Friday, October 21, 2011

Getting Better

Well, I am at 11 weeks now, and I am definitely starting to feel better. If I'm lucky, I only throw up once a day now! My dreams are still really weird, though. I dreamed the other night that I was packing for a trip, and I was trying on the clothes that I would take. When I started, my clothes were too big, but they got smaller and smaller as I went until I couldn't even fit them over my head. I think I'm a little anxious about the body changes that I have to look forward to. Oh, well, I'll just try to minimize the damage so that it's at least mostly baby :-)

I have been looking forward to Halloween for a whole year, and now it's almost here. I realized, though, that I have to work until 8 that night, so I'm afraid I'm gonna miss all the trick-or-treaters :-( I can at least carve a pumpkin, though, and I'll be able to make pumpkin soup and pumpkin bread pudding again like last year. I'm hoping my tummy can handle those foods because I have been thinking about them all year!

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Pregnancy is Hard

Well, there have been some new developments (read: weird symptoms) that I'll share. I signed up for a weekly e-mail list that tells me where the baby is development-wise, where I should be symptom-wise, and the size of the baby fruit-wise.

This week, Little James or Natalie has eyes and eyelids, but he/she won't be opening them for a while. At the end of this week, all the major body parts will be in place and things will be fine-tuned and developed from here on out.

I have not been sleeping very well. My body has developed two patterns from which it chooses every night.

Pattern 1: I fall asleep at 10. At 12, I wake up to pee. At 2:30, I wake up to pee again, but this time I won't fall asleep again until 3:30. At 6:30, I wake up to pee again. At 7:30, I wake up, throw up, eat a bowl of cereal, and sleep again until 9.

Pattern 2: I fall asleep at 10. At 1:30, I wake up to pee. At 3:30, I wake up to pee, go back to bed, get up again to throw up, eat a piece of toast, and go back to bed. At 7:30, I wake to pee, throw up, eat more toast, and can't fall back asleep until 10.

 I can tell which pattern my body is following based on the first time I wake up. It's like clock-work from there. I pretty much know exactly what time it is whenever I wake up from then on.

One thing they tell you about insomnia is that you should get out of bed and do stuff while you wait to get sleepy again. I don't have the energy for that. I prefer to simply lie there and wait for sleep to find me again because that takes way less effort. It leads to weird thoughts, though, which lead to weird dreams. On one pattern 1 night, I lay in bed at 2:45 trying to think of things that were interesting. I began to think (of all things) about how secure our apartment would be in the event of a zombie apocalypse. That was a mistake. The answer was "Not very," and I proceeded to terrify myself with thoughts of zombies climbing over each other to reach our second-story balcony.

I do have a bad feeling that these patterns may be self-perpetuating, that by thinking that it's time to throw up, my body can't undo the damage. I don't know, though. I'm still pretty sure I was just gonna throw up anyway.

One thing my little weekly e-mail said was very helpful. It said something to the effect of, "Burping a lot?" I thought, Oh my gosh, yes, how did they know? I have not been much of a lady lately.

Fruit-wise, it's the size of a grape, which is way cuter than last week's kidney bean.