Thursday, June 23, 2011

2nd Trimester!!!

I am officially declaring myself in the 2nd Trimester!! I actually have been here technically speaking for over a week, but I did not feel that way emotionally because I had not had a Drs appt in a month and did not know for sure that everything was going well, but today we heard the heartbeat and everything is measuring right on track!! Also, I am starting to show - at least to people who know me. I have never really had a belly before. When I gain weight/fat (which I certainly have plenty of!) it goes on in my back/hips, not my belly. Now I have a belly! And it will just get bigger and bigger... and if I am super lucky, only a few weeks until I feel movement (though I know that can vary a ton). This pregnancy, as predicted, is rushing by, as is the summer.

So, as of tomorrow, six months until my due date! I promised you guys renewed resolutions back when I first found out I was pregnant. 6 months is a lot of time, and no time at all. My first thing was I was going to re-do some reading goals. I went through my "to read" list on Good Reads and narrowed it down a bit. Here is the list I made:

Classics: War and Peace, Doctor Zhivago, Atlas Shrugged, Brideshead Revisited, Dune, The Trial
Books where I want to see the movie: The Lovely Bones, Do Android's Dream of Electric Sleep? Interview with a Vampire.
Books I think will help me/Interested in philosophy/informational: Man's Search for Meaning, (another book by Milan Kundera), Getting Things Done, Exercise Endocrinology
Series to Finish: Wolves of Mercy Falls, Alvin Maker
Project Book: The Book Lover's Cookbook

The thing is... There is no way in heck I can read all of this. I mean, I certainly have the time, but my concentration is already decreased and I hear it will just get worse!! We will see what happens :-) Basically, I will try to get some of this list read, and I am not going to linger on books that I try to read and can't focus on, I am going to move on to the books that do catch my interest so I can get through as many of these as possible. I am going to start with the next book of the Alvin Maker series.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Organized? Not so much.

Yesterday I forgot my wallet and today I forgot my cellphone. I just can't keep all of my pieces together! I never could. I cannot even tell you how many times my parents had to bring me things at school that I had forgotten - backpack, assignment, violin, forms... you name it. Or Girl Scouts! I always forgot my permission slip. Sometimes we had to swing by my house on the way out of town to get my mom to sign it. More evidence of my lack of organization.

Forgetting my wallet yesterday sort of messed me up all day. I realized I did not have it when I was at Starbucks in the morning. I had already ordered at the drivethru and when I pulled around to pay, I had no way to pay. Really embarrasing. I had a handful of change. The Starbucks people were super nice and spotted me the drink, and I had enough change to pay for the pastry. I seriously love that place. I tipped them big time today for their kindness yesterday... which is I am sure what they hoped for. LOL. Anyways. I did not have my wallet, so I could not get my normal "mid morning" snack, so I did not feel well pretty much all day.

Today forgetting my cellphone means two things... one, I will be bored most of the day, and two, I can't check to make sure everything is alright in Duluth. Normally I would assume everything was alright with my family unless I heard otherwise, but I had a bunch of bad dreams last night, some of which involved my family in Duluth, so I would really prefer to just get an "all OK!" from their neck of the woods. I have an email feeler out to try and get the confirmation I want, but its so much slower than text. I might have to give them a call from my work phone a bit later today if they don't respond!

I painted pottery w/friends two weekends ago and just got to see the results yesterday. My piece turned out well, and the process reawakened my creative drive. The problem is I really want to go paint pottery again, or do wheel throw or something, rather than completing the artistic/crafty projects I have going already (mostly sewing) that need completing. I also have felt a bit more motivation that last few days w/regards to cleaning, which is definetly a good thing! DH and I sorted a giant mound of laundry on Monday night, and the bedroom is cleaner (or at least less cluttered) that it has been in several weeks. It still could use some vacuuming and such. The pet hair really tends to build up in their because the dogs are in their all day and our larger dog sleeps on the carpet up there at night.

On Sunday we went to a baby shower for our waitress. I know, that is not a sentence one hears very often! We got to trivia every single week, and we have had the same waitress for trivia for the last 2 yrs. Once a week for two years... that is more often and regular than I see most of my friends! She is 8 months pregnant, due August 1st, and had her shower on Sunday. It was a very chillaxed shower - couples (not just girls), basically hanging out on her back stoop/yard, eating food and talking. We did play one relay game and she opened presents, but mainly we just sat there. It was super relaxing, even though we did not know anyone.

In addition to our waitress being pregnant, many of our trivia friends are moving soon. The result is that the era of trivia is about to either end, or change drastically. July 13th will be the last day of "regular" full teamed trivia. If trivia continues after that it will be with a reduced team and a different waitress - it will never be the same. It is sad, and really increases the urge for us to get going on our own move out of town. J&L, the leaders of our trivia team, move to Kentucky on 7/20. Our other friends S&J move to Georgia by 8/2. We have friends moving just north to Sunbury, but they won't come down to Hilliard for trivia and thats the only place we see them. My friend M is leaving for her field research at the end of July, she will be there 2-3 months. So who will still be here? My friend R and her DH J are here for now, but they are like us in planning to move as soon as they can get jobs (for them it will likely be Colorado). Our good friend T is staying in town for at least another year, but as much as we like him, we see him very rarely. That might change with all these other people leaving! I of course still have my nestie friends, and DH has a few work friends, but our base of friends is shrinking dramatically - especially the type of friends that we call up and say "hey, you want to do something?". I guess that is just life. Maybe if trivia fully disinegrates, as I predict, I will start taking a wheel throw class on Wednesday nights.

I had a facebook friend predict that everyone would get migraines today (that gets them) because the temperature was expected to drop 10 degrees in a very short ammt of time due to these big storms moving through. I don't think it got as hot as was expected yesterday, but there still was a big temperature drop. I was pleasantly surprised to wake up without a migraine, but I had to admit things are touch and go in the sinus dept - some tightness and looming problems. Hopefully nothing comes of it, because I definitely don't want to miss trivia tonight given the above information!!

PS: My Dad emailed me back. Everything in Duluth is fine. Good to hear.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

So I should post or something?

The weather here has been gorgeous. Absolutely fantastic. For the past 6 days it has been partially cloudy w/temps from 60-75 degrees. Wonderful. Today it finally "broke" and rained. It rained on and off throughout the day, and then poured for the last hour or so. Now we are back to partially cloudy.

In other good news, we got a new couch - at least new to us! Our friend who is getting a new free couch from her Grandma (a furniture addict), is giving us her old couch and chair. They are in pretty good shape, way better than our $20 3-5 yr old goodwill couches we have been using. I need to get covers for them due to the floral print, but its nice to have a full size couch!! And for free. DH and I make our priorities pretty clear... 56" television, gaming systems, nice king size bed and 27" flat panel in the bedroom... $20 goodwill couches. LOL. So, a new, free couch is super exciting.

I am officially 12 weeks along in my pregnancy today. People keep telling me "its a good place to be". I tell them it is a good place to be if everything is going well, and I will feel really good about it next week when I hear the heartbeat again! 7 days.

It is summer vacation season. That means that a lot of people at work are out, so I am expected to spend a lot of time each day helping out on other people's desks. Luckily things are under control on my desk, so it isn't a big deal, but it can create some awkward or frustrating situations. Like today my supervisor asked that we concentrate on this one person's quality assurance returns - as in, these are cases that my coworker finished and tried to send out of the building, but it got pulled and checked for quality and rejected in dramatic fashion with a list of a gajillion things to fix. Um. (1) I dont want to find out how many ways my coworker screws his cases up and (2) these are by far the most annoying types of cases to work on, even when they are alone, let alone doing someone elses. Oh well.

That completes my random thoughts for the day :-)

Thursday, June 9, 2011

fatigue

I now feel like I am spending about 50% of my total energy per day trying to figure out what I can eat, make sure I am eating enough, drinking enough, and not throwing up. It is always on my mind. That leaves about 30% of my energy for work, 10% for self care like showering, brushing teeth, etc, and 10% for everything else. That everything else does not leave much room for things like housekeeping, cooking, or friends. Weekends are so much better. Being able to not work while pregnant would be amazing. Seriously. I get less nausea on weekends because I can let my body follow its natural rhythm. I get enough sleep, so the times I am awake I can be fully engaged. Ah. Days off rock.

The weird part is, despite all of this, I am starting to feel motivated again. Unfortunately, if my energy won't support it, motivation does not get me very far. Last week I started to feel motivated around Thursday. I did dishes, cooked for my cooking club, cleaned up, did laundry. I kept all this up for 2 days. Then Saturday night I got massive hives and laid on the couch doing nothing for 5 days. The other part is timing of motivation. Like, right now I want to start a load of laundry and do a few dishes. But I am at work, so this is not happening. Will I have the energy or motivation to do the above stuff at 3:45pm when I get home? Doubtful. Even more doubtful because I am going to the library to drop off way overdue books on the way home.

I know, I am a big fat whiner. So let me just make it clear before I go on that I am very happy to be pregnant and would rather be 10x sicker and more fatigued than give that up. Knowing I am pregnant boosts my spirits, which are on average pretty high. Most of the time even though I am physically miserable and unproductive I have some level of contentment or good mood underneath. (OK. Not when I was covered in hives). BUT anyways, the fact I am happy to be pregnant even if it makes me sick does not mean I feel any better physically or that its any easier to deal with the low energy. In some of the communities I circulate there is a lot of question as to who has the right to complain about what. I have heard it referred to as the "pain olympics". I typically avoid this topic because, well, most people who blog about this topic are saying how stupid the "competition" of misery is and how everyone should be understanding and supportive. My opinion is related, but not so feel good. And I am not sure I really want to get into it here and now. I will just say, that I think that in general people have a right to complain about any bad situation they are experiencing - even if it is not necessarily the same or as bad as other people's situation. But that right to complain does not mean they should expect sympathy from every one of their listeners.

Is that vague enough for you?

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Speaking of...

From Thursday afternoon to Sunday afternoon was the single parent to two dogs, three cats, and one future child. I posted this on facebook and many people commented that the future child was easy to take care of. I still contend that the future child is the hardest of the 6!! Future Child, hence forth dubbed FC, prevents me from walking the dogs or cleaning up after the cats, drains my energy, tells me not to eat things all the time, and makes me walk slow. But, I still like FC. Quite a bit.

Speaking of FC. I knew from an academic perspective my "morning" sickness could get worse, but I guess I had sort of assumed it wouldn't because it has held constant for 2 or so weeks now and I am nearing the time when morning sickness is supposed to abate (in like 2 weeks), so I was sort of caught off guard over the last couple of days when it significantly worsened. Now I am having issues getting enough calories, and, this is TMI, but I actually vomited for the first time today. Until now it has just been nausea. And can anyone explain to me why tacobell still appeals to me even when I can hardly stomach anything? Anyone?

Speaking of food, I went out for BBQ with a friend on Saturday afternoon - and the resteraunt (Hoggy's) didn't have potato salad!!! What is up with this columbus? All BBQ places should carry potato salad, the end. I went out because I wanted to, but also to make DH jealous. He was doing something to make me jealous - he was at KungFu Panda 2 with my brother and FSIL and I wished I could be there, but I knew he would wish he could go out with me and T for BBQ.
Speaking of DH being out of town, I was amazed by the support I got while DH was out of town. I know I have friends and family here, but I had always wondered in the back of my mind if I really had anyone here I could count on in a crunch, and the answer is clearly yes. Two of my couple friends - R&J and J&S, along with my cousin B, made sure the dogs got walked twice a day. My friend R (same as from R&J) also helped me pick up after the cats. My aunt came over to help with some lingering medical stuff, and brought my veggies I was craving one night. I also had all of these people, as well as 3 other friends in town, tell me I should call them if I needed anything or had any problems. It was pretty great to realize how much support we have here.

Speaking of here versus other places. I am pretty sure I have mentioned on here that DH and I would like to move back to MN, preferably Duluth. Well, the reason he was out of town was for a job interview in Duluth. Unfortunately he did not get the position. It is pretty disapointing. We thought he was a strong candidate because they flew him up there for it (we expected to pay for the ticket), but alas. He got a nice little vacay with my family though. We will continue to apply for jobs. The worst part is today I feel like the weather is just making fun of me and mocking me. Yesterday it was 102 in the Twin Cities and 57 in Duluth, as if to say "yeah, you know there is a big diff between living in your hometown and just making it back to MN!!" and then today it is supposed to be 98 degrees here and it is again around 55-60 in Duluth. As if to say "you know you want to be here, ha ha at you!". I hate heat.

Speaking of heat. I was surprised with a miserable new pregnancy symptom on Saturday night - hives all over my body. Itchy as heck. And yes, heck is itchy. Since that time I have decided I think it was triggered by spending so much time on Saturday out in the sun. Multiple friends have reported that they had this problem while they are pregnant, and I can't really come up with any other trigger or allergic exposure. Note to self - avoid being out in the heat as much as possible, even if its shady and its for something fun. At the moment I am still getting very mild hives under my clothes, or from where I lay at night- you know, any skin surface that is really constricted and gets hot and sweaty? But it is improving drastically every day.

Speaking of something fun, the thing I was doing out in the sun was attending the Victorian Village garage sale. I think its technically called the Short North garage sale, but that is just weird since its not really at the Short North. I went with 4 friends and we had a blast. I bought some VHS and books, but my real treasure of the day is a new lamp, one that is very adult and pretty and both DH and I like. It is blue with red flowers and gold detailing. I would say I would post a pic, but we all know by now that probably won't happen. You all will just have to visit me to see it.

Speaking of visits. I apparently forgot to tell you all about a massive dinner party we had with 10 guests. It was 1930s theme and was a murder mystery party with a formal sit down 7 course dinner, canopes before hand, and coffee afterwards. I am sure it will be the fanciest thing I am ever involved in planning.

Speaking of planning. I have spent the last 3 weeks or so avoiding planning past this week and now am left in this strange situation mentally where everything seems disorganized/unplanned when nothing really has happened to make it such. I seriously have not committed to any plans beyond this week. I have not made decisions about things to do for the summer or thought any more about the baby moon I hope to take at the end of the summer/early fall. I have not thought about what we will do for July 4th or what needs to happen with the gardens or summer projects or revised resolutions for the rest of the year, or anything. Time to start thinking about these things I guess!!

Speaking of thinking... I am all out of thoughts. Hope you enjoyed my post.

Actually I lied. Last thought of the day: It is way to fricking hot. I just tried to walk the dogs with DH and only made it 3/16 of the way around before having to turn around!!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Sleep

Here is one of the posts I wrote and never posted:

DHs schedule is extremely flexible. It does not really matter when he gets in the morning, or really when he leaves, as long as he is there for about 8 hrs and is getting work done at a reasonable pace. I see this as a huge advantage. DH has started to see it as a curse. Why? Because he has to this point been incapable of establishing any sort of morning routine that has him up and moving as early as he would like to be, because there is no pressure to get to work. I get up like clockwork on work days. 6am everyday. It is just easier for me that way. My body comes to expect it, so that no matter when I go to bed my body is at least somewhat ready to wake up at that time. DH on the other hand faces quite the battle. He typically sets his alarm to go off before mine, perhaps 5:45AM, perhaps so early as 5AM. I would say that 75% of the time he does not get up when this early alarm goes off, but rather just sleeps until after I get up and shower, or even until after I leave at 6:30am. The other 25% of the time he does get up with his alarm, but even then -- the battle is only half over. He will get up, at lets say, 5am, and take a shower. Then crawl back into bed and proceed to sleep until after I leave. Seems really pointless to me, but he loves napping. Does this post have a point? Not really. Just something DH and I have been chatting about recently. I still say he is spoiled. How lovely it would be to say, every once in a while, you know what, I don't feel good this AM, I am going to sleep in an extra hour!! Although, I know from personal experience I would be likely to have the same problem with it as DH does. When I was in graduate school and when I was unemployed, which, less face it, are not all that disimilar, I struggled to get up at a decent hour. What can I say, we are not a very motivated couple. LOL.

DHs sleep habits used to annoy me. Now I tell him to enjoy it while he can!!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

The News

I know. Its been a while. And its not like things have not happened, because they have. I am not sure exactly why I have been avoiding posting. I even have two emailed posts saved from a couple of weeks ago that I never posted. Its not because I am too busy, or too sick. I think it is because I am not sure what I want to say.

If you are reading this blog, you probably already know I am pregnant. If now - guess what! I am pregnant!! LOL.

Let me cover the basic questions:

When are you due/How far along are you? Our due date is Dec 29th - a Christmas or New Years baby is coming! DH wants it to be born before the New Years so we get the tax right off. I will be happy if it is born healthy and w/out incedent.
That do date, by the way, makes me 10 weeks along as of today (Thursday).

How are you feeling? Not great, but I guess that is to be expected. I have had "morning sickness" off and on since week 7 or so. I also have shortness of breath, dizziness, fatigue, and some other symptoms that are not topic for polite conversation.

Are you excited? Over the moon, thrilled, so happy.

Were you trying? (People actually ask this, which blows my mind). Yes. We were trying. Actually, saying we were trying is almost an understatement. We were trying, and if it were up to us this would have happened literally years ago.

Are you going to find out the gender? First, you really mean are we going to find out the sex. Second, no we are not. I don't want to. DH used to not want to. He is wavering, but I won't be swayed.

Do you have names picked out? We have a boys name picked out, have had it for years. I thought we had a girls name picked out, I had sort of been pushing it on Dh for years and thought he had accepted it, but now that it is "real" he wants to explore other options. We are having some difficulty agreeing. DH likes very view girls names and his opinion seems to change frequently. We will see what happens. And no, at least at this point we are not sharing any our name or name ideas.

Have you had a U/S? Yes, actually we are lucky enough to have had two already, one at seven weeks and one at nine weeks. Everything looks good, growth is right on track and at the second U/S the baby was moving and waving his "leg nubs" at us. It is literally awesome. Our next U/S won't be until 20 weeks(ish) and our next appt at all isnt until the end of June, which I find nerve wracking, but I guess thats life.

I know, all the above information is pretty basic. There is more to the story, but I am not sure I want to put it on this forum. But I am hoping this post gets me by any stalled trains of thought until I get around to deciding if I want to put it here or not.