They call THIS "quickening"?

I'm truly in awe of pregnancy.

I'm a scientist by training and analytical by nature. I'm well-educated in biology; I know how reproduction works. Yet, the fact of this baby growing inside me seems miraculous, magical even.

My little guy has been very active today and I've been able to feel a great deal of his movements as a tickle or tingle around my mid-section. I tried to describe to a co-worker what this feels like, something along the lines of insects crawling over my skin. She looked a me with concern and said, "That sounds really creepy." And yes, I must admit that put this way, it does sound rather disturbing. But I don't find it so. It feels funny, for sure, unlike anything else I've ever experienced. To me it's amazing, and all these little tickles and tingles make me want to laugh. And then scratch the spot that itches. To think that there's a brand-new human being inside causing such sensations is just incredible.

Anatomical ultrasound

It's a...

BOY!

Visual proof (boy parts):

Lounging baby boy, long legs stretched out:

Looks like an attempt at thumb-sucking:

Ghostly 3D baby face, swaddled in my uterus:

My ultrasound today went well. The placenta is healthy and well-positioned, the cervix tightly closed, and the baby hanging head-down (at least for now). Our boy measured a nice, healthy average on all counts, according to the technician. She checked all his major organs, including the brain, heart, kidney and vertebra. He is estimated to weight about 10 oz. He was very cooperative for pictures, as you can see, quite willing to show off his cute profile, limbs and other assets. The experience was great, despite the discomfort of having someone pressing into my abdominal region on top of a very full bladder (a requirement for a transabdominal sonogram).

It's a relief to know everything is normal and progressing as it should, and very exciting to be able to drop that pesky "it" pronoun and revert to "he." I think the boy can feel my excitement, because he has been tickling me all day long with his little arms and legs. The feelings of movement are even more distinctive now that I can picture what is causing them.

Just about half way there

There's no mistaking it: I'm definitely showing signs of being pregnant now, as I approach the half-way mark. (Twenty weeks next Saturday!) Unlike before, when I just felt sick and tired all the time and sometimes doubted the existence of the little blob that was causing all my discomfort, despite the ultrasound pictures -- those could be faked, couldn't they? -- I am fairly certain now that there is something alien growing in my abdominal region. My uterus now reaches my belly-button, and I can even feel a little movement sometimes, a subtle tickle from the inside, like bubbles in fizzy water. Soon I hope to be able to feel distinct kicking.

Other indictions: As promised, my hair has grown noticeably more thick, my breasts have increased at least one cup size, and I'm most comfortable these days in stretchy skirts and maternity shorts. I've had to invest in a maternity "tummy sleeve" to hold up said maternity shorts, which are still a little too loose around the middle. (But I expect that won't be the case for too much longer.) Surprisingly, despite the absence of nausea, I still have yet to get back the appetite I was accustomed to having before the pregnancy. After nineteen weeks, I've only gained 6 pounds.

Less fun signs of pregnancy: I have to pee constantly. I get up to use the bathroom at least 4-5 times a night, which leaves me pretty tired during the daytime. And speaking of daytime, all I can say is, it's a good thing most places I go have decent public restrooms. Even worse -- and don't you dare laugh -- I sometimes leak a little when I sneeze. Seriously, IT'S NOT FUNNY. This is definitely one of those pregnancy things that I'd heard of, but never thought would happen to me. But then, I've been in denial about a lot of things, like how big I'm supposedly going to get. I just can't get my head around it. Pregnancy is just a series of strange things happening to the body over which one has no control.

Overall, my moods have been fairly even over the past few weeks. I've had a few really bad days, when the stress* and lack of sleep wore me down and I fell into a depression. But for the most part, I've been surprisingly calm and even-tempered. This really is surprising, since "calm" is not a word I'd typically include in describing my usual, pre-pregnancy range of emotions. These pregnancy hormones must be doing something good for my mental state.

The fetus is supposed to be around 8 inches long now. We'll find out for sure TOMORROW, at my next ultrasound. I've been counting down the days for this one. I can hardly wait. We hope to find out the gender too, among other things. I feel a slight tinge of anxiety (what if there's something wrong?!), but I'm mostly just excited to see the baby again. Pictures will follow.

* I didn't want this post to be about all the stress in my life this summer, because most of the things stressing me out have nothing to do with the pregnancy, so I'm just going to include a summary here, as a kind of footnote, for anyone who is really interested. For most of the summer, Alex and I have been essentially in survival mode, just trying to get from one day to the next. His dissertation is due to his committee in three weeks, and up until last week, his advisor was not being very supportive of his graduation timeline, despite having agreed to it long ago. In addition, we've spent a good portion of the summer waiting for more definite info from the people who originally gave him the job offer on which all of our plans have been depending (previously mentioned here). Fortunately, these two particular sources of stress have since been resolved. Advisor is now on board and future employers have finally gotten the ball rolling in the hiring process. The day after Alex turns in his dissertation (a month before the defense), we will both be traveling to the new state to which we hope to move in early November. There, Alex will do a job talk for the future employers, get the "official" job offer, and we will look for housing and visit hospitals, midwives, and a doula for me. The month after this trip, Alex will defend his dissertation, and a few weeks later (we hope) we will be on our way to our new home (yet undetermined). On top of all that, several members of both Alex and my extended family have been independently suffering through some serious problems, which, while they do not affect us directly, are yet another source of anxiety and stress for both of us. That's a lot to have going on mere months away from the anticipated explosion of our lives with the birth of our first child.

I'm back

Wow. It's been a ridiculously long while, I know. Thank you to anyone who has stuck around with the (until now, sadly unsupported) belief that I would someday return to this blog space. I have many great excuses for my absence, which also serve to sum up the time I've been away. To save you all time in reading this, here are my other excuses in a convenient list form:

1. No computer. My personal computer was stolen in the second burglary and the only computer I had access to at home since then was my husband's work laptop, which he has obviously been needing himself as he has been in the final phase of his dissertation writing. This excuse is now invalid, since upon the arrival of our second insurance check we purchased a replacement computer for me, which arrived last weekend. My new computer is now securely locked to my desk with two different bicycle locks, so no one's taking this one anywhere without my permission! Doesn't exactly look pretty, but it's effective. (We have also had our home alarm system activated so that it will now go off if anyone enters our house when we are not home. But I have hope that we'll make it through the next few months until our move without any more break-ins.)

2. Nausea. The almost constant queasiness and frequently intense nausea took a lot out of me. It faded very gradually by week 15 or 16 (I'm now in week 18), but I still have occasional bouts of nausea, and my appetite has been surprisingly slow to return. (On the plus side, I've only gained 3-4 pounds so far!)

3. Exhaustion. Apart from the nausea, I spent the first third of my pregnancy in a state of complete exhaustion. If not sleeping, all I felt like doing was lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. My energy has come back as the nausea has faded, but now I'm tired all the time simply because I don't get quite enough sleep during the night (due to discomforts and multiple bathroom visits) and my regretful lack of nap time during the work week.

4. Blogger burn out. If the combined reasons above aren't enough excuse for my sorry absence in the blogging world these past seven weeks, I must also admit to have been feeling a kind of weariness with blogging (temporary, I believe). The pregnancy, while providing me with an excellent source of blog fodder, also has left me feeling rather private. I am very happy and very excited about the big changes going on in my life, which would generally leave me enthusiastic about discussing these changes. Nevertheless, I've been feeling rather protective of my pregnancy experience, as though sharing its details in this anonymous forum, where anyone is free to comment on my posts, could somehow taint the sanctity of the amazing event I am undergoing. And if that sentence doesn't make any sense, let's just blame it on pregnancy brain.

Regardless, I'm back now. For the time being, at least. I can't and won't promise daily posts, but I do intend to go back to regular blogging.

Living in interesting times

As if my life weren't intense enough lately, circumstances have provided me with more excitement than one ought to have between Monday and Tuesday mornings. Like the most horrible deja vu, Alex and I have had our home burglarized AGAIN, for the second time in the past two months. After four years in this place, in this neighborhood, to have two break-ins within a few months of one another... It's beyond belief. This time the break-in occurred while we were away at work on Monday and our sliding glass door was violently shattered all over our bedroom. It seems preventing doors and windows from being forcibly opened is not enough of a deterrent to a determined criminal. I feel so helpless. I don't know what more we can do to stop this from happening.

Surprisingly, they did not take ALL the rest of my jewelry this time, as I would have expected. They ransacked our bedroom and pulled out the top tray of my jewelry box, which was emptied in the previous burglary, but they did not remove any of the contents underneath. Instead they took a nearly worthless ceramic dish (which I loved) filled with all my everyday earrings, mostly of sentimental value: my very first pair of earrings -- gold hoops purchased for me by my mother, labradorite earrings my sister made for me, adorable ladybug earrings given to me by Grandmom. The only remaining piece of jewelry I habitually wear are they earrings I was wearing when this occurred.

Worst of all, the thieves took my beloved, brand-new personal computer, carefully purchased last fall, our biggest spending splurge in many years. Presumably our insurance will eventually cover the cost of a replacement, but nothing can replace our photos, my personal documents and files, or the many hours Alex spent digitizing home videos from his childhood and organizing our entire digitized music collection. My personal computer also served as our entertainment center for watching movies and listening to music. Now, not only do I not have my own computer, but we don't have a television or a music center either. And I am afraid to replace it, as long as we live in this place. The only positive I can see from this is that they did not find and take our brand-new camera as well. Then again, there's always next time.

Thinking about this doesn't put my mind in a very good place.

However, after a very restless Monday night lying awake listening to one of our poor terrorized kitties yowling his distress -- which is pretty much all I felt like doing too -- we finally got up around 4:30 AM to count down the hours until my first ultrasound on Tuesday morning. It was such a wonderful relief to see our baby, to see and hear the heartbeat, and to learn that everything is progressing normally. It was especially thrilling to see our 3.6 cm long fetus wriggling on the monitor during the sonogram. I had no idea there was so much movement going on -- not just wiggling of limbs, but the entire body turning about. I really look forward to being able to feel that movement myself, which the technician said I should be able to do in just a few more weeks.

Our wriggly baby:

Such a round tummy and sweet profile:

Just so you know I'm still alive...

Here are the highlights of my life right now:

1) I am nine weeks and five days pregnant today.

2) The nausea is still going strong. I figure I have two or three weeks more of it, minimum. I've determined that the best way to deal with it is to eat constantly. Which sounds like fun. But really, it's not. I'd be happy right now if I didn't have to put anything in my mouth ever again. Some days, however, I find that even force-feeding myself doesn't alleviate my misery, and there's nothing to do but go home and collapse in bed. Which is what I did today after suffering through a mere 3.5 hours at work. Apparently sleep-deprivation (generally brought on by night-time nausea) can also exacerbate nausea.

3) Today I discovered another joy of pregnancy: tailbone or coccyx pain. I don't know how commonly this occurs; none of my pregnancy books mention it. But after waking up once again with this strange soreness in my lower back, I googled "tailbone pain pregnancy" on a whim. Sure enough, this is a known condition, although the cause seems unclear. Some sites claim it's due to pressure from the weight of the baby, but since I have yet to gain any weight, I find this explanation dubious. Other sites blame it on the softening of the pelvic bones and ligaments which occurs in pregnancy in preparation for childbirth. I find it strange that I only get the pain from lying on my side and not from sitting; after sleeping or napping, it basically feels like my tailbone is bruised and sore. In any case, I plan to ask my doctor about it at my next appointment in July.

4) I came to the exciting conclusion this morning that my mid-section really is expanding, the first physical proof I've had of my condition (aside from the ongoing nausea). Alex has been claiming that he can tell I am "showing" for days now, but I've just blamed that on some not-pregnancy-related belly fat and his eager imagination. Until today. Today I realized that I can see and feel a genuine extension in my abdominal region. I don't think it's noticeable to anyone but the two of us, but it's an exciting development regardless. This is really happening.

Six Word Saturday

Nausea continues to dominate my life.

My spirits are good and I plan to go back to regular blogging eventually. But for now, I hope you'll forgive me if I continue to slack off in that department while I try to get a grip on the big changes my body and my life are going through.

Click here for more of Cate's Six Word Saturdays.