Every peach I've seen is most often bigger than a lemon....

But whatever.

Week 14: Lemon

Your adorable little fetus is busy with thumb sucking, toe wiggling, and (not so cute but equally amazing) making urine and breathing amniotic fluid as the liver, kidneys and spleen continue to develop. Lanugo (thin, downy hair) is growing all over the body for warmth.

Our lil' one has been sucking it's thumb and wiggling it's toes and fingers for two weeks now. I have the ultrasound pictures to prove it (see below) I'm thinking the bump is a bit behind the times, and their milestones are just a general guide for about what size baby should be...and about what baby is doing. Our little one was larger than this yesterday also, so either I'm ahead of where we think I am...or my theory about the site is right on????

Bed rest is driving me crazy. The dog is not exactly happy with my having taken up permanent daily residence on her couch either. She usually finds her spot on the west end of the couch every day. This week she's had a fat pregnant mommy planted where she usually lays. She looks at me like "god, go to work!"

As much as I would like to do that, I'm not putting myself or our hard earned little one at risk. We worked to conceive this baby. That sounds so funny I know...but really, going through a miscarriage, and just putting the saddle back on and getting back on the horse wasn't the easiest. I'm not in any hurry to endanger this baby by not listening to my Dr.

The bleeding had pretty much stopped yesterday, although my pelvic region felt a little irritable, and I still had a bit of a backache on and off. I felt better this morning, and even while laying down the irritability was 0 this morning...well, until I took a shower and got around. I didn't want to sit around in my own stink all day, and I figured if I showered, put some clothes on (that's a stretch, I'm wearing yoga shorts, and a henley...so it's comfort clothing) put on some makeup and at least gave myself a blow out I'd feel decently human and normal. I guess any amount of standing or sitting for an extended period beyond just getting up to go to the bathroom seems to aggravate it. The irritable feeling surrounding my cervix and uterus came back, and I started bleeding a little bit again. (OKAY I'M DOWN! Dang it!) I'm going to have to resort to getting a hand held mirror I think...at least then I can soak up some time in the day by playing around with my makeup while sitting/laying down. Somehow I've got to figure out how to make this work for work over the next week and a half.

I've taken three days off as vacation. On the fourth day HR tends to get involved and they want to start talking to you about short term leave. Uh-uhn! Not doing that to me if I can help it. It's a given that I don't know what's going to happen, and since I very well could end up on a longer term bed rest, I'm not dipping into protected time until I absolutely have to. I refuse to choose between my health, my babies survival and health, and my job. Which I love very much...but it's just not worth stressing myself over. What will be, will be. Either the placenta will grow upward, and I can return to a very careful version of my previous activity level, or it's going to turn into a situation where my employer is going to have to consider whether or not they will allow me to continue to manage my team with an altered activity level with bouts of working from home, and working strictly from the office. Not my ideal situation...but what do I do? I think I've made my commitment to my company very clear , and I've shown that I'm not someone that takes advantage of leave, and of the company in general over the past 5 years...I've hung in there and continue to hang in there through times of adversity and change. I would feel very upset if they didn't extend the same to me. If I have to take the leave, I guess I have to take the leave...but it would suck to be in the situation where I have to take leave for bed rest before the baby is even born, and then not have any time left to recover and spend the time I need to spend with my newborn, and they end up letting me go because I can't come back to work yet. In the end, it is just business, and I understand that. But whatever. Not going to stress myself over that either...what will be wil be. They are working with me right now, and for that I am thankful. I'm really taking time that I have built up anyway, and I've talked to my boss about how I can be there and still contributing. That makes me more fortunate than half the population, because really they can do whatever they want to do, and they didn't have to work with me at all. They could be making me take this as leave, and they are not. Thank you work.

With that said, I'm going to split my day up on Thursday and work from home for most of the day, and head into the office in the afternoon so I can be there for my reps call out. I'll do the same on Friday, just reversed...work from the office in the morning, and head home and work in the afternoon. There's plenty for me to do, so I won't be searching for work to do. Believe me...lack of work is never a problem. There's so many different aspects to my job that it's nearly impossible to not have something to do. Odd thing is we were going to do a virtual call out this week, but since this all started on Sunday for me I haven't had an opportunity to tell anyone how it would work or to get it set up. It really wouldn't be that hard to do it, but I'll save it for next week, and that should help me through next week until I can get in for another ultrasound and my Dr. can determine if I'm going to be able to get back to a more normal activity level. I would really like that. All the sitting is driving me insane. This too shall pass, I suppose. Enjoy the down time while I can, because I don't get it often! ( If only I could have gotten this about a month or so ago...when I was completely exhausted!) :)