I'm late enough that taking an over-the-counter test is no longer “wishful thinking” — and it's positive! I called and made an appointment to have my doctor's office confirm the test…

Went to my regular doctor's office and they confirmed the over-the-counter test results — I'm pregnant! I stopped at the OB-GYN office one floor below to arrange for an appointment, then headed home to start spreading the good news.

A quiet Christmas at home — all I really want right now! I've been feeling nauseous for several days now (what idiot named it "morning" sickness? If only!). Seems like I'm tired all the time — thank goodness we've the long holiday break before I have to (try) to go to work!

My first appointment with the obstetrician's office went well enough. I only saw the nurses, they took my height, weight, blood pressure, etc., asked me a few questions, and gave me a bag full of information and freebies.

They also started me on a prenatal multivitamin, Prenate GT. I've taken it for a few days but it makes the nausea much, much worse, and after six days I stopped taking it.

My first doctor's appointment was with Dr. Paul Mark. Christian was able to be with me, which was good (we hadn't been sure work would let him take the time off). Dr. Mark put me on PremesisRX, a much lighter multivitamin which is supposed to help with the nausea. I asked a few questions (about the office's attitude towards inducing labor, etc.). Can't say I hit it off right away with Dr. Mark, but maybe I was too nervous about the first visit and all.

I should explain: OB-GYN Associates of Northern Indiana, P.C. is a group practice. This means that I'll see each of the five doctors on staff who do obstetrics over the course of my pregnancy, and when the baby comes, he or she will be delivered by whoever is on-call.

Had a weird (and scary!) episode today: I was getting ready to go in to work this morning, had just finished my shower in fact, when all of a sudden the lower left quarter of my face and my left arm from the elbow down both went numb. I called the OB office, and they said it didn't sound pregnancy related, I should call my regular doctor's office. They couldn't get me in till mid-afternoon…

The numbness only lasted about 5 minutes or less in my face, and no more than 15 minutes in my arm, but when it went away it was replaced by a violent headache which lasted into the early afternoon. By the time I got in to see Dr. Schele, I was mostly just scared. He had me do some coordination tests, looked me over, and admitted he wasn't sure what was up. Normally they would've run an MRI, but the pregnancy precluded that. So instead he put in a call to a neurologist for an opinion and guidance.

The neurologist said it sounded like I'd had a migraine. Dr. Schele sent me down for some blood work, just to rule out a few other things, but the tests all came back negative and I haven't had a repeat of the symptoms. (I've often suspected that some of my worst headaches might technically be migraines, I guess now I've been officially diagnosed as having them — or at least of having had one!)

Mom, Dad, and Paul were here for a visit from Friday evening through Monday, and Lou and Tracy joined us from Friday night until Sunday.

We had dinner at "Grecian Delights" Friday night, but otherwise we had a quiet weekend — I wasn't feeling well enough for much else: besides the early pregnancy symptoms, I came down with a head cold Saturday night. The Premesis seems to be helping some, but I'm still exhausted and not able to eat or do much.

Thankfully Tracy appears to be getting past her early pregnancy nausea — a reason to hope! :-)

Mom made Baroni sauce spaghetti for an at-home dinner on Saturday. We all went to mass at Little Flower on Sunday, and had brunch together at the "Colonial Pancake House" before Lou and Tracy headed for home. Mom, Dad and Paul headed north on Monday.

I forgot to take the Premesis yesterday and actually felt almost good for the first time in months, so I've gone AWOL from the vitamins for a while. I don't mind taking them, but I'd rather be able to eat, y' know what I mean? I'll try reintroducing them this weekend, at least if I feel worse I won't be working.

Well, I've been on and off the Premesis the last week or more. It really does seem to make me feel worse, and I'm just so sick of feeling crummy! Last Friday I decided enough was enough and stopped taking it, period.

Over the weekend I tried using a children's chewable, which seemed to go down okay — maybe there's a chewable prenatal multivitamin that I could try out?

I had my second doctor's appointment today (Chris was able to be with me again), this time with a Dr. Ferguson, and we got to listen to the baby's heartbeat! It's good and strong. :-)

I liked this doctor a bit better than the last. He was concerned about the amount of weight I've lost (I think about 15-20 pounds since my first visit), so he's having more blood work done to check for hyperthyroidism and wants me to come back in a week or less to have my weight checked again. And they do have a chewable prenatal, the doctor started me on PreCare Chewable.

I met with Dr. Wolfe for the first time, mainly to check my weight, make sure I wasn't still losing weight. I hadn't lost any weight — I might even have gained a pound — yay! Still, Dr. Wolfe wanted me to come in again at the end of the week, to check my weight again, and he recommended that I meet with dietitian. I quite liked this doctor — his "bedside manner" suited my personality, I guess.

The blood work on the hyperthyroidism came back positive, or maybe positive — I don't quite understand. In any case, I had to go give more blood. *sigh* I'll be really glad when I have an OB visit which doesn't end with me giving more blood for testing — I feel like a human pincushion!

I had my second appointment with Dr. Mark, and while I still think we've somewhat incompatible personalities, I didn't leave this appointment with as negative a feeling as I left the first with him. We listened to the baby's heartbeat again (good and strong).

The really good news is I've stabilized enough that they're putting me back on the four week schedule for appointments, so I'm not due to go back in again till mid-March. And no blood work today, yay!

Had my appointment with the dietitian today, a nice, professional woman named Sue. Overall, she was pleased with my diet and attitudes, but she wants me to try to get more carbs, protein and especially calcium.

I'm finally starting to actually feel hungry these days, and eat almost what I would consider a full meal. I've a bit more energy, too, which is a very nice change.

Grandpa Weber died this morning, at St. Mary's Hospital in Green Bay.

Well, we made it up to Green Bay for the wake and funeral and back to Niles, which was a long trip in bad weather.

I had a weird episode in the Hotel we stayed in: woke up very, very dizzy and with a terrible headache after the first night. Turns out they had just done work on the room we were in, and were still working on the room next door, so I probably reacted badly to some sort of chemical the workers were using. In any case, we got moved to a different room and I was fine after that.

Other than being tiring to travel so much, and emotionally rather draining, it was an okay weekend. It was good to see all the family, and I didn't feel so bad that I couldn't enjoy that aspect, which was nice.

Had my first appointment with one of the specialists at Memorial Maternal Fetal Medicine. The doctor indicated I'm definitely hyperthyroid (either Dr. Wolfe downplayed the earlier results, didn't fully understand them, or I misunderstood what he was telling me *shrug*). There can be some pretty negative potential results of untreated hyperthyroidism (including an increased chance of pre-term labor, miscarriage or stillbirth), so it's a good thing they caught it! They've put me on an oral medication called propylthiouracil (PTU), which should help.

Honestly, I've already been feeling somewhat better of late, so long as I eat well and make sure to get enough sleep — always a good plan, pregnant or not! We'll see what effect taking the medication has… The doctor said it would be at least a week or two before I saw any effects, though.

Today I had my regular prenatal appointment, this time with Dr. Carbone (she's the only female OB in the office). The big news is that it was just a regular appointment: my weight gain was good, my belly measured in the right range (19", I think), the baby's heartbeat was good, and I was feeling pretty good. Actually, she had a bit of trouble finding the baby's heartbeat, which she said was because he or she was moving around a lot — which is great!

No entries for a long time, but that's actually a good thing: I've been feeling well enough to be keeping too busy to write! Plenty to catch up on, though…

On March 20th (18 weeks, 2 days) I had my second appointment with the Maternal Fetal Medicine office. It seems the two doctors in the office have somewhat differing opinions on my case: I saw the other doctor this time and he indicated that my condition isn't quite as serious as the first doctor said. My condition is actually "subclinical hyperthyroidism," and the second doctor said I was doing well enough that he saw no reason I should continue to see a specialist. Yay! In fact, he suggested that depending on what my blood work shows next time, they might wean me off of the medication, too. Double yay!

I have been feeling much better these days, whatever the reason, and while I haven't gained a lot of weight, I do seem to be gaining gradually. In any case, I'm definitely not losing weight anymore.

And the other big news is that I think I'm definitely starting to feel the baby move! It's no longer the more subtle "bubbles" I'd been feeling, but more of a spasm or jab. And my ultrasound is scheduled for April 10th.

Yesterday was my ultrasound, and all went very well. Chris was able to be with me (yay!) and we both greatly enjoyed seeing our little one. The technician who administered the ultrasound asked if we minded that a resident sit in on the procedure, and due to his being there we got to hear all the medical details of what we were seeing — it was especially interesting to see the measurements taken and checking the baby's development for any problems.

I've scanned the two pix we were given and they're on my web page. We did opt to find out the baby's gender (in so far as such an educated guess is likely to be right) — in the end, I just couldn't resist. If the doctor is right, we're having a little girl!

In other news, the doctors have halved the dosage of the thyroid medication I'm on, and depending on how the blood I gave Tuesday morning (4/9) tests, they may cut the dosage further! It seems I have no continuing symptoms for the hyperthyroidism, and if the blood work confirms their other diagnostics, they'd prefer to wean me off the meds ASAP. No complaints from me!

I've definitely reached a point where I can't wear any of my regular clothes which are tailored. My preference for looser, drapey clothes means that I can still wear some non-maternity dresses and skirts (with the waistband high above the waist *grin*), but I'm also wearing the maternity clothes I've bought a fair amount.

I had my glucola test today — that's the fun one where I get to fast for several hours (in this case from midnight on), drink a syrupy sweet liquid, wait an hour and then have my blood tested to see if I have gestational diabetes. Unfortunately, the number came back high (144, when 135 is the cutoff), so I'll get to do the three hour version next week.

In other news, my PTU prescription (i.e., thyroid medication) has been further reduced — I'm down to 100 mg a day (50 mg with breakfast and 50 mg with dinner). I was originally at 300 mg/day, so this is an improvement from my point of view!

I had the follow-up, three hour glucose tolerance test (GTT) this morning: 12 hours of fasting, a base blood test when I first got into the office, twice as much of the syrupy stuff to drink, and then blood tests at one, two and three hours out. My first two and last numbers were good, but the two hour number was high. What does that mean? I don't have to do anything different for now, but they want me to come back in for another follow-up test at the end of June. *sigh*

In case you're curious (and the numbers might mean something to you):

	my numbers	cutoff numbers*
base:	80 mg/ml	105 mg/ml
1-hour:	182 mg/ml	190 mg/ml
2-hours:	175 mg/ml	165 mg/ml
3-hours:	80 mg/ml	145 mg/ml

* These are the cutoff numbers of the National Diabetes Data Group (NDDG) scale, for what it's worth.

Generally, all is going well: I had my most recent prenatal exam yesterday morning, and my weight gain, blood pressure, and the baby's heartbeat were all good. I'm far enough along that I get to start going in every two weeks instead of every four.

I'm down to 100 mg a day of the thyroid medicine, and still hoping I may be weaned completely off of it before August. I feel good, for the most part, though the child's been waking me up at about 4:00-5:00 AM by kicking and turning, and so I'm rather sleep deprived at the moment. (And if I hear "Well, you'll just have to get used to that anyway" one more time I may scream – I don't care if it ~is~ the truth!)

Chris painted and cleaned the baby's room! It's now a beautiful pale yellow, we've got most of the pictures we want in there hung up, all that remains to do is the window treatments. We're both thrilled with how it turned out – he did a great job. (All I did was help pick the color and then stay out of his way, something he assures me was a great help. *grin*)

The little one moves around a fair amount, and the other night had the hiccups even! Talk about your odd sensations… :-)

I'm definitely looking pregnant now, and there are some new pix on the site (scroll to the bottom). Check out the new 'do – I got bored with my old style in mid-June and went for a somewhat drastic change. *grin*

The biggest news since early June is that I've switched care providers! I've been doing my usual thing when faced with an unknown situation (in this case labor and birth): read, read, and then read some more about it. Well, the more I read, the more concerned I was that the labor management philosophy of my initial office was not quite what I wanted. Good people, good doctors, but… *shrug*

So, I called a local OB and Midwives team, went in to discuss how they handled pregnancy, labor and birth, and less than a week later I started the process to officially switch offices. I've had two appointments with Kristy, one of the two midwives, and so far I'm completely happy with my decision. I feel altogether comfortable asking her anything that I'm curious or worrying about, something I didn't always feel at my first office. When I go in for my next two week checkup I'll meet Krisitn, the other midwife. If all goes well, I may not ever even meet Dr. DeStefano (the OB the midwives work with).

Kristy and I are working to see if I can safely be weaned off the thyroid medication completely. I'm down to 50 mg (one pill) a day, which is great, and I'll go in for more bloodwork in early August. Here's hoping! Kristy also reviewed my diet, in light of the results from the earlier glucola/gestational diabetes tests, but for now she's not worried – I'm eating well, and my numbers weren't high enough to warrant anything further than a review of how I'm eating.

I also started talking with some of the potential doulas in the area. A doula, in case you're unfamiliar with the term, is "a supportive companion (other than a friend or loved one) who is professionally trained to provide labor support," according to the Doulas of North America (DONA) Web site. Chris and I had decided that having someone who knew what to expect at a normal birth, and who could answer questions and support both me and him throughout labor sounded like a great idea.

The second doula I contacted was Maureen, a woman highly recommended by both the first doula I had spoken with (who was unavailable for our due date) and one of the local La Leche League leaders. Both Chris and I liked her immediately and hired her to work with us before we left our first interview.

All in all, I'm feeling much more positive about our readiness to cope with the child's arrival. (I have no delusions that I can ever be fully prepared for what labor will be, but at least I'll have done all I can to be ready and in a positive mindset…)

In other pregnancy news, Chris and I are four nights through our five session Lamaze/Childbirth Education class. It's been interesting – lots of information, some things I knew about but plenty I didn't. We had our hospital tour last night, which was cool. Interesting to think that most likely the next time I'm in there will be when the baby comes!

My nephew, Timothy James (a.k.a. TJ) was born this morning! TJ was 8 pounds, 12 ounces at birth, and 22 inches long. Baby, Mom and Dad are all well.