due date statistics

This website is pretty interesting: http://www.dogfish.org/chris/fun/delivery.html

It shows a distribution of when babies are born relative to their due date:

And this show the cumulative rates:

Mike's response to the first graph was, "Wow, a fairly Gaussian distribution!" And to the second was, "Interestingly though, 50% of the babies are delivered by sometime in week 39, not 40."

This is fascinating stuff for us statistics nerds! :)

Good news!

We had our 12-week appointment today (a little late, since we're actually 12w5d), and we got lots of reassurance that everything is going well. That is, we got our reassurance after we had a terrifying few minutes of my doctor being unable to find the heartbeat with her little doppler machine!!! Thankfully she was immediately able to wheel in her little portable ultrasound machine, and we immediately saw why she was having difficulty with the doppler: our little bean was dancing and flipping like crazy! I think we're going to have our hands full with this little one. :)

So, normally we would only get two ultrasounds (one at 8 weeks and one at 20 weeks), but today we got another "bonus" to make up for the nerve-wracking few minutes of (seemingly) no heartbeat. And the upside was that we got to see our little one dancing, and everything looked perfectly formed according to my doctor. Yay!

I realized today that I've been buying myself little rewards after each milestone appointment. After we got past 8-9 weeks, I bought a journal and some magazines. After we heard the heartbeat last time I bought myself a bellaband. Today I just ordered a copy of Baby Bargains so we can start thinking about registering!

Now that it's slowly starting to sink in that we're actually having a baby, I'm realizing just how much work we have ahead of us: registering, choosing a daycare, deciding on cloth vs. disposable, etc.  Whew! So we're just taking it one step at a time (while armed with multiple lists that I've already created!). First up: telling my boss after my annual review tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Divine retribution (and two other updates)

(Warning! Grossness alert!)

If there's one thing I hate (other than vomitting), it's burping. It totally grosses me out and, actually, kind of makes me want to puke when I hear other people doing it. Ew, ew, ew.

So what's my number one first trimester symptom (behind all-day nausea and fatigue)?
That's right, it's burping.

(Seriously, pregnancy gods?!?)

It's absolutely disgusting. I make these deep, puke-inducing burp sounds every few minutes. I am soooo gross!!!

I can only hope that this "delightful" symptom passes quickly.

*******

In other news, I finally caved yesterday and bought some sea bands (i.e., acupressure bands for motion sickness and other types of nausea) and sea bands ginger-flavored gum. I don't know if it's a placebo or if it's just that I generally feel better on the weekends (since all I do is rest), but I've been feeling MUCH better for the past 36 hours. Still definitely not 100%, but at least approaching human. Yesterday I even made a pumpkin soup (spiced with lots of fresh ginger) and last night we went out for Vietnamese food -- not a cheesy carb in sight!!!

Let's hope the combo of acupressure and gum (and lemon drops and lemonade) will help get me through work this week...

*******

Finally, just wanted to let you all know that we have our next doctor's appointment tomorrow. If all goes well, I'm planning to tell my boss on Tuesday. Fingers crossed!!!

week 12: plum

http://pregnant.thebump.com/pregnancy/first-trimester/articles/your-pregnancy-week-12.aspx


Baby's now the size of a plum!As you move into the second trimester, baby shifts into the growth and maturation stage. After weeks in the critical development stage, almost all of her systems are fully formed.

Dangers lurking everywhere

I'm trying to stay away from What to Expect When You're Expecting since it's such a fear-mongering book, but even reading more "neutral" pregnancy books makes doing just about anything absolutely terrifying.

I'm usually pretty laid back about these things, but now I'm deathly afraid of:
-accidentally ingesting too much caffeine
-the apparent dangers of (some) artificial sweeteners and other food processing
-using a cleaning supply (not that I clean that much anyway...) that could damage the baby through its fumes or through its contact with my skin
-not cleaning enough (!) and accidentally getting toxoplasmosis from scattered kitty litter or from the remains of our raw cat food
-not heating my lunch meat enough to kill any possible listeria that might be lingering (I know it needs to be heated to steaming, but for how long? and how can I be sure it was steaming enough?)
-not washing my fruits/veggies enough to get rid of the small chance of listeria (anyone else bothered by the cantaloupe and spinach and sprouts recalls recently? I never would have been, except now that I'm pregnant I've apparently gone crazy.)
-accidentally eating cheese that hasn't been pasteurized (does anyone know if I can eat unpasteurized cheese as long as it's cooked? They had cooked queso at Costco the other day, but I didn't sample it because I didn't know if it was pasteurized, even though it was steaming hot.)

-eating too much fish and getting mercury poisoning (seriously, there are all sorts of rules about how much is okay per day/week/month depending on the type of fish and where it was caught - it's enough to make me avoid fish altogether, except...)
-not eating enough fish so I'm short on omega-3s (because the supplements can only do so much and I apparently need the real thing too)

And now last night I read that wireless signals may disrupt development so I should be careful to keep my cell phone away from my abdomen and we should turn off our wireless router at night?!?

Ugh. I'm ready to go back to blissful ignorance, please.


Addendum
Less than two hours later, and I thought of a few more fears:
-  non-stick pans (due to possible links to autism/PDDs)
-  heating frozen lunches in their plastic containers (due to concerns about possible endocrine disruption)

sick of feeling sick

I'm still in a little bit of a state of disbelief, but I'm starting to believe that my "morning" sickness is not all in my head. My doctor and Mike seem very convinced that I'm not feeling ill because I'm eating crappy, but rather I'm eating crappy because I'm feeling so ill.

For the past ~5 weeks or so I've subsisted almost entirely on:
cheese pizza
mac&cheese
grilled cheese
cheese tortillas
crackers and cheese
Italian dunkers
cheese fries from Outback

Noticing a theme? I'm getting so tired of cheese and carbs, but absolutely nothing else sounds good! I'm really hoping that my prenatal vitamin is making up for the fact that I haven't had a vegetable (unless you count the sauce on my pizza) for weeks. Ugh.

All my pregnancy books tell me that my "morning" sickness should be at its peak about now (week 11) and starting to decrease. I know I'm going to worry once I don't have this symptom any more, but I'm also really looking forward to feeling human again! I'm starting to think that working as an eating disorders psychologist (where my clients all talk about food and puking all day long) is one of the worst possible jobs to have in the first trimester!

Thanks for letting me vent :)

week 11: lime

Baby's now the size of a lime!

Your fetus currently enjoys a 1:1 ratio between body and head, and has skin so transparent that blood vessels show right through it. But fingers and toes are no longer webbed, and hair follicles, tooth buds, and nail beds are forming -- setting up a significantly more attractive future.

http://pregnant.thebump.com/pregnancy/first-trimester/articles/your-pregnancy-week-11.aspx