Knocked Up Rollcall

congrats on well formed babby!

congrats, aero!

So no one has been pregnant since 2008? I am 12 weeks today. I started mood swings at 8 weeks but approaching 12 weeks... those mood swings were small thunderstorms compared to the tsunamis I am getting now.

I will be going through the day happy and excited and then out of nowhere get hit with semi-anxious, overwhelming sadness. There is no reason for it and I find trouble when I start giving it a reason or searching for a source. If it is hormonal, it has no reason other than hormones raging.

I have never experienced chemical depression or ever had PMS that compares to something like this. I am not in the habit of feeling sad and depressed without a solid reason and I guess I am not grasping the hormone thing. I never bought the hormone thing and scoffed at anyone who used it as a reason for anything. I loathed it when girls said their PMS made them do it. While PMS made me feel low sometimes, I could always control my thoughts and emotions. Can hormones alone can make me feel like my world in caving in on itself? I usually find solutions to my problems but now I feel crazy.

When I am hit with this semi-anxious sad feeling the tears start flowing and it's hard to even get out and try and take a walk to take my mind off it. I can't top crying. I tried exercising which always makes me feel great but then it exhausts me and feeling tired seems to be a trigger, not eating as soon as I crave something is another. Although sleeping and eating don't always prevent them or cure them, helps decrease their intensity somewhat.

Yesterday I woke up feeling great. Had a dip in mood so decided to sleep it off. Took a nap. I was awake 3 hours straight, worked out, had a snack, felt great but was extremely sleepy again. This is the sort of drowsiness I only previously experienced going into and coming out of anesthesia. It is really intense.

After a second, shorter nap, I woke up, ate dinner with my boyfriend and was fine for about an hour then had a drop in my mood. Unfortunately, my boyfriend was home and was quickly devoured by my tsunami of anxiety and depression. A question led to a conversation that led to a discussion that escalated and now things there are weird. We woke up this morning in separate beds.

This is my first pregnancy and his as well. I don't think I am able to articulate my frame of mind accurately to him, don't understand this hormone thing. I am happy about pregnancy but at the same time I am shocked with what I find myself experiencing. Having been a person who was previously in control and now finding myself unable to control things going on inside and with my body. It doesn't feel normal to feel so out of control, to have mood swings and these sleeping fits. I see Rosemary's Baby in an entirely different way now. It is a scarier movie than I thought, I get it now.

Is there anybody out there, who knows what this out of control feeling is all about? How to keep things in perspective so that you don't wind up taking a Greyhound to Nowheresville only to get there and mood swing back into a what have I done moment?

Sorry for that first sentence, this was previously posted on another board.

i am not a lady but based on my wife's experience, hormones can do some crazy shit in pregnant ladies. for her, things evened out in the second trimester and she was a lot more energetic/cheerful.

have you talked to yr OB about this?

Congratulations, *tera! Can't help with the hormones though.

I will next week at my visit for sure. It is just that books and sometimes doctors are very generalized and each pregnancy is different. This is why I wanted to hear more personal experiences.

I just happened to meet a woman this evening and we started talking and she mentioned that she had it for nine months straight but never suffered from post-partum. She also mentioned the fatigue being overwhelming and said she spent the entire pregnancy in bed, she loved her bed, just wanted to be in bed. Her advice was to give in to it. It did make me feel better to hear a mother of three describe things I have been experiencing.

Twins this morning, boy okay-sized, but spending the night in NICU to get his blood sugar up, girl gigantic (for a twin) currently sleeping on my chest like a pro.

congrats! I became a big brother 28 years ago yesterday when my brother and sister were born. they've had the most awesome bond their whole lives.

congrats dr. superman!!!

^

Congrats to the whole
http://www.dccomics.com/media/product/8/7/8758_400x600.jpg
!

congrats!

congrats! don't throw jimmy olsen out though, wtf?

congrats!

Awwwwwwww congratulations!!!!!

Congrats with superbaby!

Congrats!!!

http://rakidshare.com/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/dora-super-babies.jpg

Heyo

Congrats!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/RabbitTestEnglishDVD.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZrtqv90oXE

Congrats, dude.

Whoa

Way to go, Shakey Mo!

should be findin out the gender on Wednesday... this will be a 5-year age difference between children, which is a little wider than most parents I know, but on the other hand I think I will appreciate having to deal with only one set of diapers at a time.

Congrats Shakey!

^^!

*clap* *clap* *clap*

yay shakey!
your wife must be a week or so behind mine, we just found the sex

Good job, Shakey!

it was a lot of hard work on my part, lemme tell ya

Congrats, shakey

I'm almost a decade younger than my older bro; it can be done. congrats

it was a lot of hard work on my part, lemme tell ya

― the choogler and the chosen one (Shakey Mo Collier)

http://www.bundyology.com/bal2.jpg

holy shit! congratulations man!

congrats!

"hard" work

I Love People Making

shakey I have 3 siblings which are older than me by significant gaps - 6yrs, 18yrs and 20yrs - and its just fine

congrats to the SMColliers and the mbisons!

Yay shakey!!!

congratulations m bison and shakey mo

Yeah, congrats to the mbisons as well!

wife is freaking out about this alleged 1% chance our baby has of having Down's Syndrome. Sorta pissed at the doctors right now. We did the 15 wk ultrasound today and they said the fact that the fetus has a big head in proportion to its arms and legs is a "soft marker" that increases risk of Down's Syndrome to between 0.5% and 1%. There are no other indications that the baby is at risk for Down's Syndrome.

My daughter and myself both have big heads (my daughter was born with her head measuring in the 99the percentile, for ex, but the rest of her was in the median range) - a fact the Kaiser doctors were unaware of because my daughter was delivered via a different healthcare provider and they don't have her records yet blah blah blah. So, to me, I see this big head thing - combined with the lack of any other markers - and I think "eh, odds are in our favor the baby is fine". My wife, however, who is of "the glass is half empty and probably poisoned as well" variety is now totally losing it, debating whether to get an amniocentesis and possibly terminate the pregnancy if the baby has Down's Syndrome (which she says is her "worst nightmare" even tho I personally can think of a million other much worse scenarios).

while I, for my part, nurse the suspicion that the math behind this is pretty fucking convoluted and made-up, and that it's also in Kaiser's interest to both minimize their liability by reporting any statistical anamolies as well as take advantage of people who have zero tolerance for any statistical risk at all and will thus sign up for whatever procedure is available, thus making Kaiser more money.... the counselor tried to reassure us that a 1% risk is still really low, that they just want us to be aware of our options etc but, cognizant of the amount of emotional stress this was going to generate in my wife, I sort of wanted to punch her in the face for even raising this outcome as a possibility

counselor also pointed out that recently the doctors had been sending her more and more of these "soft marker" sort of findings ("just to be safe" and the vast majority of the time "everything's fine") which just made me more skeptical/angry

aww man my heart goes out to you just for the stress. we did every check along the way, the nuchal translucency and all that, and it's scary stuff. 1% really is extremely low, and when you say your daughter has a big head that to me says you make big head babies. I myself am the dad of a big head baby! Hope this stress reduces soon.

thx just needed to vent.

feel like this would have been handled differently if we had a single physician that we consistently saw, rather than the constantly rotating cast of techs + doctors at Kaiser

my son and i have big heads. perhaps your wife can take solace in the fact that your children have a sweet brain reserve:

http://healthland.time.com/2010/07/12/what-does-head-size-have-to-do-with-alzheimers/

opting not to get the amnio. a 1.25% risk of DS (which imho is probably actually even lower) is just not worth it, and neither my wife nor myself could bring ourselves to terminate a pregnancy at 21 weeks, which just seems crazy. so it's not like an amnio would provide us with any useful information. I'm just gonna hope for/assume the best and put this out of my mind. fuckin doctors.

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Colliers and Bisons!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The nuchal screening was all I agreed to and it was done at 14 weeks and that was already too late to really get results. It is supposed to be done at 12 weeks. I never got the other tests and they were really pushing them on me because I was over 35. I asked a lot of questions, read as much as I could and the bottom line was that most of the testing is inconclusive. I didn't see the point if screenings etc...were inconclusive. I didn't want to risk an amnio, wasn't going to terminate the pregnancy if something seemed off so I really just had to stand my ground. A doctor and nurse at the nuchal fed me two scary stories about what happened to two other couples. They were blocking the door, standing there feeding me stats. I finally told them I don't have insurance and it was like they vanished into thin air. The tech told me the baby's movement was completely normal and not to worry about it.

So there is a 99% or more chance the baby does not have Downs.

yeah the over 35 thing... I am wondering if my daughter's huge head was not flagged as a "soft marker" at the time because my wife was under 35 when we had her. the math and statistics with all this stuff is so hand-wavy and vague... and then I don't trust Kaiser's motives at all ("we scared you into taking another, potentially unnecessary but JUST TO BE SURE, procedure!" = $$$)