Sleeping like a baby

      Lately I have been getting really good sleep, maybe my body's way of telling me to get it while the getting is good.  Normally, I wake up a bunch of times but lately I have been sleeping deeply and long, it has been great.  Oddly enough, Ashley used to be a deep sleeper and now is up a bunch during the night.  Advantage:  Me. 

1st Midwife appointment

We had our first appointment with our midwife Tuesday. I have to say this appointment was the first one that actually felt like a real pregnancy appointment. A few weeks ago our appointment with our regular doctor was a waste of time.
So the midwife asked Paul and I all the standard family history questions, about our health, so on and so on. Then she took some blood to test, which freaked me out because I has not eaten, felt so nauseous, and was thirsty. None of this helped, I ended up lying down after. Then before we knew it the appointment was over. We didn't get to hear the babies heart beat or see it with an ultrasound. :-(

We did find out that you have to go to another office location to get the ultrasound. So the moment we got home, first I grabbed some juice, then ran to the phone to make an appointment for an ultrasound at 10 weeks. Now comes the patient waiting until we get to see our little baby on screen for the first time.

Week 7

I feel my body changing daily.  I'm not talking about seeing a baby bump yet, I'm talking about all my other body parts.  The baby bump will come in time, but right now  my chest looks like someone elses!!  Paul has been making fun of me because right now I can only wear one sports bra, luckily it's reversible so for the first couple weeks he didn't notice, but now the gig is up.  It's bra shopping time when I'm in America next week!!

Another part of me that I can no longer control is my mood.  One minute I'm happy and giggly and the next I'm super annoyed (my friend Gina would call this "stabby")  But I think the exhaustion and nausea are contributing to my mood.  I'm getting pretty bored with food, nothing tastes satisfying and if it does I'm afraid if I eat to much I will feel sick, which most of the time this happens after I eat anything.   My "what to expect" book tells me I will be feeling nauseous until week 12.  But I could be a lucky one that continues to week 15!  Lets hope not, poor Paul has been such a good sport with my moodiness and lack of appetite.

Eta get (Etiquette, get it?) those kids out of the restaurant

     This past weekend, when Ashley and I were in Luxembourg, we experienced that ever more frequent event that we had once ignored.  That is: screaming children in public.  Normally, we just walk faster or shoot dirty looks.  Now it has us thinking, is that going to be us?  How would we handle this?  Can we tune this out as well as other newbies?
     We saw a kid screaming in one of the Luxembourg castles but it was started by the parents.  The little girl was taking her time in one of the rooms but the parents wanted to move on.  They pushed her too soon and she flipped out.  Heard her screaming through 3 walls of solid rock, made the tour more realistic though.  The other time was at breakfast where a family had 3 kids.  And it became a contest.  Fortunately, the bacon and coffee was plentiful and I made it through but not before a number of eybrow raised glances between Ash and me.

Confessions of a Baby Daddy

        Apparently, the first 3 months of the pregnancy are the hardest.  Ashley seems to be handling it well.  She feels queasy a lot but not too bad on the "Morning Sickness."  The queasiness though does ruin her appetite and it is tough making sure we are eating healthy.  Vitamins help.  Ashley has felt run down too, which makes a lot of the chores fall to me but this is good practice for when the baby is here.  And finally, and my favorite, is the grumpiness.  This may be from feeling tired, the upset stomach or the hormones, but I am sure it is nothing that I do.  I am a ball of joy.
        

Singing

I swear that while singing I can feel something in my belly.  Right now it feels like a small apple.  When I sing I feel like my diaphragm is pushing down on it, it's amazing.

Everyday I keep waking up feeling really sick, but once I force food down I feel better.  I keep focusing away from the icky feeling in my tummy and trying to keep my singing in tip top shape.  I have lots of singing to do until the middle of October.

6 Weeks and everything's not smelling like roses

So last night I was reading that the baby already has a heart beat of 80 times per minute, and everyday our little bundle of joy's heart will beat faster and faster.
An interesting part of pregnancy is my sense of smell.  This week I can't even go near the refrigerator without smelling some of the worst smells of my life.  I thought something went bad inside, but when I asked Paul to smell he didn't smell it.  YUCK!!  I felt like I could taste the smells of the fridge in the back of my mouth...barf!  Paul has been so good to me, last night I was so tired I couldn't lift myself off the couch, so he made dinner and cleaned up for me.


So far pregnancy has not been as bad as I expected, I really thought I would be spending my days hugging the porcelain bowl.  But I haven't. I think the hardest part of being pregnant is keeping it a secret until Paul and I decide to tell the world.  I'm not the #1 person to tell a secret to unless it's super super important.  I think the only way I'm still keeping it a secret is that we live over 3000 miles away from all our friends.
So far I've slipped 2 times and told 2 friends, but they are sworn to secrecy, and one of them knew we were trying so I only felt it was fair I told her the great news sooner rather than later, the other just had a baby so they know how important it is to keep it quiet until the time is right.  I just worry that friends or some family might be upset that they were not one of the first to know.  I guess I'll find out the answer to this when we make the big announcement in a few weeks.  We're thinking at releasing the news the day I am flying back to Amsterdam, at that point I'll be 10 weeks. 

Fat feelings..Good bye weight watchers

I'm tired, but I slept 8 hours.I'm hungry, but I feel queasy.
I'm achy, but Paul is at work so he can't rub me.
I'm feeling really fat, but I look the same as usual (does that make sense)

I feel like I'm retaining loads of water, some days my cloths are super tight in the waist then the next day I am back to normal.  I guess I should be happy that I go back to normal because soon there will be no normal sized cloths.

Today I am officially signing off weight watchers until the baby comes.  I thought I could stick to the program while pregnant but it was a silly thought to try and stay on a diet program.  A pregnant woman should not be on a weight loss program when her body is going through a major change.  It's time to start eating a healthy diet for myself and our baby!

Castles and Evening sickness

Saturday Paul and I took a road to to Luxembourg to visit two castles.  Chateau Vianden and Chateau Bourscheid.  It's been a serious long time since we've taken a road trip.  These castles we visited are really in the middle of farm land and 40-50 minutes outside Luxembourg city.   I can only thank god for the invention of GPS.  If we did not have this glorious system for Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg.  Paul and I are not good when it comes staying calm in navigation situations.  We came into a few closed roads and detours on our way to the castle.  But my wonderful husband and I survived and found our way.  I think the funniest part of the trip was testing our car to see if it could make it up the steep hills.  We have a small European sized car that can't go very fast or make it up hills at a normal speed.  So many of the country roads we took at 90 degree hills.

Take a look at the castles we visited 
                                                                  Chateau Vianden

                                                      Bourshied Castle

After our castle visits we drove to our hotel and took a nap.  I can't tell you how many times I fell asleep on the car ride to the castles.  Pregnancy makes me feel like sleeping all day.  Well after our hotel nap, we took the hotel shuttle into Luxembourg City center for our dinner reservation for some delicious Luzembourisch food.   Well the food was fabulous, but I think I ate to much because Saturday night was the first time I was sick.  I got a horrible nights sleep, but thankfully Paul let me sleep almost the whole ride home today.  But for some reason I still feel queasy and extremely tired. 

Pregnancy Dreams

So I had this dream last night that was just beyond weird, I just had to write it down in this blog because I'd like to blame it on my pregnancy.  Well, you be the judge.

So I am in the forest with a friend and we hear there is a killer in the forest that will kill all the animals.  So we are running around collecting all my babies.  But my babies are not human, they are kittens, baby lions, and baby mice.  The weirdest part of my dream was when I heard a white baby mouse crying on the forest floor.  I picked it up and asked it if it was okay.  And it began to start talking back to me, telling me that the killer stepped on it's foot.  I then started giving it kisses and consoling the mouse.

I then woke up thinking how gross it is to kiss a mouse.  I watch way to many Disney movies.

A Baby in the Dutch Oven

       We have been spending the past few weeks reading up on having a baby in general, "What to Expect when Expecting" and having a baby in the Netherlands.  Of course we read the horror stories but they all seem related to not getting anesthesia.  Having no anesthesia is actually very common here.  Adding anesthesia makes things more complicated (longer labor, more monitoring necessary for the baby, etc.), so they try to keep things simple.  That also goes for testing.  They do the basic tests and really don't do too much of a work up unless there is some history or other factor (age, other health problems).  And an OB/GYN isn't really consulted unless the Midwife, the main medical expert that we interact with, determines that the pregnancy is not progressing along the normal path.

         But from everything we read, we know that we need to figure out what we want, make that clear to everyone and not leave any room for confusion.  Now the only thing to do is figure out what we want. 

1st Doctors visit

This morning Paul and I went to the first of many doctors appointments.  Since we live in a foreign country we had no clue what to expect.  But last night we spent some time writing down as many questions we could think.
The doctor gave us loads of information and answered every question I had.  She also confirmed our estimated due date of May 11, 2010.

Next she gave us a phone number of verloskundige (midwife)  I am going over to the office tomorrow, it's only a 3 minute bike ride away from our house, to make an appointment.  It's weird here, in order to see a Gynecologist I have to see a midwife first to explain what type of birth plan I want.    But right now I have no clue what type of plan I want.  Every plan has so many pros and cons.  I am just happy I have 8 more months to decide what I want.

Tomorrow it's off to the midwife to schedule an appointment for right before I leave for America.

Expat life: The Test

My husband Paul and I have always loved to talk about what the future holds in store for us.  We love to day dream about where we will live, how many children we'll have, and the exciting careers we have.   There is not a doubt in my mind that we are two of the luckiest people in the world to have found each other.  We love spending all our time together and cheering each others careers too.

By my blog name you have probably guessed I am an opera singer.  It's a very exciting career, full of busy periods of time and then not so busy times.  But I love what I do, I have sung some pretty amazing opera roles and met some very talented singers.
My husband Paul, is a chemical engineer for a very popular oil company.  Right now we are living in Europe because of his job.  He is working on location at an oil refinery as an applications engineer. ( to put it simple, he builds computer programs!)  We've been living in Europe for 2 years and have between 6 to 12 months left.

THE TEST:

Last week I just finished singing the 1st Lady in Die Zauberflote on Saturday August 29.  I was exhausted more than usual.  Normally singing takes a lot out of my body but this time something was off.  So knowing my period was supposed to come on September 1st I waited and just kept my curiosity at bay for another 2 days.  Tuesday is my big day of gym classes, I normally take 2 classes in the evening and do some cross training.  But for some reason I was still exhausted beyond belief.    So after my first class I came home, taking a break from cross training and my second class.  While home I couldn't wait any longer so I took a home pregnancy test, I've read everything about the best time of day to take it, but I really couldn't have cared less at that time.  The test I had said a positive result can show at little at 40 seconds, but if not you should wait 5 minutes to read the results.   After a few minutes I took a look and immediately saw the faintest pink line.  I shouted at Paul to come down stairs and take a look to make sure my eyes were not playing tricks on me.  Well he saw the line too.  For the next couple of days I took a test every morning to see if the pink test line would get darker, and it did.

We're pregnant!!  Now it's time for this opera mommy to start taking her daily vitamin and eating healthy.  I'm very happy to report than I am 5 weeks pregnant and I am not feeling to bad.  I get extremely fatigued in the afternoon and if I do not eat every couple hours nausea hits me like a brick wall.    I'm also a lot achier in my body that usual.  Tomorrow morning Paul and I go to our first doctors visit.  I wish I could say I know what is going to happen at this visit, but we are living in a foreign country.   From the research I've done my doctor will confirm the pregnancy maybe do some tests and then refer me to a midwife or gynecologist. 

We are so excited that around May 11, 2010 we will be the proud parents to a little boy or girl!!!