I think that would roughly be the following, but I may change my mind along the way:

• Express gratitude
• Be active
• Eat nutritious food
• Do something good for my soul
• Nuture relationships

In addition, my favorite blog, Bitch Cakes, does a great weekly accomplishment post that I’m going to start doing as well. 

Oh, and on the note of something that I’m grateful for, my gorgeous little girl is going to be one in a few weeks!

• Worked with 35+ social studies teachers;
• Brainstormed solutions with my Course Leaders to common problems;
• Analyzed data from our meeting survey;
• Spoke with multiple teachers about an amazing international program;
• Updated the international program manager on our interest;
• Wrote recommendation letters for seniors;
• Conferenced with about twenty sophomores about their progress report grades;
• Created a new Student of the Month award;
• Lesson planned!
• Graded . . . kind of! L
• Revised my unit plans;
• Updated the social studies budget;
• Met with students about their Be the Change solutions;
• Scrounged around for a projector (thanks Lauren and Mike!);
• Created a presentation rubric for an AP project;
• Met with our student counselor about students of concern;
• Discussed students of concern with my grade level team;
• Spoke with the high school principal about some student issues;
• Pumped for an hour a day at work—ugh.
• Ran over to the pediatrician for Addie’s four-month appointment in between classes and professional development
• A million other things that make up the lives of teachers . . .

After the ultrasound, they took my blood to assess risk of Downs and Trisomy 13 and 18 (better than 1:10,000 for all three based on the results), and they offered a free gender test using the blood they’d already taken.  We eagerly agreed–every dream I’ve had about the baby it had been a girl–and we couldn’t wait to find out.

At my appointment with my midwife on Tuesday, she told me the results–according to the blood test, we’re having a little girl!  We have a confirmatory ultrasound at the end of October (after which I’ll start buying all kinds of girly items for her), but apparently this test is extremely accurate, so hopefully it will match.

We’ve been debating girls’ names off and on the past few days and came down to the following list of ten: Lorelai, Claire, Eliza, Audrey, Cecilia , Adeline, Alyssa, Natalie, Margaret (nn Maggie) and Lucille (nn Lucy).  Once we had the list of ten, we each chose our top five independently and compared them–we had three in common: Lorelai, Adeline, and Lucille.  My husband really likes Adeline, and I think it’s adorable too, so I think that might just be her name.  We’re going to call her Addie. 

Meanwhile, in other important news, I’m completely in love with this bedding set and think we’re going to paint her room a pale lavender.  My mom was here this week and wanted to buy us the crib, so we ended up with this one that has just a colorless shiny seal over the wood–it’s really pretty in person–so that it’s not too girly.  Plus, my mom pointed out that we’ll be able to easily use it for our second kiddo down the road, whether it’s a boy or girl (second kid! yikes!).

I’m still sick although not as bad–at 13 weeks now, I’m hoping that it ends really soon.  My doctor accidently found a problem with my thyroid–it seemed like I had hyperthyroid, but when I went to the endocrinilogist yesterday he said the results could be caused by pregnancy, but he found a large cyst on my thyroid that needs to be monitored.  He said based on the size that it could have been there since I was 10, so I’m grateful for little Addie for helping them to find that problem.

So we went straight over to the attached hospital to get the ultrasound, and they got us in really quickly.  Our technician was this very stern older Eastern European woman.  She started with the belly ultrasound since my husband was only allowed in the room for that one.  She pressed it around my belly for a while, then I hear her say,

“I can’t see anything.  Mother is empty.” 

I start freaking out, crying on the bed, my husband can’t see my reaction but is worried and stressed on the other side of the little room, and I asked why she couldn’t see anything.  Well, it turns out she meant that my bladder was empty and I needed to have it full for this scan.  Sheesh!

She kicked out my husband and gave me a vaginal ultrasound (I’ve heard it referred to as the ‘dildo cam’). After a couple minutes of her silently working, I was panicking and asked in a teary voice, “Is its heart beating?”  She glanced at me, softened up a little, and said, “Of course its heart it beating!”  She turned on the volume so I could hear the heartbeat.  I think that was one of the best moments of my life.  She measured my baby (“embryo” she insisted loudly), and told me that it was measuring perfectly on target and that its heartbeat was perfect as well, around 150 beats per minute (their hearts beat so fast)!  My gestational sack and the beginnings of my placenta also looked perfect to her.  Since she was pretty gruff, I’m going to go ahead and trust her. 

After forcing down 40 ounces of water, we tried the first scan again so my husband could be there, and he got to hear the heartbeat as well.  It wasn’t quite as clear, but it was still amazing.  We got a picture of the baby (the word embryo doesn’t really do it justice, even if it’s scientifically correct), and I’m keeping it by my nightstand to gaze at. 

I’m posting the below as a reference for myself and anyone suffering from nausea/vomiting while pregnant–I suggest trying everything and moving on as certain things don’t work (and retrying other things at different times of the day, etc). 

Here are all the home remedies that I’ve tried over the last week since I started vomiting:

-drinking diluted sour lemonade (I really like this, but it didn’t stop the vomitting)

-crackers in bed fifteen to twenty minutes before waking up (didn’t help at all)

-ginger candies/crystalized ginger/ginger tea–worked if I was feeling mildly nauseous for a time but didn’t stop the nausea/vomitting after a while

-eating a small amount of carbs after peeing around 4:30, then going back to bed, eating some more carbs after waking, then eating breakfast.  I never got to breakfast because I was vomiting so much after the second intake of carbs.

-cranberry juice–no difference either way

-Coke with lots of ice–this one actually seems to make a difference, and I felt much less nauseous after drinking it.

-extra vitamin B6 (though not with Unisom)–threw it up within half an hour

-Zofran disolvable pills–threw up several times within an hour of taking it

-Tums–for some reason, even though I don’t have heartburn, these are working.  I’ve only thrown up twice today while taking them, and they seem to help the nausea.  Yay!

PS: It isn’t that I’m not interested in school anymore–I really like my students this year–but I’m more interested in this pregnancy since it’s new and exciting, plus I like blogging about it to read in the future.

Anyway, as a naturally anxious person, I’m starting to feel really anxious about this pregnancy.  At first I was really happy and excited, but now I’m stressed out.  I’m not so worried about taking care of the baby–due April 17–but more worried that somehow I’m going to mess up my baby and will have a miscarriage.  I tossed and turned last night and couldn’t fall asleep until 4am (this is after passing out every night around nine!) because of my anxiety.  I figured that if I listed my fears, they wouldn’t seem to logical and hopefully won’t keep me up in the wee small hours of the morning.

1) I worry that my baby will have a spinal problem.  I’ve been taking my prenatals after dinner, in the evening, and I’m worried that they don’t last long enough in my system.  Worried enough that I bought an additional bottle of folic acid this morning at the grocery store to take with breakfast.  I guess I don’t understand how vitamins work–if folic acid is water soluble and I’ll pee out any excess, how do I know that I’m not peeing it out before it’s needed?  I am going to the bathroom pretty constantly now.  I’m not worried about taking too much since the March of Dimes states, “Folic acid has no known toxic level. If you ate a bowl of fully fortified cereal (400 micrograms), took a folic acid supplement (400 micrograms), and ate fortified foods and foods rich in folate, you would not get too much folic acid.”  So that’s one less worry. 

2) I worry that when we go to our appointment at 7 weeks 1 day that we won’t hear a heartbeat and that we’ll find out that I’ve had a missed miscarriage (when the embryo dies and there are no symptoms). 

3) I worry that if the baby doesn’t die/have complications early, that it will during birth.  I think this just started because my sister-in-law had to have an emergency C-section yesterday due to the baby’s heart rate being too fast.  The baby was born with a fever and is in ICU right now.  I’m so worried about her. 

4) I’m worried that I’m pregnant with twins.  I don’t know why I’m worried about that–my husband says it would be fun–but it’s in the back of my mind. 

I guess most of these are things that I don’t have control over, which is what is so difficult.