OMGWTFUPDATE

Hallo!

I know, I know, I haven't updated in ages. My bad. But as I have pointed out to several people, there are only so many ways you can say "Today I vomited and slept"! However, things are better, so I will give you a breakdown.

Things are great on the babby front! On Thursday I will be 18 weeks along. My blood pressure was, at last check, stable at 130/80, and I had a surprise ultrasound last week. When I went to my regularly scheduled doctor's appointment on the 30th, he was unable to find the heartbeat (not surprising, considering the layers of fat that poor audio ultrasound had to try to wade through), so even though my ultrasound was originally scheduled for Friday the 13th, he was able to get me in on November 3rd. They called the day before and said, "Your appointment is at 12:30; please drink one litre of water two hours before arriving." This seemed like an okay plan to me. I mean, you need to have to have a full bladder for pelvic ultrasounds, right? What nobody warned me about is that IT IS FREAKIN' PAINFUL. I couldn't even stand up properly, it hurt so bad; I slowly limped into the hospital in a hunched over position. It eventually got to the point where I thought, "I am just going to pee myself here and now, in public, fully clothed, and I don't even care." The other part that would have been comforting to know while I was in all this agony was that it was totally worth every minute of it. My eyes filled right up as soon as I saw my little baby's heart beating on the monitor (139 beats mer pinute), and it's little arms moving. My next ultrasound is scheduled for the 23rd of this month, and I am going to ask the technician to look for gender then. Yay!

My vomiting has eased off SO MUCH. It's such a relief! I still need to take my pills in the evening, which is a bit of a bother considering they cost $60 for two weeks worth and we're a bit strapped for cash. However, it keeps the vomit away, for the most part, so that's great! My food choices are no longer limited, which helps, though I still need to keep away from very oily/greasy foods (which is probably good advice even if vomiting is not a risk). Smells still set me off something terrible, though...especially garlic. However, Addison's natural scent no longer puts me off enough that he has to sleep on the couch. He's very happy about this, because it's better for his neck that way (the moral of the story is "never break your neck"). While I am emotionally happy about this - frankly, it gets lonely not being able to be in close proximity to your husband AT ALL for months - it is still physically bothersome since I have such a hard time finding a comfortable position to sleep in. If I lie on my back, my upper right thigh falls asleep, but if I roll on my side, my hands fall asleep! I'll have to figure something out soon...

Addison and I have been busy otherwise, too! First we had a string of parties: Sarah's birthday party, Addison's birthday party, and a Halloween party. Oh, and I had to rush my rat Carina to the vet last week because she broke a bone in her foot and it was swollen. The vet also found a tumor on her, which is how one of our last ratzorz, Izzy, died :( But rats have a genetic pre-disposition to mammary tumors, so what with having four rats, it was sort of inevitable. She's still in good health for the time being, though, so we'll see how that plays out.

Despite us only being ten days into the month of November, Addison and I have been kept busy by National Novel Writing Month! I originally heard about it and signed up for it in '05, but I never did it. However, it is strongly connected to our writing group, Freddy Words, and since Addison wanted to do it as well, I figured what the heck! And I suppose this will be the last year for a while where I'll have the luxury of time to do it, what with babby pending. Anyway, you can check out my author profile here, and we have lots of fun events all throughout the month! This is double great for me because I have been cooped up at home for the last few months being sick and sleeping, and I miss getting out and seeing people. Anyway, it has been a good time so far, and I am already halfway to the 50,000 word goal.

That is all for now. I will try my best to update as we get more babby info, and I will for sure update after the next ultrasound. Take care, all!

Mouldwich

I love Addison very much. And I can't say how much I appreciate that he is taking care of me and making most of my food for me.

...But mould and pregnant ladies just don't mix. <insta-hurl />

On the topic of orange juice

As I pour myself some low-acid orange juice (thanks, Addison!) to take my nausea pills, it occurs to me that I probably don't really need it - the low acidity, not the pills. I know that frequent heartburn is supposed to be a common symptom of early pregnancy, but I honestly have heartburn so often ANYWAY that I don't know that I would notice any increase in it, lol!

I have actually noticed a pointed decrease in my heartburn levels. I believe that it's becuase the crap that I usually eat that gives me heartburn - rich foods, greasy foods, and cheese - are the foods that I can't afford to put into my stomach unless I want them to come back up. Huh, go figure.

:)

Kaytlyn

Baby purchase ideas?

Through a series of annoying events in which I was let down for the first time by an ebay seller, I am currently sitting on $20 worth of gift certificates from ebay (which, incidentally, is $10 less than the money I paid for an item I never received) which may expire at some point in the near future.

As much as I would love to spend this money on frivolous fun things (Conversations with Carl Sagan? Heck yes!), I feel that I should use this towards baby acquisitions. However, I have run into two problems:

1. I don't really know where to start, and there are a jillion different categories in the "baby" section of ebay
2. Baby stuff isn't cheap, and $20 doesn't go that far

So is there anything reasonably priced that anyone who has kids can point me towards that they went, "Oh, I definitely needed this!" when they gave birth?

-Kaytlyn

Only losers sleep through the night

Since I created this blog both to entertain myself and my audience, I figure now is as good a time as any to post.

I think it's funny when you hear people say, "You'll never sleep through the night once the baby arrives!" Yeah, that's just spiffy, but I'm not actually sleeping through the night now. I know part of it is because I work in the night, and my sleep time is shifted from 2am to 10am, but it's just gotten worse since I've been pregnant. I mean, between the nausea and the extreme discomfort (I HATE being touched!), it's practically impossible to sleep at night.

I need 8 hours of sleep a night. If I get more or less than that, I'm drowsy and totally useless. However, the way things are going now, it's impossible to get 8 consecutive hours, so I sleep for an hour or two before Addison wakes up, four hours after he leaves, and a random number of hours in the evening. Plus I need to nap everytime I lose my lunch, and since I'm so overtired, a nap can sometimes accidentally span several hours in the evening.

And, of course, if I'm TOO nauseous I can't sleep no matter what. So that's making things worse too. I am not really sure what to do to regulate my schedule. I mean, I know that I should be getting more than my 8 hours, since fatigue is normal during early pregnancy and taking naps can be beneficial, but I still wish I could regulate it somehow.

As I mentioned, I hate being touched, too. For the most part. Sometimes I need a hug, but other people's natural scents is really bothering my stomach, and if I'm warm or sore I just don't want to be touched. This is making it so that it's nearly friggin' impossible to sleep with Addison in the bed! I can't wait for his alarm to go off in the morning so I can have the whole bed to myself! Grrr. This double-sucks because I LOVE Addison and want to be close to him emotionally, but can barely stand to be with him physically!

Thoughs? Suggestions? Other mother's advice would also be beneficial.

Kaytlyn

PS: I've changed the settings on my blog so that you don't have to sign up to leave a comment - this'll be great for people like my parents! Also, I've added Addison as a contributer to this blog, so hopefully I'll be able to convince him to input some of his thoughts. Give him so comment love to encourage him, too! -K

Keeping Track

Things I definitely can eat:

• plain white rice (not very appetizing)
• dry toast (also not very appetizing)
• lipton chicken noodle soup
• sushi of the salmon variety

Things I seriously cannot eat:

• anything excessively greasy
• anything excessively sugary

Smells that make me wanna hurl:

• burning
• smoke
• cooking garlic powder
• lemon cleaner

Things that soothe the nausea:

• the smell of peppermint
• water - on the inside OR the outside

Kaytlyn

ETA: Coconut cream pie fixes everything.

What's that - you're hungry? HAH!

I am being seriously pwned by my stomach. Blah.

When I was first having a hard time eating, Mum said, "Eat soda crackers." Makes sense, right? Saltines and all that.

One night while working for Mum at the tea shop, I was hungry...but nothing appealed to me. Then I remembered what Mum said about soda crackers. They carry these 4-packs of soda crackers for serving with soup, so I ate one. And then another. And another. And before I realized it, I'd ingested 5 or 6 packages of crackers. I finished work at midnight and thought, "Screw this, I am going to go buy myself a massive package of crackers."

So I did! I bought a ginormous package of crackers!

We're talking 16 times more than this, SRSLY

I went home and immediately ate 1/8 of them. OH MAN were they ever good!

The next day I had a similar problem, so I had Addison bring me a bowl full of crackers. I put one in my mouth. And immediately spit it out. That's right, I couldn't even stomach soda crackers anymore. Sometimes I think that there's someone out to get me.

Hilarious side note: I have discovered something that I can eat that will not, under any circumstances, make me ill. Go on, guess. Give up?

Sushi.

Kaytlyn