Baby, baby, baby

This has been a rough week. Monday, I threw up two times before getting out the door to drop off Fuss at 8am.  I spend most of Tuesday contracting - just not enough to call the doctor. (they say call if you get 7 or more in an hour. I was more like 4-5/hour, but they weren't in any sort of pattern) Some were bad, painful and caused me to stop and need to focus on my breathing. Those ones often caused horrible back pain as well. Most were not that bad, just annoying. I put my feet up and drank lots of water (something I'd been slacking on lately) which would make them stop, but then getting up and moving around a lot again would bring them back. Wednesday brought on much fewer contractions, but lots more round ligament and back pain. I will be glad when this week is over!

I've often said I don't do pregnancy well, but I like the end result (a brand-new, squishy, sweet baby) but I feel every ache, pain, and change in my body as I go through pregnancy. It is all worth it in the end (and I tend to get that wonderful thing called pregnancy amnesia and forget all the hard parts!) but somehow it seems like I'm already (23 weeks tomorrow!) ready for it to be over. :) (do not get me wrong, I don't want her to come this early. Neither she nor I are actually ready for her to come, but part of me wishes I could just fast forward through the next few months, get everything done and ready and not have to focus on the creeping by of the days!)

I managed to score some amazingly beautiful baby bedding at a consignment sale and I'm so excited to start work on the nursery now that I've cleared out some stuff (boy baby clothes) I've been saving. I need to do a lot more clearing, but I am very excited and motivated to do that and get moving in the right direction to set up the space for this baby - and have it done early for once. (both previous pregnancies, I had no way to get their spaces done very far in advance because I was waiting on other people to do big things like painting and building our 3rd bedroom)

Pregnancy Update

Blah. In the past week, the daily, repeated nausea and gagging have lessened immensely, but I've randomly thrown up twice. Both times with uncomfortable stomachs immediately prior (so I have a little warning) but with no apparent REASON behind it (not actually sick, didn't really eat anything funny, motion sickness, etc.). I've had a few random gagging episodes, but they are much fewer and farther between now, so really, I'm not complaining too much. Anything to get through this morning sickness. I know that some have it much worse - I had a friend who had to be hospitalized for dehydration during her 2nd pregnancy due to the extremeness of her morning sickness - but this has certainly been the worse of the 3 for me and I really don't like it.

In more happy news, I've been feeling her kick a LOT more lately (she does NOT like to be squished, for example), but it's not quite strong enough yet to feel outside my stomach, so no one else has yet had the pleasure. (Fuss is dying to feel the baby kick.) The occasional contraction have also begun to be more apparent, but nothing I can't handle and when they get real intense, I know I've done too much for the day and I sit down and put my feet up and drink a glass of water and all is well.

I've also been a lot more gassy than I remember in the past. Actually, funny story, the other night my stomach was feeling so tight and painful and it felt like really strong contractions. Not like 8cm dilated, but certainly a lot stronger than I felt I should be feeling at 21 weeks along. It was the middle of the night and I had just put Little Man back to bed AGAIN and I was really hurting. I was worried. Running though my head "should I wake up my husband? Do I call the Dr's service? They're just going to tell me to go get checked out at the hospital. Which mom should we call to watch the kids while we go?" And then, I discovered it was gas. A LOT of gas, but just gas. Oops. Good thing I didn't go to all the trouble of waking anybody up!

Preggo-pottomus

I don't like my pregnant body. Of course, I don't really like my not pregnant body. Seeing how overweight I am, this is probably not a shocker. But I do like the excuse of pregnancy not to HATE my large tummy, so I'm hoping for some good to come out of this. I haven't eaten as well this pregnancy (who am I kidding? I feel like there are days when I haven't eaten at all) as I have in the past, but I didn't start gaining pounds until the midpoint, though I was certainly gaining girth in that time. I am hoping that the breast feeding metabolism and all that will help me on the way to losing some, if not all, of my excess weight post-pregnancy.

Anyhow, I see all these cute pregnant women taking these maternity photos and I can't imagine doing that. I feel gross and frumpy ALL the time. My clothes feel rumpled, my face feels old, my hair feels blah. ALL THE TIME. I don't want to remember this part. I don't even really want to look in the mirror.

The heat is getting to me. On the rare occasions that I start the day with decent looking hair and make up, I feel like 15 minutes out my front door and my hair has frizzed and my make up has melted off and what was the point again? I actually skipped shaving my legs for about 2 weeks just because I couldn't be bothered. My whole life is in chaos and sometimes I wonder what the point is of trying?

I've read some inspirational stuff about organizing and cleaning lately and I'm mentally motivated to get my house in order (the beginning of nesting I assume - or maybe just fed up with the chaos?) but I have NO energy, my back hurts SO much that I can hardly walk half the time, let alone bend over and pick up the million things all over the floor in the house. My body is betraying me and I'm only halfway done with this pregnancy.

Grieving

Last night I got word that a girl from our school (where my husband and I grew up, met, graduated from, where Fuss goes to Kindergarten) was in a serious injury involving a Jet Ski hitting the raft she was on in the lake near here. Her mom was my high school English teacher and one of my mentors (she was the Journalism sponsor and I was newspaper editor my Sr year). Her mom actually took maternity leave with her during my final semester at school.

I've been fervently praying for her life-threatening injuries all night/morning. I just heard that she passed away this morning.

I barely know the girl, but no 15-year-old child should have to die. I knew her mother, once-upon-a-time and still see her regularly, though only to wave in passing as I'm driving through campus after dropping off or picking up Fuss.

I am devastated. I cannot seem to stop crying. If this is due to my hormones/lack of sleep/being sick (I seem to have come down with yet another cold) I don't know, though of course it is terribly sad. Maybe just being a mother makes me more linked to the grief that has got to be wracking this family right now. I cannot imagine losing my child. I can't imagine how they must be feeling to have a fun Labor Day activity end so tragically. It makes me want to rush to the school and pick up Fuss early just so I can hug her.

Little Man keeps asking why I'm crying and there is no way to explain it to a 3-year-old. (he turned 3 yesterday - I can hardly believe it). It makes me so sad to think that any of my children could possibly ever be hurt. Makes me want to live in and keep them in a bubble.

Very few details have been made known to the public other than that her father was pulling she and a friend in a raft (I saw a picture, it was a good-sized inner tube-style raft) from a boat and a man on a Jet Ski ran into them. I cannot even imagine how that was possible unless the Jet Ski driver was grossly negligent. All the news says is "Deputies to not believe alcohol was a factor at this time." Makes me want to do something crazy like petition to ban Jet Skis.

I just can't my mind around this.