Spilling the Beans

Greg and I are in Maine! We flew up here on Saturday and are spending the week visiting my family. I grew up in Maine, and I always love coming back. But this time is especially fun because we are pregnant and get to tell everyone. :D

My parents and close friends already knew, but, that was about it. So, on Sunday, we drove down to Rhode Island, (where my mom's side of the family lives), to see my grandmother and share the great news. Several of my aunts came for dinner, and they did a toast "To family." And then my mom said, "And here's to my grandchild!" Everyone got so excited and my grandmother came right over to me and hugged me and said, "Oh, Kristen! This is wonderful, wonderful news!!!" I almost burst into tears because she was so happy. This will be her 18th great grandchild, but she was as happy as though it where her first.

The other exciting part is that, I had told my mom that I was a little bummed that I wouldn't get a baby shower, because my family and close friends are all over the country, so just didn't think it would happen. Well, after congratulating us, my grandmother and aunts immediately said, "Oh! And now we get to throw a baby shower!" (I am the first girl who has gotten pregnant in a positive situation, other than a cousin they never see, so it's the first opportunity they've really had to throw a shower.) My aunt said, "We are throwing one for you, whether or not you are there. You can watch us over a webcam." So I laughed and said, "If you guys are going to throw me a shower, I think I can manage to fly up for it!"

So, yay for that! It was very fun :D I told my dad and my in-laws that they are free to share the news with their families, and I think I will probably come out on Facebook next week.

Now, the only question is when to come out at work...I am not looking forward to that. One of the few coworkers I told said I should wait as long as possible to tell work, because some of the bosses are jackasses, and she's afraid I'm going to get a lot of annoying comments, (because people in the engineering world are socially awkward). But, I'm starting to show, and I am wondering how long I am going to be able to keep hiding it. My coworker told me to wait until after Christmas! I told her I'll be 20 weeks and I have a feeling they'll know even if I don't say anything by then. LOL.

I did tell another coworker last week, and he was so sweet and very excited and said, "That is fantastic news!" But then he told me, "I was wondering what was going on. I was thinking, man, someone is hitting the holiday food a little early! It didn't even occur to me that you might be pregnant!" :/

That’s all I have for now. I probably won’t blog again until after Thursday, so I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

The Spotting Continues

I started spotting again, so my OB’s office had me come in for me 14 week appointment yesterday. Everything looked good! The baby had a strong heartbeat, and my cervix was closed. I saw the nurse practitioner, and she said the spotting was most likely due to my lovely chronic yeast infections :/ So, she took some samples and sent them off to the lab for analysis. They should know something by the end of the week, and hopefully, they will be able to prescribe something that will take care of it, because the OTC stuff did not work.

Why, Hello 2nd Tri

Wow! I can't believe we already made it to 2nd tri! 1st tri really did go by quickly, and I can't believe that now it's okay to spread the news. I'm still nervous about things, but I don't know how much longer I am going to be able to hide this little belly from work. I think people are already wondering. We are going to wait until next week to tell extended family so that I can tell my mom’s side of the family when I see them in person. That should be fun!

I've been a very bad blogger lately. The first trimester fatigue has made me very lazy. It hasn't been horrible, though. On most days, I wake up feeling fine and am able to get through most of the workday without a problem. But once three or four o'clock hits, WHAM, I am soooo tired! As a result, I haven't been good about working out. Between the fatigue, bleeding scares, and being sick, I've probably been exercising 30% of what I normally do. Hopefully, I will be able to pick it up again when that rumored second tri energy kicks in. I really don't like missing my workouts because I believe they are a big part of the reason my lung function is so high!

So, bleeding scares: I had another one on Friday. I have been suffering from a yeast infection most of 1st tri, so, about 10 days ago, I decided to use some of that over the counter cream, (after getting my doctor's okay, of course). Each morning, after I used the cream, I would experience some bleeding. It didn't worry me because I figured the cream was just irritating my cervix. I mentioned it to the doctor at my 12w4d u/s, and he confirmed that everything was okay. But, then it started again on Friday afternoon, and I had no explanation. No sex, no vaginal u/s, nothing. I called my OB’s office right away, and they said, “How soon can you get here?” But, I was too far away to make it before they closed. So, they told me to just watch it over the weekend and go to the ER if it got worse. The spotting continued through Sunday morning and stopped. When I called and updated them today, they said it sounded like my cervix was irritated. However, they want me to move up my appointment scheduled for this Friday if it continues. I am sooooo glad I have my doppler so that I can reassure myself that the LO is still alive in there!

Oh, and I would like to end this post with some good news: My sputum culture from November 5^th came back with NOTHING in it!!! Just normal flora. I know that there could be a small amount of Staph or PA hiding out deep in my lungs, but it’s exciting news nonetheless

12w4d NT Scan

We had our NT scan today, and everything looked good! The moment the tech began the ultrasound and we saw the baby, Greg jumped out of his seat and said, "Look at that thing!"

The baby was moving around and even waved at us, (it was closing and opening its hands). So cute. The tech had a hard time getting a good view of the back of its neck at first. The baby was not in the right position, so she had me use the restroom and wait a bit. When she looked again, she laughed and said, "Now the baby is standing on its head!" So, she still couldn't get a good look at it. Then I coughed, and apologized, and she said, "That's good!" I laughed and told her, "I can cough as much as you want me too!" She told me to let out a few big huge coughs, "to get the baby ornery," and it finally moved to a good position. (Greg then said, "I wonder how ornery it gets when you use your vest!")

Oh, and here's a sliver lining to having CF - the doctor, (not my regular OB), mentioned that my OB will probably want me to have more frequent ultrasounds than normal, possibly as often as once a month! He told me to ask her about this at my 14 week appointment. So, I will most likely get to see my sweetie pie a bunch.

Here is a picture of the babe. You can see one of its arms sticking up from behind its head.

Yesterday's Meeting & Clinic Visit

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes! :D My day did get better yesterday. I worked a half day and slept all afternoon. Greg came home with flowers and cooked me dinner.

So here’s an update on two things:

Yesterday’s Meeting

My meeting was, well, interesting. The reason for the meeting was because my client has a water line in the state highway. The state told them they had to move it. I did the design and am now managing the construction. Now that we are in construction, the state is making all these changes to the design, and it would have been much less expensive if they had made these changes during the design phase. So, my client is not happy. It has cost them over $100,000 so far.

I made my points, which were all very good ones, and the contractor said, "You have a good argument. Let's hear what the state has to say." Well, the guy from the state didn't have much to say, other than, "You have to do what I say because I said so." (That's me paraphrasing, but I am not exaggerating.) When I said, "You permitted and signed-off on these plans. You can't just go and make changes now," he responded, "We don't have time to review your plans. We just sign off on them without looking at them." I told him, "That is not our fault." And he flipped out on me and said, "Look! You guys have been doing work with us for 20 years! It's not our job to wipe your asses for you!"

Very professional. I got pissed and started arguing, but my boss's boss said, "Kristen, Kristen, it's okay," so I shut my trap. Then the contractor winked at me. So, I knew everyone in the room thought guys was a jerk and that I was right. And, I did get him to back down on the some of the stuff he was telling us to do.

When I told the client how the meeting went, he said, "Good job! You got them riled up and now they are on notice!" So, overall, after my initial shock at being yelled at, I felt pretty good because I "won" and the client is happy.

Hemoptysis (Coughing up Blood)

My CF doctor had me come in this morning – he said that, normally, he would just prescribe an antibiotic, but, with me being pregnant, he wanted to be extra careful. I am glad I went in. My PFTs actually went up! Only 3%, but I was still shocked because I expected them to go down during pregnancy, and because I felt crappy. Everything looked and sounded good, so he told me to just lay off the hypertonic saline for a few days and keep an eye on things. He said I could have a mild exacerbation or a virus, but it was so mild that it didn’t warrant antibiotics at this time.

I did cough up some more junk today that was streaked with a bit of blood, but I think it may be just leftover from the other day. However, I still took the day off so I can rest. My nutritionist wants my vitamin levels checked, (more than what they checked at my OB’s office), and I have to do another OGTT (yay :P). And they’ve upped the frequency of my clinic visits from every three months to every two months.

A few stats at 12 weeks:

FEV1: 115% (up 3% from pre-pregnancy)
Weight Gain: 4 lbs

Ugh

So, today is my birthday, and it not starting off to be a good day. First, I coughed up blood last night. It was a blob a bit larger than a nickle, which is the most blood I have ever brought up in my life. Needless to say, I am freaked out and am calling my doctor the second 8:00 rolls around. I slept like crap last night because of this, so now I am exhausted too.

Secondly, I can't even stay home and rest because I have a horrendous meeting to go to first thing. I don't want to get into my job too much, but, the whole point of this meeting is because my client is pissed at some people who work for the state, so he wants me to "lay down the law" - i.e. get into an argument with them. It's going to be me against a room full of old men. This is not why I wanted to become an engineer. I just want to sit at my desk and play with numbers!

Thirdly, I am so, so, so disappointed in my home state of Maine this morning. I almost started crying when I saw the election results, and I still feel sick to my stomach and like crying :(