21 Weeks, 3 Days

Today is my appointment for the fetal anatomy scan 9:45am.  I’m so nervous and excited I am almost in tears.  I could barely sleep last night and almost feel depressed.  Normally, I wouldn’t be very nervous and especially not in tears or depressed about this exciting moment, but the added challenge of going to a strange doc mid-pregnancy for a very important test, a doctor I’ve never met or spoken to before in a country I can’t speak the language and don’t understand the protocol is terrifying.  What if something is wrong with the baby and I can’t understand the doctor?!?!  We somehow found the office amidst the crowded streets of Cannes.  9:25am and the streets are already littered with model-type people shopping among the walls of designer stores.  With no parking available as far as the eye can see, I quickly hopped out of the car to run up to my appointment.  G and Alexa parked and met me up in the office about 15 minutes later.  The entrance to the doc’s office is empty, sterile, no A/C, an old building.  There’s no receptionist, so you help yourself into another small, sterile room where many other beautiful pregnant people wait quietly with their significant others.  Every twenty-five minutes or so, someone would leave the patient room next door and the doc would stick his head out just enough so we could hear him call out the next person “Madame Dubois”.  After waiting an hour after my allotted appointment time and watching many women come and go, I decided to hover in front of his patient room to catch him when he cracked the door to call out the next “Madame …”  When I saw him, I asked in the best French I could, “Whitehouse?”  He said, “Madame Whitehouse?  You were supposed to be here yesterday!”  What?  How did this happen?  Panicked I asked, “Can I reschedule?”  He looked through his appointments and he was booked solid for what seemed like quite a while.  He then said, “Can you be back here at 6pm?  Relieved he was a nice guy and spoke some English, we left to run a few more errands and prepare to return at 5:45pm.

We weren’t going to find out the sex.  I mean, keeping it a secret from ourselves only to find out the moment the baby is born seemed so exhilarating and like such an adventure.  But on the way back to the French Doctor in Cannes, George suddenly turns to me and says, “We might as well find out.”  I’M SOLD!  All my anxiety about going to this VERY IMPORTANT fetal anatomy scan (aka echographic) in French was replaced with sheer excitement.  I do know the French words for boy and girl (garcon and fille) and also the French words for he and she (il and elle), so even if I can’t understand anything else the doc says, I WILL GET TO FIND OUT THE SEX OF THE BABY!

Again, there was no parking… and again… We waited almost an hour until we heard, “Madame Whitehouse”.  We jumped up and went into the very nice, clean, dim-lighted, high-tec patient room.  I lay down on the bed facing a large flat-screen TV.  G and Alexa sat next to me anxiously watching the screen.  The doc typed in a couple pieces of information about me, my full name, birth day and due date and then began scanning my belly.  THERE’S THE BABY!  Bouncing around like crazy.  A little utero karate master like Alexa was.  No more hammock position.  This kid is a rock-star jamming and jumping as much as possible inside that crowded little space.  Most of the scan was conducted in silence besides some spoken mixture of French and English body parts periodically.  I just kept asking, “Is that normal?”  He would shake his head yes, smile and say, “normal.” G was quiet as a mouse and tending to Alexa, so when we were about half way through I said, “Can you tell if the baby is le garcon or la fille?”  He moved the scanner just slightly to show in between the baby’s legs and said…

“A Girl… I’m sure!”  Alexa’s going to have a little sister!  Although 51% of me wanted one of each, I really wasn’t sure what I would do with a little boy anyway, so after a few minutes of sinking in, I couldn’t be happier to have another little girl.  Two of a kind.  I never had a sister and I hear the bond between sisters is something that is irreplaceable.  Something so special.  He then started showing us pictures on the TV screen of her face in 4-D.  She looks soooo much like Alexa did at the same stage with her cute little round face and button nose.  My heart is melting.  My girls!

On the way back to the villa, we talked about our soon to be adventures with two girls and reinforced each other that there will be no more kids for us after this.  I’m not the kind of person wanting to try again and again for a boy.  I’m happy with two girls.  My little angels.  After knowing she is a girl, within hours a name begun to stick.  One I wasn’t sure about before, but now… it seems to fit her like a glove almost like she is naming herself.  Are you curious?

20 Weeks, 5 & 6 Days

Hiking in Zermatt, Switzerland

19 Weeks, 6 Days

Juan les Pins, France on the Cote d'Azur

17 Weeks, 4 Days

As of last Monday at 16 weeks, 7 days… Jr is popping around my lower belly like a bag of popping corn.  I feel the little jumping bean kick and punch me daily now a few times a day especially when I devour a French cappuccino.  He started up his shenanigans on the flight over to France at regular intervals.  Maybe she was moving this whole time, I just wasn’t ever still at the right moments to feel her.  And Jr isn’t the only thing that’s popping these days, my lower belly is popping out like a pot belly pig.  I feel like a pot belly pig too.  My exercise routine was going great until Alexa and I came to France earlier this week… now, it is nil mostly because my life is completely revolved around Alexa at the moment.  Sure, I’ve gone on some long walks, a bike ride with Alexa on the tot seat, and lifted a little light weight, but nothing like the running I was doing.  I feel fat.  Maybe it’s the French pizza, bread, and gelato I’ve been eating also.  Well, baby likes it.

16 Weeks, 2 Days

I went for my 16 week check up on Wednesday and boy was it a relief to hear that little heartbeat again… thank God!  I was getting a bit nervous wondering how the baby could have escaped my uterus without me knowing.  Then, last night I definitely felt him move.  Definitely.  No doubt in my mind.  She rolled a bit in slow motion scraping the inside of my belly with her little knee or little butt or head, maybe.  She’s only the side of an avocado right now, so it’s pretty hard to tell from the outside what I’m feeling.  It’s important to note that many women don’t feel their babies move until 20 or even 22 weeks… but I’ve been freaking out cause I no doubtedly felt Alexa move a whole lot beginning at 13 weeks and this one has been quite a bit more sporadic.  All this is reassuring, but I’m still not out of the woods yet… I’m still nervous about this little guy’s health because I am going to be of “advanced maternity age” when the baby is born.  Yes, 35 is “advanced maternity age” apparently and has a higher risk of complications like down syndrome.  Eek!  I’ll barely be 35, but still!  I am waiting on the test results for the nuchal translucency screen and the plasma protein-A / HCG test which give me the “estimated risk”… I am supposed to hear by this Tuesday.

What is bothering me just as much as the lack of consistant movement, (little movement in comparison to uterine karate expert Alexa), is the fact that both my ultrasounds, conducted 4 weeks apart, showed this little guy lounging in a suspended invisible hammock.  Yeah, I know what you are sayin'... why is that worrisome? It was super cute the first time with his little hands behind his head, knees bent, just chillin’.  I wanted to give him a frozen cocktail to complete his experience.  But the second time he looked exactly the same in the ultrasound a month later, it concerns me.  Why isn’t he moving much?  Are his hands fused to the back of his head or something?  Maybe she’s just a more chilled out baby than bouncy Alexa was.  I asked the doc, she told me the baby is fine and to stop worrying.  I guess I will feel much better when I feel her move more, I get healthy results back from the down syndrome tests and when I see the baby in any other position besides hammock in the next ultrasound 4 weeks from now.

15 Weeks, 6 Days

I swear I woke up this morning and my stomach is as flat as a board.  Well, flat as a board who looks a bit like someone’s been drinking too much beer and eating too many pizzas.  Of course the beer and pizza part is NOT the case… I’m more than 4 months prego for Christ’s sake, aren’t I?  I never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but this stomach flatness is really disturbing.  Where did the baby go?  I wrote in my last blog that I felt the baby move loads of times, but now I haven’t felt him/her in a while and I am beginning to second guess those previous movement feelings.  Was it maybe just air bubbles maybe?  I am freaking out!  What if something happened to the baby!?!?! Is he/she still alive?  I’ve been running light 5k runs in the A/C a few times a week, eating pretty well, no bleeding or other weird cramping or anything else strange going on… so, why at 16 weeks prego do I have pretty much no more pregnancy symptoms?!?!  My boobs don’t even hurt anymore!

14 Weeks, 6 Days!

What?!?!? 14 weeks, 6 days already! I’m already in the 2^nd trimester and failed to blog about my pregnancy experiences over the past month plus?!?  Oops.  I apologize… to myself… since I am the only one who currently reads this blog.  We plan to tell everyone after my June 1^st blood work and 16 month check up appointment results come back.  But, then G will be half way across the Atlantic ocean on a yacht incommunicado!  Ok, so maybe everyone won’t know until mid June when G steps foot back on land and joins Alexa and me in France Juan les Pin when I’m almost half way through the pregnancy!

To sum up the best parts of the first third of this pregnancy:

• I gained 5 lbs, maybe 6.  (weight gain already on the higher end of the scale.  Note to self, must be careful)
• I practically stopped working out besides some sporadic cardio binges due to severe exhaustion and time restraints (still planning to change this)
• My face is teenager oily
• I cry when I see a diaper commercial
• My leg hair is growing so uncontrollably I’ve almost retired my raiser for the remainder of the pregnancy.  What’s keeping me shaving daily is knowing the only thing worse than having sex with a fat pregnant lady is having sex with a hairy fat pregnant lady.  G can thank me later.
• I am still completely disgusted by most animal products, protein powders, and nuts… AND afraid to eat/drink soy, so I’m worried about my protein intake
• I’m pissing like a race horse all the freaking time, especially at night
• I’m not sleeping very well
• My boobs are still getting bigger and more sore
• I sneezed the other day and pissed my pants just a little.
• My energy is back, mostly
• I’m craving gazpacho and grapefruit juice
• My nausea has subsided
• The top part of my inner thighs are already very close to rubbing together when I walk, ugh!
• I’m already retaining water randomly throughout the day, then I’m suddenly not for no apparent reason
• I’m as horney as a peacock in heat
• And the very best part… I FELT THE BABY MOVE!!! Already more times than I can count.  Sometimes little rolls, sometimes little butterfly flutters, sometimes a small light finger flick feeling… so amazing.  It started around 13 weeks.