Sorry to leave you guys with no fun knitting stuff this week. I’ve even got several finished projects to show you, but not quite enough energy to actually photograph those things and put them on the blog… that takes a bit more energy than I’ve got right now.

So, this week wasn’t my best, to say the least. Monday started out fine, had a doctors appointment and all that, Tuesday went to work, but then Tuesday night I was having pretty severe heart palpitations and dizziness and chest pain, and my doctor told me to go to the ER, so we did. And spent the next 3 1/2 hours getting blood drawn, getting an EKG, waiting, waiting, waiting, then they told me I’d be hooked up to a heart monitor for 24 hours to see if they could track down what was going on with my heart. No problem, I can handle that.

Wednesday started off fine, but once I got home from work I got a killer headache, which I thought was the beginning of a migraine. I cringed at the thought of dealing with a migraine without being able to take my wonderful medicine, but before I knew what was happening I was vomiting. Like, a lot. Like every 10-15 minutes. Paul was a dear and tried to distract me by playing silly TV shows on Netflix, but I wasn’t able to really pay any attention to anything because I was so nauseated that my mind wasn’t working straight. I thought that maybe it was just a weird bout of morning sickness or something.  After about 4 hours of throwing up pretty constantly I decided to call my friend Bess, who is smart about all kinds of medical stuff because she’s a nurse, and she said if it hadn’t stopped in a few hours to just go to the hospital. When you’re pregnant, better safe than sorry, right? But being completely dehydrated and ridiculous at the time I decided it would be better to wait until Paul woke up the next morning to decide it was time to go in. I honestly have no idea what I was thinking (Or NOT thinking… when you’re really sick your brain doesn’t make the best decisions) because I went 16 hours without keeping any fluids down, throwing up several times every hour, not sleeping at ALL throughout the entire night and just generally being the sickest I’ve ever been in my entire life. So, when Paul gets up that morning he immediately recognized that I needed to go into the ER. My face looked like I had gotten into a fight because so many of my blood vessels in my face broke from the constant vomiting.

When we got to the ER (for the second time in less than 48 hours) they immediately started  an IV (or tried to anyway, it was rough going because I was so dehydrated they couldn’t find a vein for a while) because I looked like a shriveled mess and couldn’t even walk the 20 feet to the hospital bed. Paul pretty much carried me from the car into the ER. Anyway, once they started the IV they gave me some Zofran (amazing stuff, let me tell you) which helped my nausea so so much and once I had 3 of those IV bags and I was a new woman. Well, almost. They also came in and got the baby’s heart rate, which I was SO glad to hear it beating nice and strong because I was kicking myself for not coming in sooner, I was thinking all kinds of ‘worse case scenario’ things, I guess I the only thing I can claim is that I wasn’t thinking rationally. But they still hadn’t figured out WHY I was so sick. They initially ruled out the stomach flu, because I didn’t have a fever or the chills, and thought possible Strep B because my throat was so swollen I could barely swallow any water, but that came back negative too (Hallelujah) so they narrowed it down to either a hormonal imbalance or food poisoning. I am hoping that it was food poisoning, mostly because if it was a hormonal imbalance the doctor said it had a chance of happening again, which I don’t really want.

So now I’m off  work for the rest of this week and trying to recoup as much as possible. I’m on the ‘B.R.A.T’ diet  (or as Paul accidentally called it the “Bart” diet) and sleeping as much as I can. I’m feeling a million times better today (it’s amazing what a good nights sleep can do!) and looking forward to eating real food again.  Hopefully tomorrow I will have some fun knitting projects to show you, and I hope you all have a great weekend!

So I had a fun doctors appointment today. You know, the fun one where you get to answer 30 billion questions about your family’s medical history (yes, yes, lots of cancer in my family, yes, there a history of high blood pressure, yes a history of heart problems), where you get to wear that drafty gown and get poked, prodded and swabbed in all kinds of places (turn your head to the left, breath deeply and cough), they steal a little bit of your blood, (you’re just doing to feel a tiny pinch!), asking me if my asthma is under control, tell me that I need to get tested for all of these STD’s so I don’t endanger my baby (they still never believe that I don’t sleep around) Yep, that’s the fun one alright.

Unfortunately my blood pressure is a bit high and I’ve been having some major heart palpitations followed by severe dizziness (don’t worry, my doctor knows all about it) so that’s something we’re going to have to keep an eye on. But other than that, everything is looking pretty good, and my doctor was optimistic that my back problems won’t have too much of an affect on my pregnancy. He even went so far as to say that if I did end up needing a spinal (in the case that I might need an emergency c-section) they would probably be able to do it, however they’ll have to talk to the anesthesiologist a bit later in the pregnancy to be sure. (I previously was told by another doctor that an epidural or spinal would be impossible with my spinal fusion, therefore making it necessary to put me completely under with general anesthesia if a c-section was needed, which is, obviously, something I would like to avoid)

(sorry about my daydreamy look there… it’s hard to take your own portrait with a big camera that’s set on self-timer, trying to balance it on your washing machine, plus I was trying to block out all of the dirty dishes on the table behind me by using my huge belly. Yep. Also for my undone hair and no make up… priorities, people. I woke up and I showered today, so that was good enough.)

But then… the nurse comes in and puts cold jelly on my stomach and I get to hear the baby’s heartbeat, and suddenly you forget about all of the poking and prodding and questions. Whumpa-Whumpa-Whumpa. What a great sound that is. A perfect little heartbeat.

15 weeks and counting…And in 5 weeks, oh FIVE weeks we get to find out the sex. It’s pretty much killing me. I want to start knitting for the baby now. Everyone keeps asking me if I have a preference if we have a girl or a boy, and right now I can honestly say that I would be completely thrilled with either. We’ve got a name picked out for each, so we’re set on that, at least (we’re keeping it a secret, sorry guys) but I was thinking about getting a pole going in the sidebar so you could cast your votes about the gender of the baby.(We’ve done some of the Old Wives Tales tricks to find out what we’re having, and according to the “Ring test” and the “Baby Heart Rate Test” and the Chinese conception calender we’re having a girl… but none of the tests have indicated we’re having a boy, so we’ll see if they’re right!)

Alright, that’s enough pregnancy talk. I’ll be back tomorrow with some regular knitting posts. I’ve got 3 big “reveals” to show you this week. Including a baby present for my bestie, Autumn, who is due NEXT MONTH! We’re so excited to meet her little baby boy and I can’t wait for my baby and hers to be BFF’s like his momma and I are.

So, this has been a nice week as far as pregnancy related stuff goes. I feel like I am getting some energy back, but it’s kind of hard to tell when I get so tired from work. When I get home my feet are really swollen and puffy, and if I put them up for a while after work it hurts to walk on them for the next 3-4 hours. I’m super excited about being 9 months pregnant in August. Oh boy, that is going to be fun-ville.

For your benefit I changed the picture to black and white, because the baby has done a number on my skin. It’s like college all over again. I wish I had the skin I had in highschool, so perfect and clear. Sigh… my hormones just went crazy 4 years later than everyone else’s, I guess. And I’ve already got bags under my eyes? Yeesh.

But aside from all of the complaining, my morning sickness has abated a LOT. It’s been so nice to enjoy my evenings again! I haven’t had any really awful episodes since about 13 weeks, so that’s been a huge blessing. Also, I finally (somewhat accidentally) told my manager at work, so it’s kind of nice now that they know, so if I am moving at a slightly slower pace than normal, that’s the reason why, not because I’m just a lazy bum. All in all, though, still feeling pretty good! Looking forward to the next 5 1/2 months!

Wow. I feel like this last week my waistline has completely exploded. I’m a little over 13 weeks along and I think that I am going to need some maternity pants here really soon. I can get through about half the day before I feel like the buttons on my pants are just going to shoot off across the room… I’ve got a handful of shirts that are still working out alright, my wardrobe choices are just getting smaller and smaller by the week.

Apparently Tiny Tong is the size of a NutterButter this week? Or a peach.

I’ve been majorly tired this week. It’s hard getting back into the working world and trying to keep your lunch down at the same time… I am hoping that the 2nd trimester will be a little kinder to me and make it a little bit easier to go to work. Luckily most of my “morning sickness” has been actually “evening sickness”, so I am usually at home when the yuckies hit. Poor Paul, he has had to put up with so much from me these past few months!

Today I have the day off, so I’m grocery shopping, cleaning the house, cooking and just generally trying to tidy up… with lots of breaks in between. So I guess it’s time to go do the dishes now…