Things Are Happening

photo by Mahalie

The first trimester having officially passed us by last Friday, things in the belly region finally feel like they're beginning to change. While my jeans still zip just fine (though they are low-rise), I can feel that my lower abdomen is getting rounder, as well as being a different...texture than it was before. While an expanding waistline in the nonpregnant state is usually associated with an increased squishiness around the middle, my lower belly now has the firm, "bouncy" quality I'm so familiar with from touching hundreds of pregnant bellies in the course of my job. When I lie on my stomach, it sort of feels like I've got a cantaloupe in there. Another sign that my passenger is getting bigger: the baby's heartbeat is much easier to hear with a doppler now than it was even just a week or two ago. And while I've noticed round ligament pain for a couple of weeks when I laugh or sneeze, now it's often there if I change positions quickly or wake up with a really full bladder. However--I've gone from having to urinate almost every hour back down to a much more normal frequency, and my appetite seems to be back in full force (though I'm planning to stay on the B6 and Unisom for at least another week). I do, however, continue to crave long naps and an early bedtime...in more ways than one: while several articles reassure me that my libido "should be returning" around the time of the second trimester, I think my (fatigued) husband and I would both agree that in order to be "returning," it would have had to leave!

Taking This Show on the Road

We spent 18 hours in the car yesterday, during which I actually felt exceptionally good. So good, in fact, I thought I'd repeat my previous ill-fated experiment to get off of my anti-nausea cocktail. I was feeling on top of the world, keeping my food down, craving large amounts of beef, and urinating in a moving car with the assistance of a funnel and a jar (though surprisingly, the time of having to pee every 15 minutes seems to be passing...I only went three times during the whole trip!). By about midnight, though, I was starting to feel exhausted and queasy, and upon arriving at my parents' house around 1am, the first thing I did was to have the worst dry heaves I've ever had (though I will say, in an exceptionally clean toilet--thanks, Mom!). So--11 weeks and counting, but not out of the woods yet.

The Field That Rests

photo by i,max

I did throw up once this weekend, but have otherwise mostly held the nausea and vomiting in check. The sleepiness? Another matter entirely! Nine hours a night plus about two hours in naps seems to be what feels good to me these days...some days I'm able to swing that, others, well, life gets in the way. One the other hand, I came across this quote today:

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.”

~ Ovid

and I think it's very applicable here. I try to keep in mind that I have one chance to grow this baby the best that I can, and nobody else can do it for me. I'm very fortunate to have a husband that feels the same way, which means he's willing to do pretty much everything else for me! Rather than relying on doctors and anxiously getting a bunch of expensive tests to try to insure a healthy pregnancy and baby, I'd rather rely on giving my body what it tells me it needs.

Even if that's an absurd amount of sleep (and orange juice).

10 Weeks: Picture Perfect

When I first found the above graphic, I was about six weeks along (stage 17) and somewhat disheartened to learn that our baby looked like a snail with flippers. I forgot about the picture for a couple of weeks, but reopened it today (the day our baby is 10 weeks gestation, or 8 weeks of development, depending on how you're counting) and was excited to discover that we are at stage 23, a distinctly humanoid-appearing stage, which is a fun thought to entertain. Incidentally, I am also officially one-quarter of the way to my due date. Wild!

Barfing, by the Numbers

Just for fun:

Times I've thrown up: 3
Ratio of public to private-residence vomiting: 2:1
Approximate frequency with which I vomit: Once every 5.33 days
Percentage of time Matt has been there to witness it/hold my hair back: 100%
Times I've vomited while actually taking B6 and Unisom: 0

Once again, I'm concluding that B6 and Unisom is a real winner for pregnancy sickness.

Not So Fast...

Last night, I realized after I'd gotten in bed that I'd forgotten to take my evening cocktail--Unisom, B6, and Zantac. Too tired to get up, and somewhat curious whether I'm yet past needing it, I decided to hold off and see what happened.

What happened? What happened was that I was pulling out of the apartment complex to take Matt to work and had to promptly pull back in and throw up all over the parking lot.

So, yes, I am apparently still getting A LOT of good out of those medications, and I'll be continuing to take them for a little while yet.

From the Heart

Photo by aussiegall

We heard our baby's heartbeat today! It's still pretty early, but with some patient effort, we were able to get it with a doppler for a minute or so. Crazy--there's really someone in there!

The Two Things I Can't Get Enough Of

Sleep and orange juice.

Neither habit is dangerous and both are actually relatively good for me, but if I were to indulge them to the full extent of their intensity, I would get absolutely nothing done because of the former and I would quickly run out of money due to the latter. Especially since nothing but not-from-concentrate will do.

As it is, I'm sleeping probably 8-10 hours in most 24-hour periods (though it could be more, so much more!), and drinking two to three large glasses of orange juice (again, this is with some powerful self-limiting).

Part of my need for sleep seems driven by the fact that the whole time I'm sleeping, I'm having dreams of vivid, colorful intensity--even when I'm dozing or just drifting off, times I wouldn't normally be dreaming. They're not particularly stranger than they were before, but I remember them vividly and they're packed with so much detail. A sampling from last night:

-I dreamed that Matt and I were moving into a chicken coop, but we could only have the first level because upstairs was a recycling plant. We were sleeping on bunk beds and we also had a roommate, who was probably 19 or 20 but was "older" than us--so we must have been kids/ younger teenagers? My dad had apparently found us the place and he told us "I don't want to hear any complaints, I called around all day to find a place that came with a free French horn and mute." It was painted purple but they had obviously boarded up the original entrance and made a new entrance because the paint and the ramp (you know, that the chickens walk up!) didn't quite match. I was concerned about this but my dad told me "The only reason the FDA cares about that is for reasons having to do with Salmonella, and if you aren't really keeping chickens in there, it doesn't matter." I remember that I had the top bunk, and just like when I was at camp, as soon as I had expended the effort to get up there, I thought of all kinds of things (a drink, a sweatshirt, a visit to the bathroom) I should have taken care of before I got up there.

-I dreamed that my sister and I were going to the mall for some event that involved dancing and a lot of samples of spaghetti (mmm, spaghetti!). My dad was sure that we wouldn't make it back out by when we were supposed to, so he took his shoes off and crawled through the heating ducts to try to find us, even though we'd already arranged for a ride with our mom. We ended up leaving the mall (I think it was Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids) through one of the empty stores that they'd converted into hotel rooms for the Backstreet Boys. We ran into our dad on the way out, who was very pleased with himself, but stopping to talk to him caused us to miss the ride with our mom

-I dreamed I was having an oboe lesson with my old oboe professor, who sadly committed suicide last month. It was in his front yard, and at first we just played duets and had a normal lesson, but then I couldn't hold back anymore and I said, "I really wish you hadn't done what you did." He sort of sighed and said, "I know." I said "If you had to give a reason why you did it, what would it be?" He looked at me for a long time, and he looked sort of old and sad but at the same time sort of resigned and peaceful, and said "I guess sometimes I just wasn't sure who I wanted to be anymore." There was so much more I wanted to ask him--and tell him; he never knew that I was pregnant, as far as I know--but then I woke up.

I guess that will have to do for now.

If It's Not One Thing...

...it's another. First of all, I've been reluctant to say this so far, but after 3 pretty nausea-free days, I'm cautiously optimistic that the B6/Unisom/Zantac combination is working. I've been eating pretty regular amounts at regular intervals, and while I'm still occasionally gaggy, I haven't thrown up either, and the crippling, stuck-on-the-couch-in-misery nausea seems to be a thing of the past. I hope.

However, The Tired has kicked in full force. It's not so much when I'm going about my business, like at work or doing something active at home, but if I slow/sit down for as much as a minute I'm overtaken by this delicious weariness that says seductively how nice it would be just to lie my head down, just for a minute, and the next thing I know I've slept away the evening (or, in today's case, an entire 7-hour day). In my defense, I am just coming off of working nights, and I am using an OTC sleep aid as a nausea remedy (but, I'm using that at night, which is when I seem to have MORE trouble sleeping, so honestly I'm not inclined to blame that), and there IS a nasty cold/flu bug going around at work (which I've found myself much less likely to pick up if I listen to my body's demands for extra sleep). So I'm not really complaining--and, as I said, it's a sleepiness that just feels so good to give into--but merely noting that it's here.

And I will take it over feeling pukish ANY day.