Week 18

I have wanted to be pregnant pretty much ever since I met my husband over two years ago. I knew that I wanted kids when my niece was born almost 11 years ago, and ever since then I've just been waiting for the right person. Once I met my husband, I didn't really see any reason to wait any longer. However, we were trying to wait at least a few more years, since I just went back to school. Apparently, I'm in that 1% of the female population for whom the pill does not work. Go figure. Now that we are actually pregnant, I'm trying to enjoy every minute of it. I'm sure, that like most pregnant women, there will come a day about 18 weeks from now when I will no longer want to be pregnant, and would really like to see my feet again. Until then however, I'm trying to live it up and treasure all of the insane things that are happening to my body.

To recap:
I knew I was pregnant before I got a positive test result, because my boobs were so sore I could barely take my shirt off. Then they *really* started to hurt. The first few weeks were by far the worst, as they grew an entire cup size in about a week and a half. I lost the ability to see my feet much earlier than most pregnant women, but my loss was because of the boobs, not the belly. I still barely have a belly. At the height of the soreness, standing in front of the open refrigerator in a t-shirt made them hurt. PB had to walk slowly past me, for fear that he would stir a breeze that would make me wince in pain. They're great to look at, but man, do they hurt. And I hear it gets worse once milk comes in. Woohoo!

Around 9 weeks the nausea started. I couldn't leave the house in the morning without getting sick. It was part of my getting ready for work ritual. Wake up, shower, urp, brush teeth, get dressed, urp, brush teeth again, makeup, hair, leave. Good times. Then, I would spend the rest of the day feeling incredibly nauseous and unable to eat anything with any real flavor. I lived on rice, grits, and wheat thins for about three weeks. Around week 14, the nausea subsided, and was replaced by an intense, gnawing pain in the pit of my stomach if I didn't eat every hour and a half or so. That didn't mean eating full meals, it meant a few crackers, maybe a dozen grapes, and then I was full again. I didn't get to eat a full meal until about two weeks ago, and even that comes and goes.

The fatigue that forced me to get up and walk around every half hour between 1 and 4pm, for fear that I would fall asleep while working at my desk went away around week 14 as well. It was replaced, immediately, by the inability to sleep through the night. Granted this is not entirely due to the pregnancy. When we moved in to our house, we were greeted by our neighbor's dogs barking almost incessantly from midnight to 3am, and the volunteer fire company siren going off at all hours of the night. I adore living in a small town, because it's beautiful and quaint and all that crap, but seriously...get the firemen pagers or something, like normal people.

I finally started noticing serious baby bump last week about 2 weeks ago. I was blessed/cursed with some serious birthing hips, and as such, will probably not look *really* pregnant for about another 4-6 weeks. So I'm stuck in that intermediary stage, where my regular clothes are too tight on my belly, but I have to keep hiking up my maternity pants because my belly doesn't fill them out. I have noticed quite a bit of growth in the last week though, so hopefully things will start progressing. I totally want the belly. My body is handling this pregnancy thing much better than it handles most changes, which is a pleasant surprise. I was sure that I would balloon up the minute I found out I was pregnant, but instead I get grilled by my doctor as to whether or not I'm eating, because I gained a whopping half a pound in the first 15 weeks. There's apparently just plenty of wiggle room for baby. Seriously lucky on that front.

I started feeling real movement this week, as in, I no longer wonder if it's just gas bubbles. There are certain times of day when BB3 is more active, mostly around mealtime and, natch, bedtime. However, if loud noises occur, or if someone is yelling in my vicinity, BB3 goes bonkers and starts flipping around and punching. Not exactly comfy. This is the best part though. BBs 1&2 are greatly looking forward to feeling BB3 move around and kick, as BB1 loves the story about how she used to lay her head on her mom's stomach and get kicked in the cheek by BB2. BB2, in turn, wants to get kicked in the face. We're totally raising masochists. I can't wait until we can hear the heartbeat using our fetal monitor, or watch BB3 move across my stomach.

Can't wait to see what happens next.