My food likes and dislikes have taken a serious dislodging lately. The wonderful, yummy, protein-loaded chicken-and-egg salad that I’ve been eating religiously? Suddenly doesn’t taste good. I knew I needed more protein, so Sunday I had a big salad, just like usual. It didn’t taste all that appetizing really, but I kept eating… like I said, I needed the protein. Oh BOY did I regret that. Idiot girl, you should know by now not to ignore what your body is saying! I felt bad all evening, just bloated and indigestion and ugh.

The thing I do want? Chocolate cake. BAD. I baked myself a chocolate cake on Saturday, with the intention of picking at it over a week or two. Hahah. Yeah. Damn that cake is good. I even forgot to buy the ingredients to make icing, so I’m eating just the cake… but it’s so freakin’ chocolatey and good. It’s the first thing I think about in the morning for breakfast.

Tonight I fell asleep before Den got home from his class, and when I woke up at 11pm and stumbled into the bathroom to pee Den asked if I was going back to bed. “Meh, yeah,” I muttered, “Cake first.” And I waddled into the kitchen. He followed me in there and found me with my fingers in the cake pan – literally – breaking off pieces of cake and shoving them in my mouth. He looked at me and said, “Did you just…” and made an imitation snarfing sound. Unfortunately… yes I did. I was grunting as I shoved cake into my mouth, people.

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Today at work I managed to hurt myself lifting. The irritating part was that I frequently lift heavier things with no issue. This time I was just carrying things from a shed to the back of our SUV, which involved little to no squatting/bending (everything was at waist-level), and I was lifting a very small amount each trip – like only 10lbs. My cats weigh more than that. I don’t know what I did, but suddenly those 10lbs felt like 40 and there was pain concentrated in my lower back.

So I’m hobbling today. Definitely feels like a pinched nerve in my spine, not a muscle thing, so a call to my chiro may be in order. Damnit. Thankfully the pain has diminished some since I got home… I can always hope it just goes away on its own right? Not likely though. Just laying in bed tonight, I lifted my head and pain shot up my spine. Lovely.

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The boobs, they are ITCHY. Specifically my nipples. I was wearing my normal cami with a built-in bra today (way more comfortable than a bra), which is my usual work-wear, but today OMG, there must have been some tiny fur inside there or something, because it was driving me nuts. I’d hide in a room and stick my hand up my shirt to scratch under the cami, it was so bad.

Needless to say, I’m not wearing the cami tonight. I’m a little uncomfortable with no bra, but it’s better than the itchies.

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Devin is still happily head-down… I can tell, because I need to pee all. the. time. Sometimes at work I’m just like, “Look, I know I don’t REALLY need to pee AGAIN, you’re just pressing on my bladder. So can I please just finish what I’m doing first?” That works half of the time. At home like now though… gah, it’s so irritating to have to get out of bed ten times while I’m typing. Getting up out of bed and then getting back in and nestled into my mass of pillows takes time and is hard work (sometimes I have to take a breather afterwards!). Especially when my back hurts!

I really love those precious moments when he sticks his hands down and pushes on my bladder. LOVE that. Nothing like feeling the overwhelming need to pee my pants in the middle of work.

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Speaking of work and pain… I am starting to feel relieved that I’ll be giving up some of my hours come the last week of February. I’m only working 10 hours a week (well… usually it’s more than that, but I get paid for 10), and a lot of it is stuff that they need me to keep doing until I go on full maternity leave when the baby comes. Some of my hours consist of helping my supervisor out with the cleaning. I don’t do any of the heavy work, just sweeping and cleaning up small messes, putting down fresh water and food, etc. And the way it’s going to work is that my supervisor will take over most of my stuff while I’m gone, and my “replacement” will either help her with it or take over some of the cleaning stuff she normally does to free up her time. (My replacement isn’t as able to take over my duties.)

Well we’ve been sorting this all out for a while, trying to figure out when to transition things over to the new girl so that she can get the hang of things while I’m still around as a backup. It’s been decided that as of Feb 25 she’ll take over some of my hours so she can learn the ropes. And it was hard to do that, because the money is nice – well, right now money is a lot more than nice. And while we were planning all this I still felt fine doing everything I have been doing.

This past week though, boy, I’ve been feeling it more and more. And today really clinched it for me – I’m ready to give up some of my stuff. I’m getting slower and slower at it, and things are getting harder to do. And with my back… well the last thing I need is to really wrench something right before I go into labor. That would be some major suckage.

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This whole post may read like a whine, I realize. It’s not. It’s funny because it’s like, “Boy this sucks. Isn’t it great?!” I’m very aware that all these inconveniences are only temporary – and they really are just inconveniences. I do want to document everything though – the good and the bad. Pregnancy isn’t all roses and sunshine. Nope. You got the achy shit, the poor sleep, the stomach issues and the really weird shit that like to pop up and make you freak out a little bit. But that’s part of the package. I can appreciate the whole package. I can appreciate that, even though Devin’s kicking my ribs and making me yelp, it means he’s in there, active, doing well. I guess parenthood is kind of like this too – or so I would assume: the kid won’t always be a perfect angel, and there will be days when I’ll want to rip my hair out and lock one of us in a bathroom, but the good stuff far outweighs the bad.

Now let’s see if I can get some sleep… after I pee one more time.