With all of the insanity of Hurricane Sandy, I held off doing updates for a few days. My concern was for my family in Pennsylvania, as well as just watching with horror at all of the devastation that’s been on the TV for the past few days. I just can’t imagine.
While the southern coast of Rhode Island got battered, Erich and I went through the storm completely unscathed. We never lost power. We’re too far inland for the storm surge. We lost one single tree limb, which fell harmlessly into the yard. I do think Irene last year may have saved us on this one – we lost so much from our trees last year. Had they not fallen then, this year’s loss would have been pretty rough. Most of New England was spared from this one for the most part, I think. Sure, there were some power outages, and the coast lines got hammered – but NOTHING like what’s coming out of the Mid-Atlantic.
My mother lost power and land line phone service for the better part of the week – it went out on Monday night, and it was restored on Friday evening. She unfortunately also had some house damage – a tree fell across her backyard, crashing down over her sunroom and obliterating it. She’d already decided to sleep in her 1st floor family room that night, in case a tree crashed over the roof. Instead – the tree that fell was only about 12 feet from her as she slept. Fortunately the house as a whole is still safe and secure – the sunroom was an addition that only shared one wall with the rest of the house, and there’s a locking door (with an alarm) on the surviving wall entering the house. She also was fortunate that despite losing electricity, she has a gas fireplace and gas cooking, so she was able to cook and get some heat for the week. I honestly was more concerned about her losing her phone service – the idea that even if there was an emergency, there’d be no way for her to call 911 bothered me a lot. Just scary, scary stuff. But she’s fine and the rest of my relatives are fine. I have friends whose relatives have lost a lot, and I’m keeping them in my prayers.
My second ultrasound was on Oct 23rd. This was the anatomy survey, where the tech goes through and measures different organs and bone lengths and such. Watching the ultrasound is very, very cool. I’m just starting to feel a couple of little flutters now, but at that point, I still hadn’t felt anything. My baby was very active during the exam, and it was surreal to see so much movement, yet not feel a thing. Seeing the heart physically beating is just amazing.
The photo to the left is the profile shot. The head’s on the right – you can follow the forehead to the nose and the chin. The very bright white lines going through the center is the baby’s spine.
All is going well. Measurements seem right on target. The ultrasound is still insisting I’m a week further than the calculations from my last menstrual period (the date of which I’m certain). I’m still using my last period date as my calculator. According to the ultrasound, I’m about a week and a half further along. The tech thinks we’re having a boy from one of the ultrasound pics. I honestly didn’t see it, and my OB/GYN father wasn’t quite sure when he saw the image either (and he has done his own ultrasounds, so he’s experienced). The earlier genetic test said we were having a girl… so yeah, we’re still in “not quite sure” land. The only definite? We’re having a baby. 
Regardless, I know to have names for both genders ready, and we’d already decided on the green and yellow nursery color scheme, since I do NOT want to go gender-specific on the colors. Goddess knows there will be enough of that with clothes and toys and such. If it comes on time, the second half of March is the target date.
My kidney tests came back clean – so all is well with me, too. My blood pressure’s a little jumpy, but it hasn’t hit the high that instigated the kidney test in the first place. The nausea is essentially gone. The only time I really feel it is when I’m not keeping up properly with my water intake. My gag reflex is out of control, and I’m getting fearful of brushing my teeth in the morning because it’s a 50/50 shot for dry heaves immediately afterward. I know that this will pass, though, so I’m just dealing with it as best as I can. Otherwise I’m doing pretty well, I think. I’m not getting the 2nd trimester bliss period that some women report in pregnancy. I certainly feel better than I did the first trimester, but not fabulous and glowing or anything. I do tire very easily and I’m fairly sore and achy most of the time, but I’ll just chalk that up to the joys of pregnancy and not worry about it. I’m still wearing normal clothes, despite being halfway along. I’m just starting to get a hint of a bump, but my clothes are fitting me fine. At my last appointment last week, I was still down a total of 20 pounds. My dad pointed out that I’m probably down closer to 25-30 now, since the baby is replacing some of that weight. Regardless… I’ll take it!
