... When No One Else is Watching

You can't make this up

A part of our conversation from the other night:

"I think I may have just had my first Braxton Hicks contraction"

"You had a Briggs and Stratton, huh?"

Great, my husband is confusing small engine parts with a tightening of the uterus,,, I'm not scared at all!

The kindness of friends and family

So, I know everyone thinks that they have the best friends and family in all the land but just to let you know,,, I have you beat. No really, my friends and family are THE BEST and I have the baby shower gifts to prove it! But don't get me wrong, I don't just love them because they give me stuff (although I'll be honest and say that the gifts are a really great benefit) but also because they give me the one thing I truly treasure in life - a HUGE amount of love. My sister threw me a baby shower this past weekend and when she asked me to put together a list of people to invite I gave her a list of fifteen names. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect all of them to show up (except my sister-in-law, Deneen, because she lives in Houston and has a family of her own and wasn't able to fly out, but back off of her because she sent some awesome gifts and is definitely the best sister-in-law anyone could ever have.) If there is one way to humble me it's to show up and be part of a day I will cherish and remember forever. It was a wonderful day and I can't thank everyone enough for making it a day I will never forget, and also thanks for all the gifts, they were definitely not required but the baby is so appreciative because now he or she will have a place to eat, swing, sleep and do it in style in the sleep sacks, bathing accessories, clothes and yummy lotions and potions you so lovingly gave. Also, thanks for giving me plenty of photo ops when I brought all the stuff home and asked the hubby to put it all together,,, priceless! Pictures to follow!

I have reached the point where nothing about me is calm

Let's list all the things in the past week that have caused me to utterly freak out!

• Baby bottles - have you ever went to Babies R' Us thinking you would choose a bottle for your future child only to get to the baby bottles and see that there is an ENTIRE WALL of different choices? I literally stood there looking at the HUGE wall and had a breakdown. The only thought that went through my mind is, "I'm going to kill my child because I will choose the wrong bottle and he/she will get too much air in the tummy and blow up!" That's what happens, right?
• Driving - You can go here and understand more of what I mean because I really don't feel like writing my own diatribe regarding driving in Utah. The only thing I will say is, if one more person cuts me off with inches to spare I will follow them to the place they feel is so important to get to at mach speed and go pregnancy hormonal on their ass! It will not be pretty!
• Hospital Commercials - Why is it that in every commercial for a hospital do I see a woman giving birth, and they make it look so easy? The husband is there by the woman's side looking uber-calm, holding her hand and most likely making promises he can't keep. We all know it's not that easy. I've been at two live births and I swear that before those women got the almighty epidural their heads were spinning around and they were speaking in tongues. Hospitals should be honest and show the women screaming their heads off because of the pain and yelling at their husbands to never come near them again.
• Nausea - Yes, I know I said in my previous post that my nausea can now be controlled by medication but isn't it just dumb that I am still nauseous at all? I hate turning over in the morning because when I wake up I'm usually feeling really good but the second I roll over waves of nausea hit me like a freaking truck. Not right!
• Balancing the American Express account - Buying a new home and bringing a child into the world at the same time is painful on the pocket book. I think I'm going to cry again.
• Emotions - Piggy-backing off of the most recently listed item, why do I cry so much? I cry over everything, and I mean EVERYTHING! My husband is terrified of saying anything to me (and if you know my husband, you know he is definitely not a huge talker so my emotional status has pretty much turned him into a mute) for fear I will have a differing opinion and will start crying and then the crying will turn into blubbering and the blubbering turns into a ten minute snotfest at which the end of the session I have no idea why I have even started crying but wow,,, crying feels so good and releases so much tension. Heaven forbid a Hallmark commercial comes on after I have cleaned myself up.
• Finally, the last thing (okay, not the last because there is so much more I could go on about but I will spare you) that made me freak out in the last week happened yesterday when I gave my husband some sour cream for his lunch and he put it back in the fridge in the wrong place for about the hundredth time this week! I couldn't hold it in and told him he needed to start putting the sour cream back in the correct place because it was driving me nuts and we need to be organized. He then said, "When did you start being organized?" Ooooooooh, such the wrong thing to say to a pregnant woman! If looks could have killed he would have been six feet under, but I did the responsible and adult thing,,, I cried, because as I said before,,, crying feels soooooo good! (and it makes the husband really sensitive.)

Pregnant Woman Walking

Okay, so,,, wow! In the last week the physical toll pregnancy takes on the female form has finally hit me. I will admit that I have been lucky in the fact my body has not changed drastically during this pregnancy. In fact, up until about 10 days ago strangers could not tell I was pregnant. I have lost a total of about 26 pounds since becoming pregnant and have still not gained any of that weight back because of healthy eating and decrease of appetite (but don't send me hate mail, I DO eat, just not nearly as much as I used to and it's not like I didn't have extra weight on my body before the pregnancy.) I am still in my regular pants but I don't know how much longer that is going to be the case because my belly has started growing like mad in the last two weeks. Point in case, this morning I rolled over from my side onto my back and suddenly I hear my husband say, "Wow! It's like your belly grew an extra two inches overnight!" Not the thing to say to a pregnant woman! He's still in recovery at the ER.

And why is it that when your belly grows it gets so much harder to walk? It's ridiculous! I still won't give up my heels because they are the only thing that makes me feel feminine and since femininity seems to take a detour to the past during pregnancy I am not willing to give up the spiky shoes, even if they aren't Manolo Blahniks! This small fact also drives my husband nuts and I'll be honest and say it brings me a little bit of happiness to see him worry about me. Once I get so large that it really affects my balance I might give up the heels but that won't be until I hear a beeping sound when I back up.

I figure I only have eight weeks of this left and I really do want to enjoy being pregnant, I don't want to remember this pregnancy as a horrible experience, and to be honest that's how I feel sometimes. I know I shouldn't feel this way because there are sooo many women who would give anything to be able to give birth to a child. I know I am blessed to be able to bring a life into this world and this child will be so loved. Now that the nausea can be treated with medication and I can still walk in my heels I plan on enjoying every minute that is left of this pregnancy. We'll talk about how I feel about labor and delivery later!

Withdrawals

Have you ever noticed how much you can take for granted when you don't have access to it, for example, food, water, toilet paper, ooooooh THE INTERNET! Rob and I moved into our new home on Friday and last night was the first night I had access to the computer since our phone line was installed just yesterday. I swear I heard angels singing as we connected to the almighty internet. Internet good, not having internet,,,, bad! We are still just connecting through the phone line which is painfully slow because we are just getting the process of our DSL started but believe me, slow internet service is better than no internet service. Rob signed us up for a dial up service which gives us 10 hours of free service for a trial period until said DSL service is started and I think Rob is fearful of my happiness over having our internet access, as he said, "try not to use all 10 hours tomorrow, Jen." Shah,,,,, like I would really use all ten hours, I only have time to use nine and a half!