22 Weeks Pregnant With #3

Well, Blake and my mom said a few times this week that I seem to be feeing better. I keep pondering this through. And I’m not sure what exactly to say.
     I guess my nausea and exhaustion have become a bit more tolerable. But I’m not sure if that’s just because I’m getting so used to it all that I’m functioning better, or if I am starting to feel slightly less gross.

     I guess there is marked improvement from actual first trimester days where I literally couldn’t function. So maybe I am a bit better.
     But there are some very clear memories of nausea this week. And there has definitely been extremely tired days.

I am nauseous as I type this (Monday Morning). The way I feel it this week is like usual, in my stomach, but also to feel it in my throat, like a tightness, or like it’s full of something I can’t swallow away.
But maybe that’s a good sign, because that’s actually how my nausea started out this pregnancy. I didn’t feel it in my stomach, just my throat felt like that before it really set in. So maybe it’s going in reverse now?

I don’t know how to think about it. I’m totally over the idea of positive thinking this away. Because I did that through my whole first trimester, saying “If I just make it till Christmas I will be fine, I will feel great again.” When I didn’t it was really hard not to get depressed. I don’t feel like going through that again. So I’m just not assuming anything. Not assuming I’m better. Not assuming I’m worse. Just assuming I can make it either way.

I do feel like my brain is clearer. That’s a good sign.
(By Monday afternoon {and Tuesday morning, which really counts as next week} I’m starting to feel emotional stamina, and I’m starting to recognize myself again. I can hear thoughts turning into plans, which is how I normally am, but the endless sickness had started to kill that off, which had started to kill off hope. But hearing those thoughts make real plans again is a big boost to my hope.)

But for most the rest of the week I didn’t feel any real emotional gains. In fact I cried twice this week (at least) just because of the emotional exhaustion I’ve been inside.

I don’t have a very clear memory of this week.
My mom came to visit. That helped me get our wall done in the family room.
Well, I think it actually needs two more things hung up on the left side -- but those pictures aren't ready yet.

Enjoy this very professionally done photo.  :p

I worry the left side is too tight together, and the right side is too lose apart. I may have to tweak something. (The lighter stuff is hung up with 3M velcro stuff -- so those are easier to move, but the mirrors are on screws in the wall -- So I don’t really want to move those and make all the holes crazy.)

Saturday some of our relatives came to town to visit us. We took the kids to the children’s museum here in town. That was the first time I had been there. The kids had a great time. I was was really only impressed by the water table -- which Blake and I decided we would not mind having one in our back yard. :) But the rest seemed kinda not as great as other small kid’s museums I’ve been to for the money.
The experience was definitely more than my pregnant body really wanted to do. But to be honest, kid-places in general are not my speed -- so much sound, so much visual overload, so much making sure I don’t lose my kids.

Blake let me run out to the stores on Sunday. And I was trying to find a couple more cozy clothes that I also thought were cute-ish. (Was looking for something pregnant-akin to this from themomedit.) But it was futile. This is that crazy time of year where the stores start bringing out all the cute spring stuff, but the world is covered in snow and ice and freezingness, and you just don’t know what makes sense to buy. How long with the snow stay? How much wear will I get out of sweat-pants-like things?
And I was over-thinking every time I tried something on, because I know these clothes aren’t gonna last me. Even if they are cozy clothes -- I don’t think they will fit right in a year.  (Why I say this is because my pre-this-pregnancy relaxed-loungey-who-cares clothes are almost all too tight -- so it stands to reason there won’t be a good cross over.) So I don’t feel like any amount of money is a right amount to spend on them. Even if I day dream of feeling cute in loungewear -- that’s actually never gonna happen anyway -- loungewear just means “blah” no matter what. 

So I didn’t buy any clothes. I just tried on a bunch of stuff, straining my pregnant body, and tempting myself to get scared of my new fat supplies.

I guess I just keep wearing my pair only pair of yoga pants every day -- the ones that I accidentally got some paint on the bottom of -- guess the paint means it won’t matter if I malform them over time with these hips that don’t lie.

(Can I just say I’m so into wearing all black. All black makes even pj-like-stuff look kinda like clothes.)

     Thankfully, as much as clothes shopping is a blow to my ego, I’ve been through this before and I can handle it much better than before. So this is one area I’m doing pretty good with on the positive thinking -- I look at smaller-than-me-right-now-clothes while I’m at the store and have no doubt in my mind I will fit them later. (Not like size zero, just like size healthy-for-me.) Because I know I’ve done it twice already. Which is a peaceful thought. (I like peaceful thoughts right about now -- so I cling to those, regardless of their vanity.)

Anyway: I feel the baby a lot now. I can see my belly jump here and there throughout the day. I love that. But sadly I’ve yet to get Blake to feel any of them because the timing is just never right. It drives me nuts. I just want to have him feel it!
I’ve started to try and figure out which way baby is facing. (Not in a crazy obsessed way like last pregnancy -- just for fun.) But so far I have no clue. Everything feels like everything to me. I figure with as big as my belly is now, and how not-so-big baby is supposed to be right now, baby is probably doing massive acrobatic flips and flops and everything probably really is everything still. I probably do feel kicks at the top and the bottom.

As far as gender guesses…I’m pretty settled on just saying “I don’t know” and really just being surprised no matter what. But I can’t help but lean most the time towards boy, just because this pregnancy is nothing like the last two -- I feel like that’s the only good explanation. So a lot of times I end up saying “he” when talking about the baby. But then one day this week I got just suddenly set on the idea that “she” really is a girl and couldn’t say anything but she for a couple days. So it all boils down to being super surprised either way. Which I am getting more and more endeared by as time goes on and I think about meeting the baby. (Which, once again is weird to me -- since I’d never wanted to be surprised before.)

While I was out shopping on Sunday I stopped and stared at baby clothes for a while. I was going to buy some gender neutral new-baby-needs-to-wear-SOMETHING-right-off-the-bat-clothes. And after picking up something and holding it while looking at more, I would put it back. And then I would pick up another something, hold it for a while and put it back. Over and over. Till I finally just told myself, “This is too early to worry about it anyway.” And put it all back. I’ll shop again when I’m closer.


I’ve had a lot of thoughts this week. Some pretty deep ones. I’m not ready to put them all on here.

But one of the less-super-deep one I’ve been stuck on this week is how I want to commit to judging less. Which in my case boils down to admitting I don’t know most things.
This pregnancy has put the smack down on me as far as "things I know.”
The difference in this pregnancy has challenged me physically for sure. But it also has challenged me to rethink almost all the things I knew before, and reframe them as "things I have experienced.”
I think that is very interesting because, as far as I can see, Mommy-wars seem to be based in assumptions that one mommy-experience is every mommy-experience. And that is sweepingly untrue.

But perhaps more important than applying it to mommy wars contexts is just applying it to all social interaction.
So often I’ve watched people respond to my pregnancy inside the context of their pregnancy (or perhaps their spouse’s.) By the way: This is not a lecture to anyone. Only a written out thing I have learned for my own use.  When people do this, that means that only women who’ve experienced a hard pregnancy can respond appropriately to me (but even then it’s still through their experience’s lens -- it’s not often that we match up exactly.) The rest of the people who try to talk to me about pregnancy, are left fumbling for words, often alienating us from each other. I’ve even watched women throw some pretty hard insults out in the process, probably totally on accident (not always to me, but other mommas too --- it’s especially easy to see online) based on the fact that they assume their pregnancy is equivalent to another momma’s.
     What I think I’ve figured out through observing this is: If I learn to not “know things” based on my experience, but teach myself that my experience is just my experience….I can open up to people in a new and better way. Because all that is left to do is ask and to listen about their experience.
     I’ve had perhaps a handful of times where I have met people who do this in their day to day conversations, and I have never been more drawn in by a person than those times. I didn’t really understand how they did it. But now I get it.
     Clearly there are times when we need to do more than just listen. But being listened to is so rare, its like magic when it happens. And so this pregnancy is teaching me I want to make that kind of magic. I think it’s gonna take practice. But I’m gonna practice it.
But to be honest, I’m gonna find it supremely hard to do in cases where people are very adamant about their experience being the only right way to do thing….that’s gonna take me some time to wrap my mind around that and what to do with it, seeing as how it’s kinda opposite of what I’m coming to. This probably applies most to internet talking, but I do find strong internet talking to change my opinion of people in person. Anyway... This is not the point.
The point is I’m gonna work on trying not to judge and recognizing my experience is not every experience. And I’m going to work on active listening.

Belly Comparisons: