Changing Pad and Pocket from Sewing Republic

Today I spent about 4.5 hours putting together this changing pad - pattern from http://www.sewingrepublic.com/projectPdf/ChangingPadPocket.pdf

I thought it would be pretty easy, but I ended up with a couple tough spots. First, the rounded corners aren't worth the design feature for my level of expertise. I also accidentally rounded all four corners, when the pattern only calls for two corners to be rounded. It might not have felt so frustrating if I hadn't had to do it four times. I also didn't fix the raw edges of the pocket before fixing it to the pad, which is pretty much common sense, but I didn't see it in the instructions.

Also, I continue to have a very difficult time with binding. I think I know what I did wrong this time, so the next time I bind something, I think I'll have a better time with it. Still, with tons of extra binding I somehow managed to end up with exposed raw ends on the "front" of the changing pad.

The great thing about this project was that I completed it quickly and I had everything I needed right here at home without going out for supplies. I'll probably try this again, and try to do a better job making clean stitches and just binding it like less of an idiot.

Stats

One of the books I'm reading is a pregnancy journal ("The Pregnancy Journal") that gives you a little entry for each day of the pregnancy. It also gives you little prompts and asks you to write about symptoms and feelings and whatnot. It also wants you to write down your weight and waist size. The book is brand new and I'd like to be able to sell it when I'm done, so I'm not writing in it.

I'm not willing to measure my waist right now, but my weight this morning was 129.8. I was hoping to finish this trimester at 130 pounds which means I'm going to have to do some calorie control and exercise. I'm only 5'2 which means that my starting weight of 127lbs puts me at a BMI of 24, or just barely south of overweight. I've hovered there for the last 5ish years and always hoped to get a little bit thinner before getting pregnant. It never happened. Anyway, the scale remains my guide and this journal serves as my evidence.

More reading and more symptoms

When I found out I was pregnant the firs thing I wanted to do was read every book I could get my hands on. My husband suggested that I look into the site "swap.com" and so I spent an entire evening logging all our existing reading material into this website so I could see if anyone wanted to trade my cookbooks for their pregnancy reading. I ended up getting 3 interesting books which thus far help to satisfy my thirst for knowledge about pregnancy.

I also created a new twitter account when we started trying to get pregnant so I could follow and befriend other people trying to get pregnant. I ended up getting hooked up with a couple different news article crawling twitter accounts and since then I've been reading practically every new study on pregnancy that's out there. Among the most frustrating are two articles that came out very recently, one saying that babies of mothers who overeat during pregnancy are predisposed to obesity and the other say that babies of mothers who undereat during pregnancy are predisposed to obesity. Between the two articles I'm completely baffled about what to do. I also read that if I eat crappy foods while pregnant, my kid will only want to eat crappy foods once they arrive. The problem is that I'm already developing some nausea when I get close to veggies. I'm not surprised by this since, generally speaking, I hate vegetables and have to force them on myself under the best of circumstances.

In other news my breasts have gone from "sore" to "downright painful". I'm already not a great sleeper. Because of back pain, I tend to flip over multiple times during the night and since I developed this lovely symptom, every time I flip over, the discomfort basically wakes me up completely. Yay! So I've resigned myself to employing the assistance of my most supportive sports bar day and night.

I also had my first creepy pregnant dream, which honestly I had hoped to avoid although I knew that wasn't likely. I used to have crazy wedding dreams before and during my wedding planning, so I kinda knew it was coming. Last night, I dreamed I delivered the baby, fed it, and then returned later and it was some kind of loaf of bread. I was freaking out that something terrible had happened, but my husband and others kept assuring me everything was fine. Awesome.

I'm only 5 weeks, 2 days, and I can't yet wrap my mind around feeling like this (not just the physical symptoms, but also the anticipation) for another 35 weeks. I mean, how is that even possible?

ob GYN

Met my new OB-GYN today and have to say the whole thing was totally anti-climactic. First, it was basically just a pap that resulted in a script for a blood test. The doc is not exactly what I had hoped, so I'll probably try to meet a few others in addition to talking to some midwives. If I end up in a hospital birth situation, I really wanted to deliver at Providence Tarzana Medical Center because it's relatively close to our house and has one of the lower rates of c-section in local hospitals. However, there's only one other doctor on my insurance that has privileges at Tarzana. My thinking originally was that hospitals are a certainty and you never really know if you'll get your doctor on that day. I'm still feeling that way (especially with my Christmas due date) but I just really wish I had felt ANY connection with the doc.

Anyway, I'm due back for my next appointment complete with an ultrasound in three and a half weeks, when I'm 8 weeks along. By then, I plan to have a long list of questions so that I can try to crack that doc into a little more conversation and connection.

Fat already?

First, to follow up on my last post, I did go to Yoga at our local studio, Urban Lily. The teacher was a sub, but she was awesome in helping me with my technique and letting me know what I could and couldn't do. I'll definitely go to that class again, especially since there were only 2 students in the entire class including me. For my money, $10 is a small price to pay for that type of instruction. On the "con" side of things, I didn't really feel like I was doing anything. It definitely wasn't strengthening, stretching maybe, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be getting more out of the breathing than I was. I bought 10 classes, so I'm hoping that over all I'll learn something by the time I'm done.

On to other things, I have never felt fatter in my life even though according to the scale and my pants I have, in fact, been fatter. Still, the scale went way up in the last week, and I'm frustrated by it. I'm bloated, and I think there's definitely some water weight in there, but I'm resolving to pay more attention to my diet. Today I rocked some cheerios, a PB&J, some beef jerky, a baked potato w/broccoli and cheese and some excellently prepared flank steak. There's no way I'll be heavier tomorrow...I hope.

Anyway, I'm ready for the bloating and the FAT to be done. GROSS.

Sunday One

Less than a week into my knowledge of this pregnancy, this is my Sunday:

Got up "weekend" early to go to volunteer work I had arranged earlier in the week. TreePeople planted some trees in our local park (about 1 mile from our apartment) and they needed tending to since Parks & Req hadn't done much to maintain them. It's freaking stupid hot here already and so Robert and I were sweating from the get go. We worked together (wearing matching Disney VoluntEAR t-shirts, mind you) tending to trees for about an hour before we decided that the rest of the crowd could handle the 5 or so remaining trees and took off for home. On the ride back, we discussed the fact that when we have kids and take them to volunteer, we can't slink off in the middle when we get uncomfortable less we risk having a child who's as lousy at follow-through as we are.

Made lunch, made white bean salad, made pasta sauce for freezing. Got pasta sauce on BRAND NEW t-shirt and now praying it doesn't stain. I have an entire closet full of awesome but stained t-shirts. What idiot wears a brand new t shirt to make pasta sauce? Yeah, I know, and I'm procreating too.

Now sitting on the sofa (Robert is asleep watching NASCAR) and obsessively adding books to my "want" list on swap.com from lists on amazon.com. I'm not big on purchasing books, but I am a big reader, especially of non-fiction so researching pregnancy, childbirth, & baby stuff sounds truly joyful. I'm also watching the Phillies game on MLB.tv.

As of today, by my count, I am 4 weeks, 2 days pregnant. I am constantly hungry, which is nuts considering that I've already had half a pb&j for breakfast, some scary healthy green juice, and half a bag of "chicken voila!" which has like 500 calories in it. I guess I'll hit up the white bean salad in a few for some fiber and hopefully finally feel full. I'm up about 1/2 a pound in the 5 days since seeing the happy little plus sign on the pee stick. My goal, of course is to be the same weight at the end of trimester one as when I found out. It's probably a lofty goal, but I know that I don't have to gain a lot of weight early on and I could stand to lose some weight. So, I'm making every effort to get more veggies and eat the full amount of calories to sustain my weight.

I also seem to be experiencing bloating, sore breasts, and a touch of nausea so far. I'm bloated enough to make my buy a pair of leggings at Target yesterday (where I also gazed longingly at baby stuff) and dread getting back into my fat girl jeans for work tomorrow.

In other news my excitement at procreating has gotten me thinking about getting my sewing machine out again, although my husband has basically said he won't approve of anything baby related until we're out of trimester one. So, I got out an old project, a quilt I'm making for my niece Lydia, and starting working on it again. I might be able to get it finished before she comes out to visit us in July. I've been working on it for over a year, so it would be nice to get it completed. I also have a quilt I'm making for a friend for her wedding that I could work on. I have plans for much baby junk though. Quilts, toys, and maybe a few pieces of clothes.

And to round out Sunday, I'm heading out to a Yoga class in about an hour. I bought Ali Sweeney's "Mommy Diet" book and she recommends Yoga for strength, endurance, and learning to control your breathing. She says it pays great dividends during delivery. I've always wanted to do Yoga, but I'm fully embarrased at just how not flexible I am. I decided I'll give it a go (supporting a local business after all) and if I like it, I can make it my "weekend" excercise activity since my gym is closed on weekends.

Next weekend we're on the road to San Diego to see my Phillies in person, so it was nice to have this weekend at home to veg a little and consider our home life in light of our expanding family.

I'm still nervous that something will happen and we'll lose this pregnancy, but each day I get a little more confident. I'm due to see the doctor on Wednesday - it's really early to see a doctor but I'm a new patient so I think that's why they're brining me in so early on. I'm excited to talk to him and get his thoughts on our plans for pregnancy and delivery.

And then there would be 3

So after methodical tracking of periods and cervical fluid and use of 3 ovulation predictor tests, I pinpointed the best time to have sex and tried to get my husband to follow my lead. In the end, we managed to get to it only once in my "fertile window" which is five days long. Since then I've been stuck wondering and hoping, but not hoping too hard. I hope both for a pregnancy and for an end to the drama of timing and waiting. We'd done it exactly once and I already knew why infertility was so crummy on a day to day basis. I wanted to parts of it, but naturally feared the worst.

Fears turned out to be completely unfounded.

After one measley little deposit, I'm totally knocked up. I'm actually a little in awe of my body and his body and our collective ability to get things done. I should be surprised since he's one of three children and I'm the biological child of someone who got pregnant on an "oops". Still, it's thrilling and almost unbelievable.

I wasn't actually feeling particularly pregnant and I was going to wait until tomorrow when my period would actually be late, but my husband wanted me to test last night, so we compromised on this morning. I laid in bed a long time this morning because I didn't want to get a negative result, so I was holding on to the not knowing as long as possible. I tried to be non-shalant about it, but the pregnancy test box was touting 84% accuracy for one day before missed period, so I was nervous too. I took the test, tried not to look and went about my daily pre-work routine in front of the mirror. I glanced at it, of course, about 30 seconds later and the little plus sign was already forming. I couldn't believe it.

So I waited, hopped around a little, still positive. Put on my robe, started sweating, checked again, still positive. So I woke up my husband to give him the news. He couldn't believe it. We went back and forth for about 10 minutes about how we couldn't believe it. I really can't and not in a "wow I'm euphoric" kind of way, but more in a "this wouldn't happen in real life" kind of way. Plus, understand I don't feel different...at all.

So I called my mother and father, immediately gave them the news, and reminded them that while I was telling them, I really shouldn't be. They had a great happy reaction, but it wasn't quite the moment I had envisioned. I think this is because it all happened so fast and I still didn't really feel like it was real.

I went quietly about my day at work, trying to focus on my work but occasionally becoming side tracked by due dates, OBGYNs, and daycare. 12 hours later it feels more real, but not totally real. I'll probably take another pregnancy test in a few days.

As it stand though, the baby would be is due on 12/23.