The Energizer J Keeps Growing and Growing and Growing and...

Not much in weight, fortunately.  I am starting to gain a little weight back, but at a reasonable weight...I've been hovering within 2 pounds this week that's up 2-4 pounds from before Thanksgiving.  I can handle that.  Even with the weight I lost in the first trimester, I'm trying to be VERY careful about how much I gain because I know I'm starting out overweight and there's a family history of diabetes on my mom's side getting worse every generation.  I was pleasantly surprised, though, that my midwife said I don't fall into the high risk category to be tested for GD before 24 weeks!!  She also gave me more leeway than I had been giving myself in how much weight I gain.  I've been aiming for only 15 pounds over my original weight, and she said I would be fine with 20-25.  She didn't tell me that 15 was too little, though, so I'm still going to aim for 15 so that if I'm off from that I still hopefully end up in the 20-25 pound range.

I am growing and changing more in clothes, though.  I still don't think I'm really showing, but at the same time, I don't know how much the BeBand is going to help with my current pants over time.  I was wearing my main pair of jeans on Saturday with the BeBand and I realized that when I pulled them up all the way, they were tight below where the zipper ended and thus below where the BeBand could help.  So we'll be starting to shop for maternity clothes in the next week or so.  Bear did at least find out about a maternity consignment store nearby, so we're going to try there first.

Not much of any more news about my mom.  She doesn't have insurance, so she's applied for a charity that has a cardiologist (since the one she's getting treatment from now does not) so she can try to get cleared for the biopsy. 

Stunned and in Denial

No, it's not Penguin, Penguin's fine.  It's my mom.  I talked to her last night, and it turns out she's kinda been avoiding me because she had news she didn't want to tell me.  There's a medical problem that I've known about that had seemed to be stable for several years.  Now, the doctors are using the C word.  But they don't know for sure.  They need to do a biopsy to see.  But they can't do the biopsy yet because Mom isn't cleared for surgery.  Apparently, on top of everything else, she has an enlarged heart, and because of that, they can't clear her for surgery.  When she first went in about this problem, the doctors gave her Tramodol.  For those who aren't familiar, it's a nonaddictive lightweight pain medication.  As of earlier this week, she's now on oxys every 4 hours.  That scares me.  I'm kinda bouncing back and forth between scared and not feeling like it's real.  I know people lose their parents at this age or well before, but even though I know her health hasn't been great, I didn't expect this.

Skating Along Towards Winter

I haven't had the energy to post much of anything lately!  Even though I'm out of the first trimester now, I still feel tired all the time and like all my energy is drained by work.  It seems I've finally turned a corner on nausea over the weekend and was able to eat well on my birthday.  Good thing, since Thanksgiving is one of my very favorite holidays!  We had our 15 week appointment today, and Penguin is going strong, with a heartbeat about 140 bpm.  Next appointment is December 26, and for our Christmas present, we get the gender reveal if Penguin wants to cooperate!

The other big thing has been the wedding.  We had the public wedding on November 17.  It was rainy, but it held off to a drizzle for the ceremony, good thing since it was an outdoor ceremony!  Sister Bear (my friend Katie suggested that the kids need blog names, and suggested Brother Bear and Sister Bear.  Brother Bear is older, and there is a Baby Bear in the books, so, sold!) hadn't been too keen on the idea of an outdoor wedding, but I didn't really know how to tell her it couldn't be in the church because Mommy and Daddy are Catholic and divorced.

Oh, yeah, and we meet with the head priest at the church on Friday about getting both of our marriages annulled so we can get married as far as the Church is concerned.  Mine should actually be easy, since The Ex and I could not have children without means that the Church deems unacceptable.  We'll see about Bear's.

Oh, and I forgot to tell y'all how telling The Ex went.  It actually went well!  He said that he was happy for me, and it didn't actually seem like "let me just say something nice to get her off the phone," because then we ended up chatting for an hour more.  This from the person that said he didn't want any more contact with me after we got engaged.  Whatever, I'll take it and go with the flow.  I'm just relieved that it wasn't painful.

Wishing I Still Had My Fat Pants

Today was the first time I had to unbutton my jeans and go around with them that way (with my shirt pulled down, and Bear suggested I tie my fleece around my waist to keep it all together).  I didn't keep much of anything as I lost 50 pounds in 2012 because I was so proud of myself for losing the weight and didn't intend to ever need the larger clothes again.  But now I wish I had kept more of it so that I had more transition clothes for before I'm ready for maternity clothes (or able to afford maternity clothes).  I might need to get one of those bands to hold unbuttoned pants up.  I did have gas, so I don't know how well the pants will fit when I don't, but they did feel kinda tight on Saturday, when I didn't have gas, so maybe it was more than just gas, maybe I am starting to actually show a teensy tiny bit or something crazy like that.

So now I'm looking at maternity clothes on Target and Wal-Mart's websites.  I thought I'd never have a reason to do that.  Wow.

Sharing the News

We told the younger child this week while they were with us.  I hadn't thought we'd be able to keep the secret until the wedding, not with the older one knowing and being so excited about it.  And the way ended up being somewhat paved by the 6-year-old herself while I had her alone for the weekend.  One of Bear's concerns was that she had not yet learned that people could have a baby without being married.  But she ended up asking me exactly that over the weekend.  And not because she suspected I was!  She asked because "well, I want to be able to have kids someday, but I don't ever want to get married!"  So we ended up getting into people having kids together without getting married, people using a friend to "provide the guy part," and going to a doctor "to get the guy part."

The kids are both thrilled and excited, and they keep asking if I'm ok and if Penguin is.  When we saw them yesterday along with their mother, the younger one said goodbye to Penguin too when they left.  I felt kinda bad for their mother with that.  But not as bad as I would have if their mother hadn't been pumping the younger one for information over the phone about the wedding and about Penguin.

Now for the next big hurdle: The Ex.  I'm scared to tell him, scared of him never wanting to speak to me again and thus completely cutting me off from contact with MY cats that I let him have.  He already said because I got engaged to Bear that he doesn't want contact and asked me to step back from an event we had been running together (that I had been getting needed income from but that I wouldn't be able to do next year because of Penguin anyway), but he was willing to still allow some sort of contact with the cats.  I have one friend that is also friends with him that sends me pics and updates when she visits him, but I don't want to put pressure on her to be the Official Cat News-Bearer.  But also, The Ex was an ass to her over the weekend because he had a date that didn't go well and she was happy at an event they were both at with her new boyfriend.  So on the heels of that, I'm even more nervous than I had been.  But I feel like I need to tell him before the wedding, since the kids and their mother know and since we're starting to tell more people, even if we're not making the official announcement until closer to Christmas.

So yeah, we'll see how this goes.

Still Standing

Penguin still has a heartbeat is measuring right on track, and they haven't been able to identify any reason for the sporadic spotting, although Bear and I are supposed to abstain until I go two weeks without spotting.  Um, yeah, about that....

Penguin was waving his or her hand in front of his or her face during the ultrasound, it was so cute!  We wouldn't have actually gotten another ultrasound until 20 weeks, just heard the heartbeat in the exam room, but someone had coded today's appointment in the scheduler as a "confirm pregnancy" appointment instead of a normal monitoring appointment, so we got lucky.

We did have to tell the 9-year-old and bring him with us to the appointment.  Apparently their school says kids can't come back after being sick until at least 24 hours after they throw up, and he hadn't kept lunch down the previous day, so we had to go back and get him right after dropping him off and dropping off their costumes at their mothers. (They did a little trick or treating with her and then came over to do it with us since it was our day with them.)  He was excited and happy, though he did ask Bear whether Bear would still love him and his sister the most.  However, later he expressed some concerns to Bear, especially about how it would be crowded and where Penguin would sleep (it's a two-bedroom apartment, so he already shares a room with his sister).  He also said it felt really fast, which is something I've been worried about.  We're not telling the 6-year-old yet.  As part of The Talk, the 9-year-old has gotten the "sometimes people aren't married when they have a baby" part.  The 6-year-old has not gotten that part yet, and so we're still going to try to hold off on telling her until after the wedding.

I did tonight have the first crash meeting of baby brain and pregnancy clumsiness.  I've got the 6-year-old on my own all weekend because Bear is taking the 9-year-old on a Cub Scout campout.  Families are welcome (and I really wanted to go because it's on a ship!!) but the 6-year-old has decided she no longer likes campouts (or anything where she could get dirty except cooking), so we're staying home.  I was making dinner, and as I was draining something, the hot water splashed out of the sink and onto my stomach.  I could have more easily gotten my shirt away from my skin, but it also splashed onto the waistband of my skirt, so the hot water was on there for a good minute before I could get it away from my skin.  I've got 2 nice lines of burns on my tummy now that the initial redness has faded, and there's a small blister on the top line.  I've been a first aider long enough to know what to do for burns, and I'm doing it, but I feel really dumb.  Maybe it's a good thing that on the night I didn't make the dinner I made tonight, I was thinking of ordering pizza since we have a coupon.  Apparently I can't be trusted in the kitchen!  I'm also really glad that my stomach still looks just fat instead of pregnant since I had to walk around with it hanging out while I held a cold wet washcloth on it.  I'm very glad I wasn't hurt worse while Bear is 5 1/2 hours away.

Updatish

I know I've been a bad blogger.  I've been so tired that I haven't been able to manage anything more than keeping up to date (kinda) with work paperwork.  I want to go to sleep at 8 or 9 every night, but I still have a lot of work to do. 

My next appointment is tomorrow morning.  I don't think I'm going to be able to take a deep breath until I'm in the sonogram room with a good result.  Almost everyone else that I've been close to weeks-wise in this journey has lost their baby.  Two other friends (one real life and one bloggy) and I are the last ones standing that I know of.  I think I'm still pregnant.  I'm still queasy and gassy and my hips and lower back keep hurting and I'm SO tired and my breasts are still sensitive.  Oh, yeah, and Bear could tell you that I'm moody as hell (although he's been VERY patient with me...I love this man!!!)  But I can't get past the feeling that tomorrow we'll go in there and there will be no heartbeat and that I'm only still having symptoms because the hormone levels haven't dropped enough yet for them to go away.

I'll update after the appointment.

This could be interesting, though.  The 9-year-old has the flu, and we have them tonight.  (I haven't been able to get my flu shot yet, hoping I can get it tomorrow, so Bear has been having me keep away from him since he got his at work yesterday.)  If he can't go to school in the morning, we'll have to take him with us.  But we haven't told them yet.  Bear thought we'd have to a couple of times because of me being sick, but we've managed to avoid it thus far.  We're trying to wait until after the official wedding to tell them, give them one change to digest at a time.  If we were already married so far as they knew, it would be different, I wouldn't worry about when to tell them or telling them early, but that's a LOT of change to spring on them all at once.

Bear told his ex this morning, without the kids there, that we had had a positive home test and that we were going to the doctor.  His ex had asked if I was pregnant and if that's why we were getting married so quickly.  And my mom had told us both that we should tell his ex before we tell the kids so she's not blindsided when they come back to her house talking about it.  However, Bear did not say that the positive home test had been a month and a half ago.  :-p