A 911 dispatcher's guide to healthy eating during pregnancy

First, start off your day with a small glass of prune juice. Trust me on this ... more is not always better.

For breakfast, scarf down a Biscuit and Gravy from Hardee's at 5:30 am. 

By 8:30, when you're starving again, eat a cool whip size bowl of smushed/cooked apples. With sugar.

Sweet talk Pizza Hut into delivering your large pizza for free because you can't come pick it up. That would be too much effort and exercise to walk to and from your car and drive for 1/4 mile to the pizza place. 

Also, eat at least two pieces of pizza. Stop counting at two pieces. Set aside what is left for snack time. 

When a church offers to bring 911 center free food leftover from homecoming, kindly ask them to include dessert. 

Squeal like a pig when you see carrot cake.

It's not yet 3 pm. It's time to eat cake.

Enter sugar coma. 

You've successfully passed your calorie limit and intake needs for the day so there is no need to think about what you will eat later. Everything after this is just a bonus and considered healthy. 

After all, carrot cake has carrots in it. 

As for me, I'm off to google if coconut is a fruit. There may or may not be a piece of coconut cake going home with me. 

11 Weeks: Lime!

My mornings: I've stopped sleeping. Sleep is for the weak.

My nights: Shut eyes. Wake up. Pee. Over and over and over ... You get the idea.

How far along: 11w, 5d

How big is baby: Baby is the size of a lime and a little less than 2 inches. My uterus is now the size of a grapefruit. Add that to the cantaloupe sized bloat belly and I basically am a walking fruit salad.

Weight: 

Starting weight: 125

Total weight gain: 5

This week: 130

How I’m changing: I'm starting to get a little bump that's noticeable to me. My bloat belly is noticeable in shirts and I am wearing maternity pants to work. The others are just too uncomfortable after 12 hours. 

What I miss: I miss sleeping. A lot. 

Symptoms: My symptoms have taken a leave of absence which scares me. I have had a few moments of heartburn and some cramps but nothing that's persistent. 

Cravings: Nothing in particular. Some days I really want a certain food but nothing makes me scream that I HAVE TO HAVE THIS NOW!!!

Food Aversions: Nothing yet but smelling leftovers or old food makes me gag.

Highlights this week: I update my registry some. I've looked into buying a Doppler for myself to hear the HB but I haven't been able to pull the trigger.

Maternity clothes: I can still fit into pants and wear them when I'm only going to have them on for a couple hours. I have to have stretchy pants for work now. The bloat is too painful at the end of the day to not have stretch pants.

Stretch marks: None.

Sleep: At the advice of some of my TTGP grads, I got some Tylenol PM. I've take it twice and it does help. It's basically Tylenol and Benadryl and it had helped me sleep a little longer. 

Movement: Nothing but gas.

Gender: HB is still predicting girl.

Labor signs: Nope. Way too soon.

Belly button: I will still be an innie for a while.

What I am looking forward to: My OB appointment will be Oct 15. I can't wait!!!

Milestones: Getting closer and closer to the end of first Tri. I can't wait to be done with it and hopefully not worry as much. I doubt that will happen but it's nice to dream about. 

It's emergencies like this that never make the news.

Call it karma. Call it irony. Call it luck of the draw. 

In the 911 world, you will always be the one to answer the call that scares you or bothers you the most. When I was going   through IF treatment, I think I took about 100 pregnant teenager or druggie mother calls. Nothing will suck the breath out of you as fast as abused baby call. If I could have reached through the phone and committed murder, I probably would have. 

My partner's debilitating fear is spiders. She CAN NOT stand them. I think she would shat her pants if one physically got on her. She runs from side of the room until we kill them. It's funny to me but paralyzing to her. 

Guess what call she took last night? 

Elderly lady reported "a HUGE ass spider" in her house. I swear to Jesus, you would have thought that spider was crawling on my partner's face at that exact moment. Despite the caller living 3 miles away from our 911 center, to this dispatcher, she may have well been facing that spider eye to eye.

Of course, I am listening to the call and seconds away from peeing my pants from laughter. I should also note that this dispatcher is also my supervisor and she threatened to write me up if it didn't stop laughing. 

Yeah right! You might as well tell a kid to stop laughing in church. 

Despite not being a real emergency, to this dispatcher and this caller, it was life and death. Obviously, my version of life and death is different from theirs. 

Officers were dispatched for assistance an "animal call-- spider in the house." 

I'm not shitting you when I say the officers went in with backup. 3 officers, yes three officers, went to help this old lady. It was handled by officer which means that the spider is now resting in peace or pieces. 

Obviously, these officers have wives who are scared of spiders too. Well played boys. Well played. You deserve medals. 

8 MORE DAYS

Only 8 more days left of Crinone!!!!1!1!!1

Can you tell I'm a bit excited!?!?! 

8 more days and I will be done with the yucky funky gunk discharge. Hey. If you don't want TMI, then you may want to slowly back away from this blog. 

Here's a picture for you to give you a visual of how much enjoyment I get from inserting this suppository every day.

Sex, drugs and rock n roll are regular topics here. Well except for rock n roll. But I am fond of sex and drugs.

These wonderful (read: expensive) tubes of gooey progesterone will not be missed. They have been the cause of many literal headaches, bewbie aches, nightmares, and thinning my checking account.

On some brighter news, after I finally ordered my last set of the meds, I heard back from Blue Cross. Recently I inquired about them covering the drug since it is a pregnancy drug and I am not using it for infertility at this time. I argued and my RE argued that other types of progesterone were covered but not Crinone. Well guess what? I got a letter notifying me that they will now cover it. 

Really??!?! Thanks, but it's a little to late now since I've already paid for it for 12 weeks and you've repeatedly denied requests for it to be covered. I asked for a form to contest this and receive back pay from the previous 12 weeks. I don't know if I will get it but it's worth a shot. 

If there's another thing that IF has taught me, it is to not take "No" as an answer. I've learned how to advocate for myself, especially with insurance. They've screwed me over too many times for me to give in now. I will take ever dollar I can from them. 

8 MOAR DAYZ!!!!1!!1!1

Nightmares need to stop

I had heard that pregnant women have some vivid dreams, but this is getting ridiculous. I wish there was a way to exchange the nightmares for another crazy symptom. 

Excess gas 24/7? Sure! I will take it. 

Fatigue? Give it to me! 

Crazy extreme cravings of something nasty like mayonnaise or ranch? Heck yeah! 

Just stop with the dreams! Last night was the worst and it was so real. I don't think it would have been so bad if it hadn't been about having a miscarriage. Why couldn't it be the recurring bear chasing me around the house? Or the one where I crash my car in random places? Or where I'm robbed at gunpoint? 

I seriously woke up with sweat rolling off of me and I was crying. It was that bad. To top it off, I was so upset afterwards that I didn't go back to sleep for 3 hours. 

Between waking up to pee at least 3 times a night and these dreams which have been happening for several weeks, it is safe to say that I am not sleeping well. 

This post sounds whiny and until last nights dream, I wasn't overly bothered by them, but now I'm kinda afraid to close my eyes. 

The one tiny bit of comfort is that one of main side effects from Crinone is vivid dreams. I only have to take it for 10 more days. I'm going to wean off of it at week 12. I'm hoping the dreams will calm down after that. 

In other non whiny news, I went to our local festival today before starting back on night shift. I got some Christmas presents. Sorry, Sister in Law, I am not posting a pic of that! You will have to wait until Santa brings it to you. 

I did get some muscadine grape juice! It's sooooooo good. If I can't have wine, then this stuff is a veryveryveryclose second place to it. DH laughed at me recently because I say down on the couch with one of my wine glasses filled with prune juice. 

Week 10: I love prunes.

My mornings: ugh. Let's not even talk about how much sleep I'm not getting

My nights: Shut eyes. Wake up. Pee. Repeat every two hours.

How far along: 10 weeks, 1 day

How big is baby: Prune! I lurrrvvveee prunes. Unfortunately we all know what happens when someone eats more than two. The baby is now 1.2 inches and weighs about .14 oz. 

Isn't it ironic that one prune sized fetus inside my body is causing me to not be able to poop, which means I have to eat more prunes? 

Weight: 

Starting weight: 125

Total weight gain: 4

This week: holding at 129.

How I’m changing: My boobs have went from a 34B to a 34C. 

What I miss: I miss sleeping. 

Symptoms: Fatigue has eased up some in regards to midday naps but I still want to go to bed around 9-10 pm. 

Cravings: I really wanted some beef stew which I made today in the crockpot. Yum! 

Food Aversions: Nothing yet but smelling leftovers or old food makes me gag. 

Highlights this week: I graduated from my RE on Wednesday. It was bittersweet to tell them goodbye. I promised to keep in touch and Dr A said since my OB is in the same group then he will be able to get updates from her. 

Maternity clothes: Friday was the first day that I wore maternity pants all day and it was magical. Mom and I were shopping and it was merely for comfort purposes. I can still fit in regular pants with top button undone and a belt. 

Stretch marks: None.

Sleep: What sleep? I used to use melatonin on day shifts and I would love to pop one right now. I plan on talking to the OB about it if it continues and see if there's anything I can do. 

Best moment last week: The US again. HB was 163 and Dr A said everything was looking good. 

Movement: Nothing but gas.

Gender: HB is still predicting girl.

Labor signs: Nope. Way too soon.

Belly button: I will still be an innie for a while.

What I am looking forward to: My OB appointment will be Oct 15. 

Milestones: I told my boss about the pregnancy and he agreed to give me another shift which would allow for easier daycare. He promised to keep it secret since I haven't even told my dispatch partners yet.

I've been away ... Again.

But I'm back!!!

Back story... Mom and I like to go to country music concerts arranged around a weekend filled with shopping. She has a weird borderline-on-TLC-show-type-obsession with TJMaxx and Marshall's. Our shopping usually revolves around hitting every one of these stores to and from our destination. As crazy as it may sound, we've hit at least 14 of these stores in less than three days. 

My bonus from all these stops is a concert while Mom relishes in the shopping. She loves the concerts too but I think the shopping is her top priority. 

Anyways, months ago, I saw that Blake Shelton tickets were going on sale and we planned for one of our annual shopping and music trips. And since I truly believe in the theory of continuing to live your life while trying to get pregnant, I snatched up the tickets. It wasn't until after my BFP and about 6th week of pregnancy that I had serious doubts about the concert. 

My fatigue and early bed time was severely going to be tough to get past for a concert that would no doubt last until midnight or later. So we made the decision to sell the tickets and concentrate on shopping. 

And boy did we shop! 

I think we went to 8 TJMaxx, Marshall's and Homegoods, 1 mall, 1 Buy Buy Baby, 1 Target, 1 cloth diaper store, and a couple Rosses'. 

My main goal of the whole trip was to find the elusive golden ticketed Ergo that has been on sale. I saw it at our local store and made the mistake of not buying it. I thought I would be able to find it easily this weekend. But nooooooo. The stores had all the little pouch, backpack and other accessories but NO Ergos. 

Until the last store...

JACKPOT!!11!!1!1!!

I am happy to report that we made it back safely and my Ergo has been bought. 

One baby item down. Only 100 billion other things to go. 

Tip: don't go into a Buy Buy Baby unless you want to totally overwhelm yourself with options on seats, strollers, toys, gadgets, doohickeys, and other probably mostly unnecessary crap. 

Anyways, I'm back and finally catching up on laundry and life. I've missed you all!