I don’t know if “hunger” is really the right word to describe it lately. It’s like I think to myself, “Gosh I’m stuffed, I ate a ton…. now what’s for dinner?” I just have the constant need to snack! All the time. (I’m curious to add up all my calories from yesterday and see where it puts me.) I ate a hotdog at midnight last night, fell asleep… and woke up at 6:30 with my stomach growling like I hadn’t fed it in a week.

We went out for a japanese hibatchi meal on Thursday – I’d been craving it for a week. (Actually I’d been craving it since I went there with my friends.) It wasn’t as good as it normally is, unfortunately (new cook)… and Den’s rare steak definitely looked far more appetizing than my chicken (sigh). But you know what? I am STILL craving it. Arg. It’s not a cheap meal, either! Can someone tell my body to crave, say, cold cereal? (Oh wait… it already does.)

Today being Saturday, my weekly day celebration – 22 weeks today! – I weighed myself as I have every week since I got pregnant. And I think the nutritionist can stop worrying about my weight! In the two weeks since my last appointment I’ve gained over 2.5 lbs… I’m well on my way to that 5lbs per month she wanted. [insert eyeroll here] I didn’t mean to take her so literally!

New craving: Ocean Spray’s Cran-Raspberry juice. Oh yum. Of course it has that freakin’ “high fructose corn syrup” in it – blech!! But it’s still better than soda or something, IMO. (I don’t drink soda. I’m weird, I know.) Strangely enough this craving has been edging out milk as of late. Weird. Maybe I’m getting enough calories now so my body doesn’t feel the need for all the calories in milk? Or maybe my body just likes to “switch it up” now and then.

Since being pregnant I’ve discovered all kinds of important things. Like: Rolaids taste way better than Tums. I actually don’t mind chomping on them frequently. It’s working, though… when I feel the acid indigestion starting I grab some and it seems to be keeping the heartburn away… for now, at least. I’m sure that will change.

One minor irritation: when I mention something in passing, like some aches and pains that I’m feeling, or the heartburn, or how freaking tired I get, and someone responds with, “Oh, if you think it’s bad now, wait ’til….” It’s like I feel that I have to preface every thing I say with some sort of disclaimer… or to brush it off and not say anything at all. What happened to just listening? And the funny thing is, the times I get those comments are NOT when I’m feeling miserable and sitting there moaning and griping about how horrible it is (because honestly, that’s pretty damn rare). Usually it’s just in casual conversation, said with a chuckle or a wry grin. Sometimes it’s even in response to them asking: “How are you feeling?” “Great, just exhausted is all.” “Oh wait until the baby comes…” Grrr. Why ask? Do you REALLY think any pregnant woman is going to say, “Great!! Perfect!! Never felt better!!” Well okay, sometimes I do, depending on if Devin’s being cute and kicking nicely, or if I’m getting weird cramps or heartburn. That’s not the point. I just feel like sometimes – with some people – I can’t say anything negative without someone jumping in to tell me just how BAD it’s going to get… to negate how I’m feeling.

Thank goodness for my internet friends. I think my forums online are a large part of why, despite my extremely limited social life, I don’t feel “isolated” or alone. I have these great communities of wonderful women where we can sit and gab and everyone is so supportive. I really appreciate that. And of course some of those online friendships transition into real-life ones – over the past year(s) I’ve made friends with two lovely ladies on one forum who live quite close to me, so we get together for dinner every now and then. I just wish more people lived closeby!

Like Kel. It’s no FAIR that she lives so far away. Kel and I have been friends for… ummm… well, it’s been over 10 years for sure. I think we were about 13 or 14 when we “met” online, if you can believe that. (Doesn’t that seem like a lifetime ago?) We’ve met in person exactly twice – once at my wedding, once when I went to visit her last year. And it’s no freaking fair that she lives far away! Someone needs to shrink the United States… or make travelling costs a LOT cheaper, I tell you what. Especially since she’s having another little boy! Devin and him (and Eric!) would be bestest friends, I’m sure! Destructive, though, I’m sure. lol

Holy moses, the last couple of days I have woken up positively starving. I swear this kid is trying to eat me from the inside-out. I half wake when Den gets up, because the dogs shift around and start whining, and usually I roll over and go back to sleep without a thought. Lately, however, I half wake up and growwwllll-grumble-grwlwlwlw. And it hurts! It’s like my stomach is trying to eat itself. So I have to get up and make something for breakfast, for fear of perishing while I was asleep. Yikes!

I have also finally discovered how I like my pancakes so I can get through a whole one. This may sound really stupid, or you may wonder why it took me all these years to figure it out, but anyways. I don’t like my syrup poured all over the pancake. The few bites are great, then it goes totally soggy and over-saturated. I hate it! So, duh, I finally figured to pour my syrup on the side, then dip each piece of pancake in it. Score! It totally tastes better! (Oh and by the way? That Aunt Jemima “Just Add Water” pancake mix totally rocks. Lets me eat just one or two pancakes for breakfast, without much fuss or preparation. Which is important when your stomach is stabbing you.)

Devin has been wicked active lately. Last night he was pretty quiet, but the night before that he was kicking all night long. It’s still not enough to keep me awake, thank goodness, but every time I woke up to roll over I could feel him jabbing me. There have been a few times in the past couple of evenings that he’s kicked me hard enough that I swear my whole belly moved. Of course I wasn’t looking so I don’t know for sure, but that’s what it felt like!

I tried on my pre-pregnancy jeans today. I have to say, they fit me most fabulously in the butt!! Damn! Of course there is simply NO way I could do up the jeans, not even a little bit… but the zipper part is the only part affected. I’m a little irritated with my maternity jeans, to be honest… they fit me great when I bought them. Then I LOST weight/size, and now they’re hanging off my ass. Especially when I wear the band below my belly like it’s intended to do. Then they’re really hanging down. So. I may have to see if I can find another pair to wear until my butt fills these back out. I mean, these work fine so I don’t want to be spending too much money, but they’re my only pair of pants that I have, other than sweatpants, and it’s a little irritating. I don’t think 2 pairs of maternity pants is too much to ask for.

Oh, PS – the sweats in my belly pics? Those are all pre-pregnancy sweatpants. Well actually the one I wear most often is one I bought when I first got pregnant… it’s a size larger than my normal, and it’s stretchy and fits just fine. I doubt I’ll be able to wear it afterwards though, I’ll have stretched out the elastic. Oh well. Small sacrifice for comfort.

One of my journal buddies on a forum is preparing for her home birth sometime this month. It’s very exciting! And then I realized that I’m halfway through my second trimester. Shit… isn’t there stuff I’m supposed to be doing? I’m just sitting here la la la-ing counting away the weeks. Friends are painting nurseries, ordering cribs, booking birth classes. Wait, what? At the beginning of this pregnancy I was totally way ahead of everyone. I had my wish list almost all set already, we had names picked out, I was this font of knowledge of birthing “stuff” simply because I got bored of reading infertility books all the time. So how did I get so behind here?

Well first of all, we can’t do jack shit on the nursery until the basement gets finished and Den moves his office out of there. Which is, unfortunately, nothing that I can help with. The men folk need to do all the framing and hanging sheet-rock, none of which I could do even were I not pregnant. Unfortunately, the men-folk keep cancelling their plans to come over and work on it. I am starting to get a wee bit antsy. We have a lot to do, and now it’s mid-winter. I was really hoping the major stuff would be done by now so we wouldn’t have to worry about… you know… SNOW.

We also have half a thought to tear down the panelling from our bedroom and paint… since we’re going to be spending a lot of time in here (and Devin will be sleeping in here for around 6 months), it’s probably a better idea to spend time working on this than the nursery. However, the logistics start creating issues. Like, how are we going to paint our bedroom in the middle of winter without me having major issues with the vapors? Not like we can just throw open our windows. And this is going to be an issue until it warms up in the spring. And even if Den does the painting in here, I still HAVE to sleep on this bed. We could possibly move it into the other bedroom… It would be interesting, to say the least. I think the bed would be the ONLY thing that would fit in that room. (It’s a king. The room… is small.) We might just have to do that though. I don’t see any other way to tear apart this room, take down wallpaper, and repaint without putting my beloved mattress at risk. But we can’t do that, again, until the basement is done and Den’s stuff is moved out. Everything centers on getting that damn basement done. I am irritated.

So anyways, back to my original point. Other things to do? Well I have a bunch of books to buy and read. For christmas I have asked for gift cards to book stores so I can purchase them (since I am not going to rely on family to get me the correct books!). Hopefully I’ll be able to get some of them that way! (I am no longer going to be using the library for books. Loaned books and I have some serious issues, involving astronomical late fees. Not good, not good at all. It’s cheaper for me to buy the damn things!)

I still need to send the deposit in for our childbirth classes – I totally forgot about it. Whoops!! So I emailed the lady tonight asking if there’s still space available. Hopefully I’ll get that sorted out shortly and we should be set to start in January. January, people. Soon as we get back from Christmas vacation we’ll be starting freaking childbirth classes. Holy crap.

I’m also poking around LLL Massachusetts to find a local group. Several friends have highly recommended going before baby is born, so I wanted to find out what’s available. Not sure when I’ll start going, but probably Jan/Feb timeframe. They all tend to meet once a month. LLL also have a yearly conference in this state, but, ummm, it’s at the end of March. Very bad timing for me. I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere a week before my due date. (It’s in the state, but the other side of the state… an hour and a half drive.)

Why do I always get these flashes of inspiration/motivation in the middle of the night? Sigh.

This year we are not putting up a Christmas tree. This makes me sad. I LOVE christmas trees. As in, sometimes when I was a kid I would get up in the middle of the night, plug in the tree, and sit and just stare at it for a while. To me there are no religious connotations to it, like many other Christmas symbols (which is all well and good… if you’re Christian! But seeing a holy cross or baby jesus in a manger does nothing for this athiest). I love the lights of the tree. I love the mood.

So anyways, we are not putting up the tree this year. Partly because we are leaving in 2 weeks and won’t be here to appreciate it… and partially because our cats have a BALL climbing the tree and knocking the (plastic) ornaments all over the house. The thought of us leaving them alone with the tree for a week makes me really fear what I’d come home to. And I don’t really like the idea of putting it up for two weeks and taking it back down. So no tree. This makes me sad.

So I went out and bought a mini tree for the bedroom! (The bedroom is one of the rooms we can lock the cats out of, if you’re wondering.) It’s a green, 4′, prelit tree in a pot. I don’t care much for the pot, but who cares. It’s a tree! A pretty tree!

Of course nothing in life is easy. I got it home and half the lights worked. So I tested every single of the bad half’s bulbs – and they all worked. By themselves. But on the tree? Nope. I got very irritating when I grabbed one of the bulbs and *pop* the lights turned on. Arrgggg, half an hour spent fixing that.

I had this idea, that after we paint this room I want to put up a string of mini white lights around the ceiling. In my old bedroom, at my parents’ house, I put up a string of lights one christmas, all the way around the ceiling. It had a switch even, to make it twinkle in different patterns. And those lights never ended up coming down. (I’m actually wondering if they’re still there. I’ll be so giddy if they are!) I loved it! All year round at night I could turn on my lights and sit there under twinkles. So I’m thinking that might be a really cool thing to do in the bedroom(s?), especially considering we have no overhead light at all.

Den is giving me a weird kind of “You’re so crazy, you surprize even me sometimes” look. But what does he know? He totally doesn’t appreciate the lights. Or the tree.

So it didn’t occur to me until sometime last week when I realized I had never ACTUALLY signed up for those birth (Bradley) classes. I had talked to the instructor by email and found out the cost and that she had room… then my mind had a white-out and I didn’t do anything more. Umm, panic! I emailed the instructor to find out if there was still space and if I could register ASAP. I just heard back and it all sounds fine. Whew. Exhale.

So it sounds like our classes will be starting on January 9th, Wednesday evenings. (Unfortunate that some friends of mine just decided on Wednesday evening as our movie night… we’ll have to change it again!) I’m feeling very excited, very positive about it. I really can’t believe it is coming up so soon.

Den was ordering some books today so I added on two books to his order: Gentle Birth Choices and The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth. They both come highly recommended. I figure I’ll start with the birth books, especially since our birth class is started in January, and later I’ll get the vaccine and breastfeeding books that I want.

It’s kind of funny… work has been weighing me down lately, and thinking about baby stuff really relaxes me. Even if it’s just signing up for birthing class and ordering baby-related books. It’s a way for me to re-connect with what’s really important in life.

Although I must say, having my pretty little tree lit up and two cats sleeping on the bed with us doesn’t hurt either. :) Good kitties. (As long as they stay away from my tree!)

Before I forget – things that taste really good lately: Fritos (mmmmm salty and so good!) and cookies. Oh so nutritious! I’m trying to limit my consumption. Sort of.

I mentioned something on one of my forums yesterday and I didn’t really realize how true it was until I had thought about it later. What I said was: I’m never alone anymore. And while it’s obviously true in the physical sense, it goes so beyond that emotionally. At night when I wake up… in the car driving somewhere… sitting at my desk working… I can be totally isolated with no one else around, yet the tapping on my insides reminds me that I am not. Devin is here with me.

I don’t know when it transitioned into thinking about him as a true person – somewhere along the lines between 4 and 22 weeks – but I know the ultrasound really helped make it all the more real and tangible.

I talk to him sometimes. Or I place my hand on my belly and hold an “internal” conversation with him. He is a part of me, and yet he isn’t me.

Despite always looking forward to being pregnant, I always thought the whole thing would feel a little weird once I was there. I never thought I would feel this kind of love and appreciation and enjoyment. I joke about there being an alien in my belly, but I certainly don’t feel that way. It doesn’t feel “weird” in the slightest… instead I feel finally whole. This life inside me fits so perfectly, so beautifully, it’s strange to think that it’s not usually there, that I spend most of my life without a little creature growing inside me. I feel like I was made to do this, to be pregnant, to be the mother. Like I’ve been waiting all my life for this moment.

If I wasn’t so terrified of raising more than two children I could see myself as one of those women who are perpetually pregnant. I actually find myself thinking about my decision to have only two children. I know I cannot really make any true decisions until I’ve actually done the mommy thing for a while and have some kind of idea of what to expect – and some sort of guage as to how much I think I can handle. Right now the idea of mothering a child is still such an unknown. But yet… I am awknowledging the possibity of a third. Especially when I think of the odds of having another boy. Do I really want to just stop, regardless? Am I okay with closing the door on ever having a girl? I’m not so certain I am. I’m really not certain at all that I could walk away from that.

Of course things are far more complicated than me simply deciding how many children I would like to have. The logistics are extremely complicated. The main obstacle is, obviously, infertility. What I WANT may very well not be what I GET. And beyond that, we have a SMALL house – small two-bedroom, one-bath. We do not plan on moving. We do plan on adding on… but it’s going to be interesting affording an addition to house two children, much less three. The cost of raising the children… the cost of college… it just continues to get far more complicated!

But right now… right now I am pregnant, with our first, with our little IVF miracle. And every day and night that I am pregnant I think about how beautiful it is, how perfect, how very blessed. Devin holds a huge piece of my heart and for right now I get to carry him around with me everywhere I go.

Old craving revisited: pears. Fresh pears, cut into slices. I sit here and munch munch munch and before I know it the entire darn pear is gone. I like how juicy they are, the texture, they’re sweet but not too sweet… yum.

::

You know those kinds of days when you just feel good? Yeah, that’s been today. Or at least the second half of today. (Or is it yesterday? It’s after 2am now… ) Den and I spent the evening together… not doing anything in particular, I was just chatting his ear off and watching him play an old game, but we were talking and laughing and just having fun. I love days like that. We get along so well. And I’m sometimes I’m amazed at how the bond keeps deepening each year.

On Thanksgiving day after stopping home to let the dogs out we headed to Den’s dad’s house. As we were driving down the road Den said, “You know what I want right now? Ice cream.” I laughed and said he was freaking crazy (it was freezing that evening). Conversation continued as usual all the way to FIL’s place.

We ended up staying at FIL’s for over 5 hours, the brothers all arguing over sports and everyone talking about babies, and all that stuff animated families do for 5 hours. We ate more food (too much food!) and had fun hanging out. We were tired and I was slightly cranky when we finally left. I had already fallen asleep on the couch twice.

15 minutes later we were pulling up to an intersection and Den says, “You know what’s on my mind right now…” And I replied without a pause, “Ice cream.”

Den stared at me in shock. “Holy shit. How did you know that?”

I just shrugged and smiled. It’s one of those things. After nearly 6 years together sometimes it’s scary how in sync our brains can be.

::

It’s most definitely the small things that matter in a relationship. Was I really happy to get a brand new camera for christmas last year? You better believe it. But I was just as touched – perhaps moreso, emotionally – by coming home late at night on Wednesday, after Den had already fallen asleep, to find my pretty little tree lit up for me. Normally if he’s asleep all the lights are off, but he left my tree lit up for me, because he knows how much I like it. (In the same room he was sleeping, too.)

I have given Den many gifts over the years for christmas and birthdays. He’s not an overly sentimental man, and he’s certainly not a scrapbooker or hoarder of things like I am.

Today I found the dogs chewing on a small gift I had given him 4 years ago on christmas as a joke: it was a very small black address book. I had written “Den’s Little Black Book” on the cover, and then gone through and wrote my name and phone number on every page (about 40 of them!). It was just a silly little whim I’d gotten in the store, something funny that would make him laugh.

Well he kept that darn thing for 4 years. And he was really upset that the dogs chewed the corner. I said it’s just a silly little thing, it’s not a big deal. He told me no, it was, that it was the best gift he’d ever gotten and he wanted to keep it forever.

Okay, tell me you wouldn’t tear up at that too.

(It is still being kept, btw, chewed corner and all. But as Den said, “Now unfortunately it’ll remind me of the dogs, too.” )

::

Being married can be so frustrating… but so very wonderful too.

Well I think the pregnancy hormones are starting to hit me in a little way, because so far today I’ve found myself either in or near tears three times. It’s only 10:30am.

The first one I actually cried, and it was for an idiotic reason: I couldn’t find the remote control for my camera. I take my weekly photos with a tripod and a remote with a timer. I always put the little remote (it’s about an inch and a half long, inch wide) on our table right in the same place. In fact I remember doing that just the other day, because I found it on my desk. Well today it was gone. I tore the room apart… took everything off the table, off my desk, looked underneath both… it was NOT THERE. I got extremely upset and started crying. Den tried comforting me, telling me that he can just take the photos today and we’ll find it later, but there’s no way I could take photos while in tears. (I finally found the damn thing, if you’re wondering – it was under the couch on the other side of the room. Can anyone say, “Effing cats”? I sure can.) But yeah. Small issue, large meltdown.

The other two instances are much more justified.

One girl – whom I didn’t really know that well – in a pregnancy group of mine found out at her big ultrasound that her baby has a huge brain problem. Like so large they don’t even know if she’d survive once born, and will definitely have very severe issues if she did. The last week has been just terrible for her… finding out that the scan didn’t look normal, getting more scans and opinions, and having to make decisions about what to do. The whole community is just devastated for her, and every time I think about it I tear up. I just can’t imagine that kind of pain. I wish I could do more. I feel like anything I say doesn’t say enough at all, that the words are just not conveying how very heartbroken I am. Even though I didn’t know her well at all… it doesn’t matter. I cry for her.

And then the mailman came to our door and Den brought in two packages addressed to me! One was a gift from Kel, which she had told me would be coming. Exciting, yes! The other package had me totally stumped though. (And I’m so bad with my shopping every time I get a package I don’t remember ordering I start wondering what on earth I bought!) Well it was a gift for Devin… from a girl on one of my message boards. Totally, totally unexpected. It’s a wall hanging, one of the Sweet Vanilla pieces that we want to get for Devin… it’s SO precious. It’s the first thing we’ve gotten for his room. I was just so touched that she bought him a gift I teared up. I am so appreciative… so thankful for all these wonderful women I have met online. I don’t know where I’d be without all of them.

My two books arrived! I’ve only barely started reading them, but they seem to be good reads. Positive, and that’s what I need you know? I get a little nervous about books that are very pro-home-birth because I am going to be having a hospital birth and I need positive energy. I don’t need books to be telling me that it’s not going to work. I’m all about the positive reinforcement here.

Yes, a home birth sounds like a wonderful thing as described in books. I would love to give birth at home, either in a pool or in my own bed. I would love to be able to crawl into my OWN bed afterwards, with my husband and newborn baby. To have just my midwife and attendants here to take care of me. To be in familiar surroundings and be able to control the environment. Yes, I think that sounds very nice.

But to be perfectly honest, there is ONE major reason that I fully agreed with Den when he said he didn’t want me to have a home birth (and it’s not the same reason as Den’s): the dogs. And cats, for that matter. From everything I’ve read, everything I know – about me, about the birth process – I know I want calm and peace. I simply fail to see how it would be possible to provide any sense of calm or peace with a large German Shepherd barking crazily (as he would be doing, with strangers in the house, unless he were bound, gagged and drugged in the basement). I do believe that would shoot to hell the whole plan right there. I do not want Zeeke to be the first sound Devin hears… he’ll hear it soon enough. (And finding someone to take the dogs when I’m in labor is far more complicated than anything else. Strangely, Den’s family does not like dogs, especially ones who bark maniacally and show great glee in destroying paperwork and cardboard.)

But that being said, I remain very optimistic about my hospital. They only thing that will not be an option for me is a water birth. The more I read and think about it, the more likely it is that I will request that the lights be turned down low and that people bother me as little as possible. I’m sure Den will step up for me and let my wishes be known if something needs to be said and I am busy. Thinking about how I deal with pain, I tend to withdraw into myself, curl up, and zone out. I like having Den near me, but I usually just want his presence, but don’t need much more than that.

My goal from now on is to learn as much as possible about relaxation techniques, positions, the labor stages, etc… so that when I get there we have a bag full of tricks to try. Yes we are doing the Bradley classes – I’d do more than one class if we could afford it but, umm, we can’t. So we’ll do the Bradley class and I’ll spend my time reading and mentally preparing. I want to remain flexible, not locked into some sort of plan. Thus the reading books.

I feel like I’ve come so far already. One of the reasons I was originally so reticent about starting the TTC process in the first place (back when I thought I’d actually get pregnant right away) was because for my teenaged and adult life I was fairly terrified of this whole idea of pushing a baby out of my vagina. The idea of getting an epidural did not help. I am a self-admitted sissypants, and I just had no idea how I would possibly survive such an ordeal.

I am not really sure where things changed, but I’m sure if I read back in the beginning of this journal I might gain some insight into that. I know that being exposed to other methods of birth were an eye-opener to me. Reading about women who enjoyed their birthing experiences, or at least survived the pain and felt proud of themselves for it… it really made me re-think my expectations and consider other possibilities.

Believe it or not, infertility also affected my outlook. Having my laparoscopy done was a huge deal. I have always been terrified of surgery – any kind of surgery, any kind of hospital-based issue including birth. I had never been IN the hospital before. But by that point I was so frustrated with infertility, so desperate for answers, that it really didn’t matter. I wanted that damn surgery done, and by the time the day came I had no fear, just determination. And I got through it… it wasn’t even all that bad (except the stupid IV). Later came IVF. Yet another thing I could never ever have seen myself doing. The idea of jabbing myself with needles? Needing surgery to retrieve eggs? Being in discomfort and pain as my body was manipulated by the drugs? Two years ago I would have gotten faint at the idea. But again, I was determined, I faced it head on as it was just something that needed to be done. By the point IVF became an option I was pushing for it instead of shying away from it.

The whole journey has showed me several times that I can accomplish the unthinkable if I put my mind to it. If it’s something that needs to get done, then I do it.. and it probably won’t be half as bad as you think it will be. Infertility has taught me so much about myself. In a way, now when I look back, I am thankful for the experience. (Of course you can only really say that once you’re safely pregnant and “on the other side.” ) But yes. I feel like I grew and matured ten times over going through what we went through. Would I have truly appreciated this pregnancy if it had happened our first month trying, or would I have spent it freaking out and feeling ill-prepared? I’ll never know, but I know it wouldn’t be the same. Infertility was a part of our journey, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without it. I have gained much strength and self-confidence, and for that, yes, I am thankful.

My goal for labor is no longer about getting over my fear and just getting thorugh it; it’s on being comfortable, being confident, and giving myself and Devin the best experience possible.

There has been some radio silence because apparently I am getting hormonal. And not hormonal as in being sad a lot. I mean hormonal as in fine and chatty one second and yelling and crying at my husband (over something he said that I percieved as totally insensitive of my current state of pregnancy). I mean we were in the car talking and this argument broke out and I was screaming at him and crying. When we got home I slammed the doors into the house, crawled into bed, and BAWLED for ten minutes straight. He came in to apologise to me. And then like that, I was fine and I felt utterly stupid. WTF was that? Den says he needs to realize I’m hormonal and watch what he says, lol! I was apologising all night for going off the deep end!

Other changes are happening too.

Like my belly. It has been growing and stretching. And my belly button, oh my poor belly button! It is getting stretched and flattened like nothing I could ever imagine, and it is hilarious! I want to go around showing everyone my belly button and saying, “Look! Look how crazy this is!” But showing your belly button (on purpose) after age 5 is apparently inappropriate. Especially when it’s smooshed like a freaking pancake. The good news about the belly button is that it is actually LESS sensitive now than it used to be! I noticed this weeks ago when it started getting pushed on, and I just kept waiting for the other shoe to fall… and it didn’t. It’s still not sensitive at all.

So as well all know I like to lay semi-reclined in bed, propped up with pillows, my laptop on my lap. I spend many an evening sitting/laying here typing. This is also the time that Devin is most active kicking away at me – he likes it when I am sitting and still. Well yesterday I’m laying here typing and I see my belly MOVE at the same time that I feel a big kick. I stared at it for quite a while after that, but it wasn’t repeated. I know I hadn’t imagined it though. Tonight Devin is active as usual, and again I see my belly move – but this time as I watch it it moves again… and again! He kept poking me in the same spot, causing my belly to flinch upwards. Wow!

I’d write more but it’s midnight and I really really need to sleep. I have only one week left to get everything done before we leave for our trip and I have SO much to do! I will leave you with some photos that Den snapped of me before we went out yesterday. :)