A lot has happened in the last few weeks and I wish I had more time to keep up!
Start of week 10, on Saturday the 24th, we visited my father-in-law for dinner. Steaks were served. And they very sweetly gifted us our first baby outfit! I think it’s kinda adorable.
On Monday the 26, we had our second check up with the doctor, and I’m starting to think we found the right group. Dr Mike (as they call him, cause his brother is another doctor there) was amusing and seemed to have a great time refreshing our memories on basic genetics, specifically relating to blood type at our early 7:30 appointment.
Best part of the appointment was hearing Howeberry’s heart beat! It was rather incredible. First Dr Mike explained we would listen to my heart beat for comparison. He first applied some goo to where he would apply the featal doppler microphone, found a large artery “about the size of your index finger” in my lower abdomen, and had us listen to my steady beat for a minute. Then he went searching for Howeberry’s, saying it could take up to five minutes to find. I think it took him less than 2 minutes. The heartbeat was strong and sounded about twice as fast as my own, about 150 beats per minute “if we were counting”.
If you’d like to hear what it sounds like, do a YouTube.com search for “10 weeks heartbeat” – apparently people post everything.
On May Day, start of week 11, we kicked off with our first kayaking trip of the season. It was an all day trip across Barnegat Bay, lunched on Island Beach, then paddled back. It was a beautiful, clear 80º day and the water started out calm. This was suppose to be a challenging trip but started rather easy. I like exercise. that doesn’t feel like exercise. On our paddle back, I told our trip guide about being pregnant and mentioned I hoped to continue kayaking through the end of the season. He said most pregnant woman do pretty well, probably because of the lower center of gravity in the boat, which does not interfere with balance. As long as I’m comfortable, I should be fine (yay!). I’ll just need to remind him as I grow so he can arrange for a boat with a wider cockpit.
And the remainder of the week has been crazy! At work, I spent two days working until 10 PM which resulted in about 2 days worth of overtime. The end result was a brand new phone system for the office and a nearly seamless installation for the users. Another successfully organized project that was nearly transparent to the users.
I’ve been so focused on work that I’ve barely had time to enjoy my newest pregnancy development: I’m about to show! My lower abdomen is firm. I use to be able to press in when poking, but now there is resistance. I’m also finding I can no longer suck my tummy in and my pants are starting to fall down as a result. Might be about time to buy pants with elastic built in just so I don’t have to pull them up every time I stand up.
