A little late on this one…

How far along? 12 Weeks

Total weight gain/loss: 131.2 (0.0 week) (+1.0 total)

Maternity clothes? Over-belly pants, bigger bra.

Stretch marks? Nope.

Sleep: Mostly good, except the night that I had heartburn all night long. Can easily sleep 10+ hours.

Best moment this week: The relief of seeing a healthy little baby at my screening.

Movement: Not feeling any yet.

Food cravings/aversions: Sweet, hard candy. Not much else sounds appetizing this week. I’m more or less forcing myself to eat – I’m hungry and eating a lot of different things, but they’re all kind of “bleh” right now.

Belly Button in or out? In, but stretched.

What I miss: Being able to run and jump and dance – without being paranoid. And without certain body parts bouncing that shouldn’t really be bouncing.

What I am looking forward to: End of the first tri!!

Weekly Wisdom: Trust in your body. Paranoia comes and goes, but if you feel “good”, it’s probably all okay.

Milestones: Felt my uterus very clearly coming up out of my pelvis. First tri screening done.

Symptoms:
– Still a lot of nausea, but it comes and goes randomly.
– Boobs hurt, especially my right nipple. Feels like they’re still growing?! Very full and achy.
– Bloat belly still lives, though I do feel less bloated than I did.
– Foot cramps when I’m swimming (and random other times).
– Achiness in both sides down low. Ligaments stretching?
– My face seems less oily, more clear.
– Acid reflux!! Ugh! Took me a while to figure that out, but I have a burning in the back of my throat. Maalox helps a lot. Could be why the anti-nausea meds aren’t doing much – it’s caused by heartburn right now?
– Burps. Ugh, lots of burps.

Honestly, when I have a “bad day” now – the kind with a work disaster and doggy diarrhea and throwing up in parking lots and other types of random fun – I stop and think afterward, THIS kind of bad day I can totally handle. As long as it doesn’t involve anything being wrong with the baby, then I am FINE and dandy. Cranky, yes. Wanting to yell at people, yes. But in the big picture? It just won’t matter.

Hormones are doing a number on me lately. I am quiet in general lately because I don’t want to piss anyone off nor do I want to get pissed off. I’d say I don’t know what the deal is, but obviously, hormones. Den has started glaring at me and asking me when I’m going to get out of this stage. I wish I knew. I am cranky as hell, and I don’t like it!

I am a little surprized I haven’t gained any weight yet (maybe a pound, but it’s been consistent for the past few weeks). Though perhaps I shouldn’t be, the nausea is keeping my eating in check. Tonight I was hungry and kept looking through the fridge and cupboards. and it went like this, “Ohhh, this?” *gag* “Okay… this?” *gag* “Well fine. How about this…” *gag* “WTF!” I finally pulled out some yogurt cups. Apparently that was acceptable.

I have been feeling some of what feels like baby kicks. But I know they’re not. Anterior placenta, people. Not-even-13-weeks. And the “feelings” are dead center. Fucking gas. And yes, usually seconds later I hear gurrrggggllleeeee. Gas bubbles. And even though I know that, I still have this moment of, “Whoa, that felt like…” I mean, it feels REALLY similar.

I’m going to speak very very softly here, so as not to jinx myself, but I think I might be feeling a tiny bit more energy. I actually cleaned up my kitchen today. Please please please let me be getting my second wind here… I neeeeed to clean my house.

At work today I was tugging down my sweater, muttering. “I think my sweater shrunk.” My coworker snorted at me. “Girl, the sweater didn’t shrink.” Well… well… it feels like it. Maybe these sweaters aren’t going to last me quite as long as I thought. (But I still say it shrunk a little… I did just wash it for the first time.)

I have to admit I am enjoying myself a little more now that the paranoia has eased. Those first few weeks… sucked. There really is no other way to put it. I mean, so so grateful to be pregnant, but terrified every single day. I don’t think I realized how tight I was wound until the days came that I was able to exhale a little bit.

Today was a very rough day. And I don’t mean emotionally, I just mean it was physically exhausting! I’m normally exhausted by the time Saturday rolls around anyways, and really really look forward to noon when I get out of work for my weekend. But today I had to get up at 7am to go to work, then from work go to a non-profit fundraising event that I was volunteering at, that ended at 4. And then we had a family obligation party this evening – and by that I mean “I know no one there, and my husband recognizes maybe 3 people, but it means a lot to my MIL that we’re there.” So we went. Thankfully we ended up going a little late to that, because I fell asleep curled up in my recliner and Den just let me sleep for a little bit before gently waking me to tell me we had to get going. (I really, really didn’t want to wake up.)

Food today has been very strange. Yesterday was an okay day, but yesterday evening my stomach freaked out and I threw up quite a bit. Then this morning I woke up feeling sick as hell and it was a struggle to get and keep anything down before noon. I knew I had to get food in me in order to quell the nausea, but I couldn’t get anything down, and then my body kept trying to throw it back up. It was a very slow process. I took some unisom to help with the nausea – which it did – but I hate doing that at work because then I have to struggle to keep my eyes open! But it helped, and by noon I was feeling a lot better.

I managed to eat and keep down lunch, finish up at the fundraiser, and come home and take a short nap before the dinner party. I ate two plates of food there. I was so hungry! And not nauseous! I am not used to these things happening at the same time. So I ate to my heart’s content, though I did stop short of desert, knowing that would be tempting the fates a little bit too much. (Yes, I ate dinner and skipped desert. WTF is wrong with me?!)

And now? Now my week is DONE. I am going to SLEEP and I will probably sleep a very happy 12 hours. Every week it feels like it’s a push to get through it, just get through Saturday and I’ll be okay once Sunday hits. And honestly Sundays aren’t usually too fantastic. But I get to sleep all day, and that is precisely what this preggo lady needs.

Tonight as we ate dinner Den ended up watching Cars on the Disney channel, and so of course I got sucked into watching the last half with him. When the movie ended I stood up, rubbed my very overfull stomach, and said, “Well, I’m going to bed. Are you coming?”

Den stared at me, then pointed to the clock. “Umm, Nat. It’s 7:30.”

Well, what the fuck! It felt like 10pm! Screw it, I came to bed anyways. With my laptop. Cause I’m a total party pooper.

::

So. As of midnight I will be 13 weeks. 13 weeks. That means…. heading into my second trimester. Wow. And, well, YAY!

Never have I wanted so badly to live in a land of rainbows and roses. Where babies don’t die… and miscarriages happen to other people. Where you feel safe.

I find myself really pulling back from a lot of things, and intentionally surrounding myself with “normal” pregnant women. The due date groups with the chit-chatter about nurseries and names. I need that normal. I need that reassurance and calm.

But losses happen. Maybe not to people I know – though it is certainly more devastating when it is – but they happen. Being a stillbirth mama you hear about it, we all talk about it, try to reach out, try to help the newly bereaved. After I lost Devin I felt so very close to those newly bereaved, so emotionally invested, even when I knew nothing else about them. I wanted to help.

And now… I can’t. Emotionally, I can’t let myself go to that place, because if I do, I might just lose my calm about this current pregnancy. I feel bad about it, but I also take refuge in the knowledge that the others are there to step in, that someone will be there for that person to lean on. It just won’t be me this time.

I think at some point you know know too much. By banding together with other broken hearted families to heal, you also compile a kind of list in your head, of all the different ways a baby can die. Every new story I hear, I start worrying about that, too.

At one time I was very angry at those people who went through life believing that nothing bad could or would ever happen to them, completely unaware – or unwilling to accept – all those bad things lurking in the shadows. And now, now I’m just envious. I wish I could be them, if only for a little while.

But I can’t turn back time. All I can do is compartmentalize, surround myself with the happy stories, and really try to believe that most of the time everything is just fine.

I’m a very picky eater. I also don’t like salt on my food, with very few exceptions. (Other than the other day when for whatever reason I craved salt and ODed a little. I felt gross afterwards.) I was that weird child brushing salt off of her crackers and potato chips.

I finally bought a big box of saltines to keep around the house, but I warned Den, “I got the kind without salt on them.”

Den stared at me like I was some alien. “So they’re what…. just Tines?? Now completely flavorless??”

But, hey, it works for me.

::

Last night was by far not a good night. I am definitely getting my energy back, because I’m finding it harder and harder to fall asleep at night. Two nights ago I stared at the ceiling in the dark for a good two hours, thinking about what color to paint the baby’s room. As if it’s a crisis to be dealt with in the middle of the night. But last night I did fall asleep fairly quickly, only to wake at 2am for my middle of the night pee. That’s fine. Except I could not fall back asleep. My nausea flared up and I turned from side to side, even ran to the bathroom a few times dry heaving.

And so that is why I ended up cooking myself pancakes at 3am. I needed something hefty in my stomach, more than crackers – tried those, they didn’t help. I sat down with my pancake with strawberry jam and whipped cream, ate my meal, then went back to bed and actually fell asleep. (No, I didn’t make them from scratch, who do you think I am? I use just-add-water mix.) I hope this isn’t going to be a new trend.

Today was a rough day on me mentally, and I’m not even really sure why. I slept all night through, waking up only with a generous helping from my alarm clock. But immediately upon opening my eyes my thought was, What if the baby’s dead? It sounds stupid, even to me, it’s not like I had ANY reason to think it, but those thoughts don’t easily get shaken off. So all day I was a little paranoid, constantly “checking in” with my body. Where is that twinge coming from? Is that stomach gas or a cramp? It also started to worry in the back of my mind that I didn’t even know when I was in early labor with Devin. I’m sure that will become more of a worry as I go along. How can I watch out for premature labor when I didn’t even notice actual labor when I was being induced?

But the day revealed no catastrophe, no change in symptoms, no problems (other than some gas – which is probably what was pressing on my insides earlier in the day). It’s a relief, but at the same time I’m still left a little lackluster. Tonight I really wish I had a doppler so I could just quickly check in with the bubs, reassure myself that it’s still alive. That’s all I need. Just a two-second reassurance.

On the doppler front, I am still highly undecided, but actually leaning away from renting one. Why? Because I have a strong feeling that I’d freak myself out. That it would be fine for a while, then one night I’d have trouble locating the heartbeat and then I would have a complete and utter meltdown and end up in the ER. I really like the fact that at least if my doctor can’t find it right away I can get an immediate ultrasound. Those 15 minutes at my 10 week appointment, between her taking out the doppler and me getting to see the baby on the screen? Ten times more horrible than this mild, vague unease I have the rest of the time. I do not want to put myself through that if I can avoid it. So I’m actually going to talk with my doctor about it on Wednesday at my appointment – I’ll tell him everything I’ve said here, how I need some kind of frequent reassurance but I’m not sure what to do about it. He may just have me come in more often, and while that would be highly inconvenient for my work schedule, that would at least provide a solution. But then not finding the heartbeat by doppler was at 10 weeks, and I’m now over 13. It’s not likely to happen again.

I know it’ll get better once I start feeling kicks. But right now going 2 weeks with NO indication from baby… it’s a little crazy-making. And I’m looking at at least another 4 weeks before I start to feel anything at all (anterior placenta, remember).

For now what I did was empty my bladder, lay on my bed, and do a quick uterus feel. Wow! It’s sure moved up a lot. At first I felt the top of it and was like, okay, whew, there it is. Then I kept feeling down and down and finally there was my pubic bone. Definitely getting a lot easier to feel… grapefruit, indeed.

I guess I just feel reassured by that physical contact. It has been hard to go from Devin, third-trimester active mover, to the beginning of pregnancy again. I know it would have been even harder had I gotten pregnant sooner. I don’t really know what I expected, exactly – I mean, of COURSE early pregnancy is so much different. That’s obvious. I guess I just wasn’t prepared for how disconnected it would feel, being unable to see or feel anything. (Other than the nausea, and that’s different from being able to feel your baby move.) There are times I find myself daydreaming about how it felt with Devin. I’m both looking forward to it again and missing it so very much. I remember how I could “play” with Devin, pushing on his little feet poking out of my belly. To someone who never got to see her baby born alive…. that is the memory I hang on to.

Feeling my uterus coming up is a like a little window back into that world again. It grounds me, reminds me of what’s there, connects me to the baby in a physical way. Hopefully one day in the near future I’ll get to play with this little one too.

One of the things I most regret is never having the chance to decorate Devin’s room. We never got to it. Devin was going to co-sleep for a few months, so we spent our time working hard to get the basement livable, as that was going to be much more important before he came. So the second bedroom was untouched, and has sat untouched for the next 18 months. We would mention maybe tearing down the paneling and painting, but why? I couldn’t bring myself to get a nursery ready when I couldn’t even get pregnant, and yet I couldn’t turn the room into a full-fledged decorated guest room or library, with the hope that a baby would someday come. So it just sat. Empty.

This weekend Denis started tearing down paneling and wallpaper. It is time to start getting it ready for a baby.

The “before”: junkroom. (Yes, that’s Devin’s crib in the big box – we never even took it out before he died.)

And the “in progress”: what a freaking MESS. That’s ugly ass paneling overtop of even uglier 50’s wallpaper (probably original to this house), overtop of plaster walls. Den is having a GREAT time scraping that shit off.

While we have made a tremendous amount of progress for one day, a large part of me still wants to slam my forehead into a desk. Why does my house have to be so damn difficult?

And while Den is working in there, I finally opened the crib box. The model has been recalled and I have to find the label to find out if it’s affected. I’m beyond pissed that I may never get to even set up, much less use, Devin’s crib.

I’m really late, so it’s missing a few things… but this is what I remember from last week.

How far along? 13 Weeks

Total weight gain/loss: 133.0 (+1.8 week) (+2.8 total)

Maternity clothes? Over-belly pants, bigger bra, only wearing my longer shirts now – shorter ones riding up a little too much.

Stretch marks? Nope.

Sleep: Off and on. It was not a great week for sleep.

Best moment this week: Hitting 13 weeks!

Movement: Not feeling any yet.

Food cravings/aversions: Candy candy candy!!! Thus the weigh gain. Ugh!

Belly Button in or out? In, but stretched.

What I miss:

What I am looking forward to: My next appointment.

Weekly Wisdom:

Milestones: End of first tri!

Symptoms:
– Nausea getting more random.
– Boobs fully and achy.
– Bloat belly going down a tiny bit.
– Foot cramps.
– Ligament aches.
– My face is cleared up.
– Some indigestion/heartburn/nausea/who-knows-what.
– Gas, very gassy.