in the “sick” of things

Well, my poor wife is home sick from work again today. Although we had high hopes for the gin-gins, it looks like they too are falling short of helping her feel better. Up until today, although she had been very nauseated, she had not actually thrown up. All that changed this morning. Shes a trooper though, and did try to go into work, although it didnt last long. She has a call in to the doctor to see if there is anything he can recommend. I fell terrible for her. She is the first to admit that she isnt the first woman to be pregnant, and alot of women go thru this, but its really wearing on her. She is even having difficulty keeping water down. People tell her all the time, dont worry you will forget all about being sick after you have the baby, but Jen tells me she doesnt want to forget, because she never wants to go thru this again. Im sure its harder on her because before she got pregnant, she was never sick. The ironic thing is that after years of drinking in college, i am actually quite used to being sick in the mornings. Maybe i should be the one carrying this baby. Nah, im sure she’ll do fine.

weight a minute!

So we were a little concerned to find out last nite that Jen has actually lost a few pounds. There are certain to be some fluctuations with water weight during birth, but nevertheless this was still an eyeopener. She is still having a tough time with not feeling well, and because of that, nothing sounds good, aside from the occasional grilled cheese sandwich, or (and i hate to even say this) Chicken McNuggets. Everyone weve talked to says it will get better for her, she just has to get over that “hump” (no pun intended, well maybe) of being sick. Word on the street is that the sickness and the constant feeling of exhaustion should subside around week 15. So the good news is that there IS light at the end of the tunnel, the bad news is that we are only halfway there.

did someone say sex?

A popular question when people find out we are expecting is: Are you going to find out the sex of the baby ahead of time? For the longest time, before we ever thought about having a baby, it just seemed like a no-brainer to me that we would find out beforehand, so that we could have everything bought ahead of time, and be color- coordinated, etc. But a few years ago when i asked a friend of mine whose wife was having a baby the same question, he gave me an answer that the more it sunk in, the more it resonated with me. He said, “John, there are so few real surprises in life that i cant imagine ruining the best one.” Id like to say that it hit me right at that moment what a profound answer that was, but it really didnt sink in until days or even weeks afterward. The more i thought about it, it suddenly became a no-brainer again. Why on earth would i want to know ahead of time? So that i know what color of clothes to buy? In a world where stores are putting out their Christmas stock the week after halloween, it feels refreshing to know that we wont know the sex of our baby until we have it, until we are holding it in our arms. And if our new baby has to spend the first few months of its life wearing plaid because no one knew what color to buy, thats a risk we are willing to take.

and knowing is half the battle.

Here are some random facts that youre almost certain not to care about unless you are pregnant:

1. In 1970 the average age for a first-time mother was about 21, but in today’s world the age is 25-29.

2. The average weight gain for expecting mothers in the U.S. was around 30 pounds during their pregnancy.

3. The number of multiple births has increased by more than 400 percent, yes, that’s right, 400 percent over the last 20 years.

4. Boy babies outnumber girl babies, this ratio has stayed the same over the last 6 decades.

5. Tuesday is the most popular day for babies making their arrival in the world, with Saturday being the least busiest day of the week.

parenting: not as hard as you think!

And just about the time you become overwhelmed with uncertainty about being a parent, and start second guessing your ability to raise a child, you see something like this, and suddenly you dont feel so bad. Does Hot Topic have a baby registry? I almost waited to post this on Halloween, but i think that takes away from the realism of this picture. That, and i have a feeling it wasnt taken on Halloween.

 

music, baby!

Theres an interesting article over at WebMD about music and infants. Apparently there was a study that showed playing the nocturnes of Chopin helped restless babies sleep. This would help explain how Chopin has managed to keep the top spot on the Billboard 100 since the 19th century, the 2nd longest run in history after Pink Floyds “Dark Side of the Moon.” But seriously, who is doing these studies, and how is it that in 129 years of recorded sound  the only music they mention  is Chopin? Nothing against Frederic, but throw me a bone here, could we maybe try Wilco or Radiohead the next time we run this experiment? After all, Radiohead put out a CD called “Kid A“, surely we could at least give them a shot.

gin gin makes jen grin

After trying a little bit of everything to feel better, Jen has found that Gin-Gin candies from the World Market seem to help her nausea. They are billed as the “Double Strength Ginger Hardcandy.”

We had read in the information the Doctor gave us that peppermint and ginger could help with an upset stomach, and it looks like we have a winner. This was great news, as the Metoclopram the Dr. prescribed seemed to help, but also made her very tired. You can visit the good folks who make Gin Gin at gingerpeople.com

frontier medicine

And just in case your too cheap to shell out $2.85 for a home pregnancy test, the wizards over at baby-parenting.com have put years of research and development into the Online Pregnancy Test. Feel free to take advantage of their highly scientific methods to determine if you are in fact, pregnant.

a whole mess of babies

So our good friend Dr. Richman told us that when we go in for our next appointment in 5 weeks that we will try and hear the heartbeat. We are both very excited, because this is a major milestone on the road to having a baby. We were talking last night, and there is always a chance that we will hear more than one heartbeat. When we decided a year ago to try and have children, BOTH our parents explained to us how there is a good chance we could have twins, because apparently they run on both sides of the family. But to me, if someone has to tell you they run in the family, they probably dont. It seems to me if they actually ran in the family, you would know it, you wouldnt have to be told that. But nonetheless, it was still exciting to hear, and when we shared this info with our friends who have children, we quickly learned that twins run in EVERYONES family. Apparently everyone who is pregnant or trying to get pregnant is told the same thing by their families. So at this point, we arent really expecting a multiple birth, we wouldnt mind it, and weve already picked out “twin names” just in case, but right now, we arent holding our breath.

But the idea of multiple births brings me to an interesting point. There is a fine, albeit unspoken line when dealing with multiple births. If for some reason you have twins, triplets, maybe even quadruplets, youre totally on your own and when people see you out, they think “oh my gosh, that must be a handful” and they go on. BUT, when you get up around 8, its like youve won the lottery. Now youre on Oprah, some car dealership is donating a minivan, people are donating diapers and formula, contributing to college funds, etc. I suppose its a fair trade off. I wonder how this lady made out?

7 weeks down, 33 more to go.

So, we went to the doctor(Dr. Richmond) yesterday for the initial exam and to just talk to him about all that is happening with us right now. Everything was completely normal he went over the blood work that I had done a few days prior; I now know that I do not have AIDS or gonorrhea, and that I have a B+ blood type.

As for how I’m feeling right now; I am having a lot of nausea as of the last several days and I am sooo exhausted lately, I sleep all the time. I am trying to get something for the nausea from the Dr. and have just been napping a lot. I also got on Yahoo questions today and just asked if anyone had any tips for just dealing with the symptoms and I got a lot of great responses from all the women on different things to do to help with my changing body. We are so excited about the baby! I cant wait to see what he/she may look like, its getting more real everyday.