Changes

Well, so much for the running. Ever since July, I've been really dragging. I've never felt fatigue like this before in my life and I wonder if this is what people with chronic fatigue syndrome have to deal with every day. How terrible. I have felt like carrying around my body is a burden, like I wish I could just leave it at home and go on my way. Like, if I could take off my arms so I wouldn't have to cart them around with me, I would totally do it. And my pace is so slow that J has had to adjust to walking with me as if I am a senior citizen.

I've also been hungry. And a carnivore. It used to be easy enough for me to live like a vegetarian just based on the kinds of things I like, but ever since July I've been craving red meat like a starving anemic or something. I used to complain to J that he cooks too much meat (tacos or burgers, usually), but suddenly I couldn't get enough of it.

Oh, and I'm gaining weight. (Naturally, given the lack of exercise and the eating.)

And I have to pee all the time, particularly every couple of hours in the middle of the night. I'm also really thirsty all of the time, so not drinking water isn't really an option. Anyway, it makes it hard to sleep when I keep having to get up.

And then today I bought acne medicine for the first time in my life. I didn't even know what kind to buy and had to read the descriptions on all of the packages to figure out what kind I needed. I ended up with Neutrogena something or other that's supposed to get rid of zits and reduce redness.

I have given up sushi.

And alcohol.

Can you guess why?

Ok, so a lot of you reading this already know, but for those who were reading what I just wrote and thinking that I'm just turning into a fat lazy slob with zits... nope! I'm pregnant!

I've been meaning to write about this for a while now, but first we played the waiting game. That's the game where you wait three months to tell people you're pregnant just in case you have a miscarriage and can't deal with the grief at the same time as having to then tell people you lost the baby, yet for those three months you're supposed to carry on as if you aren't worrying about a thing. Not surprisingly, I wasn't very good at that game.

And also, once the fatigue hit, I just couldn't find the energy to write up a post that sounded at all enthusiastic about being pregnant.

And then there was Brazil. Which was a lot of fun and a great experience. Everything I've written about in the past few posts is true. But it was also exhausting. I wish we could have gone about a month later because already I'm starting to feel better. However, I did eat very well while I was there. (Did I mention my carnivore cravings? Brazil has some fantastic meat. And the most amazing fruit juices.)

On the plus side, I haven't been nauseous at all! I just don't know how women handle being both exhausted and nauseous for two to three months, and I'm so glad I didn't have to deal with that.

Even better, starting last week, I've started to feel much, much better with regard to fatigue. There was one day when I even went out after work and ran a bunch of errands. I was practically giddy afterwards. I've come down a bit since then. Yesterday I worked a 10 hour day and was a crying mess once I finally got home. Today was a more reasonable work day, but I still took a half hour nap on the couch when I got home (while J went out running). But things are looking significantly better.

Now for the baby details. I'm about 13 weeks along, so I'm right at the end of the first trimester.

I'm not really showing, at least to the rest of the world, but I can definitely tell. My pants are too tight. I took my biggest jeans with me to Brazil and they were uncomfortably tight when I was sitting down, which I think is a combination of having gained a little weight and also a slightly expanding belly. My favorite jeans were tighter than that and those are simply not wearable. So when I was out on my recent errands trip, I stopped to shop for some maternity clothes. And wow, did I feel ridiculous. All the pants I tried on were huge, and I felt like an imposter for even trying them on. I didn't even try any shirts on, but so far shirts aren't a problem anyway. But eventually I ended up at Mimi Maternity where a very nice sales person helped me and didn't make me feel at all silly for looking for pants at this stage. I get the impression that this is what women go looking for first. Anyway, there are other "tricks" I could have tried, like not buttoning my pants all the way and using an elastic to latch them and then wearing a long shirt, but that just makes me feel like I'm exposing myself or something. There are also these stretchy tubes that you're supposed to wear over your unbuttoned pants, but that also makes me feel slightly undressed. So I bought some maternity pants that I am really happy with. They are totally wearable right now (and wow, are they comfortable! they're like wearing pajamas), but I will also be able to grow with them. So I don't need to count the days until I feel justified shopping for maternity clothes - now I'm all set for a while.

I've only had one ultrasound so far and that was to date the baby so it was very early on - they dated the embryo at 6 weeks and 2 days. All I could see on the ultrasound was black area that they said was the gestational sac, a white ring that they said was the yolk sac, and then a pulsing white spot that was the baby and the pulsing was its heartbeat (that part was very cool). Getting the ultrasound wasn't all that pleasant however. We sat in the waiting room until we were really, really bored. Then, once I was undressed and on the table, they told me that I was supposed to come with a full bladder. It really would have been useful for someone to tell me this because I don't think that's really common knowledge among those of us who have never had an ultrasound for a pregnancy. Well, let me tell you why that's important - a full bladder makes it so the uterus is higher up and they can find it. But otherwise, it's kind of buried in there and they have to find other ways of getting at it, namely, inserting the ultrasound camera. Sorry, I realize that's probably tmi for some of you, but for those of you who might ever be in the situation, now you know. Drink lots of water before you get an ultrasound.

(Oh, side note, ultrasounds are insanely expensive. We got an explanation of benefits in the mail, showing the cost of the ultrasound at about $1300 and the $1280 in payments made by our insurance, leaving us with only a $20 co-payment. How in the world do uninsured people pay for prenatal care?!)

Since then we've heard the heartbeat one other time, this time with a doppler, at around 11 weeks. So we know that things are good so far!

We don't know what the sex of the baby is because an ultrasound won't show that until at least 18 weeks, and usually people do that around 20 weeks. We are going to ask to know because, well, why not?

And that's it. We'll see if I maintain this energy level that allows me to keep blogging. :)