Monthly Archives: February 2014

needing to write

My blog was down for a few days – actually nearly a week – while  I was dealing with hosting issues.  This made me realize how much I value being able to write here.  Yes, I could write in a personal journal.  I did more many, many years, from elementary school, through high school, college, and grad school.  I think finding “my man” had something to do with my diminished urge to write down private thoughts.  Maybe my life is just more boring?  I guess I like sharing with people – not too many people, mind you, which is why I don’t share my posts on Facebook or something like that.  Writing is unbelievably therapeutic.  Sometimes, I don’t need that therapy, but right now, dealing with morning sickness, it is incredibly important to me.  While my blog was down, it was so frustrating not to be able to write about my misery in a way that would not be lost.  I thought about writing myself an e-mail, but never quite got around to it.  Anyway, I didn’t realize how much I’d miss being able to post, since I often don’t post that frequently, but when I do get the urge to write, I really want to write, even if my thoughts are somewhat inconsequential.

I’m nearly 13.5 weeks.  The relief has kind of come, but it’s not dramatic enough to satisfy me, but I guess that is the way it goes.

credit card recommendation

A short write-up about the only credit card on the market that gives 2% cash back on everything. B and I both have this card, and I think it’s a slam dunk if you or your spouse has a fidelity account. My other credit card is the Amazon card, which I use only for Amazon purchases, since you get 3% back on that, and I purchase many things on Amazon.

13 weeks

Fingerprints have formed on your baby’s tiny fingertips, her veins and organs are clearly visible through her still-thin skin, and her body is starting to catch up with her head — which makes up just a third of her body size now. If you’re having a girl, she now has more than 2 million eggs in her ovaries. Your baby is almost 3 inches long (about the size of a pea pod) and weighs nearly an ounce.

From http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-pregnancy-13-weeks_1102.bc – Babycenter.

Symptoms: Nausea, fatigue, difficulty with any kind of even mildly strenuous activity, headaches.  My headaches have eased, but are still occasionally bad.  No auras lately, thank God.  Any kind of exertion makes me feel like sh*t, but mostly I just avoid exertion, so it’s a non-issue.  Occasionally, it’s somewhat unavoidable at work.  I work with hardware – not a lot, but enough.  I want to just say no to all physical activity, but a lot of people at work don’t even know I’m pregnant yet, and even if they did, it still is hard to say no.  It won’t kill me; it just makes me feel really, really lousy for a while.

I think I’ve probably gained 3 or 4 pounds at this point, but I haven’t weighed myself.

I am very excited for the mental boost of leaving the first trimester behind.  2nd trimester, here I come!  I’ll call Friday the first day of the 2nd tri.

I’m kind of in a bad mood this evening because I’m still waiting for that magical moment when I feel like myself again.  I hope it will come soon, and I hope it will come, period.  I am feeling a bit better, but yeah.  I’m tired of feeling sick.  Just kind of exhausted by the minutiae of life right now.

chambers of the heart

I find all the “controversy” commentary on the lady’s figure skating a bit surprising and hard to understand.  Few skating experts have said they found the result unfair, and as a fairly unbiased watcher, there was nothing that led me to believe Yuna should have won.  I was cheering for Yuna.  She blew me away four years ago, and her short skate was fabulous.  However, I felt her long skate seemed a little dull, and she had fewer jumps than the Russian.  Should the Russian have won?  It’s hard to say, but as a casual viewer, it certainly wasn’t obvious to me that she shouldn’t have won.

As for Ashley Wagner saying that she was “blown away” or stunned or some such thing by her seventh place finish, please.  Her skate was unremarkable and her technical quality, per the American commentators, low.  She was lucky to be at the Olympics in the first place, as she was fourth in the Nationals, but displaced Mirai Nagasu (I think) based on her “body of work.”  I am not a fan of subjective decisions on Olympic teams, and I wish they had sent the actual #3 skater.

I was feeling lousy last night, as usual, which certainly took away from my viewing pleasure, but I couldn’t have missed the big event.  I watched the NBC online version, and so I saw many, many skaters.  (I didn’t watch the whole thing, but I think I saw at least the last 10 skaters as well as several earlier skaters.)  Unfortunately, I missed the Japanese skater, whose name escapes me at the moment – the one who does a triple axel.  I actually didn’t enjoy Lipinski and Weir’s commentary as much as the low budget Aussie and Brit who had commented the online versions of all the less popular events, such as the women’s short skate.  They were far less informative about what the skaters were doing – what their jumps were, the quality of their spins, and so on.  They were far from terrible, but I missed the Aussie lady.

In other news, we had an NT scan today.  I was very much on the fence about whether to do the scan.  On the one hand, I’m committed to not ending the pregnancy for any reason that doesn’t involve a threat to my health or a condition incompatible with life for the baby.  I’m not sure what I’d do in the latter circumstance, but I have no intention to thinking much about it unless I find myself unlucky enough to be in that position.  I don’t have any judgment for people who would terminate for Down syndrome, but I am in a position in my life where I think that is a challenge I’d be willing to take on.  Nevertheless, I’d much, much rather know before the delivery room.  The thing is, even at my “advanced” age (I’m 3 months short of AMA), the likelihood of Down syndrome is quite low compared to (a) the chance of other issues like Autism and (b) the likelihood of a false alarm coming out of an NT scan.  The “false positive” rate, if you can call it that, from an NT scan is on the order of 5%. Doing the scan and  getting told everything is OK gives you a warm and fuzzy, but is it worth the risk or high stress?  We went back and forth, and in the end, my OB more or less talked me into doing it by talking about the importance of other anatomical information you can get from the scan.

Our baby is fine, at least in terms of organs you can see at 12 weeks and NT thickness.  Our first US was very early – 8 weeks 0 days – so it was great to see the baby again in so much more detail.  Our baby is now 5.8 cm and was moving quite a bit.  We saw the limbs, the brain, heart, bladder,  and stomach, that I can remember.  The tech could even identify the chambers of the heart.   I am guessing the ultrasound tech could hazard a pretty good guess as to the baby’s gender, but we did not ask, and she did not volunteer.

I am now 12 weeks 3 days and still feeling like crap.  This is consistent with pregnancy #1 when I did not really get relief at all until 13.5 weeks, so I’m hoping the end of misery is only about a week away.

My two children:

Displaying IMG273.jpg

 

skates

I think the different types of skates are so interesting.  They barely resemble each other.

Figure skates:

Speed skates:

Hockey skates:

Like most women, I enjoy figure skating.  I have also been a big fan of speed skating since childhood.  When I was a kid, I like to think of myself as Dutch, since I was born in Holland.  As long as I can remember, Dutch or no, I’ve always cheered for the Dutch in whatever they happen to be competing in – and the Dutch are dominant in no other sport like they are in speed skating.  My Dad always liked speed skating as well.  Anyway, I’m watching the 1500m at the moment.  Duration-wise, it’s rather like the 800m run, which many people say is the hardest distance.  (I tend to think the marathon is the hardest simply based on what it does to the human body, professional or running-to-finish.)  Anyway, people who say the 800m is hardest say this because it is a sprint, but it is a LONG sprint, so basically, it is a pain-fest.  1500m seems to be much the same in speed skating.

Link, if you want to watch online:

http://stream.nbcolympics.com/speed-skating/winter/14170/

men’s figure skating spoilers ahead

I just finished watching the men’s figure skating. Overall, I found it a bit underwhelming. The jumps were good of course, but the choreography was lacking. However, I have to say the last few skaters were exceptional. The Japanese skater who won deserved it in my book. Not only was his jumping excellent, his program was beautiful to watch. Patrick Chan also was an enjoyable skater to watch with decent choreography, though his free performance was far from spectacular. Finally, the American had me in his corner from the moment Riverdance started. What a piece of music, and his skate was fabulous, jumps landed or no. I also thought it was a good story that Ten got the bronze. Overall, a good event to see.