18 weeks! 4 days to go!

I've been waiting for this week!!  Less than 4 days to go until our anatomy scan and we get to find out if little Petey Nugget is a boy or girl!!!  At this point, Hubs has me so convinced it's a boy I think even I will be surprised if it's a girl!  I honestly do not have a preference either way though, I'm just so excited to find out!! (And I'll share on here, of course.)

Here's da bump:

I'm gonna do a list this week!
 
Weight gain: +4.5 lbs
Size of baby: Sweet potato/green pepper depending on which website I look at
Cravings: Nothing really. I'm very focused on my scheduled eating this week due to the blood sugar testing 4x/day
Symptoms: (I'm a little afraid to pull the trigger on this one because it tricked me last time but...) The nausea seems to be letting up and I haven't puked in almost a week!  Hoorah! Besides that, I'm still quite tired most of the time and I feel the pulling/pinching of the round ligament pain many times/day.  I also experienced the elusive 'lightening-crotch' for the first time the other day. Coincidentally, the pain seared through my vag at the exact time I happened to be speaking in a meeting at work which caused me to stop mid-sentence and do this: 

I think people were confused.

Rings: Still on but getting tight...
Maternity clothes: Pants are a must but I haven't crossed over into tops yet and am still just wearing my largest/longest ones. I'm hoping I still have a few more weeks before I need to buy some. 
Stretch marks: Oh yes. I am a zebra. I'm going to choose to think of them as the battle scars of IF made visible so that I can appreciate why they are there and that they got me to where I am now. 
Belly button: Will still be an innie for a while but getting rounder and more shallow
Bewbs: Still tender and my nips are chameleons; they seem to be a different shade of pink every other day. Today for instance, they are a lovely tie-dyed mixture of peachy/coral/pink.  Interesting. 
Sleep: Ugh.  A typical night: 

• Go to bed around 10:30,
• shift around and adjust pillows/snoogle for 20ish mins to find comfy position,
• force Hubs to rub my back because it feels like all my vertebrae shift out of position when I lay on my side,
• fall asleep and snore like a bear until 2-3am,
• get up to pee,
• go back to bed and shift around/lay awake feeling ill until at least 4am,
• get up to pee again,
• give up and go into the guest bedroom hoping that the change of scenery will help me fall asleep (which, on a good night happens quickly, and on a normal night just causes me to lay awake in a different bed hoping not to puke while I eventually fall back to sleep),
• wake up around 7am ready to pee my pants.

Movement: Nothing yet but I'm hoping to feel something soon! 
Best moment of the week: We got all our integrated genetic screening results back and everything came back negative which means the baby has a very low risk for trisomy 18, neural tube defects, and downs syndrome!  YAY!!!
Looking forward to: Going crib-shopping for the first time tomorrow and then anatomy scan on Tuesday! Can't wait!!

Pricks.

Finger pricks that is! I've been doing a lot of this lately:

 Luckily, I have some experience with sticking myself with needles thanks to IF...

Funny story; when I searched googleimages for "finger prick" this gem appeared:

LOL!

Anywho, I've been sticking needles into my fingers 4 times/day lately because I met with an OB and high-risk nurse at my clinic earlier this week to discuss how my PCOS/insulin resistance might affect my pregnancy, and they decided I should test my blood sugar for the next week to see what we're working with. If my levels indicate that I already have issues regulating my blood sugar then they'll consider me 'high-risk'; I'll have to go in twice a week every week until the end of my pregnancy for monitoring (yikes), and they'll pretty much treat me like I've got the 'Diabeetus' even if I don't actually have it.

It's only been a couple days but so far so good with most of the BS readings. I reaaaaaally hope I don't fail this test.  As long as everything is good I don't need to worry and can just continue on like normal and then go in and do the regular fasting glucose test that all pregnant women take around 26 weeks (that's the one where you fast then drink the gross sugary drink and get your blood tested 1 hr later and 2 hrs later). Fingers crossed!

At the appointment we also discussed me continuing on 1500mg Metformin daily.  Apparently the medical community is somewhat divided on whether or not pregnant women who were on Met prior to pregnancy should stay on it or not. I personally want to stay on it because I feel better on it,  there have been studies showing it actually helps with breastfeeding (women will PCOS can have troubles BF), and there have been no adverse effects found in infants born to pregnant women taking Met. Soooo, it seems silly to me that I should go off of a medication that is helping me with my insulin resistance, when pregnancy already increases a normal (non-IR) woman's resistance to insulin! Wouldn't that be rather counter-productive and just ensure that I would indeed end up developing gestational diabetes?  Luckily, my doctors agree and all seem to come down on the same side of the debate that I do so I'll be staying on it. Victory!

Can I just not talk to people until the baby's born?

I swear, people are dumb.  Especially people I work with apparently.  (This would be my Annoyance of the week from my last blog post.)

Why do so many people seem to lose all sense of boundaries when it comes to pregnant women?  Just because I am growing a baby doesn't give you free reign to examine and comment on my body. Yes, my body is changing. Believe me, I am well aware of that fact and do not need you to point it out to me.

Why yes, yes you do.

Let's examine the comments I've already received, shall we?:

    "Wow, your breasts are much bigger!"  Yup. Thanks for noticing?

   "I can't stop staring at your chest!" Good for you?  You should probably try though since it's unbelievably inappropriate at work.

   "I thought you looked pregnant but didn't want to say anything in case you had just gained more weight." MORE weight, eh?  Thanks (bitch).

   "I bet you have stretch marks now, huh?" Yes actually but it's certainly not something I want to discuss with you, person-I-barely-know.

And last Wednesday: 
   "Wow, look at your belly! You're only 17 weeks? Even with my second kid I was barely showing at that point.  Are you sure you're not having twins?"  Fuck you.

  
Okay so it's possible I'm losing my sense of humor when it comes to all this but the twins one really pissed me off. Are you kidding me?! I'm not even big yet!! Yes, I have a growing bump but it's not like I'm 30 weeks along - shouldn't THAT obnoxious comment be saved for when I'm actually big?

In response to the twin comment all I said was "Nope, just one" and I received a: "You never knoooooow!" response. Uh, actually I DO know since they have this new fangled thing these days called an ultrasound. I can't even be bothered to play along anymore.  It probably doesn't help that I am still feeling pretty sick and exhausted most of the time so maybe when I'm feeling good (please let that happen soon!) I'll be in a better mood and these things won't bug me.

To be honest though, I know my biggest hang-up is that I'm feeling self-conscious about my rapidly changing body so I hate that people are just feeling free to have verbal diarrhea about it.  I love the reason why my body is changing and am so excited about it and love sharing it and talking about it WITH MY HUSBAND, but I do not enjoy random people I don't know very well making comments.  I've always struggled with my weight, and eating well and exercising has been so much more difficult during this pregnancy than I thought it would be.  I know what and how I should be eating but it's so hard to do that when you feel like shit all the time and food plays tricks on you (ex: lots of things don't taste the same anymore; or I go to all the trouble of making dinner and the first bite makes me want to puke...).  I guess I'm just very focused on it all right now and it doesn't help to have my fears and insecurities broadcast aloud by other people with no filter.

I'm thinking I better get used to it though since this is just the beginning.  The comments will probably be constant once I look like this:

Haha. No.

Can't wait for the unwanted belly touching to begin!  ::shudder::

17 weeks!

Wow, 17 weeks feels like kind of a lot for some reason.  I feel like I haven't even been pregnant for very long but if I double the amount of time that has already passed that would bring me to 34 weeks already! That is CRAZY to me! This is flying by!

Here's the current bump!
 

Weight gain is holding steady at +4 lbs. Baby is supposedly the size of an onion but all these fruit/veggie comparisons are awfully subjective - what's the average size of an onion? ::shrug:: Depends on what's at the grocery store.

Morning sickness is still hanging in there but seems to be a teeny tiny bit better (maybe that's just wishful thinking since I can't wait for it to start tapering off for good), but I'm back to often craving red meat and lemony things.  I think I would be content with a cheeseburger and lemonade for most meals lately.  Hubs has been cute; he has been doing all the food shopping ever since my fateful grocery store trip and each time he shops he comes home with some new lemony-flavored thing for me to try :-)

Earlier this week I met with the Nutritionist. I didn't really know what to expect with that meeting but I was so happy afterwards because I learned that her specialty is actually PCOS patients and gestational diabetes (GD) so I feel like I'm in really good hands. The main takeaway was that every pregnant woman's body has an increased resistance to insulin once they hit 24 weeks (something to do with the placenta pulling extra glucose from the mother's body to give to baby), and since I already have insulin-resistance from the PCOS I am at an increased risk for developing GD once I hit 24 weeks.  So, we discussed how I should strive to eat during my pregnancy (aim for a target number of carbs during each meal/snack to keep an even blood sugar level, and try to always pair with a protein to keep me full), and she gave me some good easy food pairing ideas. When I told her how I have been eating (i.e., not well due to all the nausea and cravings) she was completely non-judgmental and totally understood wanting to eat a certain way and just not physically being able to. I also loved that she told me multiple times that I'm doing great so far. I didn't realize that I really needed to hear that.

Awesomeness of the week (besides the nutritionist appt):  We decided which room will be the baby's room!  When going through IF I didn't let myself give it any thought because it was just too painful and even now I'm still slightly apprehensive and haven't wanted to dive in to planning/buying yet (I still have not bought ANYTHING for the baby) but I feel like this was a big step! Now I'm allowing myself to picture what the nursery might look like and where the furniture will go...  And Hubs and I decided that next weekend we will go shopping and look at cribs!! 

~~~Oh my goodness, I can't even express the flood of emotions that I just experienced typing that...I can't keep myself from tearing up thinking about the fact that this truly is our reality and I actually have a reason to go shop for a crib! I just feel so unbelievably grateful...

Ok, I have to go cry now so I'll save the Annoyance of the week for a follow up post, haha!

"Have you picked out any names yet?"

To this question I usually just say "we're still thinking about it." Honestly, I think we've already decided but I've heard horror stories from women on my BMB about all the unwanted opinions people feel free to express the moment you share the name so I'm a little gun-shy.

Along these lines, yesterday I was having a discussion with a coworker about naming your kids. First she begged me not to pick any trendy/different names (ok well, not sure how it affects you but we weren't planning to anyway) and when I said we were likely going to stick with some family names and, if it's a boy, name him after Hubs' beloved Grandpa John she proceeded to tell me she "HAAAAAATES the name John because it's soooo boring".
Okay, well fuck you very much and I never asked your opinion anyway. 

Maybe we WILL wait until the birth to share the name. Oy.