How Far Along: 23 weeks
Size of Peanut: Grapefruit. Dear "thebump.com", please make me more of an emotional basketcase by stating that baby can now hear "dogs barking". Not in our house anymore :-(
Total Weight Gain: Unclear. After last week's trip to NYC/Thanksgiving, I am most definitely NOT looking forward to next week's weigh in.
Maternity Clothes: I buckled down and bought a maternity coat. I desperately did not want to, but I have been too busy to try to find one to borrow, and I found a cute one at Old Navy for $40. I was hoping to make it a little further along in my regular coats, but already none of them button, so it was time. Thank you Black Friday for your convenient timing!
Exercise: It's been a rough couple of weeks, but I've managed to sneak some workouts in here and there. It's definitely getting more challenging, but the Barre3 app on my phone has been such a blessing. For $5 you get a bunch of workouts in the app, and they are all anywhere from 5-15 minutes long. I literally stood at my counter one day while frying bacon (lol moment - working out while frying bacon) and did a workout while holding onto my kitchen counter. Talk about efficiency! Disclaimer: carrying a toddler while pregnant and walking up and down 4 billion subway steps in NYC counts as exercise.
Sleep: My sleep patterns have been all over the place the last few weeks. We got our new bed, and Jake loves it. I am not sold yet. I'm definitely still waking up a little sore every morning, and I'm not sleeping soundly through the night without any pain. However, it's definitely better than our old mattress was. The good news is we have until February to decide if we want to keep it, so we're going to keep sleeping on it and see what we think and then make a decision a little later. For now, I've been so emotionally and physically exhausted the last week that I have been sleeping pretty well.
Best Moment(s) this week: I originally wrote "no comment" here, but in the spirit of trying to be thankful and grateful for things that I have, I am changing my response. The love and support that we received from our family and friends after the loss of Callie was a nice reminder of the fact that there is nothing more important in life than family, friends, and love. Love is so important and love always wins.
Gender: Well, IT'S A GIRL!! In general I am super excited about this information. I love my sister dearly and I am so happy that Sam will have a sister to share her life with. Do I think it's going to be challenging, especially from the ages of like 9-18? Of course. However, I think Jake is the perfect dad to raise girls. Since I am a girl myself, I like to think I might be able to handle and relate to a lot of the challenges that come our way. Jake and I make a pretty good team, so for now I'm excited to have two sweet girls running around our house. Check back with me in 2025 when we're in the throws of tweens/teens and see how I'm doing (wink wink).
As far as her name goes - I have been a little surprised by the reactions I've gotten from people. You would think we are naming her Pilot Inspektor for goodness sake. We had a lot of trouble coming up with a girl name this time around. Everything I liked, Jake didn't really care for, and he wasn't much help in coming up with names on his own. I had always kind of liked Macy, but when I went to get my hair cut the week before my ultrasound and my hairdresser kept saying her daughter's name over and over again (her name is Macy) I thought it was really cute. I went home and told Jake that I had a new name. When I said it, he didn't immediately hate it. In fact, he said he actually kind of liked it. I suggested using James as a middle name since Jake, his dad, and his grandpa all share the same first name - James. The chances of us having another child after this one are pretty slim, so we wanted to make sure we slipped James in there somewhere. I like James for a girl, but neither of us were very keen on using it as a first name after 3 grown men. So there you have it - Macy James. I think it's cute, I think it goes with Sam, and I love that both of our girls have a middle names that give little shout outs to some very important family members.
Movement: This kid has been going nuts the last few weeks. Jake has felt a few kicks at this point, which is awesome. Her most active time tends to be anywhere between 9-10pm, but lately she has been pretty active all day long. Her favorite place to kick and punch is right into my bladder, which is basically the most awesome thing ever (sarcasm).
Food Cravings: I feel like my constant hunger has died down a little bit recently. I am definitely still hungrier than I am when I'm not pregnant, but I don't feel the need to eat throughout the entire afternoon like I did a month ago. The mornings are the hardest, where my typical food consists of an egg sandwich for breakfast, a banana an hour later, and a KIND bar an hour after that. Even with all of that food consumption, I'm usually hungry for lunch before noon and I start that eating routine around 8:30am. Sheesh.
Symptoms: Luckily my headaches have pretty much subsided. All throughout the process of moving out of our house and walking around NYC, I had really terrible sciatic nerve pain that shot right into my butt. It was terrible, and there's really not much I could do about it. It seems that any day where I spend a lot of time on my feet, it kicks in pretty bad. Sucks.
What I Miss: After the past couple weeks we've had, I'd be lying if I didn't say I missed drinking large quantities of alcohol.
What I am Looking Forward to: Sorry to be a huge Debbie Downer this week, but I'm looking forward to the day when I don't feel like I could burst into tears at any given moment and my heart doesn't feel like it's been ripped to shreds in my chest. Who knows when that might be, but right now it feels like I will be sad forever about losing Callie at such a young age.
SUA: As I mentioned before, I have an umbilical cord abnormality. It's called single umbilical artery (SUA). Essentially, there should be 3 blood vessels in the umbilical cord, and I only have 2. There should be one vein that carries nutrients to the baby from the placenta, and another 2 veins that carry waste back to the placenta. I only have 1 vein that carries waste back to the placenta. My doctor assured me that I shouldn't lose sleep over this, and that he has delivered probably 40 babies over the course of his career with SUA and all of them have been perfectly healthy. The biggest concern is that it can affect growth. There is an increase in possibility for stillbirth, chromosomal abnormalities, and organ abnormalities. I feel like this is the most common-sense explanation on the internet for this condition: http://www.thebump.com/a/two-vessel-cord
The good news is, everything else looked good on the ultrasound. I will have another ultrasound at around 28 weeks to check on Macy's organs again, and hopefully everything will be fine. He also said that it shouldn't really affect my opportunity to VBAC (Macy is actually already head down and there is no placenta previa this time - so yay for that). Although since the cord is smaller, sometimes it can cause the baby's heart rate to drop during labor, so they'll have to keep a closer eye on that.
I know that things could be infinitely worse. Jake's cousin just lost her precious 8 day old baby to some serious health complications, so please keep her and her family in your prayers if you have any to spare. I feel very frustrated with my body for not cooperating again. After all of the issues we had with my pregnancy with Sam, the last thing I wanted to do was spend my entire 2nd and 3rd trimesters worrying about this little nugget too. When we left the ultrasound room after my appointment, I felt so relieved that Macy was measuring right on target, that my placenta was out of the way, and she was already head down. Then we went in to meet with the doc and he delivered this news. I went from a really high high, to a very low low in a matter of 10 minutes. I feel a lot better about it now after being reassured by my sweet mother-in-law that all of the doctors at her practice have delivered perfectly healthy babies with SUA. But telling a pregnant woman not to worry is like putting cake in front of Sam and telling her not to eat it. Ain't gonna happen. I just pray every day that despite this stupid umbilical cord, Macy is just as resilient as Sam is and turns out just as perfect and healthy and adorable.
I guess what I'm about to say speaks volumes about the fortunate life I have lived so far. Callie is the first family member that I have had to say goodbye to as an adult. I have never felt such gut wrenching grief before - the kind that makes you feel like you can't breath, like someone is literally squeezing your heart and trying to rip it out of your chest. The 24 hours leading up to her appointment were the worst 24 hours of my life. I spent most of the time sobbing uncontrollably. I was able to spend most of Monday afternoon with her sitting next to me on the couch while I worked from home. Sam woke up from her nap right before we left for the vet, and she seemed very confused and very tired, but did give Callie one final hug and kiss goodbye. (She asked my dad on Tuesday if "Mommy and Daddy were going to keep crying about Callie", so I'm really trying hard to keep it together in front of her, since she is obviously confused and doesn't really "get" that she is never going to see Callie again).
It feels like I'll be forever haunted by the look in Callie's eyes when she left us. I hate that she spent her last moments on earth scared on the vet's table, wondering what was about to happen. I hate that we had to bring our baby home wrapped in a blanket in our trunk. I also hate the thought of her being underground in my parents' backyard. I hate that I'll never hear her ears flap around her head again when she wakes up in the morning. I hate that I'll never snuggle with her on the couch again and that she'll never greet me again when I get home. I hate all of it, and it hurts more than I imagined it would. I am so thankful that we are no longer living at our house where I would be guaranteed to see Callie everywhere. I'll keep her in my heart forever and pray that the hurt goes away soon.
House Update:
We moved out of our house. I never imagined it would be such a process to get everything out, but it certainly was. I felt like we were moving out for 3 weeks straight. Once we finally got everything out, we spent a few hours cleaning everything, and then had one final teary dance party with Sam and Callie in our living room. Jake and I built our marriage there, we found out we were pregnant there, we brought Sam home there, we raised Sam there. It was our first home and it will always hold a special place in my heart. I am excited for new beginnings, but sad to leave.
We STILL have not closed though! We were supposed to close on Monday, the 30th, but the bank is taking forever to get their shit together, so we are still waiting on a close date. It really feels like this has been the longest process ever. Even though I am sad, I am ready to be done with it and officially move on.
Life in my parents' house has been great so far. I'm sure we will face some challenges, but I will never be able to thank them enough for letting us live with them while we build our house. Throw Callie's passing on top of that, and all of the support they offered this week while we are grieving her, and there's no way I can ever thank them enough. They really are the best.
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