A Belated Announcement

I am procrastinating.  Royally.  (Which we all know was the only way this post was ever going to get written.  Right?)

I have this paper due that’s not really a full paper, but simply a sub-section of a much longer ordeal, and that’s due by a self-inflicted deadline of today at midnight.  I hate self-imposed deadlines.  They are so not real. 

Thus, I am attempting what has worked for me in the past: blog motivation.  Theoretically, I will write this post, and then I will be so high on writing, that I will just dig right in to my actual work.

That’s the idea, and it WILL work!

So, after the Christmas (and anniversary) festivities were over in December, we discovered we are expecting another baby!  To be honest, I thought in November that we were expecting another baby, so I really thought my body had just gone into pregnancy-placebo, or something.  Turns out, end of the semester paper-writing and paper-grading churns out emotions a lot like pregnancy hormones. 

But, we finally got a positive test just before the real symptoms set in.  Thank goodness.  Can you imagine constant nausea and a feeling I have no term for other than utter death without knowing that you’re pregnant?  Uh, no.  It started pretty much from week six, and continued full-swing until week eight.  By week eight, I was still nauseous all the time, but the burning in my esophagus (i.e. utter death) had stopped, and so I could control the nausea pretty well by eating.  Every hour.  (And by the way, ever tried eating when you’re nauseous?  It sucks.  I wanted to throw every cream cheese bagel out the window because I hated it.  And then I ate it, and I loved it.  I think that partially contributes to the pregnancy bipolar tendencies.)

The next problem, of course, was the fatigue.  We’re not just talking “oh, I’m so tired” fatigue.  We’re talking, “Am I alive?  Did my face just move when I spoke?  Peel me off this couch please…” fatigue.  In bed by 6:00 p.m. fatigue.  That lasted, with the nausea, until about 12 weeks.  I think the two-year-old may have had something to do with it.  She’s a little engine, that one.

And now, at 14 weeks, I’m starting to feel like a human again.

I had my first doctor appointment in January at about seven weeks.   They did an ultrasound, weighed me, asked a whole bunch of questions, etc., and everything looked fine.  I went back Feb. 9 at 11 weeks, and it was the shortest appointment of my life.  The doctor just checked out my stomach, listened for the heartbeat (which he found!  yay!) and sent me on my way.  I went back for a surprise 13 week visit because of minor complications, and had another ultrasound.  Everything’s great, though!  So as of tomorrow, we are home free in the second trimester, where I am very hopeful to regain my energy and stop eating like a vacuum.

Isabelle is handling all of this quite well, though she sometimes wonders why Mommy is falling asleep on the couch at 6:30p.m.  We’ve started to introduce her to the idea of having another baby in the house, and she’s absolutely psyched.  She goes around calling her baby dolls “Baby Sister,” and one of her favorite activities is shopping for a double stroller with the baby carrier beside her.  Of course, she is a little confused on the gender thing, because if asked, she wants a “boy” baby, but it is definitely a “baby sister.”  Fortunately, we have 26 more weeks to iron that out.

And Jay, of course, is a superstar; though, I think the severe nausea and fatigue caught him off guard.  I really did nothing from week 6 to 10 (nothing), which basically meant that if the house was clean, he’d cleaned it; if the laundry was done, he’d done it.    Poor guy.  He started to love Wednesdays, because I have a piano student who comes on Wednesdays, and that would always be the one day that the house was clean when he came home.

But all is well, because the second trimester is here, and SPRING IS COMING!  Have I mentioned I hate winter?  I somehow, every December, convince myself that I like it.  No, no I don’t.  I hate it.  And I can’t wait for spring.  Birds chirping!  Warm sunshine!  Screen doors!  Grass!  Berry picking!  Sandals!  No school!  Tulips!

Ahhhhhh!  I feel more energy already.  Happy spring thoughts!