Baby Bean III

Behold, Baby Bean the Third!

One baby, one strong flickering heartbeat.

I told JP this morning that I thought it might be fun to find out we were having twins and he looked at me like I was insane. It seemed like the perfect solution to my "I like even numbers" preference and my utter hatred of pregnancy (and his utter refusal to knowingly try to knock me up again). But luckily for our finances, square footage, and general sanity, it's just one little bebe, looking very healthy and beanish, and it was very nice to meet him/her for the first time.

I like my doctor very much. She's young, I'd guess she's in her early 30's, which is new for me, but she's very warm and engaging and very clearly knows her stuff (and loves talking about it). She also has a Claire who was born the same month and year as mine- I think they're 10 days apart, and we've bonded over our respective Clairebears. We talked about my pre-term prevention steps from my last (full term!) pregnancy with Claire (for those recently tuning in, I had Landon at 35 weeks and he spent 12 days in the NICU). She suggested that I do the weekly progesterone shots again and I readily agreed. I'd already emailed my perinatal nurse from last time around to get her perspective and she recommended the same. And this time it appears that my insurance covers in-home weekly visits for the shots! I can't even tell you how excited I am about that. I'll do anything to ensure another full-term baby, but dragging myself to the OB to park, wait for a room, get a shot, and drive back to work every single week was not something I was looking forward to. I will be having another c-section, a non-negotiable for me after Landon's birth trauma, so we got to skip the VBAC discussion and move on to her feelings on deli meats and sushi.

As for me, I'm feeling pretty good for a woman in her 8th week of pregnancy. I spent my first 10 knowingly pregnant days feeling so fantastic it stressed me out and I couldn't enjoy it. Then I started feeling nauseous in the middle of the night and early in the morning and pretty much every few hours all day and it was almost a relief. Twenty-four hours of that nonsense and I wanted to go back to my blissful "I feel so great it's like I'm not even pregnant" days of stress. I can't decide if it's worse than it was with Landon or Claire (though I know I felt far more nauseous with Claire than with Landon), but I know I have to cram a cracker down my throat every 20 minutes or the room will start feeling like it's spinning and my stomach feels like it's been twisted and bounced around in a way that is mildly reminiscent of the extreme drunkenness I enjoyed (and then regretted) in college. But now I just go straight to stomach-spinning regret, bypassing the glorious "I'm a really good dancer" phase completely (and also, the actual drinking, which I only really miss in Mexican restaurants; it's going to be a long margarita-less summer). I don't have too many other symptoms- boobs a bit tender and I do stare longingly at the floor under my desk every afternoon at 2:00. I never want to sleep on the floor like I do when I'm pregnant. My insomnia is cured, so at least that's nice.

My oddest symptom so far was my first one- extreme (extreme) dizziness. It was the strangest thing. Out of nowhere, while I was sitting, walking, or once, while I was driving my car, the whole world would start spinning so fast it made me close my eyes to keep from feeling motion sick (and I've never been motion sick in my life). It started 5 days before I took the first pregnancy test, four days before my missed period, and I had never felt anything like it. The time it happened while I was driving I had to pull over and put my hazards on because I couldn't see anything in front of me. I went home and googled "extreme dizziness" and as I was typing google completed my query with "...in early pregnancy." What? I had no idea that was a symptom, but it did give me hope that this time it was going to take! Some theories suggested it was the sudden surge in blood production combined with anemia, so I added an iron pill to my regular prenatal vitamin and the dizziness went away.

All in all things are going well. I do look wistfully at the couch after dinner, wishing desperately that I could go curl up in a ball and close my eyes until the nausea and exhaustion go away (or I fall asleep and can ignore them for a while), but Landon and Claire need me awake and generally present and I've been persevering. They don't know about the baby yet, but I think they'll be excited. They've been asking for a baby to come live with us for a while now. I remain 90% excited and 10% wondering what in the hell we've gotten ourselves into- this family of four thing has really been working out well, but I started seeing a chubby little toddler running after a Claire who was running after a Landon some time ago and I can't unsee it, no matter how little sense it seemed to make at the time (are we really going back to diapers and nighttime feedings?). When I showed JP my first positive pregnancy test, he threw his hands up in the air, did a little hip thrusting dance, and sang, "Yeah!! We're crazy mother fu*kaaaaaas!!" We may well be, but I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I just need to get out my first trimester first.