Daddy hormones...yes those are out of whack too!

One of the stereotypical things associated with pregnancy is the changes (sometimes drastic changes) in the mother to be's hormones. People seem to think that most woman are walking time bombs ready to go off at any minute. Luckily for my, that has not been the case with MW. She has only had one little freak out and has been a champ her entire pregnancy so far. She has also gone out of her way to make sure that my hormones are recognized too. Yes gentleman, your hormones will run wild as well.

Often ignored, the hormones of men change during pregnancy as well. It is not all the same types of hormones as woman, but often there is a similar result. Men can get very needy/nervous/hyper and often times are overlooked during pregnancy. Hormones in men are often something that people, especially the men experiencing them, pretend don't exist. This makes dealing with them even more difficult as they do not want to accept they may be acting out of the ordinary.

Because of the perception of mens hormones there seems to be little advice regarding them. It seems to be unacceptable for guys to act hormonal in society, so guys you and your partners need to figure this out.

The best way I have seen in dealing with hormones in anyone is understanding. By knowing yourself and knowing your partner you can tell when something is off. When you have that good base understanding of each other it is much easier to deal with hormones. And guys just accept you have hormones and get on with it. It has nothing to do with being manly, without hormones you wouldn't be alive!

Be understanding! Should hormones be an excuse for acting like an ass, no they shouldn't. However the whole idea of a relationship is understanding that sometimes right and wrong are not what matters. There have been plenty of times where I am raging about something and MW brings me out for some buffalo wings, despite the fact I am the one being ridiculous. You just need to do your best to keep your hormones in line and reciprocate when your partners hormones are out of whack. Guys is it really going to hurt you to watch Chocolate or something like that if your lady wants it?

There is no point to being in a relationship without that kind of understanding. Your significant other is supposed to be your right hand person, not someone you pick fights with all the time! Remember to treat yourself and your partner well. Take care of yourself and don't feel bad about doing something you like!

Good news!

So great news everyone, the perinatologist couldn't even find an ecogenic focus on the ultrasound. They had much better equipment and the hospital and a much much much better tech doing the procedure. So we have a nice normal baby with no problems on the ultrasound woohoo!

The appointment yesterday prompted me to do a post about technicians, such as our wonderful ultrasound tech yesterday.

It can be a little nerve wracking to go into a procedure like that. You just want to make sure that everything is going well with the baby and all that, often leaving you a little nervous to talk to the tech. Always talk to the tech. The tech should be explaining everything they are doing to you. Yes they are there to get the scans, but they are also there to help educate you on what's going on with your baby.

The second ultrasound we had should have been a really exciting thing! And it was, except we got little to no information from the technician. She just sat there silently snapping scan after scan. She may have said 4 sentences to us. Thank God MW's mom was there to help walk us through everything. Not a good experience, but we didn't know if that was normal or if the tech would have been annoyed by our questions

The third ultrasound was the exact opposite of that. Our tech was fantastic! Her, along with an observing med student, talked us through everything that she was doing. She explained what everything was and what she was doing when she was taking her scans. She asked us about the tech who did the scans at the midwife office and was rather confused when we said we had none of our questions answered and that the previous tech didn't even get all of the scans needed.

Overall the third ultrasound was a fantastic experience, although we did have an hour delay. The best thing I can say to everyone out there is ask questions! If you want to know something or aren't getting the info you think you need, ask them. After all its your baby!

Ultrasound today

So MW and I have our additional ultrasound today to take a look at the echogenic focus that they found on the last ultrasound. I will update everyone after the appointment!

What's not to love about a registry?

In my experience registry, whether it be a baby or wedding registry, is stereotypically a female job. The thought is that the ladies like to shop and are much better than us. That's a silly thought for many reasons, here are the two biggest I have run into: Knowledge base and excitement level. Let me explain

I love babies, always have. That being said it has been quite a long time since I have had any type of baby in my immediate family. Yes I had had cousins and 2nd cousins, but you really don't see all of the stuff that is involved when you see them at holidays. When MW and I went to babies are us to start thinking about our registry I was completely in awe at the amount of things I had never even heard of, let alone seen. There were many different types of bottles, changing tables, strollers (with and without a built in removable car seat), bumpers, feeding towels etc. At first it was a bit overwhelming, but just think of it like you would any kind of hobby, there are hundreds of neat little things you can get to make life easier. MW was very patient and walked around the entire store introducing and explaining new and interesting baby materials.

Guys why would you not want to be a part of this? This is your excuse to act like a kid and explore. Pick things up, pull them, push them find out how they work. That is the way to become familiar with all of these different things that you will be using over the next couple of years. Find someone knowledgeable (in this case MW is the oldest of 6, enough said) and have at it. PLEASE view this as something that you should be involved in! This is one of the activities that are not only fun, but will give you valuable info on all the random toys and devices you didn't even know existed.

If push comes to shove and you still don't want to do the registry it will make your wife/girlfriend happy, so go. Maybe she will even let you use the little scan gun and you can run around pretending your fighting Nazi's or something.

Telling your Parents

So far in our pregnancy there has been one part that both of us have had the most issues (but also the most excitement) about doing....Telling our parents.

Now a little background on our parents:

My parents are split up with my brother living with my mom and my dad living by himself.

MW's parents are together with 5 kids still at home ranging from 8-22 years old.

Neither of these situations makes for the easiest pass of information between everyone. When we started out the first person we told was not our parents, it was one of our work friends. Being the sharing people that we are, MW and I couldn't wait to tell people. Telling your parents seems like such a big task when facing it, while telling a couple good friends may be much easier. It is ok to tell someone else before your parents, don't feel bad about.

That being said you need to tell your parents in a pretty speedy manor. Below is a brief synopsis of how we told our parents.

Luckily my mom had wanted to get together for a couple of weeks so we picked a weekend and agreed to meet for food and the football game. After about an hour of small talk we decided we really needed to tell her, so we did. Simple as that. We said we have something to tell you and poof it was done. This seemed the most direct and simple way to let her know.

We tried to take the same approach with MW's parents, but the logistics of getting both parents alone with 5 kids in the house is daunting. After playing phone tag for 2 or 3 weeks it came to the point where MW had to tell her mother over the phone. This may not be the first option for most, but that doesn't mean it isn't the best. After speaking with her mom we finally nailed down a date where we could tell her dad in person and talk about how amazing it was.

My dad was a different matter all together. Because I don't see him all that often getting a hold of him, even on the phone, proved to be very difficult. He had changed his phone number and hadn't told us yet, so I kept getting a disconnected message. It ended up that after about 3 or 4 months we had to get in touch with my aunt (who we adore so it wasn't a big deal). After we had dinner and told my aunt she made sure my dad got back to me in a timely manner.

Now what did we learn from this long, drawn out process? (like I said my dad didn't know until around 4 months) We learned that telling people is the greatest/most nerve wracking thing we had to do up until that point. Below is a small list of things we learned that may help

• Don't worry about it--Having to wait so long in between telling our parents was nerve wracking. Sometimes parents are elated, sometimes they are a bit shook up, and usually they just want to go and tell someone themselves. After you give them some time to get used to the news lay some ground rules. Give them a schedule and a date of when they can tell people themselves. In my case there was no way I was going to wait to get a hold of my dad, once MW's parents knew then we gave them the go ahead. Try and tell your parents as close together as possible, that way you cut down on the jealous "you told x first??" attitude(luckily we had none of that)
• You are in charge-- For many people this is a new thing. You are completely in charge of this situation. Your parents can have their opinions, but they don't mean beans unless you decide they do. If you want to tell a friend before them do it, and if they are the jealous type you don't need to tell them. Listen to their advice, but if you don't like something say "thank you", go home and don't worry about it. You can do what you want. That being said parents are a wonderful resource so don't dismiss everything they say before taking a look at it.
• Do not tell them names you are thinking of-- To me this was a bit of an eye opener. Parents don't always think before they talk and often times you get a "you can't use that name" kind of look/statement. Well forget them, its your baby name it what you want. Don't listen to the hoopla from them, it's you and your partners decision.

• Listen to your body before you listen to your parents--At this point I would like to say that, beyond EMT training, I have had no medical training. That being said your body isn't stupid, it knows what it needs. You listen to your parents and doctors, but often times not your body. Eat what your body tells you and don't feel bad about it. Now obviously that doesn't mean eat an entire cow or a small field of cocoa, but don't doubt yourself. If you have a question use your parents and your doctor. USE BOTH, you may be surprised at the difference you hear.

This is only a short list and a brief overview of what happened when we told our parents. Please if you have questions, comments, whatever let me know. MW and I were engaged for two years before we got married and pregnant, so we know how families can be. Ev

Finding out the sex

Although mentioned in an earlier post I figured that finding out the sex of your lil buddy is probably deserving of its own post!

"Do you want to know the sex?" this question shouldn't be a question that takes you by surprise. I am going to tell you right that at your 19-22 week appointment they are going to ask you that exact question. So talk about it. Now the thing I want to stress is that just because I say talk about it doesn't mean that you have to decide it the first time you talk about. If anything you should take some time and talk it over a couple of times.

For myself and MW we always just assumed that we would find out. We did talk about it a couple of times and finally decided that we wanted to know what our baby would be. To us the technology was there, why not use it. I am not going to lie it was amazing to find out, but also be prepared for a bit of a let down. Going from two possibilities to one a little bit of disapointment is expected. That being said don't worry about it. Just because you are a bit sad that you don't have two possibilities doesn't mean you aren't super excited to have one definite! In our case its a boy!

The thing that I cannot stress enough is communication take the time to think things over by yourself and talk to your partner. Relax you have plenty of time to figure things out!

Money part 1

So a huge concern, especially for the man(at least thats how it seems) in a pregnancy is money. Every book or website I have found related to becoming a father is at least 20% about money. That is fine, but there is a lot about money I find to be overly worrying. This post is the first in a series I would like to do about money to make all those parents, moms to be and dads to be, feel a little bit better.

Really issues with money generally go back before a kid was ever in the works. A major issue I have seen is that money issues seem to be routed to one person. In a relationship your spouses money problems/triumphs are your money problems/triumphs. It is unfair to everyone involved if you do not discuss things like this with your spouse and it will come back to bite you in the ass.

That being said the major thing I have noticed about men and pregnancy is that they look for one thing to latch onto, one thing they can call their own. The easiest thing for a guy to take control of is the money. They do not carry or feel the body changes that a woman does, the only things they can take control over are outside of the pregnancy. The problem that is run into is that a woman does have so much to concern her that often she lets money be handled by the guy

EVERYTHING in this process is both of you. The body changes, hormones, crazy mood swings, etc are not your girlfriend or wifes to deal with, they are both of yours to deal with. The same can be said about money. Make sure to keep your significant other in the loop on everything you are thinking and listen to what they say. As my uncle DF says, "Your pregnant, not broken right?"

I know that this is sort of a rambling post, but money is such a difficult topic to address that I have had a very hard time narrowing down. The biggest lesson I can try and get across is do not go out on your own. You are in a relationship, the whole point of that is to work together through everything!

Level 2 ultrasound

MW and I heard about our level 2 ultrasound today. Many people don't get a level 2 ultrasound, but our midwife wanted us to get it to make sure that the Echogenic Focus they picked up on the regular ultrasound was nothing to worry about. We go on the 14th of April to see a specialist (perinatologist) and get our scan. I will update you when it happens.

When it comes to extra things like this something that pops up is money. It's very hard for many people to think of money when a procedure is recommended by a health care provider, especially when it is regarding your baby. However if you don't think about money now then it will come back to bite you in the ass later on. If you have insurance please remember to contact your provider and find out exactly what they cover in regards to scans and secondary testing. Just something to keep in mind while dealing with money is to take a second and think about whats going on. In my case usually it works itself out and I end up feeling ok about money.

The second ultrasound

Friday 1 April we had our second ultrasound appointment. I took the entire day to make sure that I was there and on time. However after a GPS glitch (thats right GPS not me) I ended up being about 10 minutes late. Great Great. Luckily for me JF was there to keep MW calm and laughing which was awesome!.

Once we did get there it was very much as I remember the first ultrasound except it was amazing to me how much it looked like a person! As we went through the ultrasound tech, who sucked hard core, was silent about everything we were looking at unless we asked. If you want to know what something is ASK! Sometimes the tech may be a bitch or something else could be going on, but you deserve to know everything!

The most amazing part came when the tech finally opened her mouth and asked us if we wanted to know the sex. I did want to touch a little bit on this decision. When MW and I first spoke about it the conversation pretty much went along the lines of, well I just always assumed we would find out. Some people have very strong convictions on knowing vs. not. I feel like these are the people that get most of the attention. If you don't really know what you want, thats cool. I would def( I cant spell definitely, get over it) say sit down and decide before you have the scan, as deciding then would have been a major pain in the ass.

For us we are having a boy! Woohoo! This was a big surprise for a lot of people as I feel that many thought it was a girl. I honestly didn't care as long as it was healthy. That's right some people don't care if its a boy or a girl, don't listen to people who say otherwise!

The only issue we ran into scan wise, was something called an echogenic foci. An ecogenic foci is a calcium deposit in the heart. What does this mean you ask? Not a damn thing.

According the the Tufts medical resources (Sorry its a bit technical)

There are very distinct features that would be picked up on ultrasound such as bone measurements and facial abnormalities that would be a much higher indicator of a problem such as Downs. The best available evidence suggests that an isolated echogenic intracardiac focus in the fetus of an otherwise low risk woman does not confer an increased risk of fetal aneuploidy [7,37,46-51]. Although some papers have reported that the number or location of echogenic foci affects the risk of fetal aneuploidy (higher risk with biventricular or right ventricular involvement), the general consensus is that these factors have not been proven to matter

We will go for a second scan with a specialist sometime this week, but MW and I (as well as our midwife) are not concerned at all.

We will keep you posted!!