Breakfast

Today’s breakfast was two mini-bagels, an ounce and a half or two ounces of sharp white cheddar, a small handful of 100% whole grain crackers, and a bowl of veggie soup (home-made, cheat-style). Now I want to go back to bed even more than I did 2 hours ago.

20 or 21

Well, I’m at 20 or 21 weeks. The docs aren’t sure which due date to go by yet– so here in a little over a month I will probably have another gestational development scan. If I still measure a week further along then they’ll advance my due date, and if not they won’t. So I’m due in the beginning part of December either way.

This week of time won’t matter at the end, of course, but it will matter if I have any sort of earlier complications. One week makes a big difference in survivability of the fetus, and may change whether they try to stop labor (if I go into labor very early) or allow it. From that standpoint the later date may be the better one, even if it were incorrect it would make sure decisions were made conservatively. I’d still rather have as accurate an idea as possible, of course.

As a side note, it turns out I’m probably not immune to rubella any longer. That makes all the articles I’ve been catching about parents not vaccinating their children actually critical to me — I am currently a person who can’t be vaccinated (until I have this child) and must rely on the possibly compromised herd immunity to protect me and my unborn child (who would likely die or have serious birth defects due to the disease – it’s scary stuff). According to Wikipedia, it’s this risk to the fetus that was the primary motivator in creating the vaccine. (Of course, like most of the internet, Wikipedia is quite fallible, but this does make sense.) They’ll give me a shot to try to re-immunize me before I leave the hospital. (Luckily my other immunities still seem to be up to snuff.)

Making Bread

I am trying once again to make bread. The last time I tried to make bread, it exploded.

It was a strange set of circumstances — I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know a friend had given me self-rising flour, added yeast (who knows if I added the right kind or amount), didn’t know to let it set and didn’t bother with kneading, etc. I’d had good luck baking in the past and figured stuff would work itself out. I wound up with a mess in the oven.

Anyway, other than that, I’ve still had good luck with baking, generally speaking. So I decided to give bread a second try. I looked up a couple recipes online, and since I want sandwich bread I decided to try something close to what I found on “The Simple Dollar.” Here’s what I used:

1 packet active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water

5 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 and 1/2 tablespoons butter (melted in microwave)

1/4 cup milk (added to butter after melting butter and before adding to yeast mixture — figured the hot and cold would even out a bit)

1 cup stone ground wheat flour

1 cup all purpose white flour

1 additional cup all purpose white, of which I used about half

So mostly I followed the recipe from “The Simple Dollar” (it was actually that site that made me decide I could do this). I mixed the yeast and the warm water, stirred until smooth, and let it sit a moment; then added the sugar, salt, milk, and butter and stirred until smooth again. I then added two cups of flour, one white and one wheat. (This was my change from the recipe — I wanted to have some wheat in the bread.) I stirred and added about a 1/4 cup more flour, then wound up giving up stirring and started working the dough with my hands, adding little bits more flour as I could.

I don’t really know what I’m doing with kneading, but I spread out some flour and pounded the dough, and worked it, and twisted it, and balled it, and smashed it, and drove my knuckles into it. Then I cleaned the bowl, and sprayed some Pam in it, and took the dough and balled it up and stuck it in the bowl, and covered it with a paper towel for an hour to let it rise.

After the first rise I pushed it down, and took it from the bowl and pushed it flat and folded it and pushed it flat and folded it, and then tried hard to push it flat and rectangular and rolled it up and stuck it in the loaf pan (also sprayed with Pam) and left it to rise again.

And that’s where I am now! In about 20 minutes I’ll get to throw it in the oven (at 400 degrees for half an hour), and I’ll let you know how it goes.

(I’ve read that it’s best to allow another rise and pound down before baking, but I’m impatient, and want to see how this comes out.)

Updates to come…

Update the First

No explosions! And it seems bread-like! The top may be a bit too dark, and one tiny part of the bottom was determined to stick, so I tore a little of the bottom crust shaking it out of the pan. Smells good though. Just need to let it cool…

Update the Second

Success! The top crust is a touch too done, but the bread is fabulous — good consistency for sandwich bread: not too chewy, not too airy, not too dense. Sean and I each had a sandwich from the loaf so far. The only question now is how to keep it: I put a ziplock over the cut end to try to keep it from drying out, we’ll see how it lasts.

Note: I used 2% Homestead Creamery milk and an Anchor Hocking glass (would that be Pyrex? or technically not Pyrex?) bread pan.

Halfway

As of midnight, I am now at 20 weeks! Now admittedly I had no idea what was happening for four of those weeks (and since I apparently ovulated early I guess technically I got to skip a week) but it does seem to have flown by.

According to Baby2See (a site that’s less flashy than some other baby sites, but seems to have really accurate information for me, which I like) my baby now weighs 11 ounces. The site also mentions that mothers will probably start feeling the first fetal movements about now if it hasn’t happened already — which earlier today I did! I had felt little tickle-y feelings many weeks ago that I thought might be movement (about 13-14 weeks, which really would have been 14-15 weeks since I was a week off) but wasn’t sure, and that went away. And I’ve felt several painful jabs in the last couple weeks I am pretty sure were kicks, but on Thursday I felt real movement — the kind where when I put my hand on the spot I could feel the movement with my hand, too! It was neat, but nothing like anyone had described. (I’d reference the movie Aliens, but with a wondrous tenor instead of horrific, heh. I mean, there was something clearly moving under my skin — I think maybe she was rolling over.) It’s the first feeling where I have absolutely no doubt at all it was the fetus, and it was pretty neat. I’ve felt a few echoes of that since, too — subtler movements that I’m noticing, maybe since I have a gauge on what to feel for now.

I haven’t gained much weight lately — I’m holding steady at about 8lbs gained. That’s probably good, as I gained that earlier when I was more hungry. I’ve pretty much left it at “I eat when I’m hungry, and I try to eat good food” rather than overstressing it, and I figure I’ll keep that attitude unless the doc tells me to do differently. I did crave spaghetti dinner earlier in the afternoon, and it was awesome, which I may blog about separately.

Halfway! It’s hard to believe.