Thursday, August 14, 2008

Remember when Squirtle was just the size of a little blueberry?!?

Last Friday Geoff and I went in for my 12 week check up. As a side note, can I just mention how much I adore that my husband is as excited as I am about this pregnancy and how he insists on going to all of the appointments with me? I'm sure I'll have a long mushy post soon all about how amazing he is in general and how he's so beautifully stepped up to the plate as the father-to-be/husband of a crazy pregnant lady.

Anyway, the checkup. First came my oh so favorite part: the weigh in. Now, I know the number on the scale is going to sore fairly soon, but I was fairly worried about gaining too much in the first trimester. Everything I've read said that most women gain from 2-5 lbs. At my last appointment, at 8 weeks, I had gained 2 lbs. So for a month I kept telling myself I could only afford to gain 3 lbs, max. However, a lot of the fruit and other healthy food I had been craving early on had lost its appeal due to my morning/afternoon/night sickness. I felt I was eating a lot of bready foods and starchy potatoes so I was slightly uneasy when I stepped on the scale. However, I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I had lost 3 lbs. The nurse assured me that this was very common and that I was still right on track. Yay!

We then went into our exam room, which was inexplicably decorated with beach decor, and perused some pamphlets while waiting for the doctor. By the way, my actual doctor is named Nadine Gravens. She's been my OB-GYN for about 8 years and was the surgeon for my laporoscopy a few years ago. She, or course, is extremely busy and while we were supposed to meet with her this visit she was called to the hospital for a surgery. Instead, we met with Erica Brown, a PA-C, whom we've seen at each of our previous appointments. Erica came in with a little Doppler device and proceeded to prod my belly searching for Squirtle. It's a little unnerving those first few minutes when you don't hear anything, or you do but she tells you it's my heartbeat. But THEN there it was: the most precious little sound I've ever heard. The sound of the littlest member of the Tuttle family's heart happily beating away.

Squirtle was moving around a lot that morning, causing the Doppler to emit an odd sound every so often. Erica told us that everything sounded perfect and that s/he sounded pretty happy in there. When she was done she asked if we had any questions. The only thing we weren't sure about was when we could find out the gender. Erica told us at about 22 weeks. We'll most likely continue to have an appointment every 4 weeks, so we'll probably find out at our 24 week appointment which just so happens to fall on Halloween. This seems like forever from now as we're fairly anxious to find out, but we'll just try to enjoy the speculation until then. With that our appointment was over. Our next doctors visit will be September 4 and I'll be just under 16 weeks.

Just like that we had passed our first big milestone: the first trimester. Wow.