13 Weeks with Emelia: Things are settling down

One more week and I get to say goodbye to the first trimester! It’s been real, we got some adorbs ultrasound photos, but whew. It’s been…interesting.

According to my app, Queso is the size of a lemon and almost three inches! We’ve got vocal cords and teeth forming  (probably the most adorable toothy nubs evah!) and she already has fingerprints.

One more week and I’m DONE! You can see my first-trimester progression photos here. Probably it’s me in various stages of bloat, but hey!

We also found out Queso is definitely not the boy I was so sure of, and is, in fact, a GIRL! I should have known it would be a girl causing all this ruckus.

Last Wednesday, after my 12 week US, we found out I had a moderately sized SCH, in which my doctor had called me to set up a game plan. I have another week for sure of pelvic rest and PIO injections and hopefully we’ll see the SCH decrease in size. She instructed me that if I had any bleeding I was to call to come in for an US.

I started bleeding again

Wouldn’t you know last Friday at 2:00 (12w6d) I started bleeding? After much convincing, the triage nurse finally let me come in that afternoon. My mom came to watch Olivia and I had a friend drive me to my appointment. The nurse was having a hard time finding the heartbeat with the Doppler again, so US it was.

Baby was perfectly fine in there and even gave us a view of her teensy little knuckles on her fist.

The sonographer couldn’t tell me if the SCH had decreased in size, but since everything was fine with the baby, no one seemed too concerned.

Unfortunately, the spotting continued all weekend, but we were able to tell my family at my sister’s birthday celebration and Chris’s family over the phone. Olivia was actually the one to tell them, and as my dad was coming downstairs to join us, Olivia whispered to my sister, “I have a SISTER!” and my sister whipped her head around at me.

“What?” she said, so I laughed and hurried Olivia along to tell everyone out loud and it was adorable.

I’ve been resting as much as I can this week and the bleeding seems to be ebbing and flowing. My doctor had gotten back to me, letting me know that because this pregnancy is high risk, I can come in the week after Mother’s Day for an US to check on the bleed.

I found a doula

In other news, we officially found our doula. For about month now, I’ve been throwing around the idea of having one because of how traumatic my hospital stay was with Olivia. It was actually my acupuncturist that first told me I could really benefit from having one this time around. She gave me some names ones she really likes and I scheduled interviews with them. The ones we interviewed first, Chris and I both really liked. It’s two of them, which was pretty cool because we’d get to work with both of them. I knew I needed to like the second doula better if I was going to choose her.

We met with the second one last week and she was wonderful. In fact, the doulas we interviewed were all amazing, but I think this one is really who I need this time around. So I’m feeling good about it, and think this is really going to help me when it comes time for Queso’s appearance.

Pregnancy symptoms

Nausea and dry heaving= pretty fucking miserable. I think every week gets worse than the last. The worst is in the morning when I need to get Olivia ready for daycare or school, and I don’t have time to, you know, lay absolutely still and moan. In fact, on Friday at 13w6d, I dry heaved three times in ten minutes. Even Olivia looked at me concerned and asked, “Mama, you going to frow up?” Bless her heart though, she was able to go into the kitchen for me and grab a B6 sucker off the counter and bring it to me. Otherwise, it probably would have ended badly.

My jaw gets stiff at times because sometimes the only way to stop dry heaving is to clench my teeth together. I no longer eat cheese sticks which were my only reliable source of protein, and all I’ve been wanting lately is Cheetos Puffs. I’m so grateful. And I feel like I always have to preface that, but I really am. I know how lucky I am. But this is wearing on me. I’m sick of it. I hate eating. Detest it. But if I don’t, I dry heave. It’s awful. I have anxiety the night before, knowing how awful the morning is going to be.

As the day goes on, I feel sort of better, but if I eat a snack, no matter how small, before dinner, I’m so full I can’t even breath. And I take two bites of dinner and want to push it away. GAG GAG GAG GET THIS AWAY FROM ME I’M SO FULL.

If I didn’t know there was a girl in there before…

…I do now.