My Mom's Experience

So I’ve been asking my mom a lot of questions about her pregnancies to get an idea of what I might expect, because I’ve been told that you have similar pregnancies and labor and delivery experiences as your mother. This is what I’ve learned.

• My mom had all of her children natural, no pain killers. She’s a rockstar, I don’t think I’ll be able to do that. My plan right now is to go as long as I can without anything… But “as long as I can” is very flexible… I mean, I might have one contraction and be like “forget this! Where’s the epidural?!” So yeah, I have a very flexible birth plan to say the least.

• My mom has short labors. I mean, it’s not unusual to be in labor for 16 hours. They say that 12-20 hours is normal for a first time mom. Well, my mom didn’t have anything close to that! When I was asking her about it she told me I was here in an hour after starting labor and the doctor barely got there in time to catch me. My siblings were not as anxious to get to the world as I was, but when she mentioned one of her birthing experiences lasting a long time I asked what that meant, “like 12 hours long?” She said, “oh no! Nothing like that!” So, I guess, I may have a short labor and delivery experience. Which would be nice… Unless I take too long to decide I want an epidural and then it’s too late… That would suck, but I’ll have to deal with that if it comes.

• My mom did not have gestational diabetes. I’m happy about that because you’re more likely to have it if your mom had it, so I’m feeling pretty good about my upcoming glucose tolerance screening.

• My mom got very little stretch marks. She said she only got them at the end of pregnancy, they were mostly just on her hips, and that they weren’t very bad. I’m ok with all of that. 27 weeks and so far so good! I put cocoa butter on my tummy and hips every night right when I get out of the shower, so I’m hoping that will help as well, it is definitely a lot less dry and itchy, so that’s already a benefit… And it smells good too :).

• My mom had most of her children past their due date. No preemies for her! This isn’t my favorite news because surely I’ll be dying to get my little one out by March 22^nd, I can’t imagine having to wait another week or two! From the sound of it I might have to though, and I guess that’s good, I’d rather have a late healthy baby than have her come early when she or I aren’t ready.

• My mom has big babies. I was 8 pounds 6 ounces and my siblings were likewise. I guess they're big, but not too big, at least they weren't like 10 or 12 pounders! Then I would be scared. 

• My mom had cute kids. Lets be honest, we're not a bad looking bunch! Ha ha, just joking. I just know I'm going to have a beautiful little girl though. She's going to have brown eyes and brown hair. I hope she gets David's lips, he has great lips. I guess this one doesn't have so much to do with my mom as it does me and David, but that's ok.

This is me as a baby, pretty cute huh?

27 Weeks and done with school!

Well, I’m 27 weeks pregnant now and loving it! I’m so excited for our little baby girl to come! I know it’s still a while before she gets here, but the second trimester has been awesome and it has allowed me to enjoy being pregnant and look forward to what we have coming. The first trimester… Well, the first 16 weeks or so actually, were really difficult. I was throwing up multiple times a day, I had no appetite, no energy, and I lost about 10 to 15 pounds. I finally got some anti-nausea medicine from my doctor and it saved me! I was actually able to function again, which was good since I started school and work again. I had to take the pills everyday for a long time and then I finally started to feel better and would only take them when I needed them. I still get the occasional fits of nausea, but they are few and far between, which I am very grateful for.

I feel our little girl practicing flips and kicks all the time now, she’s very active, which is fun for me… and sometimes a little weird. Sometimes a thought pops into my head that it feels like I have something living inside my stomach… And then I’m like, “Oh, I do have something living in there!” That’s kind of a weird thought, but it’s awesome… Sometimes it even tickles a little. David has been able to feel her move a lot now, the other night as we were lying in bed before falling asleep he had his hand on my stomach and she was going crazy! I think it was pretty exciting for him because that’s definitely the most he’s ever felt her move.

Other things, I’m pretty much hungry all the time, but I can only snack and eat small portions, if I try to eat a normal sized meal I feel super gross and bloated because there just isn’t a lot of room in there anymore. I’m starting to show pretty good now, at least I think so. David says it still looks like it could be a question of “is she just fat? Or is she pregnant?” Which I guess is true. It depends on the shirt I wear. I always think that people who don’t know I’m pregnant must think I look fat and wonder why I would wear the clothes I wear that accentuate my “fat” tummy, but in reality they probably don’t even notice ha ha, I’m just being paranoid. I’ve been trying to take pictures every week for the last few weeks now that it’s getting more noticeable, so here are the last few:

24 weeks.

25 weeks. 
(Note to self: That pattern makes me look huge. Good to know for future reference.)

26 weeks.

I can’t believe that I start my third trimester in a week! That’s so crazy! We’re planning on doing a birthing class in January, which will be good. They offer one at my OBGYN’s office, so that’ll be nice. We’ve also talked about maybe taking one with Maile and Michael, my best friend and her husband, who are due with a baby boy the day before us! So that would be fun, but we have different doctors and aren’t delivering at the same hospital, so I don’t know. The one they offer at my OB’s office is taught by one of the labor and delivery nurses at the hospital I’ll be delivering at, which I feel would be more beneficial to me, so I’m leaning more toward that one for now.

I was able to finish up school and pass all of my classes! I got pretty decent grades too… Which was my goal, I wasn’t too worried about getting all A’s this semester. I pretty much just wanted to pass. This is my last semester of school for a while. I “graduated” with my associate’s degree in “pre-professional” which is basically like pre-nursing or pre-dental. Now that I have my associates, I can transfer later to another school wherever we will be living, which will be nice. I’ll be stopping with school now because we are having our baby in March! I’ll keep working up until a few weeks before we have the baby, but after we have our little girl I’ll be able to stay home and take care of her, which I’m very grateful for.

David and I are both SO happy to be done with this semester of school! It’s been quite a doosy! We were both so busy it felt like we never got to see each other, and when we did we were so tired we could hardly enjoy it! But now we are enjoying life, catching up on sleep, and looking forward to the Christmas break! I’m still working this week, but we are headed down to Hurricane on Friday afternoon where we’ll be staying for almost two full weeks! We’re both excited to see both of our families, because conveniently they will both be down there only about 20 minutes apart from each other.

This next semester will be a lot better for both of us, I’ll be working about 32 hours a week until the beginning of March, no school, and David will be in school and working, but his classes this semester will be much easier than they have been in the past. Rather than taking all Mechanical Engineering classes like he has been, the majority of his credits will be in generals! That will make his last semester a little less difficult and busy which will be great in preparing and having a baby! He normally TAs for a math class for work, but this next semester he will be able to work as a research assistant instead, which will also be better, and might even pay a little more. This will make for a good last semester for David before he graduates. David has been turning in his applications for graduate school. He’s already applied to the University of Texas – Austin, and to Cornell University in upstate New York. He has two more schools to apply to, Purdue University in Indiana, and BYU. We are hopeful to hear back from all the schools and know where we will be going before March, but we’ll just have to wait and see!