Week 14 - Our Wiggler Wiggles!!!

Weed 14 - September 12 - 18
Thursday night just as I was falling asleep there was this feeling of a bubble expanding low in my belly that woke me up out of my almost asleep state - I fell asleep with a huge smile on my face wondering if that had been our baby doing a trick. Then, Friday after I got out of the shower I was sitting down and noticed resounding "pings" on the lower right side...again I sat there smiling, not 100% sure if it was the baby, I knew it could be muscle spasm too, but still...it might be! And then Sunday I was sure! Again, I was sitting down and I felt definite, distinctive little taps while sitting down throughout the afternoon - and I was pretty sure there were more while I was moving around, but it was harder to tell. The best comparison I can think of is if you were to tap a few of your fingers on the inside of your arm - closer to your elbow where you are a little more ticklish. Baby Hals has just been tapping, almost tickling. I think I was the smiliest person on the planet on Sunday - I was SO unbelievably excited! :) This week movement has still been very sporadic and there are still days when I haven't felt much - but I have noticed it more through the week! Very excited about the next few weeks! And what a wonderful way for Baby Hals to be able to check in with a few cute little pokes as if to say "hey mom, still okay!" or "hey mom, thanks for feeding me!"

As for the other happenings - week 14 started off fairly uneventfully. I managed to fit a swim in on Thursday (and felt great until I had a major blood sugar crash post-workout in the shower and had to sit on the bench in the shower to not pass out and buy an apple juice from the snack bar before I could walk to my car...sheesh!...for the record I had an apple and granola bar in the car and felt great once I ate them). So my workout attempt saga continues...they have not been easy to pull off or enjoy! Friday night was a date night where the theme was basically "Florida." We ate at one of our favorite restaurants in Cocoa Beach - The Fat Snook - and Daniel enjoyed a delicious fresh Florida fish catch - red snapper. (My land meal was excellent too). We enjoyed key lime pie for dessert and ended up at the beach for a stroll around sunset - it was really a nice evening!

Red snapper at The Fat Snook - Daniel said it was fantastic

filet mignon at The Fat Snook - yummy!

Saturday night we had a fun dinner with our friends at an Italian place, met up with the whole gang for froyo and ended up at the Browns watching the tense end of the Texas A&M v Alabama game.
Sunday afternoon we had a showing! So we hid at Chris' house (we owe him major thanks! It is SO easy to run over to his house with Chance when someone wants to take a look) and then ended up at our house while Daniel and Chris played more video games together (this time it was Halo time) and I finally caved into my cravings and made a pumpkin dump cake I had seen on someone's facebook wall - and OMG! yummmy!!!

pumpkin dump cake - it was ridiculous! this picture however is terrible! It looked way better on my phone!

Monday Daniel and I met for lunch at an awesome Thai place in Hammocks landing and enjoyed their mango curry one last time and then I had my final midwife appointment (before we move) and Baby Hals is doing great! She also said I officially have a bump! When she used the doppler the sound of Baby Hals wiggling practically drowned out the sound of his/her heartbeat and the midwife chuckled and said "you have an active one in there!" at which point we heard a big "chhh" sound on the doppler and she said "that was quite a kick!" We went over my previous blood results from the routine tests I had at 13 weeks - my thyroid levels were great (major thyroid issues on all side of the family, so I've been keeping tabs on my thyroid levels since I was like 22). My red blood cell levels were all good and they did confirm that I am O negative (which means Daniel's positive blood will of course make my life more complicated - but modern medicine is pretty awesome!) and the one concerning thing? Even though I had standard immunizations when I was a child and a MMR booster in high school, I am in the 1% of the population that someone failed to develop antibodies to the measles. Sigh. It's...a semi big deal. The chance of me coming across someone carrying the measles is incredibly slim, but if I do it would very likely kill Baby Hals. :( So no more foreign travel for me! They said I will be vaccinated before I leave the hospital and to just be careful until then. The thought of someone who doesn't believe in vaccinations exposing me to the measles and killing my baby brings out every "mother lion" instinct I have and I honestly cannot begin to tell you how passionately I feel about the importance of immunizations. The irony of my lack of immunity is apparent to me too - I have more vaccinations than most people I know - along with the standards there's Hep A, typhoid, H1N1, the seasonal flu shot nearly every year for the past decade, and I had a booster against whooping cough before going to China. Yep. Pretty frustrating. I'm also kinda mad at my previous gynecologist (totally different office than I use now) - at my annual check up I had brought up wanting to try to conceive and had asked if there was anything I needed to do - many docs recommend a measles antibody check at that point and mine didn't (and I was already getting blood work done to check my thyroid level!) I could have found out then, gotten the immunization, waited three months, and been so much safer! It's infuriating!


The other thing that came up was that at the 13 week blood draw the standard chromosomal testing never actually happened. So we have now missed that window - but! WIN! My midwife said I actually could do a different test instead (one that I actually think is a lot better and wanted in the first place - but being low risk it's hard to justify to insurance - unless you missed the window for the first test!) So...they drew blood for the free-cell DNA test (called Panorama or Harmony or MaterniT21) - so...two weeks from Sept 16th we should have the results, which will identify if there are any chromosomal issues - AND tell us Baby Hals' GENDER! YAY! It's a test that's at least 99% accurate! They actually pull the baby's DNA from my blood to analyze it - so cool! We are psyched!

That night I actually cooked chicken again! I wanted to cook a yummy dinner while I could - I think cooking in our little hotel kitchenette is going to prove extra challenging. So I cooked up a delicious favorite - chicken parmesan and enjoyed a family dinner with Daniel and Chris and we watched the latest Breaking Bad episode - two more to go!

Tuesday was an internet errand day and I did manage to get another swim in! This time I had a gatorade in my gym bag with an apple and granola bar on stand by in the gym bag so I could munch them in the shower if I had to. I drank the 12 oz gatorade before I even stepped in the shower, so I think that really helped. No sugar crash this time - progress! Wednesday I got to enjoy an afternoon with my friend and neighbor Kim. She's 6 months pregnant with her second, so we had a lot of fun comparing notes. She made some great recommendations for my registry and for other things and I finally filled her in on all of our upcoming changes! I will definitely miss her! We were both really excited to have young kids in the neighborhood together. We had another showing in the evening from 5-6 and again Chris' home was a wonderful refuge! I also had wiggling frequently though the whole day on Wednesday!!! Soooo exciting!

Daniel and Chris...several days this week. Game of the week was Halo 4 (I think...) Aren't they cute? I love watching them play together!

Chance still seems to be making himself at home....I think our pup is doing just fine!

Positives and Negatives this week? STILL dragging through this forsaken cold! Grossness! I'm just snotty and gunky and bleh. Otherwise okay - but tired of the sinus pressure and grossness. Food!...is actually tasting good! (Hence cooking chicken!) I would actually say my appetite is still a bit down, or at least my hunger seems less manic, but food sounds good and most of the time it's not hard to eat it! YAY! Really enjoyed that! And...my bump is still pretty small (I mean...I see people with much larger potbellies in the grocery store, so I guess I think I'm cute and pregnant...but in reality they probably just think I have a potbelly too) - but this week my bump is starting to get in the way in small ways. Like if my legs are crossed and I want to lean down and pick something up...that's tricker. Or... (I knew this would be a problem and wasn't looking forward to it)...I LOVE to draw my knees up to my chest...while on the couch, while at the dinner table (not in public), etc. Drawing both knees up now is problematic! Even one at some angles is tricky - so...I supposed Baby Hals is growing and so is his/her kiddie pool!

Enjoying the beautiful beaches of Florida while talking about our future - we are so excited!

Week 15 is going to be an emotional one - lots of good byes to some very beloved people and our first beautiful home together - wish us luck! We are incredibly excited about our next adventure - but we have loved many things about the past seven years and thus, there are some sad good byes as well (it means we've had a great time!)

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