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Second Trimester |
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Click here for the latest news. Saturday, February 19 We finally get to break the news to people. Some had guessed and some hadn't. Surprisingly, the one person who we thought had us pegged the whole time had no idea. We went to a Christmas party on the same day that we took our first pregnancy test, and Patrick noticed that I was drinking orange juice and asked, "Are you pregnant?" "Uh, no, why would ask that?" I said. A few weeks later we were at dinner, and I chose water over beer so he asked the same question. Well, we told him the news last night, and he seemed very surprised. I said, "But I thought you knew, because you asked me twice if I was pregnant." He said, "Well you said you weren't, so I trusted you." Woo-hoo! It looks like I'm a better liar than I thought! Tuesday, March 1 There are so many food recommendations out there, that I can't keep track of everything. If I followed every "do not eat while pregnant" list, I'd be left with taking a pre-natal vitamin three times a day, so I pick and choose what to be militant about. So my two big "no's" are coffee (caffeine) and alcohol. I know that "some" caffeine is supposedly fine, and that women can "safely" drink small amounts of alcohol during the second and third trimesters, but I just decided not to go there. Being totally inconsistent, though, I happily eat deli meat without microwaving it first - I figure that without turkey sandwiches, I'd have nothing to eat for lunch. There was a brief period at the beginning of my caffeine deprivation when I thought, "This isn't so bad. I should give up coffee even after Plax is born." But I think that idea was a result of hallucinations due to the caffeine withdrawal, because it's actually the worst idea ever. Unfortunately, I think that coffee isn't a good idea while breastfeeding, so my sentence isn't up once Plax is out. The only plus to this whole thing is that I'll have something to hold over Plaxico's head when s/he becomes an unruly teenager ("I gave up coffee for over a year for you, and this is the thanks I get???"). I don't have any parenting books yet, but berating my child into submission using guilt seems like a sound parenting technique - or maybe that's the caffeine withdrawal talking again. Wednesday, March 2 Anyway, I only have a couple pairs of "normal" pants that still fit, and they're starting to get a little tight so I bought a couple pairs of knit stretch pants to tide me over until I'm ready for real maternity clothes. So picture, if you will, the hip sassiness going on at the Reilly house last weekend: I pull on my knit stretch pants, slip into my Dansko clogs, and get into the Volvo station wagon to run some errands. The sensibleness of the whole scenario was overwhelming. I mean knit stretch pants. I've heard that motherhood changes you, and all, but no one said anything about getting psyched to wear knit stretch pants. Monday, March 7 So, I'll admit that CapitalOne is a little aggressive junk-mail-wise. And their "What's In Your Wallet?" commercials can be a tad annoying. But here's a good thing to offset all that: they just announced a new maternity/paternity leave policy! Which means that Tom gets two weeks (PAID!!!) off after Plax is born. And mothers get eight weeks (PAID!!!) off and another eight weeks unpaid! Before this new policy came out, we were trying to figure out how to juggle his vacation days, and decide if he should take some time off unpaid, but now that's a moot point! For contrast, I get no paid maternity leave. You may be saying, "That's not fair! You're the one who has to push something the size of a watermelon out the hole the size of a lemon! And all Tom has to do is say, 'Breathe, honey,' at the appropriate times." And I'd agree with you but I'm not going to get into that here. So next time you receive a credit card offer from CapitalOne, take half a second to remember that they may be a Big, Bad Corporation, but at least they have maternity/paternity leave. Thursday, March 10 Thursday, March 17 We're having our St. Patrick's Day party this weekend, which would usually mean laying in a hefty supply of Guinness (and Mich Ultra for the wusses). But this year it also means washing my "good" strech pants and making sure the Diet Sprite and V8 is cold. And unfortunately, none of my pregnancy books address trampolining while pregnant - our trampoline was the highlight of last year's party, but it looks like I may be grounded this year. Oh well, it's all for a good cause, and I have an awesome Plax-related t-shirt so I guess that makes up for not getting to go on the trampoline! Thursday, March 24
But now that I have an identifiable belly, I've found the secret to abs of steel. All these people selling videos and exercise gadgets have got it all wrong: all you need to do is get pregnant, and voila you've got rock-hard abs! I've never put too much thought into how a pregnant belly feels, but I guess I kind of assumed a big belly would be soft and squishy. But I was wrong, and this is the firmest my abs have ever been! Tom said, "Hey, maybe you'll get a pregnancy six-pack!" but I told him it would probably be more like a pregnancy keg. Wednesday, April 6 One book has names organized into lists like "athletic names," "intellectual names," "classic names," etc. So guess which list Tom starts getting names from: yes, the "sexy names" list. I said, "This kid is going to have a lot of good genes to work with, but not one of those genes is going to be sexy. I mean, we both wear clogs. A lot. It's not fair to name her Bambi or Krystale because that's writing a check that the Grossman/Reilly genes can't cash." So I guess the one thing we agree on so far is that we're not taking any names from the "sexy" list. In other news, I'm pretty sure I've been feeling movement for the last week or so! Either that or gas (no comments from Tom, please!). I always thought feeling your baby move for the first time would be a magical moment, but when you're going, "Huh, is that Plax or gas?" the magicalness is cut down a little.* Kind of like when we got our first positive pregnancy test, and Tom swept me into his arms with tears in his eyes saying, "Dahling, a baby of our very own! This is so magical!" Oh, wait, that was a scene from an EPT pregnancy test commercial. I got it mixed up with what happened in our house, which was that we looked at the test and said, "Is that two lines? The second line is really faint. But it looks like there's probably two of them. But the second one is really faint. Does that mean we're having a baby? I think that really is a second line. But it's kind of faint. But I think it's really there. So I guess we're having a baby!" And then we high-fived. And then we tested four more times over the next week, and confirmed that, yes, that was in fact a second line we saw. * But it's still really cool! Thursday, April 7 Emily here. Once again, our doctor (jokingly) said that we (Plaxico and I) are "boringly normal," and everything looks on-track. The only less-than-good news is that we found out we have a highly uncooperative fetus on our hands: during the entire ultrasound, Plax was positioned low and all curled up, so the tech couldn't get some of the measurements she needed. But maybe that's all part of Plax's master plan to get his/her mommy and daddy another viewing, because now we need to get another ultrasound at our next appointment to finish up the measurements! Also, Plax clearly agrees with our decision not to find out his/her sex, because he/she kept his/her legs firmly clamped shut (despite some poking and prodding from the tech) so we still don't know how many X chromosomes s/he has. Monday, April 11 I ran with Tom for the first mile or so, and in the beginning he was actually being paced by not one but two pregnant ladies. As I was walking to the starting line, I ran (no pun intended) into another pregnant runner I know - she's about five weeks ahead of me, so she actually looks like a pregnant runner, as opposed to me, who looks like a stout runner - and we started out together. (After the race I saw a woman who'd written "Baby's First 10K" on the front of her t-shirt and "That's Why I'm Going So Slow" on the back - so there were clearly lots of pregnant people out there. "Lots" meaning "at least three.") All was going well until after the race when my round ligament pain kicked in - it hurt so much that I couldn't run yesterday, even though it was 70 degrees and sunny. The round ligaments support the uterus, and obviously as the uterus grows they get stretched and can cause pain. For the past week or so, I've had ligament pain after I've run - I'm not that big yet, but I think the bouncing around irritates them. I talked to my doctor about it, and she said that it's one of those annoying pains of pregnancy and that there's nothing that can really be done - but, on the other hand, she said that as long as I can manage the pain I can keep running. So I went out and bought a belly support belt, which is supposed to help - I wore it during my short run today and felt better, so hopefully it will help. Thursday, April 21 I also checked out Free To Be... You And Me, which is from back when I was a young 'un. At first I thought, "This was a cool record when I was, like, 7, but who knows if it's actually as good as I remember." Then I saw this review:
Now I have to buy this "embarrassing farce," if only so that if Plax is a boy I can be sure he will be one of those "female-sympathizing males." Last I checked, its messages of equality, tolerance and acceptance were neither embarrassing nor farcical, and men who "recognize their own worth or potential as males" are probably not the kind of men I'd want to spend any time with (or the kind of man I'd want Plax to become). In other news, Plax is getting rowdier (or, as rowdy as a 22-week-old fetus can get). I used to just feel little taps here or there, but last night when I was trying to sleep Plax was trying to do "the worm" (see second cartoon down), and this afternoon s/he was kicking my bladder. So I made a new rule: "No kicking other people's bladders." Fortunately, I think taking a tough stand on bladder-kicking worked, because Plax hasn't done it since. Tuesday, May 3 When we got married and registered for stuff like china, it was a little confusing at first but we just looked around, found a pattern that looked nice, and picked it. But no one gets hurt if you pick the wrong china pattern - with baby products there's the unspoken threat hanging over your head that if you don't pick just the right car seat things could go horribly wrong. Because what kind of parents would just walk in to the store and say, "Eh, that car seat looks nice - and it matches our cars' interiors. Good enough!" Right now we're concentrating on our search for the Perfect Stroller. Little did I know that there were so many strolling options out there - "travel systems," car-seat compatible, fully reclining, partially reclining, with a tray, with a "boot," and on and on. What's a "boot," you wonder - well, it's a little cap that snaps onto the bottom of the stroller to keep the baby's feet warm and dry. Plaxi will not be getting a boot. I did not have a boot on my stroller. Tom did not have a boot on his stroller. Ergo, Plaxi does not need a boot on his/her stroller - ha, ha, see how easy it is to play the "I didn't have it, and I turned out fine" game? That game will be a lot more fun when Plax desperately wants a hovercraft, or whatever 16-year-olds desperately want in 2021, and we'll be all, "In our day they hadn't even invented hovercrafts. We didn't need them, and there's no reason you need one. Now beam yourself back up to your room and finish your homework." That's going to be awesome - I'm definitely going to start lots of sentences with "In my day..."! If you want to really have fun with baby products, mention breast pumps to Tom. And then try to elicit his opinion on the various types of nipples. Ask, "Do you think they should be natural-shaped? Silicone? What about an air-control valve?" Fun for the whole family! Actually, I'm joking - if he can conquer the ob-gyn's office, learning about silicone nipples will be like child's play for him. Wait, did I just say, "Silicone nipples will be like child's play"? You know what I mean. This whole baby things doe weird things to you - suddenly it seems reasonable to be seen in public wearing knit stretch pants and talking about silicone nipples. Wednesday, May 11 We also found out that fetuses drink their own amniotic fluid. You'd think that, seeing as how I'm going to be a mother and all in a few short months, I'd be more mature about that fact, but my main reaction was, "What? Ewwww!" During our ultrasound, we could see Plaxi's little lips moving, and his/her tongue sticking out, and the tech said that was a good sign because it meant s/he was drinking, which meant that the stomach and kidneys were working. In other news, I've finally started wearing some of my maternity clothes. I have to pin them a little in the back, but at least they're not falling off me anymore. In honor of my new pants, Tom, brave man that he is, has started calling me "Fatty Pants" Reilly. I've tried to explain to him that he may want to reconsider the wisdom of calling a hormonally wacked-out woman "Fatty Pants," but he has yet to come up with a new nickname. Although, I guess I still don't look identifiably pregnant to the general public because two people (who did not know me pre-pregnancy) have said this week, "Oh, you're barely showing at all. I can't believe you're 24 weeks along!" People who know me, though, can tell that my belly has taken on a more basketballesque shape. In still more news, I got to celebrate my first Mothers' Day last weekend. I realize that I'm not officially a mother yet, but I figure that I've already put in some of the work so I should get a little credit. Tom's mom was here, and we went out to brunch and I had waffles with strawberries on top. What I did not have was a big cup of coffee and a mimosa. What I will have next Mothers' Day is a big cup of coffee and a mimosa! Other men can get their wives three-stone diamond heart pendant necklaces from Kay Jewelers, but all I want from Tom next year is a big cup of coffee! Of course, Tom knows me well enough not to buy me three-stone diamond heart anything from Kay Jewelers - he'd be sent to sleep on the couch, while I dramatically threw myself across the bed and wailed, "Dont' you know me at all? Why would you buy me this? Don't you know that I want a new vacuum cleaner?" Saturday, May 21 Our class on Thursday was part one of newborn care, and I went into it totally confident that after years of babysitting I knew what I was doing, and that this class would mostly be for Tom's benefit. Well, in a humiliating turn of events, during swaddling practice I got completely shown up by my husband. Here's what happened: we were supposed to practice swaddling and diapering and Tom made me go first. I sailed through diapering with no problem but when we got to swaddling I didn't know what to do with the middle part of the blanket. So Tom had to step in and tuck it up and around and back so that the "baby" would be properly wrapped like a little burrito. But here are my excuses for my poor showing:
We have baby safety class tomorrow night, and part two of newborn care on Thursday, so I'll have a chance to redeem myself. Wish me luck! Monday, May 23 In other news, we made our first big-ticket baby purchase ... after hours and hours of research, we finally decided on the Inglesina Espresso (and we even found it for 50 percent off)! Plaxico may not have a name for the first few weeks of his/her life (no, we haven't made any headway on the name issue) but at least little Nameless Baby Reilly will be able to ride around in style! This is probably my last post from the Golden Trimester, as I'll be waddling on into the (GULP!) third trimester on Wednesday. I had been under that impression that the third trimester was reserved for grown-ups who could handle the responsibility of being parents - but it appears that these days they'll let anyone in!
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| This page was last updated 12/27/2008 |
