Boy when I first got the news I was so excited, I wanted to run around telling everyone, especially key friends. Yes, the first tri is the danger zone, so you’re supposed to wait until 10-12 weeks. But the thought of something going wrong was unthinkable to me after such a long and difficult struggle and I wanted to believe it was a sure thing. (bock bock)
So far all the signs are excellent… seeing beating hearts at six weeks — two of them! — is more than one could hope for. But the journey ahead is still long. We won’t be out of the danger zone for another four torturous weeks. Time goes very slowly when in the danger zone.
So we will continue to keep a lid on our huge news. When it gets out there will be a lot of very happy people: parents, family and friends (especially those with kids) who were tacitly rooting for us. We’ll be part of their reality again.
It’s Sunday now; L’s weekend was spent sleeping, looking into space, and attempting to eat and drink. Friday was pretty much the same way.
There were some productive days last week, but like the beginning, she is completely incapacitated for work.
Is it time yet to tell her co-workers what is going on? (Have they already figured it out?)
Of course they won’t be pleased, at least from the work perspective. She’s one of only three engineers and they haven’t been able to hire for her skill set. Her productivity will be lower for the next several months, then she’ll be gone for a while. (bock bock)
- P
Today’s shopping list:
- Ginger tea
- Ginger snaps
- Peanut butter
- Gatorade
- Fig Newtons
- Belly Bars
- Hard lemon drops (to give all that saliva something to do)
- Popsicles
We’re going to find a way to feed this mamma!
L and I forwent a fancy camping trip and a friend’s birthday party this weekend to stay home and deal with L’s somewhat severe pregnancy symptoms, which is to say:
- a resurgence in all-day morning sickness
- lethargy
- headaches
- joint pain
- extreme bouts of salivation
- sensitivity to tastes and smells
- twisty pains to the left/right of the pelvis
All straight out of the textbook.
My favorite symptom:
- spontaneous outbursts of crying, with disclaimers about not actually feeling sad. Heavy sobs mixed in with laughter. Who knew?
- P
The Baby Human DVD was very interesting. Basically an overview of infant cognitive psychology.
Learnings:
- Babies are doing a lot of processing all the time, even if they don’t seem to be doing much: muscles, mobility, language, social interaction
- All activities with a kid make a lot of difference. Eye contact, baby talk, turn taking.
- The first few months are critical for learning what noises count as speech and what noises should be filtered out. There is a small window of opportunity to learn to hear and distinguish nuances of different languages.
- Learning shapes supposedly accelerates word acquisition
- The stepping motion is a reflex that they have as babies, then apparently lose. But it’s thought to be because their legs are temporarily too heavy for their muscles to move.
- Waterloo psychology researchers have some scary mannerisms and very long gloves.
At 6.5 weeks, L is 115 lbs light (normally 109-113). Circumference: 32 inches thin. (It was ~27″ at J&L’s wedding.)
Symptom du jour: heavy salivation.
Internet sez: yes pregnant women get this. It may be related to heartburn or vomiting or merely a reluctance to swallow any liquids that might come back up again.
- P(-tooie!)
It’s nice, for the first time, to have the odds be in our favor.
As things stand, there is an 80% chance that everything will work out just fine, with the odds improving every day.
This is a far cry from before, when we had to consider 30% as good odds.
We got a fat book on baby making, and just watched a video on baby cognitive psychology. (Bock bock.)
Interesting learnings:
- There is a very interesting way of inducing labor that P wholeheartedly supports
- Identical twins may be mirror images of one another
- It’s possible for a woman to have twins from separate fathers. A woman once had one black and one white twin
- Older women are naturally more likely to have multiples; they produce more follicles
- Pretty much all miscarriages are caused by chromosomal issues (this is something of a relief, because it means that it’s mostly out of our control; all we can do is hope)
- Vanishing twins are extremely common
- Our area has a lot of baby groups
Is it better to be miserable with morning sickness or worried that its absence might portend something bad?
L: “Probably good to alternate.”
