13 Weeks

My ultrasound at 9 weeks 6 days (the embryo is about 2.8 cm long). What a relief - only one baby!

I wasn't going to do any ultrasounds at all in this pregnancy, however, I changed my mind. This time around, I had to experience something that so many pregnant women complain about - morning sickness. It wasn't just there in the mornings, but in the mid-day & evenings, & even woke me up during the night. In fact, I am still having nausea daily at 13 weeks along. I've heard that every pregnancy can be different, & the fact that I didn't have nausea in my previous pregnancies wouldn't necessarily mean that I would be spared this time. However, the thought of twins kept crossing my mind over & over. With an ultrasound machine so readily available at my work it was too tempting not to do a basic ultrasound. It showed that I had only 1 baby inside my uterus (whew!), there was a heartbeat, & a little one already had arms & legs! It was great to know I am not just sick (even though I feel that way most of the time), but I am growing a human being. Hopefully, I'll feel better in another week or so.


Oysters - a new craving this week

We've been thinking of baby names lately. It is so hard not knowing whether we are having a little girl or a boy! I wasn't going to find out the sex before my home birth (to give myself another reason to push the baby out naturally :-)), but I may have to change my mind on that too. Here are some of the names that crossed our minds in no particular order:

For a girl - Camilla, Kelly, Rose, Victoria, Alexandra, Giovanna, June, Alice, Dominique, Esme, Nina, Mila, Maria, Katya, Michelle, Kate, January, Emma

For a boy - Thomas, Alexander, Adrian, Stefan, Christian, Nicholas, Dimitri, David, William, Brock, Brice, Ryan, Cameron, Hudson, Ren, Jacob, Jason

As you can see, it's much easier to come up with a girl's name. We definitely want to avoid the top 10 name category & trendy/celebrity one too. Nothing sounds quite right yet, so we are still pondering what name would fit this child. I even listened to the Baby Names podcast from mothering.com to help me come up with baby name ideas. If we were to follow old baby naming traditions from Scotland, for example, we would name our 2nd son after my father (Yuryi) & our 2nd daughter after my husband's mother (Young). I am not too excited about those two...


Still craving pickled vegetables

I had to post this photo because the cruelest thing happened. I was so happy to find a large jar of pickled mushrooms at the Russian grocery store, but, unfortunately, I was unable to open it! My husband & I both tried to take off the darn lid using towels, rubber gloves, a jar opener & hot/cold water - all without success. My craving for something sour was so strong, I pickled my own cucumbers the same night (which is something I've NEVER done before). The pickles turned out to be a success & I had yummy crunchy cucumbers at almost every meal during the next week. :-) P. S. We were able to open the mushroom jar eventually by drilling a hole through the lid.


Despite my seeming inability to open jars, I've become a sound sleeper, almost like this jaguar from our recent trip to the zoo. :-) I can barely keep my eyes open while reading 3-4 bedtime stories to Gerritt. Once the lights are turned off, I am out in less than 5 minutes.
More updates to come!