15 weeks, 1 day - Bladder and Belly Pic!

Ok, so I was googling around the other night to find out how high my fundus is supposed to be at this point.  In case you don't know, your fundal height is how tall your uterus is.  It's a cool feeling at this point because you can feel the hardness of where the baby lives and then once you get past that, it's soft and mushy.  And no, that's not because my abs are so mushy; everyone is like that, fool!  Anyway, during my search, I found this awesome illustration of why I look so pregnant when I have to pee:

Yes, it's a little graphic and I apologize for that but it shows how your bladder sits at the front of your uterus and, as it fills up, it can't push backward because there's a baby there.  Therefore, it pooches out.  But if the same bladder wasn't full, that belly wouldn't look pregnant.  Anyway, nobody else cares about that but me, but I just wanted it documented as evidence that I'm not totally crazy and that I really don't look like I have a belly when I don't have to pee.  I'm not just being stupid.

What you might actually care about is this belly pic!

Aside from my love handles, as you can see, there's not really anything there but a thicker waist.  I kindly cropped out my thighs so you don't have to wonder if there's a baby growing in there too.  I assure you that there's not.  So annoying.

I was thinking that I'm a lot fatter this time than I was last time at 15 weeks, but looking back at Henry's 15 week belly pic, I think I'm about the same:

Actually, now that I look at them side-by-side, I think it looks like my belly is actually smaller this time.  Huh.  Interesting.  I do wonder what's going to go on with this pregnancy.  I guess because I"m expecting to be bigger this time, maybe I'm feeling like I am?  Or maybe I'm just standing up straighter in this pic than I was in the last one?  Interesting.  I did start this pregnancy about 10 lbs lighter than I did Henry's but I've already gained enough to make up for the difference, I think (since I lost weight initially with Henry).  I don't know.  It's just so crazy that I feel so fat and disgusting this time around but my belly looks smaller than it did.  Really weird.  Maybe I just had to pee last time when that pic was taken.  :)

14 weeks, 6 days - Lunch Bump

Ugh.  I wore a purple sweater dress yesterday and, lovely as it is, it does not leave a whole lot to the imagination.  Each time I went to the bathroom, I had a mini panic attack because I had a pooch popping out that kind of made it look like I was pregnant.  Which I am, but since I'm not actually showing yet, I really shouldn't look like I am, you know?  As soon as I went to the bathroom, all was back to normal and it was fine, but my bladder seems to make my tummy pop out a bit more than it normally does these days.  As pointed out by dear Aunt Amy when I stopped by to pick up Henry boy last night.  She noted my poochy tummy and got all excited that I'm starting to show.  I tried to assure her that it wasn't really a baby, that still, the little dude is siting so low that I honestly do not have a baby tummy yet but she didn't believe me.  She assured me that it's just exactly what a 14 week belly is supposed to look like and I tried to assure her that my 14 week belly would go away when I peed.  She didn't believe me.  So now I just feel fat and insecure all the time and super worried that people are going to start noticing WAY before I want them to.  I was hoping I could get to June without telling folks at work but based on yesterday, I'm not sure that's going to work out.  Blah.  I need to stop eating dessert.  As I was telling Stevie last night, while I don't actually have a belly yet (contrary to what stupid Aunt Amy may think), my thighs have gotten bigger.  Unfortunately, I'm not carrying a baby in my thighs so there's really not much of an excuse for that.  D'oh!

14 weeks, 2 days - "Gluten Free" pizza

Boooo... my favorite "gluten free" pizza turns out to be not that gluten free after all.  I'd been getting sick off of it for months, but I always load it up with jalapenos and crushed red pepper so I thought it was the heat that was tearing up my stomach.  On Wednesday, Grandpa very kindly ordered me a pizza from the normal place, but since he didn't know what I usually get, he didn't order it with jalapenos.  I ate a couple of pieces of it before I left Amy's after picking up Henry that night and brought the rest of it home with me.  I ended up feeling pretty awful yesterday but chalked it up to pregnancy stuff since I go on and off on how I feel day to day.  I was back to feeling pretty good by 3:30 pm so I warmed up the last two pieces and ate those for a late brunch.  I ended up getting so full off of those that I didn't eat again yesterday.  Just to be clear, that was two pieces of a small pizza and they filled me up for an entire day.  That doesn't sound right.  I shouldn't be full to bursting off of two pieces of pizza, especially after not eating all day.  But I was.  And remained so until I went to bed at 10.  And then I woke up sick at midnight.  And 3 am.  And 7 am.  And I still feel poorly.  Dagnabit.  I'm so disappointed.  It says right on their website that there's likely to be contamination with the pizza but I just never really thought about it.  Since the "no jalapenos" experience, I'm quite confident and feel pretty foolish in retrospect that I didn't realize it until now.  In my defense, I think I was quite a bit sicker off of this one than I've been in the past, so I suspect there was more contamination in it but it feels really silly that I've been getting sick off of something for so long and I continued to eat it.  Sorry little baby.  I hope this doesn't affect you at all.  :(

14 weeks, 0 days - Happy Second Trimester!

Holy moses, I can't believe you're already 14 weeks cooked, little baby!  Keep up the good cooking!  We can't wait to meet you!

13 weeks, 6 days - Last day!

"It's the final count down..." Please imagine the wicked beats of everybody's favorite band, Europe, rocking away with the groovy melody we've all come to know and love, thanks to one George Oscar Bluth (Gob).  

I can't believe it's the last day of my first trimester!!  During the nausea days, it felt like it was never going to end but otherwise, I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by.  I've honestly forgotten that I'm pregnant a bunch of times.  That never happened before.  I may not have focused on it every single minute (but almost) but it was never far from my mind.  This time, I just kind of... well, I forget until something happens that reminds me.  Exhaustion.  Poochy tummy when I have to go potty.  Brief spell of nausea when I smell particular foods.  

Also, I'm feeling fabulous.  Like totally rad, super awesome, fabuloso.  I didn't want to go to bed last night.  And that's after working an entire day, long commute and all.  I got home, made cupcakes, fed the baby, put him to bed, did some laundry.  And still didn't feel like going to bed!  Amazing!  Talk about second trimester burst of energy!  Let's hope this sticks around!  Maybe I'll start exercising... how novel!  Or, you know, get my house unpacked.  Ha!  Second trimester, bring it on!!!

Still no tummy to speak of, though I haven't been watching my weight at all.  I've been too nervous to step on the scale.  I think my waist is thickening, but I don't have a bump yet unless my bladder is really full.  And, frankly, the waist thickening might just be the fact that I'm not on a diet for the first time in forever.  Still.  Super excited for second trimester!!!

13 weeks, 5 days - No news is good news

I really don't have much to say these days.  Feeling good.  No complaints.  Haven't felt those flops in my tummy again so I'm not sure anymore if I really was feeling Baby move or not.  We celebrated Aunt Amy's and Grandma's birthdays this weekend and Uncle Andrew and Aunt Allie brought down baby Lex.  I can't believe how little he is.  I can't believe I'll have a baby even smaller than that in about 6 months.  6 months from today is my due date.  So crazy.  Lex is just over 11 lbs, or was at his 2 month appointment a few weeks ago.  So crazy to think that Henry was just over 1/2 that size when he was born.  I wonder how this baby will be.  I have to think he/she'll be bigger than Henry was because I think I've already gained more than I did with Henry in the first 20 weeks (if you count from where I started as opposed to where I lost to).  So crazy to think about having another baby.  Seeing baby Lex made it all seem so much more real.  Up until now, it was just kind of cerebral and not really gelling that a real baby is going to be there at the end.  A brother or sister for my Henry boy.  Really wild to think about.  Two kids!  We'll have two kids!!  I just... I just can't believe it.

13 weeks, 1 day - Changing my tune

I know I've weighed in already that I was pretty sure Nugget was a girl, but I'm beginning to question my confidence in that.  I had a dream the other night about Baby and the whole time, I referred to Baby as 'him."  Him, him, him.  He.  Also, sweets have really been souring in my mouth.  And not in a tasty, good way.  More like in a disgusting, poisonous way.  Chocolate.  Ice cream.  What the what?  Granted, I'm not that into salty snacks right now, either.  All I ever want, ever, is fruit candy.  Or sweet fruit.  Peaches.  Blueberries.  Real strawberries (not the tasteless lumps you get at the grocery store).  Fruit snacks.  Applesauce.  Fruit puree popsicles.  I can't get enough sweet fruits.  So, I don't know what that means.  But now, I'm back to waffling about Baby's gender.  I know that Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Mel all are pulling for a girl.  Mama and Dadda are pulling for a gorgeous, healthy baby.  I'm pretty sure everyone else would agree on that, also.  Sweet babies.

Aside from that, not too much to report.  I've been avoiding weighing myself because I feel disgusting, ugly, and fat all the time but I don't think I have a bump yet.  My clothes aren't fitting me tightly, but I have started wearing my normal clothes again.  I haven't tried the skinny clothes in awhile so I don't know if I switched due to necessity or just because I'm feeling so yucky about myself.  Not to be confused with feeling yucky, because I certainly don't.  I think I'm officially done with morning sickness and it seems like I've gotten or am getting the energy burst that's supposed to come with the second trimester.  I can't believe we're just days away from that!  Crazy.  Not nearly as tired as I've been so that's great.  Still hoping for an even BIGGER burst coming, but I'm trying to temper my expectations.  So yeah.  All good!

13 weeks, 0 days - Have I always been this ugly?

I don't know when it happened or maybe it's just something that has always been this way and I only just noticed it, but I am feeling VERY unattractive lately.  I've never thought I was particularly photogenic but I thought I looked ok when I looked in the mirror.  No more.  I've been so sad about the person staring back at me lately that I've just been avoiding mirrors all together.  When did this happen?  Is it a pregnancy thing?  I didn't feel this way when I was pregnant with Henry.  I hate all my clothes.  My work clothes are fine, but everything else I own was either given to me as a gift or as a hand me down.  I get these stupid ads for maternity clothes and the women in them look so amazing.  Yes, they're models but their clothes look so great, too.  I'm just so tired of feeling ugly and dumpy and dowdy all the time.  I guess I should get my hair done, get a facial, and go shopping.  But what if that doesn't help?  And I hate shopping.  That just makes me feel stupid and fat.  Ugh.

What first world problems I have, eh?  I'm living in a spectacular house with a great job and both a healthy child and pregnancy and all I can think about is, "poor me, why am I so ugly?"

12 weeks, 5 days - Too early to feel movement, right?

We had a doctor appointment on Friday, just to take my weight and blood pressure and hear the heartbeat.  Nothing big to report (thank goodness!) but baby's heart rate was strong and so cool to hear.  167-168.  I don't know why, but it's kind of cooler to hear it on the dopplar rather than the sonogram.  Maybe because with the sonogram (is there a difference between a sono and an ultrasound?), there's stuff to actually look at so the coolness of the sound is dwarfed by the coolness of the actual baby.  Either way, it was cool.  While I was there, the doctor asked me if I'd felt the baby move yet.  I smiled, sharing in her joke, but she wasn't joking.  After my smile changed to incredulity, she said, "no, no, probably not.  It's probably too early still."  Which got me thinking.  You know, I have been feeling movements in my belly that feel like a baby moving, but I'd assumed that it was still like a month too early, so I passed it off as something else.  But is it possible that I'm feeling this little wonder at 12 weeks?  Madness.

I also told her that I thought I might be feeling Braxon Hicks (or as Aunt Amy so fondly refers to them, Tony Braxton) contractions, but I also kind of brushed those off as being way too early.  She agreed with me and said it's probably something else.  But I was in bed on Sunday and my tummy got distinctively hard.  I even had Matt feel just to make sure I wasn't being crazy.  Sure enough, I had a hard area where my uterus would be.  And it's way way too early for the fundus to be up that high, so what else could it have been?  So, at 12 weeks gestational age, this little nugget may already be a crazy over achiever.

12 weeks, 1 day - Food poisoning while pregnant? No thank you.

I was feeling great on Tuesday.  Really.  Like super super great.  Not tired a bit.  So great, in fact, that I decided to cook when I got home from work.  That NEVER happens.  These days, if I don't have something to reheat, I end up eating cheese for dinner.  Cheese and crackers -- sometimes augmented with a scoop of pb -- has been dinner for at least 50% of my nights since I was about 7 weeks along.  But I digress.  On Tuesday, I was feeling fantastic so I decided to cook my version of sloppy joes.  I say "my version" because they don't much resemble actual sloppy joes.  I do follow a basic joe recipe, but I generally add in whatever veggies I have laying around.  So in addition to peppers and onions, this time I added carrots and tomatoes and spinach.  Then, I scoop them onto gluten free crackers and bake them in the oven until they're less sloppy and more set.  Then I eat like a king.  Anyway, I had my mouth totally set for these joes.  Mmm... I chopped veggies and browned meat.  Which turned out to be my problem.  The ground meat I had was turkey that had been in the deep freezer for awhile.  Awhile being a few months but not years or anything.  When I went to get it, I noticed that it was a little grey.  That made me uncomfortable, but I REALLY wanted these sloppy joes so I decided that I'd cook it anyway.  After all, what sort of bacteria could be on it that wouldn't be killed if I fully cooked it, right?  And it didn't smell.  At least not at first.

As I started browning the meat, I noticed a funny smell.  Not bad, exactly, but also not what I'd expect from browning ground beef.  Or chicken.  Which are the two meats I brown most frequently.  Again, really really wanting those sloppy joes, I convinced myself that it was just because I haven't cooked with ground turkey before so it's probably just the normal aroma of a different type of meat.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  Fast forward x minutes to having my meat browned, all of my veggies tender and/or wilted, my sauce seasoned to perfection, and everything all ready to be spooned onto crackers and popped into the oven.  Before spooning it on, I decided to taste the finished product to make sure it didn't need any extra Worcestershire or vinegar.  I ate about a tablespoon, just to confirm that my sauce was right.  And it tasted funny.  Not hideous or disgusting or anything, just not right.  In fact, I think that if I'd served it to anyone else, they wouldn't have known because my joes are so dramatically different than a normal one is.  I'm not sure anyone would have enjoyed these, exactly because they didn't taste particularly good, but at that same token, they really didn't taste bad.  So I tried some more.  Again, just about a tablespoon.  Just to make sure.  And sure enough, it just didn't taste right.  So I dumped the whole batch. I was crushed.  I had wanted those sloppy joes so very badly and now, I had used up all of my tomatoes and spinach, so I couldn't even throw together a taco salad or anything.  <sigh> so it was another night of cheese for dinner.

Several hours later, my sloppy joe disappointment turned into sloppy joe horror as I started not feeling well and then started feeling sick and then started getting sick.  From my two tablespoons of the much sought after sloppy joes.  I looked it up online just to make sure I wasn't out of my  mind thinking that I'd been poisoned by a mere two tablespoons of fully cooked meat that hadn't been sitting out for even a few minutes.  And sure enough, there are strains of bacteria that release toxins that are not destroyed during cooking.  Fortunately, I hadn't fed any to Henry and Matt wasn't home so I hadn't asked him to taste it for me.    And just as fortunately, I only ate two meager tablespoons.  But oh, I was just so very very sick.  I feel better today.  Still a little tired, but not so sick.  But I may never eat again.  Ever.  <sigh> so much for feeling good enough to cook dinner, eh?  Seems as if I should take the signs the universe is sending me and become a strict cheeseatarian.  That's a thing, right?

11 weeks, 6 days - Please be gentle, little one

Oh little baby, mommy is so very tired.  Please try to be more gentle with her because we've still got a long way to go.  Thank you for not making me as sick anymore, but if you could do anything to work on the exhaustion, I'd really appreciate it.  I can't believe you're almost 12 weeks along.  It's funny how quickly that time has gone by... and how slowly at the same time.  Frequently, when I'm not feeling terrible or exhausted, I completely forget that I'm pregnant.  Crazy!

I'm becoming more and more convinced that you're a little girl.  So much so that I almost bought you some little girl things at a consignment sale I went to with your grandma last week.  I had to stop myself because there's a 50% chance that you're not, in fact, a little girl.  I just can't imagine how your pregnancy can be so dramatically different if you're the same gender as your brother.  I've done the old wives tale quizzes and they say that you're either a girl or a boy.  Big help there.  The Chinese charts say that you're a boy.  I'm craving salty snacks, which would point to a boy but am so sick that you must be a girl.  Also, my emotions are crazy which would point to a girl.  I don't know.  We still haven't decided if we're going to find out your gender ahead of time or not.  We really liked the surprise with your brother but both your daddy and I are pretty anxious to know with you.  We'll see.  We still have time.

I hope you're staying warm and well nourished in there!  Practice those kicks and flips that you'll get so good at over the next few months.  Mommy can't wait to meet you!