Endless stuffy nose

I've had a stuffy nose for about seven weeks now. What to Expect When You're Expecting says it's a common complaint during pregnancy. When I first read about it, I didn't pay much attention b/c I didn't have a stuffy nose yet. Last night, I finally looked it up again b/c I wanted to see how long this was going to last. I kind of expected it to fade away after the first trimester like so many other ailments, such as morning sickness. Bad news. It's not going to go away until I deliver! I'm going to have a stuffy nose for the next six months!

Sigh. I suppose it's better than morning sickness for the next six months.

Another baby

My friend Amy is four weeks pregnant with her second baby. (She's an eternal optimist who does not fear the ever-so-remote possibility of miscarriage.) Her boy J.R. is fifteen months old.

She and her husband were talking about getting pregnant again when I told her about my pregnancy -- so she stepped up her efforts so we could be pregnant at the same time. True friendship. :)

Leading names

Okay, here are the names that in the lead:

Boy - Agamemnon Lucius
Girl - Agatha Lillehammer

Bob and I are both huge Texas A&M fans, so we've picked names that we can call "Aggie" for short. (The football team at Texas A&M is known as "the Aggies.")

We expect that people are going to try to talk us out of these names, but we're pretty steadfast.

The OB/midwife dilemma

Locally, my choice of OBs is really limited. We have two single-doctor practices and one group practice with three doctors. That's a grand total of five OBs, and because three are in a group practice, you can end up with any one of them for the delivery. So in a way, there are three choices: Dr. Cook, Dr. Sypniewski, and Drs. Rider-Wilcox-Wilder. Of these three choices, one is the jerk I mentioned in a previous post, and one advocates natural (drug free) births, so that has left me with Drs. Rider-Wilcox-Wilder.

When I saw Dr. Wilder last week, I liked him a lot. He asked if I'd considered the midwife route. "Oh, no," I said. "I don't want a natural childbirth." He smiled and replied, "Our midwives aren't the granola-eating, natural-childbirth type." So I started thinking hard about midwives. I think I just might get a midwife. I like the idea of knowing who's going to be there for my birth and that she'll be there the whole time.

The trouble with midwives is that my choices are even more limited. The local hospital has exactly three affiliated midwives. (Two of them are associated with the group practice of Drs. Rider-Wilcox-Wilder.) Of these three midwives, one is on maternity leave! Two midwives in the whole town... I have an appointment with one next month.

Of course...

...now that I've told everyone, I'm no longer "Jessica." I'm "mama" or "prego" or "baby lady."

The big announcement

Yesterday was the big day here at work. I went around and told everyone about the baby. It's a relief. It was tiring to be carrying around such a big secret -- literally and figuratively!

Can you see the family resemblance?

At my eleven-week ultrasound, the baby was exactly four centimeters and weighed roughly a quarter of an ounce. Readers on my other blog thought the baby looked like a kidney bean. :)

During the ultrasound, the baby amazed me by doing some acrobatics and turning completely over. Once second, it was facing me in the monitor. The next second, it had its back to me.

If you can't see anything in the ultrasound, click here for a labeled version.

Click here for a print-quality version.