11 Weeks

Food has become a chore

At first, I didn't know what was happening. I would eat normal meals. Two hours after eating, I'd be cranky and sick feeling. I didn't want to eat.

Guess what made it better?

FOOD.

And I have suddenly taken a step backward in the picky eating department. Mostly in the choosing what I want to eat stage.

All the food in the house?
Looks gross, who would eat that?

Husband had to start making food because he would come home and I'd be curled up on the couch in agony whining about how awful I felt. Poor Husband. First semester of law school is a horrible time to have an overly emotional pregnant wife.

The good thing is that I've accepted this reality now. I dutifully eat every couple hours even though I don't want to. It saves everyone's sanity. I don't cry over trying to open a new bottle of olive oil, and Husband doesn't have to worry about coming home to a dramatic wife.

The next stage has started though.

All I want are weird foods that don't quite continue a meal, is that okay with you?!

Questions from a pregnant girl

How come I'm famished, but don't want to eat anything?

Sleeping on a balloon

I hate getting up at night to go to the bathroom. I don't really want to be wandering the house when it's dark and I should be sleeping. I put it off as frequently as possible. Lately that means that first thing in the morning I have to run to the bathroom and miss the morning cuddle time with Husband. As soon as I get up, he does. :(

This morning as I tried to convince my body it could hold out longer, it felt as though I had a small balloon in my lower abdomen. Different from full bladder feeling, though that was there, it was like sleeping on a small ball. Side note: I prefer to sleep on my stomach and am very unhappy that I'll have to give that up soon. I'm getting all the stomach sleeping I can right now.

I think it's the first time I've actually felt pregnant. My OB told me my uterus is twice the size it normally is. I doubt I'm really supposed to be feeling much differet, but it felt like something was there and it wasn't normal.

Baby Bump

So just about every pregnancy website says I should keep a journal. I'm pretty bad at that as evidenced by my current blogging activity. So... Here we go again.

I'm about 8 weeks pregnant. My baby is the size of a gummy bear. I like this measurement much more than a raspberry. For some reason, the image and size comparison make more sense to me.

Courtesy of Alphamom.com

So I've experienced the symptoms you'd expect: nausea, hunger, needing to empty my bladder often, etc. 

What I didn't expect is the fact that if I don't eat every few hours (it doesn't need to be much), I become a shaky, weepy mess. A few days ago I waited slightly too long and started making myself a salad. This process can take me almost twenty minutes to chop and mix my veggies. I got out my new bottle of olive oil ready for the torture of food preparation to be over. 

The lid wouldn't open. 

I tried my hands, my shirt, my hands, a dishrag, a knife. It wouldn't budge. I prayed. Trying not to cry into my salad, I pleaded with God to please give me my olive oil so I could live past this moment. I'm glad he had some compassion on this poor pregnant woman.

It opened. I was saved. 

In a matter of seconds I was eating my salad, still trying to recover from the horrible incident that could have easily ended my life (or so my hormones thought). 

My hormones have a much larger effect on me then I anticipated. Husband is in his first year of law school. It's very stressful for him. I'm sure having an emotional pregnant wife isn't helping. But when he came home stressed a bit ago the feels over took me. We got in the car to go somewhere and I couldn't even think of how to get to our destination, I was so stressed. It didn't make any sense. I've cultivated my ability to distance my emotions from others emotions for a long time. I used to be the person who cried anytime someone else cried. Even if I didn't know why they were crying! I didn't want to be that person. And here I am, having the same problem. The sappy stories on Biggest Loser. Crying. Some character they just introduced on Scrubs died. Crying. (I'm a little behind. Deal with it). Something mildly upsetting happened? Crying. 

Then I think about all those women who gave birth before modern conveniences. Can you just imagine those pregnant hunter/gatherer women crying over berries drying up? Or if they're like me, not having enough food frequently enough and feeling like the world is going to end? 

I'm very grateful for what I have. 

5 Weeks