18 week pictures

Ultrasound

Our ultasound was January 15, 2007. That morning I woke up and started drinking all of that water. You have to drink 1 litre of water, then have someone push on your stomach for 15 minutes. Plus, I don't know why, but I don't like water. So I drank all of my water and about 10 minutes before we had to leave, I threw it all up. So I started drinking water again on our way in hopes that they would still be able to do it. They were thank goodness. So the ultrasound technician turns on the screen and starts to look at it. We can see a tiny little head, feet, a body, legs. She takes all the measurements and the whole time the baby is moving all around, kicking, rolling. It's so cute! It turns out that the femur bone is quite long and they think that I might be farther along than they thought. Either that or our baby is already very long legged. Which is also possible because Josh and I are both relatively tall. Our baby moves all the time. The next day we had an appointment with the midwife and the results showed a healthy, normal baby. The baby at that point which is either 19 or 20 weeks is 11 oz., and is super hyper. While the midwife was trying to get a heart beat this visit she could get the cord beat but she wanted to get it from the actual heart. We kept on hearing all this swishing sounds and she told us that was the baby squirming, and rolling around. The hearbeat at this visit was 159 beats. This was on January 16th and Josh said that that was the best birthday present he could have asked for.

First hearing the heart beat

Our first real midwife appointment after the initial one, we got to hear the heart beat for the first time. The midwife pulled out the little monitor and started bringing it back and forth over my still flat stomach. I was so worried that she wouldn't be able to find anything because at the beginning it's hard to believe that you are pregnant. She told us that there was a chance that they wouldn't be able to hear it yet but that that didn't mean that there wasn't a baby in there. Josh and I waited in anticipation for a sound any sound. Finally we heard a sound. A steady heart beat, we both looked at the midwife excited but she said no that's your heart beat. So she kept on looking. A few seconds later we heard it, a small quick thump thump thump 160 beats per minute. That was the point that I really believed that there was a tiny living being inside me!

Morning sickness

For the first little bit I was nauseous all the time but not actually throwing up. I actually thought that I might get away with not throwing up at all through my whole pregnancy. Boy was I wrong. I'm not sure exactly when but I started to throw up regularly before work, one time I actually had to leave in the middle of a patient and throw up in the bathroom, then come back and continue cleaning his teeth. Another time I barely made it into work in the morning before throwing up in my sink in my room. Luckily no one was at work yet so I had to clean it all out before anyone got there. I hated food so much, which for me was awful because I normally love food. Almost all food in fact. The thing that made me the most sick was anything with tomato sauce. I couldn't even walk into my kitchen without throwing up. Josh was great about it though. Cooking every meal, cleaning the kitchen, not getting upset when I had to turn my nose up at what he just cooked me for dinner. I could eat bread products but nothing really made me feel better. Eventually I started having meal replacement shakes for breakfast because I knew that I had to maintain my weight. I went from 127lbs to 119 1/2 lbs. My face was really thin and sallow. I just looked like I felt I guess. At this point I figured that I would have to tell my boss that I was pregnant as soon as possible because how do you explain being that sick all the time. So I told them. They were very nice about it and said that they figured it would happen sooner or later. Thankfully, when my baby book said I would start to feel better I did. Soon it was only certain things I couldn't eat but I wasn't getting sick any longer. As of right now (19 weeks) I feel awesome! I feel like I'm my old self again. A little hungrier and rounder but me again. I have gotten my energy back again too. At the beginning I would just come home from work at about 6pm and go right to bed and most of my days off were spent sleeping too. So far at 19 weeks I'm only 120 lbs but feeling much better.

How we found out

I thought that something didn't seem right with me so Josh and I decided it might be a good idea to take a pregnancy test. So we were in town and we went to the Pharmasave and bought a First Response pregnancy test kit. We couldn't wait to get home to test it out because we were going to be out for most of the day so I went and used the bathroom at Salt Spring Courier Depot where Josh works. I used the test and it said to wait a few minutes for the results to appear but the test said positive right away. I went bright red and Josh just kept on laughing. Laughing out of happiness, disbelief I'm not sure but we were both shocked. I always figured that we would have to try to have a baby I guess. I also always had this thought that it would take us forever to concieve but I guess not. Anyway, so it was the weekend and Salt Spring does not have a walk in clinic so we had no way to confirm for sure. We went to watch our friend Dave play soccer and I told Lindsey and Josh told Colin that we thought we might be. We were still in shock and we didn't want to get too excited just in case it was a false alarm. I felt sick that day but I thought that it might just be the suggestion of being pregnant so my mind was playing tricks on me. The next day was Sunday and we were on our way to Youbou for Thanksgiving dinner (which was fondue!). We decided to buy another pregnancy test in Lake Cowichan just to test it out. This test was a different brand and it had 2 testers in it. So when we got to Youbou, I discreetly snuck in the bathroom and tried out both tests. They both also said positive right away. So needless to say I refrained from wine with dinner that night but I still wasn't convinced. On the monday morning I went to my doctors and he confirmed that we were in fact pregnant. We were really scared but also excited. Doctors do not deliver babies on Salt Spring so I was told to make an appointment with one of the midwives here. I made my appointment and at the appointment they scheduled me in for an ultrasound at the hospital because I had no idea how far along I was.

Even though it had been confirmed that we were pregnant I still really didn't believe it. When we saw the ultrasound though I knew that it was true. I was 5 1/2 weeks they figured by the ultrasound. Baby Mc(as I'll call him or her for now) was no more than the size of a grain of rice at this point and we could see the little blip on the screen (the heartbeat) coming from a heart the size of a poppy seed. Baby Mc in no way resembled a baby at this point just a little blob on the screen.

New blog

I've decided to make a new blog called Baby McKeigan because I wanted to make an online baby book and this is the easiest way I can think of to do it. So they'll be some reposts from my other blog to make it all up to date. It will be more of a journal so I can remember everything about my pregnancy but I'll post pics too.