Crib and toybox

Recently I ordered a crib and toybox from Walmart. Last April my parents told me I could pick out a toybox as my bday gift. I had looked at some, but then in May when I started to figure out that we might not be adopting from Ukraine like I thought we would, I wasn't sure we'd ever need a toybox so I hadn't looked for one until recently. This will go in our living room (the room where we spend the most time). Instead of trying to match the woods (which already don't match as it is), I picked a white one. Paul's bday present from my parents last month was a crib. The dresser and nightstands are a light maple in the room I plan on being the baby's room. I was finding it hard to find a crib to match; so I ended up going with a white crib. If I had it shipped to the Walmart, then the shipping was free. Well the crib and toybox have arrived at the Walmart! A friend from work who has an SUV will pick them up and bring them to our house tomorrow afternoon. Then at some point Paul will need to assemble them. :-) There's a twin bed in that room, but it's 1/2 of a bunk bed. So we'll just combine the two single beds back into a bunk bed in the other bedroom (we have 3 bedrooms).

OB appt

Well I called the OB this morning and asked to move my appointment from next week to this week. I figured if I had my appt this Friday instead of next Friday it would be only 4 days sooner than it was supposed to be. I explained that I really wanted reassurance that baby was still doing okay as the first trimester symptoms (mostly nausea and heartburn) had gone away which is great but since I also hadn't reached the point where I could feel baby move, I have no reassurance that baby is still alive and well. I also told her that we had ttc over 5 years for this little one, and that I had a miscarriage 2 1/2 years ago. It was to no avail. She said unless I was bleeding or something like that I have to wait four weeks. I have to admit I almost burst into tears when she said that. I wasn't expecting to have such an emotional response. I asked if I could at least move it up so that it was only 4 weeks later. I had originally picked the Feb 15 appt bc it was a very convenient time slot in terms of having my appt and then teaching at BU as the OB's office is super close to my bldg at work. She gave me two choices for Feb 11 - either 9:15 or 1:30. Normally 1:30 on a Tuesday would be perfect, but that Tuesday I have a meeting in State College (over an hour away) from 1:00-3:00. So I took the 9:15 even though it means I'll miss ladies Bible study next Tuesday. I know it's probably silly. I probably should have kept my appt for Feb 15, but I just didn't want to wait 3 extra days. So my next appt is in 8 days. I hope the time flies as I sure would like to have that fetal doppler test right now if I could even though I have no valid reason to be concerned.

Yesterday I ordered two used books on half.com. One was by LaLeche on nursing. When I told Paul he looked at me like I was nuts. I could tell he was thinking you need to read a book to know how to do that? And yes I know there are plenty of women through the ages and around the world today who nurse w/o reading any books, but I also know it's not always a super easy thing at first. The second was on the Bradley method of childbirth which I have had friends over the years tell me is far better than Lamaze. I can't find any actual Bradley method classes around here; so I told Paul I will read the book and give him the info he needs, but we'll skip going to any classes since it seems they only offer Lamaze classes around here. I figure me reading a book and us discussing it will take less time than attending a weekly class for several weeks. He again looked at me like - you need to read a book? He said I thought my job was to just to say "push." LOL! I said well I want you to know more about L&D than that as actually you don't push until the very end. Boy is he in for an education the next several months. I can't wait to see him change a diaper, LOL! Trust me he is NOT looking forward to changing any diapers; if it were up to him he'd probably never change one. I told him that I am sure I will change far more diapers than he will, but I do expect him to share some of the diaper changing duties! :-)

Choir robes

Well I can tell you that choir robes were not invented with pregnant women in mind! Boy was I hot this morning. I was wearing a sweater and a skirt; I need to wear something lighter on the Sundays the choir sings (twice a month) the next few months. Thankfully we don't wear robes during cantatas as we have a cantata in early May and I don't think I could make it for an hour in a robe. The choir doesn't stay in the loft the whole service when we're just singing one song. I wasn't the only one dying up there; part of the problem is they put in these new lights a few months ago that raise the temperature in the loft by quite a bit. I started to feel really badly but kept telling myself in a few minutes I could shed the robe. After we left, I heard the two ladies who had been standing on either side of me talking about me. They were discussing how I didn't look very good and that they hadn't said anything to me "in case I hadn't noticed." LOL I noticed!!!

Snow Day

Well actually it should be called an "Ice Day" as there's very little snow and quite a bit of ice. If we had ice skates we could use them on the sidewalk and driveway right now as they are covered with a sheet of ice. My university even closed and that almost never happens. All the school districts from our house to where Paul goes to school closed, but not Paul's university. However his advisor wrote him and encouraged him not to come it. Paul emailed the prof of the class he would have had this morning as they were taking a quiz today, and she wrote back and said he can make up the quiz on Monday. She said it was ridiculous they were open today; she said her normally 5 minute commute was terrible. I can only imagine what Paul's normally 45 minute commute would have been like! So this is turning into a four day weekend for me as I am usually home on Thursdays and now am home today. Yesterday I was home alone, but today I get to spend the day with hubby. That sounds very nice!

So I am now FOUR months pg. YAHOOO! I have reached the 16 week mark!! I didn't call the OB yesterday. I am trying to wait a couple of days to see if maybe I'll be able to feel baby move. If not, I'll probably call Monday and try to move my appt up a little bit. Maybe I'll eat something really sweet today and that will get baby moving? I actually haven't craved sweets as much as usual while pg except I have still craved fruit. I definitely don't crave chocolate or ice cream anywhere near as much as usual!

After the embryo transfer I would often put my hand on my belly and talk to baby. Well since the BFP I have done that more. Usually at least once a day I would put Paul's hand there and say something like "Daddy says hi too" or "Daddy loves you also." I think at first Paul thought it was really a goofy thing to do. Well he seemed sort of neutral about it somewhere along the way, and now this week for the first time he initiated it on his own which thrilled me! :-)

Names

I had some free time today (I don't teach on Thursdays); so I tried to come up with some additional possible girl's names. I created a list of 10 names - 5 of which I knew he hadn't rejected in the past and 5 I didn't think I'd ever run by him before. Well wouldn't you know the 5 we had already discussed he still didn't strike from the list, but he rejected all 5 new ones. I thought for sure I could come up with at least ONE new name that he'd like. The one that surprised me most was Sophie. I thought he'd like that one because he likes Sophia. Well he doesn't like Sophie. One reason he gave was that it's a dog's name. I was very perplexed. Then he reminded me of a picture book that my niece, Jenna, loves for me to read titled Sophie's Window and the two main characters are a dog named Sophie and a bird named Caruso. I assured him that most people will not think Sophie is a dog's name, LOL!!! Oh well if the 10/11 people who voted are correct, we don't need to pick a girl's name, and if baby is a girl then we have a few months to come up with a name we both like.

I told Paul about the whole tax credit thing. He said that he would still prefer ivf for #2 (that's been his preference since 2004). We started pursuing adoption instead in 2004 as I was opposed to ivf at that point. My only concern aside from the "we might pay $10K for ivf and it not work" issue is that he still has a concern about not having "too many" kids (he grew up with only 1 sibling). Aside from the fact I have no issues with having several children, I am not too concerned about this since they had to retrieve 26 eggs in order for us to end up with 1 baby or you could say we had to transfer 4 embies to result in 1 baby. My egg quality is going to decline in the next 2 years so the odds will decrease that we'd end up with several children from another round of ivf. I'd consider it amazing if we do ivf when I am 37 and he is 39 and we are able to have even just one more baby. He said he'd rather us give any extra embies up for adoption (if for example I was pg with twins from ivf #2 and we still had frozen embies). I wasn't crazy about that idea before (although that's FAR better than destroying them!), but after going through ivf I can tell you I felt very attached to all 7 embies. It's very, very hard for me to imagine placing any of our embies up for adoption. I'd want to keep transferring them until all had been transferred. But again considering it took 26 eggs to have 4 embies transferred at the age of 35, I think it's highly unlikely that we'd get a bfp and also have frozen embies when I am 37. I know our thinking might change in the future, but I am going to put this to rest for the moment and just assume for the time being that in the summer of 2009 we likely will give ivf one more whirl. It's impossible to say now what we will do if the ivf doesn't work. I am not going to think about that now either as it will depend on finances which are a complete unknown at the moment as we don't know where we'll be living or whether I'll be working at that point. My guess at the moment is that we'll pursue foster care adoption if the ivf doesn't work, but who knows. As Lynn said, for now we'll just focus on this baby which is a miracle from the Lord. This time last year I had zero hope of ever giving birth to a baby; so you just never know what twists and turns the path of life will take!

Hard to wait

Well I admit I am having a very hard time waiting for my next OB appointment. When I first got the BFP I only had to wait 2 days for the repeat Beta and then 1 week for the 3rd Beta and then one week for the first u/s. It was an adjustment to go 2 weeks w/o being seen for the 2nd u/s. Then I waited 2 more weeks for the 3rd u/s. My first OB appt would have been 2 weeks after my last RE appt except we were on vacation. So I went 3w2d in between appointments at that time which was really hard, but the nausea and such were reassuring. Well the wait this time will be 4w3d in between appts. I am super close to calling the OB's office today or tomorrow and asking that my appt be moved up one week. I am supposed to go 4 weeks in between at this stage, but it's really nerve wracking not to have any proof that baby is still doing ok. I keep telling myself that baby has a 99% chance of doing just fine so there's no reason to worry, and I haven't had any spotting or bleeding at any time the whole pgcy. I still do get cramps now and then, but I know that can just be from the uterus growing, etc. I think in the future it will be much, much easier to go 4 weeks in between appts because I will be feeling the baby move and I am sure that will be just as reassuring as hearing a h/b at the OB's office to know baby is still alive and well. So I think this would be the only time I'd ask for an appt to be rescheduled a little earlier as hopefully in the next few weeks I'll start feeling baby move (others have said they've felt baby as soon as 16w for their 1st pgcy and I'll be at 16w tomorrow). Then another part of me says you waited 5+ years for a sticky bfp - you can wait 2 more weeks for your next OB appt. Patience is a virtue, right? :-) I also need patience to wait for THE ultrasound. A woman who had her FET exactly 7 days before mine had her BIG u/s yesterday. I wish mine was next week!!! But right now I'd settle for listening to a h/b. I had toyed with buying or renting one of those fetal dopplers that you can use at home, and right now I wish I had gotten one, but I am not going to pay for one at this point when hopefully soon I'll be able to feel baby move.

In terms of adoption, I started working on our taxes last night and this morning as I was going back over the adoption tax credit form, I happened to notice something I hadn't seen before. We paid about $2K towards adoption in 2006. When an adoption hasn't been finalized you have to wait an additional year before you can claim any expenses. In other words had we actually adopted in the US or Ukraine in 2007 we could claim even our 2007 adoption expenses this year, but since we haven't finalized any adoption, we can only claim expenses up until 2006. The last two years I have already claimed some expenses from 2004 and 2005. I already knew that everything we paid towards adopting from Ukraine (about $4,200 in 2006-07) was not at all deductible as you can't claim any int'l adoption expenses unless an adoption actually takes place. I admit I tried to get creative this morning and see if something like "apostilles" which we paid over $700 for to the state gov't could somehow count as "other taxes" on schedule A, but nope I don't think any of those expenses are deductible in any way shape or form. But here is what I just learned for the first time this morning. I knew that you can claim expenses for a failed adoption. If you pay $$ trying to adopt in the US but are unsuccessful you can still claim some of those expenses (this was a relief when I learned this last year as I started to panic that I'd have to pay back the $$ I had claimed towards adopting through Lifetime if we never actually adopted through them). But what I didn't realize until this morning is that the adoption tax credit is cumulative. ALL domestic failed attempts plus a first successful attempt all can only be counted towards one tax credit. I had always thought that if we ended up adopting through Cathy or Mark that it would be a fresh new tax credit - separate from the one claimed through our attempts with Lifetime. If I had known this last June, I would have waited until the IVF was over to contract with Cathy (and since we got a BFP from the FET we woudn't have contracted with her). I figured though eventually we could claim that as a tax credit. I was wrong. We've spent about $23K on adoption. If I subtract the part that was a "charitable donation" to Lifetime and what we paid for Ukraine, that brings it down to about $17K. The current tax credit is a little less than $12K so this means everything we paid Cathy ($4,900) is not deductible whether we do or don't adopt through her. However what is more upsetting to me is the thought that if we complete an adoption we will still need to pay probably at least $15K and none of that can count towards a tax credit either!! If we adopt one child in the future, we will likely have spent $38K on adoption and only be able to claim about $12K of that. Back in 2004 when exploring adoption options, Russia was high on our list - Paul's first choice after domestic newborn. The reason we crossed Russia (and other countries like Kazhakstan and Guatemala) off the list was bc the costs were over $30K. Ironically it might have been cheaper to adopt from those countries particularly if we had adopted 2 children at once (as then we would have received a double tax credit). I am in shock. We tried to save money by choosing the cheaper options (domestic facilitator, Ukraine) and yet ironically probably would spend more than the options we viewed as too expensive (although there is truth to this in that we couldn't have come up with $30K in 2004-05). I wish we could get some of the money we paid to Lifetime back. That would really help, but I can't see that ever happening.

I had been thinking that if we adopted in the future through Mark or Cathy that we'd likely spend about $15K and eventually get about $7K back so in the end the domestic adoption would cost $8K. Now I realize that unless we adopt twins, we won't be able to claim any future adoption expenses towards a tax credit. I have to say IVF is looking far more appealing for #2. IVF would be cheaper (although it will probably cost more than it did this time since our insurance did pay for the meds, b/w, and u/s) and medical expenses are tax deductible once you go over 7.5% of your income (which IVF certainly does). Of course there is no guarantee with IVF, but we have learned the hard way that there is also no guarantee with adoption (like I used to think there was). The biggest concern I have about IVF again is the fact I would be 37 years old before we could possibly start that again and so my "chances" would be lower although having been pg actually raises your "chances" so maybe those two factors cancel out?

I apologize for such a long post but one other thought I had this morning about the whole "should we adopt or do ivf for #2" is that I think our chances of being picked for domestic adoption will be very slim after we have a baby. First of all, no one has picked us the last 38 months while we were childless which is supposedly when it's easier to be picked. In addition to the fact we'll have a young (bio) child which will likely be a "turn-off" for many birthmothers, our income will be VERY low. I am sure income level factors into a birthmother's decision - or why would we be asked to reveal that info to them? I can imagine it would be a HUGE turn-off if they see our annual income listed as say $23K a year!! If Paul goes to PSU and I keep working part-time then our annual income will be higher than that, but it still will be considerably lower than what it's been the last few years with me working FT. It probably doesn't sound very stable to say - your child's mom will be a SAHM (although many bmoms seems to prefer that in a mom) and your child's dad will be a doctoral student making less than $30K a year. I am sure they'd rather pick a family where the husband is FT employed making a decent wage. So the tax credit info plus these thoughts are making me think we'll probaby try IVF again in 2009. And if it doesn't work then I think we'll either need to adopt through the "system" (which is free) or we'll end up only having one child. I had always dreamed of having at least 3-4 children. Since we'll be 36 & 38 when our first is born I figure at this point 2 is probably the maximum, but maybe God's will is for us to only have one? Time will tell. So now back to my question of the day. Do I call the OB and ask to move my appt up or not? :-)

New purse

I went shopping yesterday for a new purse. I had bought a fake Gucci in China in July 2006 for I think maybe $8 or something like that and used it ever since. So I got my money's worth I'd say, LOL! It was time for a new one though. Well the reason I mention my purse shopping here is that I usually buy small purses. As I examined the first one I was drawn to buy, it hit me - a diaper won't fit in here! So I ended up buying a slightly bigger purse. It's still small compared to most purses out there. I am not one who keeps a ton of stuff in my purse - wallet, calendar, keys, cell phone, pen, and a couple of tissues usually is about it (and my wallet isn't huge either). So for the next few months my purse is going to be more than 1/2 empty, but I expect once baby arrives on the scene that won't be the case! I wanted a purse big enough that I could put some baby stuff it in when I don't want to lug around a diaper bag. Baby is on my mind with so many decisions I make these days!

I did sleep a little better last night. I have been experimenting with positions and where to place pillows and such. But still I wake up very often throughout the night. It's a combination of being uncomfortable and getting up to go to the bathroom 5 million times a night. I did order a total body pillow that is designed for pregnancy from Walmart last night (if you have it shipped to the store the shipping is free so that's what I did). I am looking forward to giving that a whirl and hoping I'll sleep better with that pillow.

Maternity skirt

Well I ended up wearing the black maternity skirt today. It actually fit just fine bc it has one of those panels so it can expand a lot (it's an XL) in the future, but it's not huge when you don't need it to be. At first I put on a maternity top, but that looked ridiculous. I found a tunic sweater that looked good with it (not maternity sweater but long enough to cover up the panel). It was very comfy. I have a feeling I'll probably wear this skirt at least 2 times a week on average the next few months with different tops as there are 5 days a week I need to dress up. At least with different tops it won't look like I'm wearing the same exact outfit more than once a week.  Speaking of size XL, I ordered out skirt outfit on eBay, and that skirt doesn't fit AT ALL right now. It literally fell off me when I tried it on. But since some of you said in the end your maternity clothes were tight, I am not worried - I figure this skirt will come in handy come June/July. I am teaching a summer class in May/June for 6 weeks so I'll need a few professional outfits for the end of the pgcy so this outfit will be one of them. When I went shopping with my mom over Christmas we bought a combination of L and XL. I had planned to buy M and L but the M ones didn't have much room for growth (very depressing)! So much for the adage of just buy the same size you are pre-pg! (as I am usually a medium pre-pg)

I emailed Cathy last night and asked her to freeze our contract. I also emailed Mark Miller (lawyer in FL) and asked him to remove us from his email list since our home study expires on 2-6 and he won't present you to a birthmother w/o a current home study. I am not notifying Lifetime as #1 they are probably just about out of our profiles anyhow, and #2 they keep track of when your home study expires so I am sure they know it expires soon and won't present us after it expires. Even if I wasn't pg I would't renew the home study on their account as they will only keep showing our profiles until they run out. So our adoption efforts have ended for now. We've pursued adoption for almost 39 months at this point without any breaks (no lapses in between our home studies).

And I am very happy to be 15 weeks pg today! YAHOO! One more week and I'll be 4 months along! It was exactly 11 weeks ago that I learned I was pg while in Chicago with my sister and her family. Here's a sort of summary on the last 11 weeks (mostly the physical aspects).

1. Emotionally - on cloud 9,000 - still in shock to be honest!!!
2. Gone from never having heartburn in my entire life to having it pretty much 24/7 the last 11 weeks (the advantage of having it all the time is I am pretty much used to it at this point - it's almost like I've forgotten what it's like NOT to have your esophogus on fire, LOL)
3. Been glad to see my belly growing (whereas normally I'd be upset if that happened!)
4. Gone from sleeping 8-9 hours on average to 10-11 on average
5. Was nausous for many of those weeks but thankfully that has pretty much gone away :-)
6. Have never been so hungry so many times a day in all my life - snacking far more than usual

What I am most looking forward to in the coming weeks are #1 feeling the baby move and #2 seeing the baby again on u/s (it's been 5 weeks now since we saw our baby and I am in withdrawal, LOL).

Three outfits

Well it seems in terms of clothes I can wear to work, I am down to about 3 outfits that fit - 2 skirts and 1 dress. I wore the dress yesterday. It was one I hadn't worn in years (so obviously not exactly my favorite one, LOL). Now if the skirts were a solid color it would help as my sweaters and turtlenecks and such still fit, but they both have a pattern so there aren't many possible combinations. I think I'm going to start to feel like I'm wearing a school uniform like I did from grades 6-9 (and I didn't like that at all). I did receive and purchase some maternity clothes over Christmas, but mostly I got tops. I did get a few bottoms but two were shorts which I don't need right now (it's snowing as I type)! I do have a black pair of pants which I need to take to get hemmed as they're way too long (which is surprising as I'm 5'7" so usually things aren't too long for me). So that leaves me with a black skirt. I do plan on getting a LOT of use out of the black skirt since I can wear a variety of tops with it, but I don't really need it yet. It's too big. I am in that "in between" stage I guess. A friend in handbell choir (who is due in March) suggested one of those bands that Motherhood sells. The problem is that won't help with most of my "work" clothes as most are not zipped up. I guess I can keep wearing these same 3 outfits for another week or two, but then I think I need to go shopping for a few more maternity skirts or pants (or start wearing my black skirt every other day, LOL). I do feel a little weird wearing maternity clothes right now as I am sure if someone doesn't know me that they'd never guess by looking at me that I am pg. I don't have that big of a baby belly yet! Of course I can't wait til I do!! :-) In terms of casual clothes I am still doing okay as medium size pants with an elastic waist still fit just fine.

Yesterday was a long day. I got up much earlier than I have been for quite some time (5:45) and spoke at a middle school from 7:45-10:10 (three different class periods back to back) and then I had some office hours and then taught from 12:00-3:00 and then had a meeting at 3:00. I went to bed at 9:15 (even before Paul got home from school as he has a night class on Wednesday nights) and had a HARD time getting up at 7:15 this morning. I had a conference call scheduled for 8am. Thankfully I can do that at home in my pjs, LOL. I had then planned to go over to a friend's house but because she and her husband are sick (and I don't want to catch their bug) and because my head is pounding, we rescheduled for next Wednesday morning. I just want to stay home in my pjs today. I am exhausted! I know people talk about this "burst of energy" that happens in the 2nd tri, but I haven't experienced that yet. I'll be 15w tomorrow so maybe this burst happens later in the 2nd tri. I think I could have slept quite a bit longer than I did this morning, and I had already gotten 10 hours of sleep!

Tomorrow will be a long day too. I have a meeting at another college (about 1 hour away) from 10-2 and then a meeting on my campus from 3-5. I usually teach from 12-3 on Fridays, but I told my students since the first day of class this semester that we wouldn't have class on the 25th. The mtg at the other college is to work on a grant which involves 10 universities, and I am the project administrator of the grant (that's also what the teleconference was about this morning). So I am very glad I can have a day at home today since yesterday's schedule wiped me out. This exhaustion is a good reminder that I need to be saying "no" more often and not filling up my schedule quite so much! I don't have the same amount of energy I do when not pg!

Not that I am trying to write an epic long post today, but I did also hear back from Cathy yesterday. I asked her about the home study and also about whether a birthmother would still want to place her child with us if she could tell by looking at me that I was pregnant. As for the home study she said that we could wait to update our homestudy until after we were matched as long as we could complete it prior to the baby's birth. I am guessing it would take about 1 month so as long as we were matched more than a month before the EDD that should work (I say 1 month bc we would have to redo the clearances and physicals). As to the second question, she said this would vary case by case but that once she did have a client who was 7 months pregnant adopt a baby, and the birthmother had no problems with that. I haven't had a chance to talk with Paul again about it yet, but actually my thinking has changed as I have thought about it more. I am inclined to just freeze our contract now. The reason is that if hypothetically we were selected in the near future (which seems like a HUGE "if" after not being picked the last 3+ years), we would need to update our homestudy (which would cost at least $560). Now if the birthmother followed through with the adoption plan and the child was placed with us - great. However, if the birthmother were to change her mind, then this money will be wasted as we then need to freeze our contract for 1 year+ which means it would again expire prior to us restarting the process of adoption again. Along these same lines, it hit me that once we are matched we owe Cathy the other 1/2 of her fee (another $4,900). Again no problem if the birthmother doesn't change her mind, but if she would change her mind we don't get the $$ back. We wouldn't owe any more $$ to Cathy when she got us another match; so if I wasn't pg it wouldn't bother me as much that we'd have already paid our whole fee as hopefully we'd be matched again in the near future. But again in this case there could be a long time gap. It would also mean we'd have definitely said "no" to doing ivf again. I haven't talked with Paul yet about #2 (whether to adopt a sibling or do ivf again), but I wouldn't be shocked if he'd prefer to do ivf again since he preferred it for the last 3 years over adoption (and of course IVF brought us success or so it seems at least at this point and adoption has not done so). I think though if we paid the rest of our fee to Cathy that the ivf option would no longer be there for financial reasons. So all that to say I think I'll be emailing Cathy tonight and telling we'd like to freeze our contract now (which means we'd have 23 months left for later use).

I'm hungry!

Thanks to those of you who have already given me feedback to my last post. I appreciate it! I will be sure to put lots of crib sheets and receiving blankets on the registry. Those are two items I haven't added yet as I'm waiting to find out the gender first. I did put a pack of 12 cloth diapers on the registry earlier as several people had said they are great for spit-up (although I know cloth diapers would be the environmental friendly way to go - I'm planning on going with disposable).

I weighed myself this morning and it's again showing I've gained some weight. Well I guess if I've gained 3 lbs since the BFP and I'm 14w3d pg that's okay. I have to admit I've been super hungry lately again. Normally (pre-pg) I'd eat dinner at say 5pm and never eat anything else until breakfast the next morning. Well sometimes I get hungry again and will make a grilled cheese sandwich or something like that later in the evening as my stomach is growling. I have been trying to eat healthy snacks. For example, last week most days I had three pieces of fruit a day - banana, apple, and pear. I had read somewhere that a good goal (if you are trying to keep your total weight gain to about 20 lbs) was to gain 1/2 lb a week in the 2nd trimester and 1 lb a week in the 3rd tri. In which case I am hoping when I am weighed by the doctor on 2/15 to have only gained 4 lbs since they weighed me last. Oh well I'll do the best I can, but if I am feeling famished, I am going to eat!