Growing Belly and Tummy Flutters

My belly is now a small pot. Not very noticeable to most, but for me it is very noticeable. I had to graduate to Old Navy pregnancy jeans this week. Just couldn't fasten my pants anymore. One annoyance is that there are almost no workout clothes for pregnant people out there. Thank goodness for eBay. I bought some great discontinued Nike maternity clothes from formerly pregnant eBayers. In other news, I felt a flutter or tickle or butterfly in my stomach a few days ago. It took my breath away and made me laugh. I got out our book and it said that the baby moved enough for me to feel it. I called Drew to tell him and he thought that was pretty exciting. I am now in my 16th week, and still feeling great. Can't wait to get to Colorado next week to visit our families in Ouray!

Morning Sickness (Boston & ACL)

A little self pity here. The term "morning sickness" was not the case for me. It lasted all day long. The only time I felt ok was when I was asleep, so I slept a lot. Sickness started around July 20 and it lasted until September 21. It wasn't really nausea; instead it was similar to the after effects of hitting the Halloween candy really hard for a few hours -- sick, lethargic, and like being one step away from fainting. It was hard to exercise or eat normally, much less do anything social. Thank God for Drew! He made me lots of soup, took care of Abby, and did all the laundry, food shopping and dishes. And Abby liked to rest on the couch with me during this time. One great day I woke up and my sickness was over. Woohoo!

This month we visited the Tuffys near Boston for a week. The three kids are a lot of fun, and we had a good time visiting the Cape and the Vineyard with old friends. Then just this past weekend Bo Clancey came for the Austin City Limits Music Festival which had an obscene average temperature of about 105. Still, Coldplay was stellar and Drew had fun with one of his best friends from his Colorado College days.

Baby's Heartbeat

This morning we had another appointment with Dr. P. He said things were progressing normally and that my sickness would wane soon (I hope!). He told me to eat lots of nuts, that they have all the protein and fatty acids I need and will help get me through this sick time. We listened to the baby's heartbeat for the first time and that was really exciting. It sounded muffled and fast but normal. Dr. P explained that at our next appointment we would have to decide whether to have the screening test for birth defects. There are almost never false negatives, but lots of false positives, or high readings. A high reading indicates further testing is necessary including possibly an amniocentesis. He told us our risk of having a baby with a birth defect is very small, and that unless we plan to terminate the pregnancy based on a bad result, he did not feel it was worth the worry. I agree, Drew is unsure. We will have to talk about this and decide by our next appointment if we will have the test or not. Weight went down a bit to 124.5 lbs, blood pressure was 98/60.