Katiebug
Well-known member
Well, I've been MIA for quite a while. Between work, grad school, and home life things have been a zoo. But it's for good reason - Mr. Bug and I are expecting our first baby in just a few months! August 11th, to be exact (I know kiddos rarely come on their due date). I'll be 29 weeks along tomorrow and time is really flying.
I spent most of my first trimester in a fog; between persistent severe nausea (requiring medication) and the fatigue I was like a zombie. I have no idea how I managed to work full time and go to school at night! Mr. Bug was a champ with household chores and cooking because I came home and fell asleep most nights. Then we started out the second trimester with a bang with what ended up as a false positive on my genetic screening test. Three worry-filled weeks and one successful amniocentesis later we were reassured that our baby's chromosomes were in the proper configuration. Things have gone very smoothly and without complications since then - although I had a borderline result on my gestational diabetes screening and now have to take the full 3-hour test.
We elected not to find out if "Marvin" is a boy or girl until delivery, even though the amnio could have told us. It was tempting, but we decided to have baby #1 be a surprise and we'll decide with future babies if we want to find out at the ultrasound or not. So far we're very content with the decision to wait until birth and we're setting up a very gender-neutral nursery.
I didn't tell my boss until I was about 15 weeks along, and I told my team at 17 weeks. In a real shocker, I was just promoted recently with a very generous raise. I had assumed that my promotion would be on hold this year ostensibly due to the economy, and that they wouldn't promote me until they knew I was coming back after the pregnancy, but they really surprised me with this. I've also been very pleasantly surprised by the reaction of my coworkers - I haven't been treated differently, although for the last month or so as the bump has expanded the guys tend to be pretty protective of me when it comes to carrying heavy things or working on my feet for a long period of time. I still go out to our test facility and in general do most of the hands-on stuff that I did prior to my pregnancy - thanks, EH&S manager!
I will be returning to work full time after about 12 weeks off. I'm taking a yearlong LOA from grad school which is OK since my company's recent changes to their tuition payment program would have forced me to spread my remaining coursework out anyways. This also means that my PE prep is going to be put on hold a little longer, but I still have 8+ years left on my EIT. When the time comes I'll just have to figure out how to study for that test with a toddler running around!
I spent most of my first trimester in a fog; between persistent severe nausea (requiring medication) and the fatigue I was like a zombie. I have no idea how I managed to work full time and go to school at night! Mr. Bug was a champ with household chores and cooking because I came home and fell asleep most nights. Then we started out the second trimester with a bang with what ended up as a false positive on my genetic screening test. Three worry-filled weeks and one successful amniocentesis later we were reassured that our baby's chromosomes were in the proper configuration. Things have gone very smoothly and without complications since then - although I had a borderline result on my gestational diabetes screening and now have to take the full 3-hour test.
We elected not to find out if "Marvin" is a boy or girl until delivery, even though the amnio could have told us. It was tempting, but we decided to have baby #1 be a surprise and we'll decide with future babies if we want to find out at the ultrasound or not. So far we're very content with the decision to wait until birth and we're setting up a very gender-neutral nursery.
I didn't tell my boss until I was about 15 weeks along, and I told my team at 17 weeks. In a real shocker, I was just promoted recently with a very generous raise. I had assumed that my promotion would be on hold this year ostensibly due to the economy, and that they wouldn't promote me until they knew I was coming back after the pregnancy, but they really surprised me with this. I've also been very pleasantly surprised by the reaction of my coworkers - I haven't been treated differently, although for the last month or so as the bump has expanded the guys tend to be pretty protective of me when it comes to carrying heavy things or working on my feet for a long period of time. I still go out to our test facility and in general do most of the hands-on stuff that I did prior to my pregnancy - thanks, EH&S manager!
I will be returning to work full time after about 12 weeks off. I'm taking a yearlong LOA from grad school which is OK since my company's recent changes to their tuition payment program would have forced me to spread my remaining coursework out anyways. This also means that my PE prep is going to be put on hold a little longer, but I still have 8+ years left on my EIT. When the time comes I'll just have to figure out how to study for that test with a toddler running around!
