Shrimp and I are home

We made it home safely. And for those of you who are wondering, I did manage to delegate. Not going to say it was easy and that I wasn't placed in a chair against my will. But once I was in that chair, I stayed unless I had to pee or turn in paperwork.

It's been a fun week

So, I'm a few days late in posting my weekly update. As you read my blog I'm sure you'll figure out why, lol.

On Monday, I had to fly to LA for business. Day was fine but I found that I did not have near the energy I normally did and was flat out exhausted by 8 and in bed. Tuesday, the fun began. I noticed that I had to use the bathroom every 30 minutes and after doing set up for only about 30 minutes, I was flat worn out. But I made it through the day. During dinner, I noticed a sharp pain in my back, and shrugged it off thinking it was just sore from all over doing it. In the middle of the night, I woke up with the pain even worse and to add to it, some strong pelvic pain. The pelvic pain lasted about 2 hours and then went away but it was enough to make me concerned, so I called the doctor when I got up yesterday morning. I was still going to the bathroom every 30 minutes. I figured doc would just tell me it's normal, no worries, you are stressing, blah blah blah. Much to my surprise, they informed me I needed to get to the hospital as they suspected I had a UTI or could be going into labor. I think my body hates me sometimes, lol.

So thanks to my wonderful co-workers, a few stayed behind and managed the booth for me and another drove me to an urgent care center. We figured it'd be a quicker trip in and out by visiting urgent care since I was fairly certain it was the UTI. After a 2 hour wait, I was called back and told to go to the hospital without even seeing the doctor because they won't treat women over 20 weeks pregnant. So we drove over to a local hospital. Much to my surprise, I was called back 10 minutes after I arrived and brought up to...labor and delivery!! I'm thinking, talk about service, I expected a 2 hour wait and just a regular ER doc. 20 minutes later I was hooked up to a machine to check for contractions and monitor Shrimp's heartbeat. Drew blood, peed in a cup, given dinner (!) and a bed and a tv, 90 minutes later I was informed, yup, UTI, given medication and sent home. Well, back to my hotel room anyway. I was pleasantly surprised at the speed with which it all went. I don't know if this hospital just has it's stuff together and can triage well or if they just err on the side of caution and assume that a 21 week pregnant woman with my symptoms is in labor, so send her up to the specialist. Whatever, I was in my bed by 9:30 with orders to "take it easy." We'll see how well that goes, lol.

Shrimp at 21 weeks:

Your baby now weighs about three-quarters of a pound and is approximately 10.5 inches long - the length of a carrot. You may soon feel like she's practicing martial arts as her initial fluttering movements turn into full-fledged kicks and nudges. You may also discover a pattern to her activity as you get to know her better. In other developments, your baby's eyebrows and lids are present now, and if you're having a girl, her vagina has begun to form as well.

Let's hope next week isn't quite so active!

Guessing game

So, I've always thought these were kind of fun. I'm encouraging all of my friends to log in and make a guess on whether you think Shrimp is a boy or a girl! I've got 3 guesses already, let's see how many we can get! :)

http://www.expectnet.com/games/King_Shrimp

20 week bump

Still don't think it looks like much and if you didn't know how skinny
I was before, you'd assume I've put on weight. Oh well, it will come
in time.

Shrimp is half baked!

That's right! We are 20 weeks and officially halfway there! Only 20 more weeks and we'll have a baked Shrimp. Beyond that and we are coming up on fried Shrimp. I'm going for a well done Shrimp as I hope Shrimp comes early, lol.

So what's new? Not much really. We are plodding along here counting the weeks down. We did get our crib yesterday, yay! And it's all set up and in the room. The room still needs some work done to it as I still need all those organizational things for the closet and that kind of stuff. Need the linens for the bed and some pictures and decorations. But I keep getting told to wait for the baby shower before I worry about that. I don't know if I want to wait that long. I kinda want it all now, lol. But I'll post pictures when it's all done and put together. Uploading photos here is a bear and I really don't feel like messing with it. A friend figured out how to do it from her iPhone but I've yet to get that figured out and got tired of trying. I'll mess with it again later. When I have my energy back. Will I have my energy back??

Shrimp at 20 weeks:

Your baby weighs about 10.5 ounces now. He's also around 6.5 inches long from head to bottom and about 10 inches long from head to heel - the length of a banana. (For the first 20 weeks, when a baby's legs are curled up against his torso and hard to measure, measurements are taken from the top of his head to his bottom - the "crown to rump" measurement. After 20 weeks, he's measured from head to toe.)

He's swallowing more these days, which is good practice for his digestive system. He's also producing meconium, a black, sticky by-product of digestion. This gooey stubstance will accumulate in his bowels, and you'll see it in his first soiled diaper.

Just for clarification purposes, these updates I'm posting with the facts of Shrimp's development were taken from www.babycenter.com. So I didn't write those portions. But the rest of the posts content is from me. :)

And we...

Are out of ideas for creative posts. I guess you'll forgive me, right? It's exhausting trying to come up with snazzy titles and I didn't want to just say oh 19 weeks. Was too boring. So anyway, there you have it!

Not really much to say this week. Seems like my morning sickness, ummm, rather all day sickness has returned. Not so sure if it's just a reaction to the anti-depressants or is really a return. Feels the same as before. Finally, right now, I feel a bit better and was able to eat with out gagging too much. Helps that I actually wanted what I ate. And Andrew has a week and a half down already with his new school, and let me tell you, what a difference! He is settling in well and got through his first challenge last night with flying colors. It was back to school night, and every single child and parent showed up! Amazing! He liked them all and they seemed to like him so we have success! The next challenge is the first day of school, which is tomorrow. I'm still having a good feeling about this. And although he is still understandable anxious and stressed about it, it seems like he is handling it much better this time around and really, I'm just proud of him. He's doing an excellent job so far and has so many wonderful ideas!!

So, Shrimp at 19 weeks:

Your baby's sensory development is exploding! Her brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision and touch. Some research suggests that she may be able to hear your voice now, so don't be shy about reading aloud, talking to her, or singing a happy tune if the mood strikes you.

Your baby weighs about 8.5 ounces and measures 6 inches, head to bottom - about the size of a large heirloom tomato. Her arms and legs are in the right proportions to each other and the rest of her body now. Her kidneys continue to make urine and the hair on her scalp is sprouting. A waxy protective coating called the vernix caseosa is forming on her skin to prevent it from pickling in the amniotic fluid.

Ok I just had a strange thought after I read about Shrimp being able to hear me now. I have a human being in my belly following me around wherever I go. For some reason I just had a sense of a weird squeamishness at the idea, lol. Don't ask me why, it's just like the "John Hurt" moment from the Coupling show. Cracks me up. Glad Shrimp is there, though, so he or she better not be going anywhere soon.

Also, I've been starting to get tons of movement at times. Last night, Shrimp decided to have a little party after 10. I could feel Shrimp turning over and occasionally kicking. It was the strangest feeling ever. Finally Shrimp settled down around 11 and I could fall asleep. Let's hope the little buggar doesn't keep this schedule up, lol! Maybe have your party around 8 instead?? :)

It's a....

Alien!



Lol, not really. This is a frontal view of Shrimp, and to be honest it sorta creeps me out. I much prefer the profile views because this one, just really makes Shrimp look like an alien.

Now here's the awwww how cute view.



So Shrimp had a check up and he/she is doing well. Measured bang on dates and weighed 8 oz. It actually went rather quickly, even though I think we ended up with about 30 minutes of dvd at the end of the session. But all was perfectly formed with Shrimp, heart beating well. Started off sleeping again, of course. Woke up a little after a while and we watched as Shrimp played with his/her nose several times. Was rather adorable. Also watched as he/she practiced breathing. Turned over a few times, but right now he/she is facing downward.

So as I said Shrimp is doing well. Turns out I have what's called a heart shaped uterus that's possibly a complete bicornuate uterus. It means that my uterus never developed properly when I was a fetus. And the short of it is I most likely have TWO uterus'. It looked like it's possibly straight down the middle, but it's hard to tell because the side that Shrimp is on is obviously much bigger at the moment. So this puts me at a higher risk of pre-term labor and a breech baby. The breech I can handle, that's just a c-section and although not my first choice, as long as Shrimp is healthy I don't care how he/she gets here. It does, however, increase my already high anxiety. But we did talk about that as well while there and I've been placed back on anti-depressants. This should solve 3 of the chronic problems I've experienced since atleast 2006 - insomnia, depression and anxiety.

On a positive note, we found a crib tonight! Thanks mom and dad! :) I have to wait until September for it to be delivered though. Really wanted it to come home tonight, but oh well. All good things come with a wait, right? :)

Oh and I'll try to update the post later with some better pics of Shrimp. I'm tired and took these with my phone and they are rather limited on changing their layout and clarity. So I've spent enough time here and now need to sleep.