*Countdown to the expected due date. Of course, I know this is plus/minus several days.

A few weeks ago, I went in for my monthly appointment with my doctor. While waiting to check in, the woman ahead of me told a teenage girl next to her, “I keep seeing pregnant women. It must be a sign.”

“Huh? I’ve only seen two,” replied the teenager.

“I’ve seen five. Three walked by. One was just ahead of us in line. And there’s the other woman in line behind us.”

She wasn’t talking about me. She was clearly talking about another woman who looked much further along in line behind me.

When Sean joined me in the waiting room, I told him the story and offered a fake cry. I was a little bummed about not yet looking pregnant to strangers. I guess there’s benefits to that.

I can still wear a couple pairs of pre-pregnancy jeans if I use a ponytail holder looped through the button hole. Strangers don’t reach out to touch my bump or try and make conversation about my pregnancy. No one has said “Wow, you’re getting big!” or made other rude comments about my size. Nor do I receive unsolicited advice — actually we’ve been asking friends for advice and they’ve been awesome. I’m on pace for the recommended weight gain.

And I got accused by my cousin Nancy of exaggerating my bump in the Instagram photo above (taken at 23 weeks). She was right, but how often do you pose for a picture by sticking out your belly?

Anyway, I know this will change as I approach the third trimester.

***

When I got in to see the doctor, she started with her usual, “how are you feeling?” We followed up about my near fainting episode. She then went on to the routine ultrasound. She hadn’t been looking around for more than two minutes when she stopped.

“Let me go get my colleague. I want her to see something.”

She left the exam room and returned with a second doctor. The second doctor introduced herself, asked me if I’d been leaking fluid (no) and went on to continue with the ultrasound. They took some measurements and determined that there was a normal amount of amniotic fluid.

“Sorry for scaring you,” she offered.

The whole thing happened so quickly, that I barely had time to get scared and think of all the what-ifs. Sean, on the other hand, had plenty of time to get worried.

I was told to focus on drinking more water throughout the day.

***

I probably would’ve been more scared if I hadn’t felt Baby Meatball move for the first time just a day before my appointment.

Since then I’ve felt his movements gets stronger and Sean’s been able to feel him too. It’s still weird, but I don’t want it to stop.

***

I passed on the baby registration process to Sean after our initial visit to Baby’s R Us (his post on that). I was a little overwhelmed by the various products. Sean’s been taking his job seriously and doing a lot of research. He’s awesome. Also on the awesome list: the friends and family who have offered hand-me-downs (e.g., my boss who gave us the crib her daughter has outgrown. w00t!)

***

We’re close on two important decisions:

1. The name. We have the same first choice and no clear second choice. Sean is ready to choose [NAME]. I feel like I need to see Meatball first to know [NAME] is right, but maybe that will change in the next few months. How did you know the name was right?

2. The paint for Meatball’s room. We just have to decide if we want three neutral walls and one brighter accent wall or four walls of the brighter color. I think both would be good with the crib we just received.

***

My dad is worried Meatball is gonna stick as a nickname, especially if he is chunky. My cousin Nancy thinks it’s inevitable.

Things I wonder about at 22 weeks:

Why haven’t I felt Baby Meatball yet? Does my extra padding block the feeling of his movement?

If Sean and I choose a name with an uncommon spelling and alternative pronunciation, will Meatball get annoyed that his name is frequently mispronounced and misspelled? At least he can commiserate with his father on the latter.

Do all maternity pants sag? Is that just me?

Speaking of sagging, how do young guys do this? It’s so uncomfortable and inefficient for walking.

Am I super behind on prepping for Baby Meatball’s arrival? Pregnancy forums make me feel that way since all I’ve really done is clean out the room that will become his nursery and secured a secondhand crib that I still need to pick up. Color scheme? Theme? Nope. Far from that.

Will I come back to running from pregnancy as a better, faster, stronger runner?

When will I actually start to look pregnant rather than just looking like I’ve gained weight?

Why did I get rid of most of my pre-weight loss clothes? I could’ve gone through pregnancy without buying much.

Why did I take such a long break from running last summer and early fall?

When our ultrasound tech, Ling, announced “Well, it’s a boy” matter-of-factly I choked up. “I’ll show you later,” she added.

For the past ten minutes, I’d been lying uncomfortably in a dim room while she pushed at my abdomen with the transducer probe. The poking and prodding of the past three ultrasounds was bad enough, but the anatomy scan was worse. I drank 32 ounces of water over an hour earlier without peeing as required. That’s a lot of liquid for a bladder already under a lot of pressure. Along with that, I had to turn my head up to view the screen which was awkward and uncomfortable.

But that didn’t matter as soon as Ling said that three letter word.

A boy! My dad was right.

I cried for the first time during an ultrasound and let the tears trickle down my chin. I squeezed Sean’s hand but didn’t turn back to him as I had already done several times that morning. I’m not sure why I wanted to hide my tears. Perhaps I didn’t want him to interpret them as disappointment.

They’re definitely not disappointment. I’m pretty sure I would’ve cried either way. I thought of how happy Sean will be to buy our son all the superhero toys and clothes he surely wanted as a kid — or as a thirty-something. I also couldn’t help but think of the struggles young men of color face. The day before, I’d seen lots of stories about the anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s killing. He’s not even here and I’ve already become protective of him and what he might face.

Ling showed us later how she was sure of the sex. Baby Meatball was not shy. She continued on with the scan for another 45 minutes or so. She got photos of several organs and body parts as required for the anatomy scan and then sent us on our way.

As soon as we were out we called our parents and siblings to share the news. The responses ranged from “I knew it!” to “So it’s official?” I had another appointment that morning with my OB. She already had the results from the radiologist’s analysis and told us all looked normal. We also talked about how to prevent the dizziness and faint feelings. Everything she suggested was in the Mayo Clinic Guide to a Health Pregnancy book. I should have read that more closely considering my history.

Later in the day, I treated myself to a manicure and pedicure. It’s been too long. I chose baby blue, I couldn’t help it. At least I’m aware of the “nurture” in socializing gender roles.

Yesterday we went shopping for a Batman nightlight I’d seen online. We left with the nightlight and Baby Meatball’s first book.

Sean posted his reaction this morning. Read it here.

*Apologies to Morrissey for the title. I had to do it after finally seeing him live Friday night. I feel like I went through a Chicana@ rite of passage. Plus, Sean took the best title (About A Boy) for his post.

Written Wednesday, February 27th; edited today.

In a little over an hour, I’ll be going in for the anatomy scan. It’ll be the second part of the test to make sure everything is okay with the baby. Additionally, we’ll get to find out the baby’s sex, if he/she cooperates.

I’m excited and a little scared at the same time. I’ve been really chill for the last 3 months. Sean is the one doing most of the worrying. This week is different.

On Monday morning I had one of my scary and annoying fainting spells. I was on the bus at the time and was sitting. At first I just felt nausea and thought it was motion sickness, which has been happening more often on the bus (I miss the days when I could read on the bus).

A stop later I knew it wasn’t the usual nausea that I could ride out until I got within a few blocks of work. I felt really bad (a) needed air and (b) really needed to get to a bathroom. At the next stop, I stumbled to the bus bench at Olympic and Westwood and took off my jacket immediately because I had chills and felt clammy. Everything looked really bright and I waited for my eyesight to readjust. Then I tried to figure out what to do. It was only about 8:30 so a lot of the places in the mini mall behind me were closed. I was 2 miles from home and about the same distance from work. When I felt okay to walk, I went across the street to use the bathroom. That made me feel better as did drinking some Gatorade.

After that I got to work on the next bus that came along. I felt weak and tired the rest of the day but the nausea and dizziness never returned. I got in touch with the Kaiser nurse hotline and they put through a message to my OB. By the end of the day I had talked to another nurse in the OB’s office and scheduled an appointment for today (Wednesday). She’s probably not happy I omitted that I faint rarely.

Normally, the fainting thing doesn’t freak me out, but everything’s different as I’m pregnant. I don’t want to faint while pregnant and if it’s something to do with my blood pressure or heart then that’s definitely cause for worry as my heart is working harder with the greater blood volume.

As for the scan, I’m just hoping all is good with Baby Meatball (yes, that’s our odd nickname for him/her, I hope he/she forgives us when we reveal this). I hope his/her ten fingers and toes are coming in just fine and. And I hope to feel those toes and feet soon with a kick or something. I still haven’t felt the baby and that bums me out a little.

We took a mini poll with the immediate family to vote on what they predict I’m carrying. Currently girl is winning by two votes. While I don’t have an intuition about the baby’s sex, my dad does. He dreamed about his grandchild shortly after we revealed we were expecting. He mentioned the dream a while ago, but kept the details to himself because he didn’t want to sway our name choices. He finally revealed on Sunday after voting in the poll that in his dream, our baby was a boy named Juan Carlos. “I think I was influenced by your tío Johnny’s passing since it was not too long after,” he confessed. It makes sense since Juan Carlos combines both brothers’ first names.

We’ll see if my dad is right. He’s got decent odds.

Every other week or so during the first trimester, I wrote a short update on how things were going. Below is the version that omits the repetitive and TMI stuff.

If this is tl;dr (too long; didn’t read), the main early pregnancy symptom that hit me was fatigue. I just wanted to sleep. I had mild nausea and vomiting, but it was pretty mild. I didn’t gain weight, but my body did change and my hair does look shinier. Also, flying cross country really sucked.

From the week 7 check-in (around December 7th):

I think I had my first wave of morning sickness today.

I’m feeling pretty tired these days. I slept a lot over the weekend, but I still felt sleepy and tired all day Sunday. I struggled a lot to get out of bed this morning after 8ish hours of sleep.

No food aversions, but I don’t feel like eating fresh fruit besides bananas.

Any chemical smell is a lot stronger, but doesn’t cause nausea just annoyance. For now.

(My morning sickness wasn’t that bad. I didn’t know what to expect, but I wasn’t surprised given that my mom claimed she never had morning sickness. I kept Saltines on hand at work and snacked on them late in the morning to ward off the nausea. I didn’t escape the vomiting, but it was about every other day and ended by Christmas. Well, it came back once or twice after.

The worse thing was feeling tired all the time. I called out sick one day just because I needed more sleep.)

From the week 9/10 update (around December 26th):

I’m a cup size bigger than normal. My pants still fit and I haven’t actually gained weight. I was starting off about 5 pounds greater than my normal weight for the past couple of years.

I actually tried running a little on Saturday. I was able to do 4-5 minutes at an easy jog on the downhill portion of my walk. It felt good, though the bigger breasts did make my sports bra feel pretty tight.

The nausea and vomiting is worst on an empty stomach and when I’ve made the mistake of not taking my prenatal with a meal. Otherwise I feel better with a couple of saltines and a few sips of ginger ale.

This did not work on the flight from LA to NY. I felt gross the entire time but never vomited.

From the week 11 check-in (around January 6th):

I’m feeling more back to normal these days. Aside from the flights to and from NY, the nausea and vomiting has pretty much gone away save for one episode a week ago. Sunday nights are not my friend.

I’ve had a bit of a cold since arriving in NY on Christmas Day. I’m just a little sniffly, it’s nothing as bad as what I got after ABRCMS in November.

Bad side effects: I broke out a little earlier in the week, as if I typically would around my period.

Good side effects: my hair looks really shiny and long.

I haven’t really gained any weight (we’ll see on Tuesday), but I figure there’s plenty of time for that. I’ve been advised to try to keep the weight gain to 15-20 lbs due to my BMI. This doesn’t mean all my clothes fit. I removed several items from my closet since they don’t fit and haven’t fit for a while. With pregnancy there’s no hope I’ll be getting in to them any time soon.

From the week 13 check-in (around January 18th):

First, I had my NT scan and second appointment on the 8th. I took off the morning and was surprised that both appointments plus waiting in the lab to get my blood drawn took 3+ hours. I’d like to complain, but then I remember that I have health insurance and so far have not had to pay a cent out of pocket. The only things we’ve bought health wise have been prenatal vitamins and the initial pregnancy test.

At my appointment I found out I hadn’t gained weight. This is fine considering my doctor things I have enough weight to make a baby and I have plenty of time to gain weight.

The nuchal translucency ultrasound scan was interesting. The tech showed us different parts of the baby, feet, head, profile, and then patiently waited for the baby to be in the right position before taking the measurements needed. That took a while since the baby was moving a lot. Sean joked that he/she was doing the robot and trolling us. I wouldn’t put it past our offspring to be like that. The measurements she gave us were in the normal range.

Afterward, I waited 30 minutes in the waiting area at the lab to get my blood drawn for the second part of the NT test. The latter part took less than 3 minutes. We’re still waiting for results. [We got them. Everything looks cool.]

As for first trimester symptoms, they’re pretty much gone. The nausea and vomiting (never that bad) haven’t made an appearance since the end of the year. I haven’t had a saltine or ginger ale in a couple of weeks. I have more energy. I could actually run — slowly and downhill — for 12 minutes. Before this week I could only do 5-6 minutes before going back for walk breaks. I sort of feel back to normal except for being ready for bed at 9:30/10 and having a few vivid dreams each night. It feels strange, but I know this is normal and I’m not going to complain.

I also started telling close friends and my boss. I told the rest of my co-workers a week or so later. Everyone has been very supportive and quite awesome.