• What: mall walk
  
• Duration: 10+ min
  

Had a 10 min walk on the schedule today but we did it at the mall so I have no stats beyond the fact that it was done. I got up early today and after getting Paul moving we opened a new checking acct. at the bank, ate lunch, went to CompUSA to get him another power supply, then off to buy a Simmmons twin matress/boxspring set for the twin bed so we can ditch the old set.

Paul laughed and told me as usual, we're still doing things "backwards." He meant that Cletus doesn't have a cosleeper or crib yet but he's got a twin bed set all ready.

Kinda threw up a bit today so I'm off to nap and take it easy for a while before we have to go out again to return movies.

So I've been thinking about labor and delivery. I know I want to labor at home as long as possible so I can eat, drink, move around, and be as free as possible. I know I do not want to call the families until it's basically over, namely because my parents live here and I don't want to have to deal with possible hysterics from them.

I'm probably going to have a doula although I'm not 100% on that. I have to talk about it with Paul and see how he feels and then we'll see how interviews are before I make up my mind.

At hospital, I want to be as free as possible as well. I want all my options open but I don't want anyone pushing me toward anything either. I have to call about a hospital tour soon because if I end up NOT liking where I've chosen I want to have time to switch.

Still having these sharp pokey pains. 4 mos is too early for Braxton-Hicks isn't it? Is it round ligament pain? INdigestion? What?! It's getting annoying.

17 Weeks yesterday and I'm spending today feeling heavy, bloated, and with pokey or pinchy feelings. I don't really know what Cletus-the-fetus is busy doing but it's making me feel VERy tired. Sigh.

• What: treadmill walk
  
• Speed: 2.8 mph
  
• Duration: 11 min
  
• Distance: 0.5 miles
  
• Heart Rate: 138 bpm

Walk this morning was not as good as some others -- felt bloated and kind of blah. Hoping I'll feel better after I finish up my pb&j's for breakfast.

Had to go get my parents yesterday while their car was being fixed so I waited around at their house for Circuit City to call and say that their car alarm was ready so we could go back to get their van.

Mom told me in the meanwhile that she had a nightmare about me. Turns out she dreamt that I was in labor and about to deliver and refused to go to hospital because I swore up and down I didn't need to go because I was going to lay an egg. Mom yelled at me in the dream that I was being impossible but I kept insisting I was going to lay an egg at home and given the size of eggs, how hard would that be? I laughed when I heard that -- I thought I was the one who was supposed to be having the strange dreams?

Having template and comment issues... blah.

17 weeks -- whee. I just ogt off the phone with the OB's office to reschedule my appt for next month. Turns out the midwife had to go have surgery and Dr. G. is on vacation so I had to move it up a week so Dr. G. can take me if Terri is still out on medical leave.

Feeling ok -- a bit tired but overall good. If I can't find my saline spray I'm going to have to get another at the grocery. I keep waking up with nosebleeds -- sooo dry! :P

• What: treadmill walk
  
• Speed: 2.8 mph
  
• Duration: 15 min
  
• Distance: 0.7 miles
  
• Hear Rate:138 bpm
  

Quick walk before going to shower and then to the mall to shop for bras. Have to get batteries for my HRM's watch part too. I really hope I find a comfy bra because I've been living in the sports bra for what feels like ages!

[later]

Back from the mall with two new bras in a 46 D. The gal who was measuring me told me I was a 44 C and looked puzzled when I insisted I wanted bigger. While that IS what my sports bra is, sports bras are stretchy and all my other bras are underwires and getting quite annoying and pokey. After I told her I was pregnant and looking for something super comfy and loose to get me to nursing bra stage she said, "Aaaah... that explains it...." Then she went off and brought me a mess of bras with no underwires in all kinds of styles and sizes and I had a good time trying them all on. I ended up with the ones I had because even though they are loose on me, they give me the light support I'm looking for.

I have this heavy, roly-poly feeling to my uterus so I know it's growing and my boobs are either itching or tender. Add the bloody heat and really I just want to be at home naked with no clothes on at all. I just can't stand things *touching* me!

• What: treadmill walk
  
• Speed: 2.8 mph
  
• Duration: 11 min
  
• Distance: 0.5 miles
  

Woke up at 7 AM this morning feeling pretty rested. Although yesterday I threw up a little when I got up today I didn't so that was good. Energy-wise I'm still feeling upbeat so today's the 5th day already... I'm hoping it's here to stay. Seemed like a good morning to get back to walking so knocked off a short 1/2 miler to see how it was going to feel. Didn't wear my HRM although I probably should try to remember that tomorrow when I walk.

It went better than I thought it was going to be -- my sneakers still fit fine so no foot swelling yet and even though I was waiting for queasy feelings to start up like they sometimes do in water aerobics class they didn't. (Plan on going to class tonight if there's no rain but even if there is rain at least I started this again!)

I kept thinking about my shopping list... later today I have to go get new underwear and possibly some maternity shirts. I have to look around for fitness shorts to accomodate my stomach and another sports bra can't hurt. I have to ask Paul if they're having the company Xmas dinner this year or not because if they are I'm going to be at my biggest point then and I don't want to deal with rushing to find a third-trimester formal I actually like at the last minute. So far all I've seen in dressy dresses stink! :P

I'm sitting here with my face getting tighter and tighter as this clay mask dries. Pregnancy is doing weird stuff to me. All of a sudden my face, neck, chest and back are super duper oily and my arms and legs are super duper dry. Then there's the contstant itch all over my stomach. Grrr!

[later at 10:45 AM]

Itch, itch, itch. Only now it's my nipple too! Had my morning appt. today with Terri (the midwife) but she wasn't there yet so the Dr. G (the OB) took it instead. Had blood drawn to check for defects and got papers to go have the glucose test done at another lab. I get another one around 24 or 25 weeks -- joy! Gained a bit since last month, no problems with the pee stick test. Looked for the heartbeat with that little doppler machine and Dr. G. joked that it must be a girl when the room filled with that fast, squidgy "badoompadoompadoomp" noise. Paul asked if there was any truth to that myth about fast ones being girls and slow ones being boys and Dr. G. said there wasn't anything scientific behind it but it was fun to guess... and that it was bound to be one or the other. We really like him -- such a jolly man.

[later at 1:06 PM]

Back from errands and feeling a bit disgusted with my cereal lunch. I wanted oat cereal and was thinking along the lines of Cheerios but then Lucky Charms was $2 off and I hadn't had those in years so I thought it would be a nice change. I don't remember all these colors or shapes of marshamallows. I just remember the yellow moon, orange stars, pink hearts and blue diamonds. And they certainly didn't turn my milk a greeny grey color! Ew. I also thing the oat cereal part was chunkier and more of it. I have a feeling I'm going to end up getting Cheerios after all to mix in with this and cut down on the marshamallow ratio.

Dropped my car off and got it back just now with two new tires, the new hubcaps put on, new brake pads and my fluids changed. Paul had followed me to drop it so we could go on to lunch and boy! Getting in and out of his low Talon is definitely a challenge when I'm 4 mos along. I'm not getting in it in third trimester if I can help it. Geesh!

Lalalala! I slept sooo good last night! Hooray! :)

Have to go get my tires rotated and my oil changed in a bit and while that's being done Paul and I are going to lunch. I have no idea where.

Hit 16 weeks Thursday... "Cletus-the-fetus" is still playing knock-knock, and I'm still gaggy or headachey but I'm starting to feel perkier. It's been two days now and I haven't felt the need to take more than one nap in the evening.

Why is Tim Burton remaking Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Why not make any other Roald Dahl story that hasn't been done yet?

So I made the muffins I started this morning. I got it from allrecipes.com:

Orange Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats
  
• 1 cup orange juice
  
• 1/2 cup butter
  
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  
• 1/3 cup white sugar
  
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
  
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
  
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  
• 1 cup raisins (optional)
  

Directions

1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease or paper-line muffin pans.

2 In a small bowl soak oats in orange juice and water for 15 minutes.

3 In a large bowl cream together butter or margarine and sugars. Beat in eggs and oat mixture.

4 In a separate bowl, blend flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and nutmeg. Stir into batter. Stir in vanilla and raisins. Spoon batter into prepared muffin pans, filling 2/3 full.

5 Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) until golden brown, about 20-25 minutes

It needs some or all that butter changed to applesauce or pumpkin because it SOAKED my paper muffin liners. Ick. It also needs cinnamon, possible nuts, and a dash or orange essence to make it more orange-y. It's got potential though so I'll just have to play with it until I get it to where I want it.

My brother-in-law told me that in second trimester things hopefully will ease up and that in third trimester I'm allowed to hit Paul so we can further share the joys of later pregnancy together. And silly me thought I could just punch him any ol' time I felt like it! >;)

Headache out there on the fringes of my conciousness... I need more Cherry Coke. I started to make oatmeal raisin muffins for breakfast and then realized I have no baking powder. Duh. Grocery trip in a while... I just shoved all the batter int he fridge and went to bed.

I did feel a bit energetic this morning though -- to be up cleaning the kitchen and living room before dawn and winding up baking? Maybe it will stick around! Hurt my butt though after standing for so long. My posture must be whacked. Bending over was definitely a new thing -- so far it was just getting up out of bed but now I can add bending over to the list of physical movements that feel different while pregnant.

Back from endoc. Labs were fine but Dr. H. (endoc.) expects my thyroid needs to go up by the time I get to third trimester so labs again in 6 weeks and then 12 weeks. I got stuck in the finger to check my blood sugar too and it was fine. Even so Dr. H. wants me to tell Dr. G (OB) to keep an eye on my insulin resistance and watch out for gest. diabetes just in case. Nrrrgh... I bet sooner or later someone is going to make me do a glucose tolerance test and the idea of drinking that sugary stuff grosses me out!

Tues it rained, and it looks like rain again today. Will I ever see the pool again?!

At 1 AM last night I made Paul go with me to the 7-11 to get me a cherry coke because my headache would not quit. The caffeine helped so today after the endoc. appt. I'm going to pick up a box of cherry cokes to have on hand. I hate these headaches as much as I hate walking around gagging at everything I see.

Cletus-the-fetus is super active. We hold these conversations in my head:

Me: Baby, stop beating me up.

Baby: thunkthunkthunk

Me: What are you doing in there? Tap dancing?

Baby:thunkthunkthunk

Me: Stoooop. How can I sleep with you flapping about like that?

Baby: thunkthunkthunk

Me: Oh my god, and as it gets bigger this thunking is only going to get harder.

Baby:thunkthunkwhee!

I hope it runs out of room in there quickly and stops this constant knocking. Don't get me wrong -- I'm glad Cletus is active and seemingly healthy but jeez! When does he sleep?!

I keep wondering if this fatigue is all pregnancy related or if my thyroid meds need a change. No matter how much sleep I get it never feels like enough! I see the endoc. Thurs. so he can go over my lab results with me. Then Monday it's the OB again. I feel like I was just there!

Mom called me up to check on me and I told her I just felt queasy, tired, and my boobs hurt so all I wanted to do was sleep. I'm with Wendy... where's my burst of energy? :P

I recently got a whole mess of 20+ covers and cloth diapers from ebay and I think other than one more packet of cloth diapers and then a packet of disposables to start with we should be fine. Paul was helping me sort and I was explaining how to fold a diaper into the over when I was overcome with soppy, googly, awwwwww kind of feelings because sooner or later a baby's butt was going to be in there too.

15 weeks yesterday and I'm not feeling any better. Still queasy, still super tired, still sleeping like it's going out of style. In days that's 106 days pregnant with 174 days to go. Sigh.

How nerdy is this? I had a dream that we named the baby and it turned out that his or her name (dream was not clear about this) was somehow related to the Fibonacci series if you changed the letters of the name to the corresponding number in the alphabet. (A = 1, B=2, C=3 etc.) In the dream I dreamt I woke up and was trying to tell Paul about how interesting it was only he was not paying me any attention because he was standing on the bed trying to spackle the ceiling.

I remember Greg telling us that when Donna was pregnant he dreamt that she gave birth to puppies and he told her he just KNEW he wasn't the father so he wasn't going to be responsible for them.

I feel disoriented and I have this nagging vision of flower petals on daisies... that whole numbers in nature thing.

Felt bad yesterday -- gaggy, and queasy and threw up once. This led to poor eating, and subsequently, headaches and the shakes from hunger later at night. Today I was still gaggy, but I went out and am forcing myself to eat toast or applesauce every few hours just to have something in my stomach. Can't tolerate milk unless it's got strawberry mix in it. Had a better dinner but then I threw some of that up too. Bah.

My parents took us out to dinner for our anniversary today. When Mom saw me she laughed and patted my stomach and told me I was starting to show. I'll have to take a good look before I bathe tonight. Mom and I shared some duck while Paul and dad went with chicken. They gave us a calling card that's 1250 minutes! What a cool gift! :)

On the pregnancy front -- that weird ache? I figured out it was my bum. Sigh. I was hoping to avoid that whole constipated/stool softener deal but after my last visit to the bathroom, I'm going to have to think about it or change my diet. 'Nuff said.

Whit asked me if I was showing yet or what and I told him I wasn't sure... I know my boobs are bigger, my waist is bigger, I'm looking rounder all over and I have this new, "heavier" feeling to my lower abs. Oh, and my uterus can be felt if I'm laying down pressing on my stomach so it's grown past the pubic bone. Not much, but I can feel it. I no longer like laying down on my stomach. Cletus-the-fetus was either pissed off about the applesauce I ate or really liked it because I felt those fluttery things starting up again soon after I finished it.

On the crochet front, I found another "from the neck down" pattern for a sweater, hat, and booties so I'm working on it. I'm done with the yoke and really, I think if I made the front flaps a little long and just kept on going with it, then slapped a zipper on it it would make a nice bunting as well. Made some booties I hated and undid. I've yet to find a bootie pattern I really like a lot though...

14 weeks. Despite my long list of things to do, I've been limiting my errands to one a day and today was going to my lab appt. at the endoc. so they can check my thyroid levels. I caused quite a stir after the nurse drew blood because I got woozy and promptly threw up. Morning sickness strikes again! They made me go lay down until a doc could look at me but ended up letting me go after checking my pulse and blood pressure which were fine. Julie (doc) knows I'm pregnant. Plus, once I throw up I feel much better... I just wish it would quit for real instead of making me think I'm done and then popping up unexpectedly.

Rainy out... how much do you want to bet the pool is called off tonight? Sigh.

Yesterday Dad gave me his "you shouldn't be jumping around" lecture and today when they came over for a few minutes BOTH my parents gave me the "you shouldn't be doing X" lecture. I have no idea what they think I must be doing all day long... hangliding? Parachuting? Scuba diving? Trapeze acts? But it's starting to annoy me, esp. when what I really am doing is napping or doing sedentary things like reading or crochet. I not as active as I'd been and while this bothers me a bit I certainly don't think I'm doing anything soooo major that it's endangering me or baby so... push off! And leave me be!

Paul has is having fun. From an e-mail that's making the rounds of our relatives:

Greetings and Salamanders,

Enter the contest of a lifetime.... Name That Kid! Win valuable prizes!

http://www.sirgalahad.org/cgi-bin/namethatkid.pl

For the current results:

http://www.sirgalahad.org/cgi-bin/kidresults.pl

Pass it on to those I don't have the addresses for.

-paul

Feel free to play along. Note the heavy Robotech influence on possible name combinations. We suspect my BIL. :)

Diaper Sewing. Mind boggling!

Had a nice weekend. Out to lunch and to spend our gift card from Karen Saturday, then took my parents to lunch and to price baby cribs on Sunday. I think mom and dad enjoyed visiting baby stores and looking at how different things are. I know my mom loooooves little shoes. She always complains about not having kept our Buster Brown and Dynamite Kid shoes. Dad and Paul had a good time playing with toys. Paul's come around to a splurge on a Britax car seat. We're going middle of the road on the stroller. The crib? Haven't yet narrowed that down but niether of us like the ones with plastic rail track fittings. He was laying down and looking under all the cribs complaining. I wanted a Simmons beauty rest baby mattress and that was no contest. Since I convinced him on a Simmons when we replaced our queen set he's been a convert.

Busy week ahead so we can enjoy our 3 day weekend. Fri and Sat we're planning on alone time and Sun. we have to take Iggy home to Angie, one of my SILs. We talked to her last night but I forgot to ask her the size of the new cage. (We're building her one.)

While she had me on the phone she told me that she and Donna (another SIL) have been talking about throwing me a baby shower. I told her that was really sweet of them and that I only had 2 requests -- that it be a "couples" shower so Paul can come rather than an "all girls" one, and that it be in Dec. or Jan so Karen can come because she won't be here for the birth. I don't know that I'm going to register any where for a baby shower. If people ask me what we'd like I'll probably just make a wishlist and people can go from there.

I'm not a name brand type of shopper and I'm totally fine with things 2nd hand. Paul and I plan on buying the major things ourselves so I don't want people overextending themselves. I got a lot of maternity clothes coming in the mail and I've been eyeing small toy lots and cloth diaper lots on ebay as well. We haven't had time to do to much of the thrift store circuit yet but that's always nicer in fall and winter when it is cooler.

Last night I didn't sleep well. All weekend my boobs felt too big and last night they were itching or throbbing. It was so bad I wanted to cry! I was surprised when I took a closer look that I leaked a drop of clear stuff from the right side. I wasn't expecting this kind of boobage problem so soon. Drag! :P

Yesterday I finished a blue, light blue and light green baby afghan. SO last night to use up the scrap sof yarn I had left I made a little sweater with a green top and sleeves, and then blue stripes on the bottom rather than a whole solid color one. Other than the sleeves I didn't have to attach any pieces and working from the neck down was a nice change. I like the seamless hat better than the hat pattern that went with the sweater so I made a green one. It's the same pattern I used to make Nancy's Jacob. Still had a tiny bit of blue yarn left so I tried to make some booties that tie with a ribbon and my goodness! I must have tried it two or three times before I got mad and just went with a different pattern. I may give it one more shot tonight but I swear the directions for the first pair must be screwy somewhere... The corn bunting I found cracked me up... I'll think about making it...

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/200.html

Rained. No pool. Poo. :P

Instead I cleaned up the kitchen and some of the living room and then sacked out with a heat pad for the cramps. Still have a lot more to clean in the kitchen and the living room but I'm glad it's moving along. I can't have people over here remodeling my kitchen if they can't get into it or get to the pass thru form the other side!