Tweet

As you might have already noticed I did a minor re-design of the blog. I felt I needed something bright and happy, now that we are squarely in the pregnancy territory.

Once Alexis arrives, I’m thinking about completely re-doing the layout and possibly going with two sidebars and of course lots of pictures with our little girl.

Aside from the design, there are a few other changes to make life easier for you and me.

SIDEBAR

1. Along with subscribing by email or through an RSS feed, you can now subscribe to my blog through BlogLovin’ if that’s what you use to read blogs.  See the sidebar for the links.
If you’re on Facebook or Twitter, you’re always welcome to say hi and follow.

2. If you’d like to include our button on your blog, feel free to grab it from the sidebar.

3. The biggest change that is bound to make your life easier is the addition of Google Friend Connect.

You can now sign in and comment through your Google ID as well as add this blog to your account for easier access.
Please see the sidebar and connect.
To comment with your Google ID, just make sure you’re signed in ( there’s a little sign-in button at the bottom of the comment form), that way you won’t need to enter your information.

4. I also added 3 sections on the sidebar with the sites I frequently use: FOR MOMMY, FOR BABY and HOME DECOR.

4. I’ve never pointed it out before, but if you’re pregnant, TTCing (TTC= trying to conceive) or about to start TTCing, there are a few pages I put together with the research I’ve done going through the journey myself. That way you don’t have to search out the blog to find needed information.

The top bar has a page, called PRE-CONCEPTION RESOURCES. It lists ALL the steps we took in preparation for TTCing with links to appropriate posts, as well as some useful items, including THE BEST BOOK you could possibly read before trying to conceive.  Our actual TTC phase didn’t last long. Well, technically, we didn’t even have a TTC phase, since we got pregnant the first month, but I feel that a year of preparations was like spending a year TTCing.

The other useful page is called PREGNANCY RESOURCES. Since I’m only half way into this pregnancy, there is only some information there ( will be updated as I get further along). You can find a list of harmful herbs , all known teratogens ( substances that cause birth defects), water filters, pregnancy safe skin routine, maternity sleeping bras. I also listed ALL the pregnancy books I’ve read and which ones are a MUST and which ones are a PASS ( Like Bruno says “Nicht Nicht! or Ja! Ja!”)

And finally, NUTRITION. This page contains all the posts I did as a part of GET FIT GET HEALTHY challenge. This blog is not meant to be about nutrition, but I didn’t want those few things that were written about nutrition to be lost in the maze of this blog’s archives.

This blog was started as a way to record all the things we were going through to prepare to start TTCing. I spent about a year in just preparations, and I didn’t want all the information to be wasted. So the blog was started as a way to give women, who were going through the same phase, all the information I’ve gathered, save them time and headache. And while it morphed into a more personal blog about our journey, I would like to continue putting together all and any useful information I come across in the meantime.

5. Finally, please feel free to contact me via email (contact {at} prebabyblog.com) I love getting emails from you guys and will be happy to answer questions or just say hi!

Tweet

I originally wrote this post about our approach to pregnancy. We had spent months preparing for our pregnancy, reading every book we could find, taking every test out there to make sure that Alexis had the very best start in life, unencumbered by anything that might be going on in our bodies or our lifestyles. We committed to making sure that the 9 months that I spent being pregnant were peaceful, without stress, exertion, full of nutritious foods and, most importantly, as germ and toxin free as we can be without living in a bubble. If we could have gone to a Tibetian retreat, we would have done that :) But since we were left living in a Floridian suburb, we did the most we could: stayed away from large crowds or small spaces with lots of people, smoke, germy places, flus, colds, etc (If you’re interesting to read the reason why something as drastic as that could possibly be important, I suggest you pick up a copy of Pre-Parenting: Nurturing Your Child from Conception or Origins or any other book dealing with epigenetics, the science of how gene expression works and how they interact and are influenced by the environment, including time in the womb).

That did not mean never leaving our house, but it meant doing what we could in terms of the things I mentioned above.

In the deleted post I also wrote about the studies brought up in the above mentioned books about maternal anxiety and stress, inadequate nutrition and the effects of it on the development of an unborn fetus. It is not a secret that stress releases cortisol that can make many changes to a healthy body, but what has been glossed over until recently is the changes stress can make in a neural, cardio-vascular and hormonal systems of an unborn developing fetus. Growing a baby is such an intricate process, so many things can go wrong under the influence of seemingly harmless external factors. It is absolutely fascinating  ( and scary) to read all that can influence the development of a fetus. Most studies were done on the pregnant “victims” of natural disasters and those who lived through world wars and famines and their babies, so the conditions were, of course, very extreme, but it is not known whether a little external factor AT THE WRONG TIME could do harm. Just like there is no safe amount of alcohol… The conditions linked with prenatal environment are as harmless as allergies and go all the up to ADD, dyslexia, asperger’s, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, cancer, asthma, and more, more, more. {note: I did read somewhere that mild non-chronic stress is actually beneficial to the fetus}

One of the things mentioned was homosexuality. According to the studies brought up in the books, there is evidence that maternal stress at a certain period of time of fetal development can result in different brain wiring. One that makes you legitimately attracted to people of same sex, or have a brain wired for one gender and body of another. And that makes it a completely normal occurrence. Not unnatural – completely normal.

Unfortunately, this citing has earned me hundreds of outraged comments and a series of erroneous speculations. It’s like the best case of a broken ( and very stupid) telephone. A citing that was essentially “proof” that homosexuality ( among other things) is a completely natural thing, isn’t a choice and cannot be “cured” was turned into name calling by {predominantly straight} idiots, set out to “defend” the LGBT community. It is even more ridiculous to see someone commenting saying that I am a “homophobe”, when it is the furthest from the truth. I support and always will gay marriage, gender reassignment help, equal rights for everyone regardless of their orientation or preferences, I have a ton of gay and a few transsexual friends that I love, my opinion has ALWAYS been that you are born that way and  who you are attracted to or chose to live with should have no bearing on your rights or attitudes of people. But alas, those who probably know the least of the subject, the close minded straight females, have been spreading rumors about what I am or am not.

So  for whoever it is that is looking for the truth, for my side of the story, here it is:

LGBT COMMUNITY HAS ALWAYS HAD AND ALWAYS WILL HAVE MY SUPPORT NO MATTER WHAT.

And if someone continues speculation, spreading lies and name calling based on something they misunderstood and have absolutely no idea about, that is perfectly fine by me. It would not be the first time that “herd” has gone off on something completely irrelevant.

Tweet

So this month we start trying! We don’t really know if it’s going to happen or when. But we’re determined to go into it  having fun and with no expectations.

In the meantime of course my planner brain is working.
I am thinking about all the things I’d like to get done before the first possibility of being pregnant:

• cut my hair
• go to a dentist to make sure all my teeth survived the wisdom teeth extraction just fine :)
• finish some home projects
• CLEAN the house {I’d like to have a clean house in case I get a debilitating morning sickness}
• buy and install a kick ass reverse osmosis water filter
• clean up the garden and explain to the hubby how to take care of it {can’t do garden work due to risk of toxoplasmosis} DONE!
• paint the hallways {yeah like that’s going to happen}

And that’s just the stuff I’d like to do before we get pregnant. Let’s just say that if we don’t get knocked up the first month, I won’t be TOO upset, because it’ll give me one more month to get that stuff done.

Tweet

RULES:

1. If you haven’t yet, join the challenge here: GET FIT and GET HEALTHY
2. Every Saturday come back to The Art of Making a Babyand ShutterMama to read the tips on how to be fitter, healthier and more confident.
3. Weekly write a post about your progress, following the questionnaire below, take a self-portrait (optional) and link up with us.
4. Don’t forget to grab the GET FIT challenge button on the sidebar and display it proudly on your blog or GET FIT post.
5. Link your post with Selfie Saturdays if you took your week’s self-portrait.

Vitamin and Mineral Supplements.

In the course of my preparation for pregnancy, one of the topics I did extensive research on was vitamin and mineral supplements.

We all know the importance of taking daily vitamins, especially if our diet leaves something to be desired. Now supplementation it’s not as simple as pop a pill each morning if you want to do it right.

There’s vitamin toxicity to pay attention to, minerals mashing together in all the wrong ways and negating each other, proper absorption, etc etc…

Here’re a few important fact everyone taking a supplement needs to know. This is especially useful to pregnant women or those TTCing, because having proper nutrients in your body is crucial:

There are certain minerals and foods that prevent absoption of others and vitamins that aid in absoption. You need to know that to get the maximum  out of your vitamins.

• Pretty much anything interferes with iron absorption, so if your goal is to make sure you have plenty of iron in your stores, read the following:
            -do NOT mix calcium rich foods with iron rich foods, the same goes for supplements. Take iron and calcium supplement at least 2 hours apart.
            -do NOT drink tea after eating an iron rich food or taking an iron supplement.
            -the easiest way is to make sure you take an iron supplement completely separate with iron rich food
            – take vitamin C with iron for best absorption.If you’re a vegetarian, great sources of iron include: beans/lentils,some nuts, spinach, collard greens. Make sure to add some of those at every meal.
• If you’re taking an iron supplement, make sure to take zinc and copper with it. Iron supplements interfere with the absorption of copper, which in turn is very closely related to zinc. So if you’re taking copper, you need to supplement it with zinc and visa versa. Since excess of one will give you a deficiency of the other So since iron interferes with copper and copper interferes with zinc, you need to take all three to make sure you’re even. In nature it’s done automatically, most foods high in iron are also high in zinc and copper. Never exceed 100% of DV an any of these minerals, because of it’s close relation and intricate balance system.
• Calcium is best absorbed with Vitamins D. Most  Calcium supplements have vitamin D in it, just make sure it doesn’t exceed 50% DV, since vitamin D has a toxicity level.
• It’s hard to get enough DHA in a pill form and it’s pretty expensive so look for a morning cereal that is a good source of Omega-3s and load up on some avocado and walnuts.
• FOLIC ACID: TAKE IT!!!! Please please please, if you are of childbearing age and not infertile, please take a folic acid supplement, even if you’re not “planning” any more kids. Neural tube develops during the first 27 days of pregnancy, well before most women even know they’re pregnant. Folic acid can prevent most neural tube defects in a baby as long as you take it before and during the first month of pregnancy. Unless you’re like me and plan pregnancies that meticulously, the last thing you’d want is to get pregnant, not know it for a month and miss that 30 day window.

If you’re pregnant or planning to get pregnant:

NEVER EVER (unless advised by a doctor) exceed 100% of DV on any supplement. It’s hard because most over the counter prenatals stuff 200-300%DV of vitamins in it to appeal to the less educated women thinking they’re getting a better value. You are NOT! You should be getting plenty from food, so all you need to do is create a safety net.

Fat soluble vitamins get packed away in your fat thus making it possible to create a toxicity hardful to a fetus if you don’t know what you’re doing.

-Do not take vitamin A in any form but beta-carotene, that includes milk and animal products that have a decent amount of vitamin A in retinoid form. High doses of vitamin A causes birth defect and it’s easy to go over board if you’re a meat eater and take supplements
-Watch your vitamin D intake.
- Vitamin E has been linked with heart defects at birth. That is even vitamin E taken before pregnancy at as low as 2/3 of recommended daily value (DV). Now since, oil has lot of vitamin E, I suspect those finding might have had something to do with women who ate lots of oily foods that are already bad for the baby. But we can’t know for sure, and these are my personal speculations. I am not taking any vitamin E supplement, since we get plenty through oil use and nuts.

Folic acid is a MUST before you’re even pregnant.
Supplemental iron is helpful taken before pregnancy so that you go into it with your stores full of iron.
Unless you eat lots of fruits and veggies ( and I do mean lots and varied, making up most of your meals), you might not need to supplement A,C or K vitamins, since you get plenty from fruits and veggies.

Since everything tend to interfere with everything and you can’t take more than 100% of the certain type of vitamin..bla bla bla… I found the best way to make it easy is to buy each supplement separately and take them in batches:

iron+C+zinc+copper= 1st batch
Calcium+D= 2nd batch
Folic+ B+DHA+other= 3rd batch

So there you have it!

Now, my entry for week 12

1. Height: 5’11″, weight: 134 lb

2. Your fitness challenge(s) for this week: 30 minutes of pilates every other day + 30 minutes of cardio ( rollerblading, running, swimming or treadmill) every other day+20 sit-ups every hour for 8 hours on cardio days. Special exercises designed for pregnancy to increase flexibility (daily) + Kegels (twice daily). A total of about an hour or more of physical activity a day.

3. Your health challenge(s) for this week: My eating habits are close to perfect, however I could improve on my water intake. My goal will be 8 glasses of water daily + continue eating the way I do now. Start snacking more during the day to prepare for the first trimester of morning sickness.

• Fitness: It was awesome. I did everything I set out to do. Worked out daily. I feel it’s starting to become a habit, one that I will not want to give up. Yesterday, hubby and I even did both strength and cardio and abs in one day, even though we’re supposed to do cardio/strength every other day.
• Water: I’m back to my KleenKanteen bottle and being hydrated.
• Food:Food intake was perfect. Nothing to complain about.
  5. Failures and slip-ups: Can’t say anything here. I’m getting in the groove and getting stronger.

6. Weekly challenge wisdom: It’s true that they say it takes a while to form a habit, but once that habit forms it becomes a joy to do the most mundane things.
 
7. Advice to fellow GET FIT members: Stick with it! It will get better But if you give up now, it’ll NEVER get better. You will always start and stop and start and stop and get nowhere, or give up and continue living unhealthy and overweight.

{for more shots, go to my photography blog, Selfie Magic}

LINK UP:

Tweet

Do you guys LOVE getting mail?
Like going to the box and finding something there that is not junk?

Well, today I finally got an official acknowledgement from Blue Cross and Blue Shield that my new health insurance policy ( with maternity option) is going to start on March 1st!

That means that with my wisdom teeth gone and the insurance in force starting March 1, there is nothing holding us back from ditching birth control ( YIKES!) and doin’  THE NASTY!!!!

Well, except the 30 days waiting period before conception after the coverage starts ( but do we have to concentrate on that?). So the actual date WILL be April 1st like originally expected. But now it’s confirmed!

My thoughts on all this:

1. OMG Am I ready? I’m not ready! I don’t think I am ready! Shiiiiiit!!!!!  *breathe…*

2. Am I sure there isn’t something else I haven’t taken care of that I should prior to TTCing? (Vaccines-check! Pre-conception tests, blood work and physical- check! Can his boys swim?-YES! Dental work- check! A year of prenatals- check! Perfect eating habits- Check! Good fitness level- check! Maternity Coverage- (YAY!) MASSIVE CHECK! Ovulation schedule- Check! 3 pre-conception books and 5 pregnancy books read- CHECK! WOW I think I HAVE done it all! You can read about it here)

3.Do i want this? Is it time?  Am I sure? Shiiiiit!!! *breathe….*

4.  If we conceive in April (I know, long shot) according to my ovulation calendar, my due date would be around New Year’s. Not a good thing! Should we postpone it 1 month?

5. Man, we’ll get to have so much sex!!!!! I always want more sex than hubby. But I am not normal. I want to make this thing fun and not stress out about babies since all the planning is done and now it’s all about luck!

6.What am I thinking? I am not even recovered from my teeth surgery. Ay! It hurts…. :(

7.I still can’t believe that all the items on my Pre-conception to do list are done. It took a year of passive planning and 6 months of active planning to get fully ready for this, with the worst things being dental work and switching the health plan to the one with maternity coverage ( did I tell you BCBS health insurance sales people are morons and I had to literally research everything on my own and get answers from managers of managers? It was like pulling teeth)

And maybe soon, closer to the actuall start of TTCing I’ll tell you what we’re going to do to try and maximize our chances of having a girl.

Are you excited for us or what?

{self-portrait}

Tweet

Part I- Preparations

Part II- Health Insurance ( maternity coverage)

Part III -  Vaccination and Testing

Up until 2 months ago I still didn’t have my OB situation figured out. I needed to find a really good OB who I would do my pre-conception check up with and go all the way through delivery. I didn’t really like the idea of having to interview different OBGYNs and possibly having to pay for each office visit.

Lucky for me, my friend Anna was getting ready to give birth and she found, what turned out to be one of the best doctors I could have hoped for, Dr Thompson. Both her and two of her other friends gave birth using Dr Thompson and all three were in “love” with him. Later, my husband was given a OB referral from a client of ours and when he came home to give me his number , it’s turned out to be the same doctor. So at this point I had 4 people telling me he’s awesome. I had to check him out.

The office visit went surprisingly well. He listened a lot, gave good advice, spent a ton of time discussing our needs and wants with us. Looked through my prenatals that i had already been taking, told me my uterus looked fine ( lol) and in general was a really really nice guy.

See, normally I go for younger male OBGYNs.  Male because I feel a lot more comfortable being naked around a man than a woman, and especially when it comes to touching and looking up my hoo-ha. It just seems to me that  it’s more natural. I’d rather a doctor enjoy doing what he’s doing than think it’s gross ( which, as a female,  is what I’d think if i had to look up other girls’ vaginas all day long). And young because I feel young doctors are more updated on cutting edge medicine, statistics and education, which is what I’d like. I’d pick change and progress  over tradition any day.

Dr T. was my first older OBGYN ( in his 50s-60s) and I don’t think I minded it.

I asked him about his C-section stats and how he felt about episiotomies. I also knew a lot from my friends who delivered with him, like the fact that he’d come to deliver your baby even if he’s not on duty which is a HUGE bonus ( my friend went into labor at 3 am and he came to deliver it even though it was not his shift).

Next, I checked out the hospital that’s conveniently located across from his office. The Birth Place seemed really nice with a lot of security, the rooms were big and exactly what you’d expect. I was satisfied.

I also discussed water births with my doctor and he didn’t think it was such a good idea ( even though the hospital offers it), because of the risk of infection ( which i tend to agree). I definitely want to give birth in a hospital. The idea of a midwife freaks me out, because I am very much a scientific person who’s all for advancing our knowledge and procedures. I would not want to do a at-home birth – too much can go wrong. However, I also do not want any unnecessary intervention, like inductions and vacuums and such. No pitocin for me even if I’m past due or progressing slowly ( unless the baby is in real danger). I realize I might think differently once the time comes, but for now those are my decisions. I do want an epidural- I do not see the reason to endure the pain if you don’t have to, considering that the risks are minimal.

So that’s my plan for now. I’m very happy with how and where it’s all going. I’ll continue reading  books and real life experiences on blogs and modifying my ideas and desires accordingly. I also cannot wait to watch the “Business of being born” documentary. I started watching it a few weeks ago, but decided that it would serve me better if i watch it when I am actually pregnant.

At this point, I’m through all of my 5 pre-conception books and have memorized everything that i need to do and stay away from before conception. When our health insurance goes through and we actually start trying I’ll start on my 5-7 pregnancy books ( ok, to be completely honest- i already started on two- i couldn’t hold back :))

Otherwise, things have calmed down for me, especially with the new realization that we’re both perfectly healthy and should be very fertile and that sort of just gave me a really nice peace of mind ( i almost typed “piece of mind” lol).

My Hubby seems to be very excited about a prospect of having a baby soon as well. We spent the  first few hours of our Saturday morning reading the first 20 pages of day by day pregnancy ( 2 weeks before conception + 1 week after), discussing genetics, googling dominant and recessive features ( it seems our baby has a 50/50 of inheriting either his blue eyes or my green eyes). 

{ It was fascinating to read about eye genes. Apparently there are 2 genes only: Bey2 (brown/blue) and Gey(green/blue). I knew that blue was recessive and brown -dominant, but I always wondered where green and grey colors stood.  It turns out grey is simply a variation of blue color that is lacking melanin. And green color has it’s own gene that it shares with blue, just like brown shares with a different blue gene. So in Bey2, brown is dominant over blue, in Gey- green is dominant over blue, and Gey green is also dominant over Bey2 blue (did I lose you yet?). So my green eyed self has to have Gey gene ( he-he she says “gey gene”!) and my blue eyed husband has to have  blue/blue gene ( either gey or bey2). So if i pass my green along, it’ll override my Hubby’s blue, thus giving our baby green eyes, however if I do have the blue/green gene ( which I’m pretty sure I do, because my dad is green eyed and my mom is blue eyed), then I might pass my blue part of the gene down and our baby will have blue eyes. Honestly, i don’t care- i think green is exotic and beautiful and blue is traditionally beautiful, so either way it’ll be beautiful! So there! }

Please tell me someone got something useful out of that boring paragraph about eye color gene :)

__________________________________________________________

Please don’t forget to VOTE daily!

Tweet

Based on all the pretty stuff I’ve been posting here, some of you may mistakenly assume this is a photography blog.  Fooled ya! I might have been distracting all of you with yummy recipes, and pretty Christmas pictures, but in the meantime more important things were going on, like planning a baby.
I think my last pre-conception post ended with me getting all my vaccines and tests done and over with it, but what I intentionally forgot to mention is that we were going through a much more important test that I honestly was freaking out about -
SEMEN ANALYSIS :)
What’s there to freak out about?- you’ll ask.
Well, we were going under the assumption that both of us are perfectly fertile ( doesn’t everyone?), so after the initial pre-conception check ups, the plan was to start trying and if there’s a problem after 6 months, we’d deal with it then. Being the planner that I am, I wasn’t exactly at peace with that idea. For one, what’s the point of planning this whole thing out and then leave out what matters: whether we can make babies?
Nothing told me that I’d have any problems: I’m 26, I’m healthy as a gazelle ( didn’t want to use an ox reference), been on birth control for 8 years non-stop and the first month I went off of it  in November( aside from me freaking out from my PMS symptoms), my period came on schedule, so did the next, as well as all my ovulations. My husband, on the other hand, had some “concerns”. Nothing major, but coupled with his age (41y.o.), it sort of made me curious. However, we decided that we’ll wait until we’re ready to start TTCing and see. There was nothing that would tell us we should do otherwise. Until i started reading some articles and  baby or infertility blogs ( Internet is a bitch when it comes to medical stuff). To be honest, some things scared me. I read about tons of couples having trouble conceiving, I read about men having azoospermia ( no sperm), or men having bad morphology ( sperm crooked :) lol), I read about women having to go through IVF and how difficult it was. Granted, most of the blogs I read had something to do with female infertility rather than male, but the seed was planted. After discussing the “chances” of DH having “sperm” problems, we decided that it’d be best if he did semen analysis, so that both of us knew that there aren’t any issues or if there are, deal with it. Like, if he had low sperm count ( which is pretty common among men), he’d go on Clomid, etc.

The next morning, we took off to the hospital to do the analysis. We were informed that he had to BRING the sample within 30 minutes of “producing” it.  The hospital is 40 minutes away from our house. Ummmm…do see a problem here? Well, we’re both very progressive and sexually open people ( me more than him- Russian upbringing), so we don’t blink an eye and go back to the car. I won’t  elaborate on the details, but a few minutes later we were walking back proudly holding the see-through sample bottle full of “the good stuff”.
“The good stuff” got promptly handed over to the technician ( man, what a job!) and we went home skipping (with the  satisfaction of a good deed done).
The results were expected that afternoon and as we have worked ourselves up quite a bit on this matter, we were waiting with anticipation. When the fax/call didn’t come in by 4pm, we called the doctor. Results weren’t in, they were going to call the lab. No call back that day. Oh-oh. Next morning. Calling straight to the lab. Lab can’t find him in the system.
O.M.G. They. lost. his. sperm.   
Major LOL
Finally a few phone transfers later, the sperm is found, the results are ready. Calling the doctor’s office - voicemail. Get a callback at 4 pm: Yes, results are in, No we can’t give them to you.
Say whaaat?
Apparently nurses aren’t allowed to open the results until the doctor does.
Sounds like bullshit.
But what are we going to do? It’s not like it’s HIS results, His sperm, and Our money that paid for the test…
Even more concerned now, because my “paranoid the-world-is-out-to-get-ya” husband thinks she saw the results and won’t give them to us, because they’re bad and she needs the doctor to handle/explain it. We’re promised the results first thing in the morning. Day 3(today): I wake up from a nightmare where we found out that Hubby can’t have kids. Feeling really bad all day. This time I call the office. Three times. Leave three messages: 2 on nurses voicemail, 1 with the receptionist. 1:50pm: WE GET A FAX!

We open it aaaaaand…

Ok, before i go into the results, one thing you should know ( unless you do already) is  what’s considered average/normal as far as sperm count goes is 20 million per ml with the total amount being at least 40 million. That’s what it takes to conceive a child naturally ( of course men can conceive even with a lower sperm count, but usually it’s a loooot harder).

So we open the fax ( e-fax)  on my iPhone and the number is…drum roll

74 MILLION/ML!

WHAT? 

With the total being 280 million sperm! Holy mother of testicles! My HUSBAND has 280 million sperm. EACH TIME.

All the other numbers, like morphology and motility ( forward movement) look good too.

We were sooo relieved. Not only is my husband fertile, but he’s one hunk of a man from the sperm production standpoint. His semen is a bit acidic, but that favors girls, so I don’t mind :)

So the moral of the story , because there’s always gotta be one ( there’s actually two) is this:
1. If you have any reason to doubt your  or his fertility ( testosterone, varicocele, endometriosis, fibrosis, irregular period) and are planning on starting a family, go get checked out right away. It’s just a few tests, but the peace of mind is priceless. And if there is something wrong, you won’t waste precious months trying, but rather get started on the treatment.
2.  Don’t be so quick to diagnose yourself even if the symptoms are a perfect match, do the tests and relaaaax.

____________________________________________________________

Please don’t forget to VOTE daily!

Tweet

Yup! That’s pretty much what i am here to talk about: the weather and a new cool blog directory I found.

While sifting through different blog sites I found a link to  The Blog Guidebook, so now i have another resource to get new readers and find new fun blogs. I recommend, peeps!

Now, on another really nasty unpleasant sucky note, I.am.really.honestly.freezing. to.death
Seriously people? What is it with Florida weather? Last year it was insanely cold for a month. This year it started in early December. Two years ago, we were still swimming in the pool with my girls.
I don’t mean to be complaining but the only reason I moved to South Florida is to escape any kind of chilly weather ( and palm trees… and ocean…). I kept gradually moving more south every couple years ( from Russia to Ohio, from Ohio to Jacksonville, Florida and then finally to South Florida because North Florida was just still too cold for me). And that’s what I get? Do I really need to move to Key West at this point? And then what? Puerto Rico? { actually my hubby grew up in Puerto Rico- his dad was a translator for the government}

The temperatures have been in the low 60s during the day and low 40s at night  ( that’s where it really gets me). We kept the heater off thinking it’s a one day deal and it’ll warm up because our heaters here in Florida suck and it would take longer to just get it going and then we get a $100 bill for running it for 1 day ( seriously!).
So needless to say that I am very grumpy today! We had to go out to do some tests at the hospital and i literally had to layer 2 sweaters ( one christmasy sweater) and was still cold. Brrrrr.

Oh and good news ( for me): my chicken pox titer came back and I have immunity, so i do not have to get a shot before pregnancy YAY!

Photo for Communal Global and Perceptive Perspective Eyes ( or one eye in this case, but an very angry one)

____________________________________________________________

Please don’t forget to VOTE daily!

______________________________________________________________________

Tweet

Continuation of my maternity insurance debacle

Well, what do you know? Health insurance people called.
The moron agent, who was incredibly unfamiliar with coverages, also forgot to mention that I needed to enclose a check for the first month with the application. It might normally make sense, but since I was switching from one Blue Cross policy to another, while being on Automatic Withdrawals for my monthly premiums, I didn’t think they really needed it and he neglected to bring it up.

So two weeks after I submitted an app, thinking everything is easy-peasy, I get it back in the mail with a sticky note saying that I need to enclose a check. I call the agent, he aplogetically informs me that sicne it’s been two weeks (duh! who’s fault was it?), we need to complete re-do the whole application, as in take all the info over the phone again, mail the app again, have it signed by me and mailed back AGAIN!
I mean seriously?

So if his estimation of underwriting times is correct, we won’t be insured on the maternity side until February 1st. There has to be 30 days of active coverage before conception, which means we can’t start trying for a baby until March 1st except that my ovulation is more towards the end of the month and even if we conceive that first month, my due date will be in Decemeber.
And That’s really shitty!

Thank you Mr Health Insurance Man! You just pushed our baby plans 3-4 more months.

And I was getting all excited…. Boo!

{ On another note, I just got ambushed by “hubby attack huggies” (p.s. nothing to do with diapers) }

And while you’re here, please click this button – K, thnx!

Tweet

Traditionally, one of the first steps of  planning a baby is going off Birth Control. Granted, with me, it takes a bit of a different course with all the pre-conception care and preparedness.
However, last month was my time to unleash the power of natural hormones. Oh boy, did I NOT know what I was getting myself into!

In order for you to understand what I am about to describe and not to schluff me off as one of those hypochondriac-y hysterical pregnancy prone chicks, you need to know this:

I have been on THE PILL my whole adult life. I started when I was 18 and have NEVER been off of it up until now, 8 years later. In addition to that, when I was working as a model in NYC, I had consulted with my doctor and he agreed that it’d be just fine if I were to take the active pills non-stop without making a break for the white placebo pills, thus skipping my period altogether.

I went on living my life without a period for two years, happy as a clam not to experience any side effects of having one. By the end of the 2nd year I was starting to wonder what having a period felt like – I’d completely forgotten. I could not  fathom why girls, who are already on the pill, would even bother putting themselves through the wringer that we call “mothernature’sgiftoallwomen”.
At that point I was completely unfamiliar with the PMS and period symptoms that most women experience monthly.

So when time came to go off my pill, I  cheerfully tossed my used pack in the trash and ignored the annoying daily calls from Target to remind me that my auto-refill prescription is ready.
Condoms became our friend # 1 and I went on to live what I thought was going to be a normal life.

The craziness started with light spotting on day 4-5 after I should have ovulated. I didn’t think much about it until I realized that day, that I had VERY SENSITIVE boobs… Like,the  not normal “can’t wear a shirt without a bra”, “do not touch me” sensitive boobs. I thought back and remembered that we had sex about the time that ovulation should have occurred. My thoughts started racing:”OMG! No way! We used a condom! I don’t have maternity coverage yet! I CAN’T BE PREGNANT YET”! I realized that it wouldn’t be the end of the world if i were to be pregnant, but i would have preferred to have maternity coverage and have my wisdom teeth out, etc etc…

My husband, of course, calmed me down saying that I am silly and there was no way i am pregnant. Ok, so I calmed down. For now. We all know how unreliable condoms can be, but he’s right, I can’t be pregnant.

A few days went by, I kept complaining about how strange it was that my boobs were SOOO Sensitive!!!  And then the emotions started acting up. I think I cried a few times in one day…and more than a few days that week.
“Oh Gosh! - i thought, Here’s the pregnancy emotions! Am i really pregnant? I have never felt that way!” At some point I remember crying in my husband’s arms, complaining about something, and then both of us laughing about how stupid what I am crying about was, which would send me deeper into my weeping hysterical non-sense fit.
“I must be pregnant!”- i thought. I don’t cry, I’m not a cry baby. My friends who know me well are well aware that I don’t cry.

That day I had to do my pre-conception bloodwork and urine test and they discovered some protein in my urine which can be a sign of pregnancy ( strangely enough no pregnancy test was performed), which further proved my fears/hypothesis.

To make a long story short, I waited for my next doctor’s appointment and asked them to do a pregnancy test which came back negative ( of course!) and life went back to normal leaving me wondering why on earth I was experiencing pregnancy symptoms without being pregnant. My husband’s guess was “hysterical pregnancy”, a made-up pregnancy where a woman is so anxious to get pregnant that she thinks she’s feeling the symptoms. I hated this “diagnosis”, because one – I am not anxious to get pregnant, i’m not ready yet on any of the fronts, not until all things are in place; and two- I really felt those things.  I mean, I was crying like a baby over something stupid like forgetting to brush my teeth, then laughing that i was crying over that, then crying because it was …all…. just….sooooo…saaaaaaaaad :) ahahahaha!

When my period finally came, once again proving (Thank God!) that I am not pregnant, a light bulb went off in my head:

I WAS FEELING NORMAL PMS SYMPTOMS!!!!!

The normal hormonal fluctuation and imbalance most women experience monthly and are very used to.

This was absolutely hilarious to me. I hadn’t had a period in so long that I completely forgot what it feels like: the mood swings mid cycle, the sore boobs, breaking out, crying, cramps, bleeding. It was so foreign to me that it never once occurred that what I was feeling could be normal. Most girls were very used to feeling this way and therefore didn’t pay much attention to it. For me, on the other hand, it was all new!

It was very satisfying to tell my husband that I really DID feel those things ( I’m suspecting he thought i was one of those crazy people), that i didn’t invent the symptoms.
We laughed, we cried, it was better than “Cats”, but at least now I know that if I am not supposed to get pregnant, I probably won’t, and it’s just my period :)

As far as protein in my pee, that was something completely different and is another story that you will hopefully hear soon.

Now, make me feel more like a normal (read: not crazy) person and tell me your own pregnancy scare stories in the comments! ( it’s a good time to introduce yourself if you’d like, too)