests they will let me know in the next couple days and we'll figure out what to do (i.e. low hormone levels or something)....
Oh, and my official due date is September 23. The online due date calculator was only one day off. Not bad!
They sent me home with a binder full of pregnancy info, including a list of medications that are safe, etc.
My next OB visit is in one month (Feb. 27) and they'll do an ultrasound at that one already!! THAT will be COOL!!! I am really excited for that!
So there ya go - my first visit in a nutshell. A big nutshell. : )

Around this time of the afternoon (4:00ish) I start feeling reeeeally crappy. Neaueous, completely exhausted....and this weird feeling that's kinda hard to explain but many of you who have been pregnant probably understand -- my abdomen feels kinda "tight", for lack of a better term. And my throat is extra-acidy. Blech. Very uncomfortable. Lately I cannot eat dinner. I don't get hungry until about 9:00 and then I eat a little cheese or cereal or fruit with some peanut butter. ......But this too shall pass. The sooner, the better!!

I cannot even believe how tired I am! WOW. I recently read somewhere that sometimes pregnant women feel like they ran a marathon, cleaned the whole house, and participated in a dance contest all in one day. SO true! I guess it takes a LOT outta ya to grow a baby! Is it the second trimester yet.....? ; )

Today, Baby C could fit on the end of a pencil eraser! S/he is growing little arm buds and instead of being straight, the baby is curved and you could easily identify the head.
Yesterday afternoon and evening I felt pretty nasty. And wooooah, maaaajorly tired again! Last night I slept ten hours and am feeling much better this morning. Had a hankerin' for French toast so made some for breakfast. What I really wanted to do for breakfast was go to Dunkin' Donuts, but my hubby put the kabosh on that idea by reminding me that I need to eat healthy. Good hubby. Kinda. HeeHee!
Just two more days til my gynee visit! This is the first time I've ever been excited to go to the gynecologist. It will just feel good to have her confirm everything and tell me that everything looks good and give me an official due date and answer my questions. I am praying that it goes very well.
Tomorrow will be six weeks!! I kinda wish I could fast-forward a few weeks to get past the "icky" stage!
Oh, we told Scotty's family last night. They're all really excited! Koreena (Scotty's sister) said, "I have to see you in stages, so you better plan to come up here a lot!" LoL! Anyway...it was happy news in the midst of a sad time -- Grandpa Conger had another stroke and is in the hospital again, not doing well at all.

The coolest thing happened today!
I found out my good friend, Amy, is pregnant (baby number two for her) and she's due -- get this -- September 25th!! I'm due September 24th!! I talked to her this morning and we just could not believe it! What are the chances?! I am so floored!!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
The tiredness is setting in! Is it bedtime yet??
Up until yesterday my energy level was very normal. But yesterday my friend Luisa and I were hanging out and I felt so bad cuz I could not stop YAWNING!
Spent most of today with Mom and Steph. We went to Mackenzie's school to surprise her with a visit (SO cute!), out for a super-delicious lunch (I had an egg-white/veggie omelet, fruit, and an English muffin and ate every crumb!), and then to Hobby Lobby. By the time we got home I crocheted a little bit and then was SO tired that I plopped down on the couch. Dad turned on a really nice CD and I was OUT like a light. It's probably good that I slept for awhile before I made the hour-long drive home. I was pooped.
Oh, I'm really happy cuz Mom said she'd come to my gynee appointment with me on Monday! I'd be totally fine going by myself...I just think it'll be more fun if she's with me (not for the exam, o' course, but for everything else). I'm looking forward to that appointment. I have some questions I want to ask the doctor; I think I'll make a list so I don't forget any of them!
My tummy's been feeling pretty okay the last couple days. Still on-and-off nausea...crackers do help quite a bit. I've been eating one before I even get out of bed in the morning. My appetite is different. I'm usually kinda hungry for breakfast, very hungry for lunch, and I have to choke down dinner.
Ya know what? I haven't thrown away my + pregnancy test yet. I look at it every day. Can't bring myself to toss it. How sad is that?

What my journal says today is pretty amazing! "By the end of this month, your baby will have completed a period of growth that involves the greatest size and physical changes of its lifetime. In five days, it will be 10,000 times larger than the fertilized egg though, in actuality, not much bigger than a grain of rice!"
Yesterday I felt great almost all day - had no problems at the grocery store or anything. And so far today I feel really good, too. My friend Luisa is visiting today and bringing me a bunch of back issues of Martha Stewart Living magazine. She is the sweetest lady. I'm glad she's coming today!
OH - pregnancy dreams really ARE the most bizarre dreams EVER!! Last night I dreamed that I was at a new college or something...and was making a group of really nice new friends. Within a short period of time, though, I discovered that they were part of a terrible cult. (YIKES!) They wanted me to be a part of their cult and I was trying desperately to get away from them. They had me trapped in this huge, really old house and I was "playing along" with their craziness in hopes that I could escape quickly at some point. Mom and Dad were there for part of it, trying to help me get away. Oh, and at the beginning of the dream I was driving Dad's Rolls Royce and I was doing a terrible driving job. I banged up his car and he was not happy! Soooo bizarre. When I woke up from that one, I was sweating and breathing fast. I have a feeling this is just the beginning of the over-the-top dreams for the next eight months! So much to look forward to.....
*note dripping sarcasm here*

A few days ago my boobs started hurting. WOW are they SENSITIVE now. Ouch!!

Guess what happens today? My pregnancy journal says "the tiny muscles of the heart start beating today"!! Blows my MIND!!
Yesterday was a rough day - major nausea on and off. It's only 9:15 in the morning but so far today I feel great. I was starving for breakfast so I suppose that's a good sign. I'm gonna go grocery shopping today. Yikes. LoL!

Gag.
I am so nauseous today.
But my stomach's growling at the same time. Weirdness.

How to Guarantee Healthy Eating

Be pregnant.
I have never been so motivated to eat healthy in my life.
I had my second craving yesterday. All day long, I kept saying "Cake. Cake. Cake." Finally at about 6:00, we went to the grocery store and got a big piece of three-layer triple chocolate cake. It was so rich that I could only eat about 1/3 of it, but considering it had probably about 5000 calories, that's a good thing. (Disclaimer: For dinner I had a Spring Mix Salad from Wendy's. LOTS of veggies!)
But anyway...so there's a good portion of this piece of chocolate cake left on the kitchen counter this morning and if I wasn't preggers, that would have been my breakfast. But, to my utter astonishment, it was SO easy to pass it up and eat my usual banana and bowl of healthy cereal.
And I've been eating vegetables like there's no tomorrow. Good thing I love vegetables in the first place.
So yeah, my advice to guarantee that you eat healthy: be pregnant. Works like a charm.

...Oh, and I read today that by this time, the baby's amniotic sac is the size of a grape! How cute is that?! That picture up there is what s/he will look like in about a week!!!

I'm pregnaaaaaant!!!!


Me at 4 weeks (for future comparison purposes!)

I'm with child.

There is a tiny bun in my oven.

I'm PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's what happened less than a week ago, on the morning of Monday, January 16:

I had ordered a set of five pg tests from babyhopes.com (way cheaper than the store). Since I had plenty of 'em, I decided I would test this morning, even though my period's not due til the 20th. So I wake up this morning, go potty, and test. I watch it like a hawk and within about a minute I see that there's only a purple line in the control window but the test window is blank. I'm not surprised. But I keep watching it....and within about one more minute, I see a faint line in the test window! It gets a tiny bit darker - is still pretty light - but is unmistakably THERE! I blink about a thousand times but it's still there! My eyes start watering and I whisper to myself, "I'm pregnant." Thank heavens Scotty's home today cuz it's a bank holiday!!! I go into the loft where he's on his computer and stand next to him but say nothing. He looks up at me and says, "What?" I say, very matter-of-factly, "I'm pregnant." He gets a big smile on his face, stands up and puts his arms around me and says, "Are you serious?" I say, "Yep!" He says, "Wow, it only took us two tries!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

....Well, it's been six days since that blessed event, and I still can't believe it. I am PREGNANT. After six years of frequent discussions about how we thought maybe we would avoid having children, we succumbed. A few months ago, I picked Scotty up from work on his lunch hour and we went to Red Robin for lunch. Our conversation turned yet again to the topic of children. Babies. Being parents. And everything - yes, everything - that goes along with it. It was during that very meal that we decided that YES, we would try for a baby. ONE baby. And because my cycle is kinda goofy and unpredictable and because I have anxiety disorder and a rather "colorful" health history, we came to the mutual agreement that it might take us awhile to conceive, IF we could conceive at all. We wouldn't hold our breath. But we would try, and we would leave it in God's hands.

Who knew that God's hands would create a teeny-tiny beginnings-of-a-baby after just two months of trying?! Oh! Let me back up just a couple weeks at this point so I can share our mildly-amusing conception story. (If it's TMI, then please feel free to scroll on down!) Man, ya gotta love blogs.

January 3, 2006

11:00 pm - Wendy goes potty and decides, 'Eh, what the hay...I'll do an ovulation test.' Wendy doesn't feel like waiting for the results so she sets the test on her nightstand and figures she'll check it in the morning, since it's probably gonna be negative anyway.

11:02 pm - Wendy and Scott go to bed.

11:30 pm - Wendy's still tossing and turning...tossing and turning...wide awake....

11:45 pm - Wendy takes her earplugs out and listens to Scotty snoring like a grizzly bear.

11:55 pm - Wendy gets tired of laying there awake and gets outta bed. Scotty looks at her all confused-like and she tells him she can't sleep so she's gonna get up for awhile. She grabs the test off the nightstand and goes into the loft. She doesn't turn a light on, but by the light of her computer screen she can see that both lines on the test are very dark.

11:57 pm - Wendy freaks out a little. Scotty's probably back asleep already. Should she wake him up or not? Wendy tries to IM Brenda and gets impatient. She decides to wake him up.

11:59 pm - Wendy walks down the hallway toward the bedroom. Before she gets there, Scotty opens the bedroom door in his robe and looks at her all confused-like again. She says, "Hub, I'm ovulating." He says, "How do you know?" She says, "I took a test an hour ago and it has two dark lines on it." He says, "Oh man. I'm so tired." She says, "So am I. I so don't feel like doing it right now."

12:00 am - At the stroke of midnight, the deed gets done - begrudgingly, but quickly.

12:03 am to 12:20 am - (Yes, it was fast.) Wendy lays on the bed like a dork with many pillows under her butt and her feet up on the wall.

....I bet not too many women can pinpoint the exact date of conception. I'm freaky that way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So that's that.

As of the writing of this entry, I am almost 5 weeks along. It's SO early, and I wonder if I should even be keeping this blog. Anything could happen. I'm rather terrified of that fact. But every single day, several times a day, I bring my request to God to please, please protect this tiny being that He has created and to bring it to full-term, and to please keep the baby and me very healthy throughout every second of the pregnancy. I know He hears me. My family's praying this for us too. I have a good feeling about it. And His peace really is beyond all understanding.

So with that said, I shall now get down to the nitty-gritty. I'm gonna make two lists - one that describes the emotional things I've been feeling this week, and one that describes the physical things.

EMOTIONAL:

1) UTTER amazement. The whole concept of two people making another person has always been amazing to me, but now that we are the two people who made another person it is nothing short of unbelievable. God is using US to create a new little person! WOAH!!!!! I've been doing a lot of reading about exactly what happens - how the sperm compete to plug into the egg, how the timing of ovulation is so precise, how the cells divide and then burrow into the uterine lining.... The mind of God is completely and totally AWESOME. He designed us so that our bodies would know exactly what to do and when to do it, in order to produce and grow a baby. Mind-boggling. And I praise Him with my whole heart for allowing me to experience this.

2) Weird LOVE. Right this very moment, our baby is so small that two of him or her could fit into the period at the end of this sentence (but it has the beginnings of a SPINE already!). How can I already feel so much love for and protection of this microscopic being?! I do! I do totally do! Yesterday I was walking out of the grocery store and it was cold and just starting to snow. I pulled my coat tight around my lower belly and kept my hand there til I was in the car. As IF that did any good - LOL! I guess it was this really early version of motherly instinct kicking in or something.

3) Fear. SO much fear. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm terrified of possible miscarriage. Mom had some, Steph had one. But I really don't think it's gonna happen.

4) JOY and excitement!!! Just think - me, a mommy. ME! God did not have me ready til now. Not so long ago, the thought of being a mommy was not an attractive one in my mind. It meant stress and annoyance and inconvenience and misery. But now - especially now that I'm pregnant - I see it as exciting and precious and so, so special. And personal. This child will be one of a kind, with parts of Scott and parts of me (hopefully lots of parts of Scott - we'd love a boy)! Our lives will revolve around this tiny person. And I can't wait!!

5) Dreams. Now, I am known for having VERY bizarre dreams on a VERY regular basis anyway. But pregnancy dreams, so they say, are usually about as bizarre as you can get. I have had some extremely over-the-top ones the last few nights but can't remember the specifics anymore. However, one very brief, very vivid dream that will stick in my head during this whole nine months is one that I had yesterday afternoon during a nap: All it was was a brief, bright (almost sparkling) image of a widely-smiling, beautiful perfect little baby boy.

PHYSICAL:

I haven't experienced many physical changes yet, but the ones I have have been interesting and fascinating!

1) Mild nausea. It comes and goes...in waves. I keep Saltines very close at all times (I even keep some in my car) and they seem to help. I eat one first thing after I wake up in the morning, before I even get out of bed. I also have those things called Sea Bands that you wear around both wrists. They have little balls that press into the inner part of your wrist and having pressure there is supposed to ease nausea. They're made to prevent motion sickness but I've heard that they help in morning sickness too....so we shall see.

2) Cravings. So far, my only craving has been very cold skim milk. Yesterday I had two big glasses with lunch and another glass and a half with dinner. I am curious to see what other cravings will develop. I know my friend Devon craved milk like crazy, too. My friend Rachel craved chips and salsa from one specific restaurant! My mom ate fresh carrots like they were goin' outta style. Pregnancy cravings amuse me.

3) Tingly nippies. Just a few days after conception, my nippies tingled so much that I scratched them to the point of drawing blood! I decided to forego the bra and had to put Bandaids on them so that I wouldn't get blood on my shirt. I'm a bright one.

4) Sore boobies. They weren't all that sore until two days ago. When I trot down our 15-step staircase, they hurt!!

5) Extra-sensitive gums. While I was having my teeth cleaned the other day at the dentist, my gums hurt something AWFUL when she was squirting them with water.

And now, as I close this very long entry (I promise they won't all be this long. I had to catch up on the last six days!), I must mention that last night I finished the book "Belly Laughs" by Jenny McCarthy. Not a good book to read at this point. Though I was absorbed in it and found it entertaining, this woman had a TERRIBLE, AWFUL, NO-GOOD, VERY BAD pregnancy. I keep repeating to myself, "Every pregnancy is different. Every pregnancy is different...." This chick had every symptom in the book, to the utmost degree. If I had read that book before finding out about my pregnancy, I would seriously probably have reconsidered. Some people tend to be overly dramatic, and sensationalize things for dramatic effect. I am thinking that's what this poor Jenny did for this book. I know many, many women who have been pregnant and none of their pregnancies were anywhere NEAR what hers was. I'm surprised she survived.

And with that I will end this entry. Finally, eh?

*Wenzee shuffles off to brush her sensitive gums and read her Pregnancy Journal page for today