11 Weeks Pregnant, Down

Warning, this post is kinda long, cause I cover not only pregnancy, but house stuff at the end too. So if you are only into house stuff, just scroll down.


I’m hitting the big 1-2 (weeks) today. Only two weeks left of the first trimester. (And the crowd goes wild!)

So how was week 11?

Not bad.

Which after many weeks of very bad, feels equivalent to great!

(Well until Monday night…but we will get to that.)

Food:
The queasiness has gone down significantly. I keep telling myself it’s gone. But the thing is, it’s really not all the way gone, so I get confused when I feel it again. I’m just so pumped to be almost done with it that I take things a bit too far in my mind. :)
Generally speaking, I don’t have it any where near as strong anymore. And I don’t have it anywhere near as many hours. Before it was all day and night long. Now it’s just here and there, but mostly at night.
However, that said, Monday was a pretty ify day for me the whole day. I had to tell the girls like 500 times that I wasn’t feeling up to stuff. (They couldn’t really comprehend that any more, since I’ve been back to my normal-ish self for a bit.) And by Monday night I had thrown up two times. Which is a pregnancy first for me -- morning sickness has never made me throw up before now. So kinda weird that as I am getting better that happens. I think I let myself go too long without food -- but I couldn’t think of anything I could eat that was in the house -- and Blake was running to the store, so I tried to just wait till he got home, but I threw up twice while he was gone. I’ll spare you the details, but I was struck by the way morning sickness throwing up is very different, and yet very similar to actually sick throwing up. The rest of that night was pretty darn gross feeling. (And since that was only yesterday, I’m hoping I get to still count myself as feeling better for week 12…)

So yeah, I do have to make sure to eat often to help stay feeling ok. But since I know that I can usually keep it at bay till the evening. But both endearingly, and annoyingly, night time nausea can be mildly cured by ice cream. Not kidding. If I eat ice cream it goes down significantly. If I eat something else it usually gets worse. After I threw up, the only thing I could stomach was ice cream -- and I had to eat something to stop the madness. So while I do enjoy me some ice cream, I do feel the health-guilt. Oh well right. At this point if it’s only gonna make me fat, not the baby. I’ve lost baby weight before, I’ll lose it again.

The good news is, even though I officially haven’t really eaten anything considered healthy this week, I can envision myself eating things like chicken and salads and veggies. And while that might sound like a pathetic statement, I actually think it’s a big deal.  Before this week, the very thought of food like that felt like death in my gut -- not an imaginary pain, but a real pain, just from a mental image. So now that I can eat it in my minds eye, I think that soon I’ll be eating healthier again. Which makes me feel a bit better.

I can tell tastes are shifting. I like plain water now. Not lemon water. (Dislike that now.) And I ate some chilly at the end of this week and that tasted like magic comfort delights.  And I am back to drinking my beloved morning coffee. (Missed you old friend!)

Physically:
I still haven’t made it to the Y to swim again this week. I thought I would. I felt like I had a return of energy. But it’s not quite enough yet. (I’m hoping this upcoming week I’ll make it.)

That’s been the tricky part of this week. Like I said before, not feeling awful, made me feel over confident. The first couple days I felt better I over did it. I thought I’d take the girls to the library. And so we went, and they were great. But the experience was just too much for my body. When I got home I was so spent, that I didn’t feel in control of my emotions at all. I just wanted to introvert out. But we are in the “why” stage. So I was on the verge of losing my mind. Once Blake got home he left me to be alone with a book so I could recover. I did something similar another day just doing too much around the house and so in evening I was Crankypants Magee again. Since then I’ve been trying to judge where I am really at physically a bit more accurately.

Lesson here, I’m doing good, not great. And that’s ok. Eventually I’ll be back at a normal pace. For now I need to accept the ability to do a little with great joy. (And believe me, I am. I REALLY disliked the weeks prior to this.)

Emotionally:
So I spent the entirety of weeks 6 -10 nonstop chanting to myself “I’m never doing this again.” As well as “I think this is what chemo feels like.” A trip up my flight of stairs felt like it earned a 2 hour nap. I was seriously non-functional. Just being awake and getting the girls enough food to live till Blake got home was nearly impossible.
So I just kept chanting to myself, “I’m never doing this again."

So I was sure I’d be able to retain this intense experience fully. But the weird thing is already this week, while feeling better-ish, I’ve forgotten exactly how bad it is. And have already told myself a bunch of times, “See it wouldn’t be so bad to do it at least one more time, see how ok you feel now.”
Is that crazy? It sorta sounds like it. lol. I don’t know.

In other news emotionally:
This week I’ve been reading a ton of birthing info on random fears I come up with. This weeks favorite fear was shoulder dystocia. (Just because it happens sometimes, no bigger reason that that.) After all the reading I’ve done, I think I may now actually be certified to deliver a baby with shoulder dystocia. (Cause I wasn’t reading just WebMD kinda pages -- those kind of pages are always terrifying -- I was reading things like different midwives’ in numerous countries information pages. I don’t mess around.)
Knowing stuff always makes me feel better. If I know information, I can make choices I feel confident in.  If I don’t know something, I feel subject to endless invented fears about it. So now I feel much less nervous about shoulder dystocia since I read all about it  (and a few other random things I ended up clicking through to as well.)

Clothes:
This week proved to me clothes are not as easy as I thought they would be this time.
     Granted they aren’t as hard as the first time. (I had no clue that time. Was always afraid to buy stuff cause I didn’t know how long it would last. Never really liked anything I bought.) And well, the second time I really honestly didn’t give a crap. I just wore lose regular dresses and leggings every single day. 
     This time I wanted to try and attempt to feel naturally cute for one pregnancy at least. So I thought I had all my first trimester stuff picked out. And they were working until I popped a lot sooner than I thought I would. (See last week’s pics.) Then everything was making me feel fat. I didn’t have any real maternity jeans to speak of. I got rid of the ones from #1 because they were too big. I had one pair I tried to make for #2 but they were so uncomfortable I hated them. So all I had to go on were a couple pairs I was given that have the really short waist band. So I was trying to wear those this week. But that kind of band has never worked on me at any stage. (I assume they must work for some people because they make them. But I am not one of them.) They kept falling down (nearly off my butt) all day (and not because my butt so so dainty either.) And when they were up, they were giving me extra-high-up muffin top where they came to an end -- since my baby bump is still very soft. Not the look or feel I was hoping for.
So Saturday I went shopping. (Christmas Shopping bonanza abounded around me.) I hit Motherhood Maternity since I knew I like their belly panels the most.
I tried on pretty much every pair of jeans they had. (Excluding ones I could just tell were not my style while holding them.) And let me tell you, I am obsessed with how great Jessica Simpson’s maternity jeans are. Wow. They are clearly the nicest quality of jeans that store has. You can just feel it when picking them up along side any other brand in there. The fabric feels softer and more authentic. And the belly panel is the same story. (Hers have their own kind of panel with her emblem subtlety woven in.) Her panels are much more sturdy feeling. When you pull them on, they do a really nice job of smoothing your belly. I imagine these being nice postpartum. And the leg/butt fit (at least on me) is amazing! I went from feeling dumpy and chubby in what I had been wearing, to slim, cute and looking good in as many seconds as it took to pull them on. I was wowed. They had a buy one get one half off sale, so I bought the skinny jean version (in petite, since I’m 5’3”. They are a great length for me.)And I bought the slim-boot cut as well. (Regular length was all they had in store, but they work for me ok. Petite would probably only work for flats.)  Because as in-style as skinny jeans are, sometimes I don’t feel like skinny jeans look the best on my body for every kind of outfit. So I figured get both with the sale.

I took some pictures for you. I feel lame doing it. But I thought it might help anyone who’s looking to shop. I also should have taken photos in the bad pants so you could see the major improvement  -- but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it -- muffin top online? I do a lot for you guys, but my hormones aren’t up for it ;) (P.S. I was too tired to do my hair or put on make up for any of the photos on here today. Oh well.)

So here are the skinny jeans:

As much as I think these pants do for my butt -- there is only so much pants can do ;)

And the boot cut:

Look they even give me a thigh gap! ;)

Sorry. 

Pitiful!

(My thighs don’t gap, ever, even if I was starving to death -- 

which is actually good news for me since my hubby finds the thigh gap scary. If your thighs do gap -- pay no attention to him, he just found the legs for him on me. :) Works out nicely.)

I’ve been wearing them for three days and they are incredibly comfortable. Like seriously the same level of comfort as my yoga pants. (I may be wearing these maternity pants for life? Ssh, don’t tell. :) ) Moral of the story. If you are pregnant, or will be in the future, try these pants on! I’ve come to decide that a good pair of maternity jeans can make or break your mental state while pregnant. I’m so glad Jessica Simpson had kids and made these jeans in my childbearing era -- it’s a rather big jean breakthrough if you ask me.

The Belly:

Anyway, all that said. I can’t feel any really difference in belly size. (I’m kinda hoping it doesn’t get too big yet -- I mean, I’m not even in my second trimester yet! Sheesh!) 

But Blake gave me a hug yesterday and said it felt like a baby belly. So things they are a changin.

With #2

Baby:
I do think I feel flutters kind of a lot. I can’t wait till I get the real-deal-kick-feelings. And I really can’t wait till everyone else can feel them too! Jasmine loves to talk to the baby all the time. She’s gonna LOVE feeling kicks! Makes me hope this baby is a kicker. (I also hope this baby is a sleeper! But that’s another story. Time will tell. I’ll love 'em either way.)

Christmas update:
An awesome friend gave us a really pretty tree this week. She saw my blog post, had an extra and just offered to bring it over. (Amazing!) So we are Christmas-ed up now. And that feels good.
Yesterday me and the girls decorated it together, and I had to bite my tongue the whole time as they were doing things like placing 7 ornaments on the same stem of the same branch. Eventually we talked the ornaments into a more even placement. And yet, right now, as I type, I’m watching the excellent job I did of decorating, with everything spaced well and looking lovely, be dismantled and rearranged by my 4 year old who is sure she is improving things. Half of me is super annoyed, and half of me thinks its cute. And those two half just can’t get the other one to agree with the other -- my head is ready to tell them both to shut up!
  Random rabbit trail: I’m always struck by how we spend our whole lives trying to get really, really good at things, and we finally do, just in time to have kids and give up all the awesomeness we achieved so they can start that whole process themselves. I kinda wish someone had sat me down as a teenager and told me “Hey, no matter how good you get at …. FILL IN THE BLANK….plucking your eyebrows, wedding photography, decorating a christmas tree, shopping well and dressing for your body….whatever you can think of….no matter how good you get at it, once you have kids it won’t matter the same way, and it won’t be achievable the same way, and it won’t be the same thing. Don’t try so hard now. Just have fun. Later on if you have gotten it all figured out, you’ll just be irritated beyond belief that you have to start from scratch again, because it feels like robbery. Don’t worry about this stuff, try to stay a kid, so when you have kids you won’t be so lost.”

Back to Christmas: Our advent calendar of bags taped to the wall, has died. The tape wasn’t strong enough to hold it up. And after the 7th or so time it fell down, Blake was ready to bomb the wall. So we just set the bags up by our tiny tree. It works.

House stuff:
The same friends who brought our tree, also was awesome enough to help us move our credenza. Not once, but twice! I had originally bought it thinking “kitchen breakfast bar” (Like this kinda thing.) But once I had lived with it in the space long enough I didn’t feel like it was “right.” I couldn’t decorate around it. It felt too formal for the whole vision I had of the room. And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted the space available to turn the table the other direction. (Once we turned the table I felt SO GOOD -- the space works so much better this way. It’s actually the way I envisioned it being placed once the end-all kitchen makeover happens, so it makes sense to just do it now.)
     So I thought the credenza would be a great thing to set at the end of the living room -- since that space is un-solved as to how to use it.  So our friends helped us move it. (Blake doesn’t want me lifting it, since it’s hefty.) But once it got in the space it felt really off. REALLY off. It’s scale next to the fireplace was all wrong. And it’s look was just too formal in there too. I was starting to think I’d need to sell it, that maybe I had bought a beautifully wrong item for our house.
     But then the light bulb went off. I suddenly decided it must go in the family room. It should be the TV stand, instead of our toy cabinets. And then I crossed my fingers that the toy cabinets would look ok in the fireplace nooks. Because I really can’t see living without them -- their function is perfection for us. So our awesome friends came back and moved it again for me. And let me tell you, I LOVE it in this room. LOVE IT. And surprisingly I really like the toy cabinets in the nooks as well. I was really worried that their more mid-centery modern (ish) look would scream “I don’t belong here” next to the credenza. Especially since they are opposite wood tones. But surpassingly it doesn’t bother me at all. I’m loving the way they cabinets fill in that space and make it feel real and useful. If they color difference bothers me eventually, I could always refinish the doors or paint (But I like the wood grain, so I doubt I’d paint.) When we get time (which may be in 100 years) I’d like to fill in the gap on the left side with an open bookcase shelf thing, to make it seem done.

Like how I cleaned up for you? ;)

     But the credenza in this room is like a HUGE upgrade to the space. We’ve been tweeking this room for a while now. And it slowly went from random stuff after a move, to a room that’s on purpose. But now it feels like a real room. I’m so glad we tried it in here.

This lame “I’m pregnant, I don’t care” photo does the room no justice.

Other than that, Blake’s been working on rewiring this amazing antique real bronze lantern. I found it at a architectural salvage we have here in Champaign. I saw it there a few times and would just stare and drool. I didn’t think I had anywhere to put it. But then I figured out I could put it in our reading room. And I snatched that puppy right up. I even got a talked down a deal on it. Only $20!
We had planned to have a place in town rewire it, just to save us the effort. But then they told us it would cost $100 to do. (This is why I can never NOT DIY. Professionals are not cheap for anything.) So we went to go get it back (unfixed) and Blake has spent $10 to do it ourselves. 

Yep. DIY. The only way for me.
    But it was funny, because we left it at the shop for a long time. (Essentially they forgot to call us, and then we forgot to call them.) So when Blake carried it back in the house, I had forgotten what it looked like, and my heart seriously skipped a beat when I saw it again. I really like this light.
     Now he just has to figure out the random wiring of that room again (we unhooked the old light a year ago -- he’s gotta remember what’s going on in there.) And then that room will be lit! Woohoo! BUT also, the power will once again flow to most of the living room outlets that have been out of commission for a year, since it’s all connected and needs the circuit to close. Can’t wait!

And in color news: I was initially horrified by the color we put on the walls in the living room. It’s a vaguely purpley gray. But before we put our bamboo floors in, it was screaming lavender.

(You cant tell as much in this photo as I’d like, but the white floors made the walls really purple)

 Once the floors were it, it went back to mostly gray.

But I never really loved it. Recently I had an emotional gut reaction that the space NEEDS to be a dark navy blue. Blake is so on board with this.
   I’ve been thrilled with the color in the reading room.

I love being in that space. I love the deep enveloping sensation, the coziness, the feeling that the room has purpose. I really love being in there.

But in contrast, the living room has zero welcome to it. It feels extremely purposeless. Part of this is because the furniture layout and use of the room is a mystery to me -- but it’s more than that. The color of the room isn’t doing anything. It’s clearly better than the the old yellow, but it’s just kinda a nothing for the space. Not a plus, not a minus. I think if I can find the right blue the space will sing for me. I think it will call you to come in and stay, not let you walk past. Not sure when I’ll get to this. Not sure how long it will take me to commit to a blue (not sure if I will change my mind.) Not sure how easy it will be to be sure of the color without any real lights in the space. (The room has no over head lights. We’d like to put some in, but it’s gonna be a feat. So it might be a LONG time.) But either way -- the thought has me excited about the space for the first time. I’ve been mentally wrestling that thing to the ground -- it’s a HARD space.

I’ve also begun to question my color choice for the kitchen. It was made solely on the reaction it had to the pinky-beige backsplash that was in there. But once I painted the backsplash tiles white, I felt like maybe the color choice was wasted. I feel like maybe I should just go white. I’m trying to put my finger on my ultimate kitchen -- not because I plan on having the ultimate kitchen, but because I need know which direction is mine. I think I’m a white kitchen person. I think I need white walls. But I’m not sure I need white cabinets. But maybe I do. I’ve started a (‘nother) kitchen board on pinterest, where I am just pinning kitchens that I can see myself wanting to cook in. And trying to put my finger on what they have in common. My other boards I was pinning stuff I thought looked pretty. Or stuff I thought I could do to my current space. But this board is basically a mood searching space. What makes me feel motivated in a kitchen? I’m trying to figure it out. This once again isn’t something I plan on getting done in my house anytime soon. I don’t know if I can prime the cabinets while pregnant (oil based primer is best, and it’s too smelly) and I know I won’t have time with a baby. But I like starting the search now to understand my vibe. And I’d like to make sure I really have a handle on it for the day way down the road (I’m thinkin like 10 years -- because I don’t wanna deal with the mess yet) when we really really redo the kitchen. (Remove that wall, reconfigure things.)

So yeah, not a ton is happening in the house yet. I still need to get well. But once I do, I’ll be hitting the main bathroom upstairs with some white paint. And I’ll be scrubbing down the last half of the hallway up there -- getting the rest of the wallpaper goop off. And the painting that. Then we will move onto anything else. Like navy blue living room. And I have all these closet makeover dreams. I’d like to get the coat closet figured out and tackled before baby.


So there’s my week.
I hope this week 12 proves to get me out of the woods. But I nervous after last night. Wish me luck!