Just a little more

I have a few more pictures to post in the effort to document my pregnancy and this journey Ross and I have started on.  We are now connected to this little guy for the rest of our lives.  Its kind of daunting, and I am sure we will make plenty of mistakes but hey, that's our right as parents. 

Its a little hard to see from the picture but he is very clearly a boy and he has no qualms showing it.  I did verify that it is indeed his little boyhood and not the umbilical cord, sometimes you have to be very sure on these things.  We are pretty excited and are already planning his little life in great detail to make sure he is a great success, what a lucky kid, he won't have to worry as long as he follows our plan.  We did have nursery decorating ideas and everything figured out for a girl, Ross was very sure it would be a girl, but we are flexible and hadn't bought pastels yet so I think we are safe.  I am still amazed that we were able to create another life and that this little human is inside of me.  I wonder if the surreal feeling will ever fade?

I had to do a bump picture for a couple or reasons, 1) who goes through their first pregnancy without at least one of these and B) I needed to see how big I really was.  Which I might add I was a little surprised that I was as small as I am.  All I generally see is the view from the top and let me tell you, it looks massive.  When I look down it looks about 3 times bigger than it appears in the picture, that and its starting to get in the way when I move.  My dog likes to use it as a little perch so he can get a better, higher view of the area before jumping off to get a toy, bringing it back and getting cozy on my tummy.  I don't know if this is something that I will ever get used to, and along with getting big comes the people factor.  I don't have random strangers coming up and touching my belly yet, but people do look at my belly before they look at my face.  That does get kind of annoying.

Another funny happenings these days is the baby loves to kick up a storm while I am at work, he is still pretty low and I think he gets cramped when I sit down and he is trying to kick and make space.  When I am at home he kicks some but not as much and when he is kicking I try to get Ross' hand really quick so he can feel it.  He can be kicking for 5 min straight and the second Ross puts his hand on my stomach he will stop kicking until Ross removes his hand.  Ross kept his hand on there for 10 min and nothing until his hand was removed.  We better not have a defiant child.

Problem

I think we have a problem in the Hall household.  I have noticed lately that when I am in the kitchen making food my dog disappears.  He used to sit at my feet waiting for something to fall or curl up in his bed watching every move I make.  Now, he just disappears.  The first couple of times I went looking for him to make sure he wasn't getting into something he wasn't supposed to.  He was pretty easy to find though, he was perched on my bed staring out the door.  So, maybe in the last couple of months I have spent too much time eating my bedroom, Havoc has come to expect me to take the food to the bedroom and instead of sitting on the cold kitchen tile he can sit comfortably on my bed.  I admit, when I was going through the sickness part of my pregnancy I did usually take the food back to bed so I could lay down and since we only have one chair to go with our kitchen table we don't generally eat in the kitchen.  I just hadn't realized how bad it had gotten, until my dog sits on the bed in anticipation any time I make food.  Maybe its time we got some more chairs for our table and make it more usable.

Highs and Lows

I have been told many times by different people that I need to document my pregnancy for future pregnancy information.  I have been thinking about the high parts and the low parts and honestly there aren't very many highs.  Maybe I just need to find the best of a bad situation and look for the positive.  So, this may be like 5% complaining and like 80% for my future reference.

Low:  My back and hips, and pretty much anything between my lower back and knees, are constantly in pain.  After much struggle to stand up walking is pretty painful.
High:  I get to spend quite a bit of time on my couch reading while I sit/lay on a heating pad.

Low:  My feet are already swelling up, at 21 weeks and in the cold part of the month, causing my feet to hurt and my toes to feel like they are going to be ripped open
High:  Again, I get to spend quite a bit of time on my couch reading while I lay with my feet elevated above my head. 
Low:  I am out of things to read and am desperate for something to do during this time.

Low:  Maternity clothes are really very expensive, well, for anything cute that is.
High:  I was given a lot of clothes from a friend that has helped a lot.
Low:  My butt has gotten so big that I can't wear most of the pants I was given so I have had to buy some some items.
High:  I love the maternity pants that do fit, they are comfy and I don't have to worry about my pants fitting too tight on my gut.  I may continue to wear stretchy waisted pants even after the baby is born.  Plus I never have to worry about doing up my pants or making sure my zipper are up.

Low:  Sleep is already painful and I don't get much of it due to the pain.  I have to roll over regularly or it hurts, but it hurts my back, hips and groin to roll over.
High:  My husband has started helping me roll over and adjust while he is asleep.  Who knew he would pick up on such helpfulness in his sleep. 
Side note:  He is usually very helpful, without realizing it, but one night I was trying to roll over and in his sleep he thought I was trying to get up so he was trying to push me out bed.  I had quite the struggle to stay in bed and not end up in a pile on the floor.

Low:  I still have to eat every couple of hours and drink a lot of water to keep feeling ok.
High:  The food I have to eat has to be pretty healthy or I start to feel ill.  I put this as a plus because even though I am craving the french fries and ice cream I have to eat relatively healthy which should help in the weight gain during the pregnancy and the weight loss after the pregnancy, even though it doesn't always taste as good.
Low:  I really regret when I don't eat right, my body really retaliates.

Low:  I am already starting to feel like I am the size of a house, and I am barely half way through.
High:  I was told that I am glowing and look like a sweet little pregnant lady.  This comment came shortly after I was told I looked like I was letting myself go, so maybe in theory they just cancelled each other out.  I think I am going to ignore the first comment and just go with the glow.

I'm sure there are other "wonderful" things about being pregnant that I haven't yet had the joy to discover.  I hear women say they LOVE being pregnant and its so much fun and I am now wondering what they are smoking and where I can get some of it. 

He means well . . . .

Those of you that know my husband know he is one of the nicest guys ever.  If anyone needs anything he is right there offering to help and he does the same for me.  He takes very good care of me and tries to make sure all my needs and wants are met.  That being said he is also a guy and maybe some of my reactions come from the pregnancy hormones (its all the pregnancy's fault right?).  The following are a couple of the interactions we have had lately.

Last Saturday he was getting ready to go running outside and I asked if he was going to the track down the street and if so I was going to join him.  He said he would do that so I could get out and walk some.  I put on my running/yoga pants and as we are walking down the street he looked behind me and said "wow, your butt is really big now."  Hmmm, I don't think that's ever a good statement.  And as I tried to pull my shirt lower to cover my butt he tried to tell me it was ok and it looked good.  I don't know about that.  Since then, when discussing the statement he says that his statement was "you can tell your butt is getting bigger." (or something close to that.)  Either way, I don't think its a very good thing to hear and now I need to get longer shirts.

One day last week we were laying on the bed talking and catching up after a long day of work and school and he put his arm around me and onto my stomach and was jiggling it a little then commented "wow, I can fit my hand under your stomach it sticks out so much."  Again, not a statement I was thrilled with.  He says he thinks its cute, but when you feel huge, so much bigger than you think you should, its not always appreciated.  I think I am a little insecure with my stomach for a couple reasons, one of which is I am not used to being this rotund and two, I have seen other's that are farther along than me and don't stick out as much as I do.  My mother has been good at easing my concern saying that everyone grows differently and has different builds.  I know I shouldn't compare myself to others, after all very large babies run in Ross' family, and the thought of a 12 pound baby scares me, maybe just a little.

Last Sunday when I picked Ross up after I was done in primary and we were walking outside Ross told me "So, I was talking to brother Oliver about your pain in your girlie area and . . . "  That's all I heard when I may have over reacted a little.  I was a little shocked and maybe a tiny bit mortified that Ross would be discussing my private areas with a member of our bishopric.  He cut off my little rant to inform me that he was a doctor so it was ok.  I didn't feel very ok with it, not in church and not with someone at church.  After calming down a little I did find it very nice of him that he was trying to be helpful and watch out for me.  He was asking to see if it was a normal pain and if there was anything we could do about it to help ease it.  He does watch out for me and has become even more protective since I have become pregnant and I really do appreciate all he does, I'm just a little bit of a private person with certain matters and wasn't excited to have parts of me discussed at church with a guy I don't know.

Despite these little things that Ross says he is pretty amazing and the best husband I have ever had.  When I wake up in the night and am in too much pain to roll over but it hurts to not roll over he helps me.  He helps me get out of bed in the mornings, probably the only way I would be able to with how bad my back and hips hurt and he is supportive of me finding ways to ease the "fun" pregnancy symptoms.  Even with his less than sensitive comments I think I will keep him.

Food

How I used to love to eat.  But that was back when food tasted good, didn't make me sick and wasn't a chore.  For weeks 8-14 I was so sick that most food made me feel worse and the thought of eating anything was horrible.  However, I knew I must eat so I would make my way to the kitchen, make something simple then go back to be do eat it laying down.  Eventually my dishes would make it back to the kitchen, whether by me on one of my food trips or by an annoyed husband.  I was too sick to care what my kitchen and house looked like.  I soon realized that the more I ate the less sick (to an extent) I felt, so I was eating and eating and then I would eat some more.  I think I was up to eating almost every hour.  Then the doctor told me I couldn't work out for a couple weeks (I had been doing good at going to water aerobics, even when I felt sick) and now I have this extra weight that I am not so fond of, and no, its not from the baby.  Now that the sickness is easing up a little its still a chore to eat but I can be more choosy about what food I put in me and hopefully it will help me loose this extra weight, no, I am not dieting, just hoping not to gain anymore at this time cause honestly I have put on a lot of weight.  Thanks to Bountiful Baskets I get lots of fresh produce every other week.  It gives me a variety and sometimes I get to try a new fruit or vegetable and it gives me healthy options for my snacks.  I just wish I could go back to when food was fun and it tasted good and I didn't have adverse reactions.  I hope it all goes back to normal after August.

Heaven Help Me

I wish someone had warned me.  I didn't know this smell thing would be this bad while I am pregnant.  I avoid some places because of the smells.  I have tried sitting with the congregation at church but there are too many different smells and not all of them good, so we sit in the lobby with the fresh air.  I have had many a conversation/argument about what Bre can get for lunch at work.  With us sitting 3 feet apart what she decides to have for lunch makes a big impact on the rest of my day.  It all started one day, early in the pregnancy, when she brought in Panda Buffet, it was all I could do to hold it in and not vomit in my trash can.  Since then we have had many discussions, some of them a little heated and absurd, about what she can get for lunch.  Usually she is very good about it, but today, man whatever she got is not good at all.  I was talking with someone at church who said that there is no need for a blood hound when a pregnant women is around, and I have come to learn how true that really is.  I have been able to pick up and get sick from the coffee stench at work that is clear across the room.  Ross has looked at me like I'm insane a couple times cause I could smell some things he couldn't and he puts up with me covering his face with a pillow when his breath is not pretty.  I think the spicy breath is the worst part of.  Some things at my home have gone un taken care of because of the smell.  I had thought as the sickness goes away so would the smell factor but its just as strong.

Yea for arms

Yesterday we got to have another ultra sound.  Its still so amazing to me that there is a living, growing thing inside of me.  Today's ultrasound was very interesting to me.  One of the first things both Ross and I noticed at the same time and commented on at the same time was that it has arms.  That is very good to know (no, we weren't that concerned).  Then I noticed that you can actually see the heart inside its body, it was beating away and you could see each beat of the heart.  The tech then showed us more of the body and we could see the little legs, it was on its back with its legs indian style, all folded up.  The tech was trying to get a good picture of the face and when we saw it, I don't know what to say other than it was bizarre.  We could see the face bones and the skull.  Ross commented it looked like a daemon spawn and that I must be right about Ross being a daemon.  It was just so weird to be able to see the face but just the bones.

Its so weird to look at a baby and be able to see the spine, but you can see the arms this time up by its face.  I am almost a week away from being able to see the gender, too bad I didn't put the appointment for next week.  But we have to wait until our next appointment to find out the gender.  The little thing doesn't move very much so I was told to drink a coke or something I don't normally drink next time to see if we can get it moving and hopefully show us its goods.