let the stretching begin. each day, I feel my stomach getting a little bigger, a little longer, and a little less jiggly. which is good in a way, I suppose. now I can start filling out some of my larger maternity shirts. get my money's worth.

people have been asking me if I feel the baby move yet. well, I'm not quite sure. it might be my imagination. but I think it is movement. it's something I can't think about too hard or I get wigged out. alot of people say "oh, there's a life inside you, it's so precious and special" and that's true if you think about it just on the surface. but think about that statement - there is a life inside you. something that is not you is alive and inside your body. if it weren't a baby - if it were, say, some sort of weird parasitic worm - you'd be pretty freaked out. so you have no control over this other being that is moving around inside you and living off of what you eat and produce inside your body. yes, it's a miracle and I can't believe this is how people actually reproduce, but it can also be pretty odd if you think about it. so, the answer is, don't think about it. until it MOVES.....

so anyways, I was at my friend's wedding shower over the weekend, and there were 4 people in the room with me that were also pregnant and several who are trying. I come to work, and there are at least 4 people I see often that are pregnant. I go out, and see tons of giant bellies. I don't know if the whole world decided to get pregnant all at once, like a post-war baby boom or what, or if it's just like when you buy a honda civic and start noticing honda civics wherever you go. like that's hard. alright, stick in the car of your choice then. pt cruisers, like mine. anyways. you get the point.

maybe it is an estrogen revolution. or rather a progesterone revolution. hcg revolution. whatever. all I'm saying is that WE'RE TAKING OVER, AND WE HAVE BEINGS LIVING INSIDE US.

big day yesterday. doctor visit. the one that I thought we were going to get our ultrasound appointment at. and we did. the ultrasound is scheduled for...wait for it.......june 16. june 16! jesis kriest! what is wrong with these people???? they've strung me along for 2 months now! at least I actually have an appointment now, though. and the nurse last month had said they only do them on saturdays, but thankfully, they do them at night during the week too, since sean works saturdays. so it's a wednesday. and trent will be coming, and it happens to be his last day of school, too. so he will be pretty excited. I hope.

otherwise, I had no sugar in my urine, my belly looks good, I have gained a total of 11 lbs so far, which is good, and the heartbeat sounds normal. I thought it was alot slower than last time, but the doctor says it's okay. 145 beats per min. sounded like alot less than that, but that's what his little dohickey said.

then I had to go immediately to get the blood tests done for all the birth defects, because it has to be done before 18 weeks and I am like 2 days away from 18 weeks. of course they could have done it LAST month but they never gave me paperwork, so they asked if I could go immediately after my appointment. so I did, and I was lucky, I went right before a big rush of people. of course, I warned the lady that I tend to faint - not at the needle or the pain, but at the sight of my own blood. I am not sure exactly when that started happening. oh, I guess I do. when trent was very young (9 mos) and he had to have his first surgery on his clubbed feet - the one to lenghthen his achilles tendon - they had to draw blood from him for tests. I was fine with blood before that but I fainted dead away at the sight of my child's blood being drawn from his little body. then, little by little, that got transferred to my own blood. not so much when he or I get cut, but more when they draw it out of us. makes giving blood a little difficult.

anyways, I did well. I did get a little woozy at the end. I had told the lady that I faint at the sight of my own blood, and she was really good about distracting me and stuff. until the end, when she said she couldn't read the name on my lab sheet, and asked me to spell it so she could write it down...ON THE VIAL OF MY BLOOD. and she asked if it were spelled right and showed it to me. I quickly said yes and ran out and drove home and took a nap.

anyway, that was my momentous doctor visit. now, the countdown begins to june 16. not that we're finding out the sex - cause we're not - but just to see that it is in there and whether it has 3 arms or just one or a pointy head.

so jen had a dream about me and nicole having our babies. it's here, I think. anyways, I haven't had dreams either way about me having a boy or a girl, and so far, I haven't dreamed about any other people but myself. which makes my dreams lonely, because often, even sean or trent only have brief appearances. sometimes that's how I feel, a little - lonely. even though this time I have a friend who is pregnant, too, and I go to prenatal yoga with a bunch of pregnant women. I probably still have baggage from the first time.

I can't decide if I really am feeling the baby move (at night, when resting) or if it is my digestive system. or imagination. or wishful thinking. we go back to the doctor's on the 20th, what's that? thursday? so we go thursday. I know I get bloodwork done and I hope they finally let me have a freaking ultrasound, since they said they'd do it last month. I guess I should feel lucky since they usually give only one ultrasound when they feel the baby is safe and it's not a risky pregnancy, but I'm annoyed at reading and hearing about people having their first of obviously more than one ultrasound at 8 weeks or 10 weeks.

my, um, step sister in law? I don't know, kkkathy's daughter in law, anyways, is having her baby shower the day before my birthday. I just bought her stuff from her registry at babiesrus - some boy onesies, and a wipes warmer. wipes warmer! trent would have loved that when he was a baby. he'd catch his breath when I would use the wipes on him and he'd scream. partially because they had alot of alcohol and he did alot of pooping, but I know initially it was because they are cold, cold, cold. and he was already cold from me taking his pants and diaper off. when you think about how crappy life must be as an infant - not being able to communicate, getting teeth, pooping yourself and then having your pants yanked down and having cold wipes - a wipes warmer seems like a very humane thing. but as an adult, a wipes warmer seems extravagant and luxurious. both of those views are why I am putting a wipes warmer on my registry.

for the last few weeks, I had been amazed that I had a belly button again. it had been lost in extra folds of skin for so long that I forgot what it was like to have a hole there where stuff could accumulate. but now I don't think it will be too much longer before, like a purdue chicken, it pops out. I don't have that dark line yet, but I don't think that happens until later.

I think in my mind things are going slow because I remember looking at WTEWYE and doing a sort of checklist and it went very fast. but I remember now that I did that because I got the book later in pregnancy and I went back through the months I had already passed and checked to see if I had all the right signs. anyway, I can feel my ligaments stretching and sometimes it hurts. I think this baby is going through a growth spurt or something.

I'm trying out a jen oliver type post and putting pictures in stuff to illustrate my points. tip o the hat, jen o!

Add fainting to the list of stuff that is crappy about pregnancy. I'm still waiting for the rosy glow of pregnancy to wash over me and take away all the vomit and stuffiness and sleeplessness and aches of pregnancy. The sad part is that I should have known better. It's not my first pregnancy, yet I must have revisioned alot more than I thought about being pregnant with trent. I couldn't wait to get pregnant again. Now I want to adopt a child after this one because I don't want to go through it ever again.

Maybe last time I was just blissfully unaware. Or maybe I blocked out all the bad stuff. All I know is now I am fainting, nearly burning my house down (I found out I left a gas burner running at full flame for 4 hours while everyone was out - except for the first 45 minutes when my son was in the house alone waiting for his dad) and spending alot of time whining and complaining about things I can't change. WHERE IS THE FLUFFY WONDERFULNESS OF PREGNANCY?

Okay, it's not all that bad. I don't have to carry anything anymore, people do it for me. More people hold the door open for me. More people look at me as just sad instead of insane when I faint in a department store. And it's sort of okay to have thunder thighs and demand milkshakes at all hours of the night.

But for the most part, I will be happy when it's over. And when it is over, I will be sad that it's over and ready to do it again, because I can't enjoy things when they're happening, only when I can't have them anymore.

One of the things I miss most about not being pregnant is ibuprofen. Advil, I miss you. Not like a friend misses a friend, but how a lover misses her lover. I want you inside me, making me feel good when I otherwise feel awful. I want to feel you in my mouth knowing that soon I'll feel a release and the pain will be gone, for 4 hours or so. I can't wait until we can be together again, and until then, I will dream about you.

Scalloped potatoes. Slushies. Milkshakes. Ruby red grapefruit lemonade. Cheeseburgers. This is the short list of what I am surviving on.

I have good days. But I still have bad days. I'm waiting for that magic week when everything is fine and I just coast through the second trimester.

My body is in a weird place now. Most people know I'm pregnant by looking, but some are still shocked when I tell them. Like did they think I just had a really round, fat stomach? Then I get all self conscious. Then I think it's just not worth it and screw everyone. Then I get hungry.

I get hot easily now, I have alot more bad dreams, and the heartburn is awful. But on the plus side...um...well, at least it's no longer a question of whether or not I'm going to wear maternity clothes yet. But now that I have to go into an office every weekday, I do have to actually change my clothes every day, which is a chore. AND I have to look nice. It's a challenge.

Earlier, I wanted to hear the baby's heartbeat to prove it was really in there. Now that I have, twice, I want to feel it moving to prove it is really in there. After that, I am sure I will want to have it come out to prove it was really in there.

I already long for non pregnant days. I remember really liking being pregnant before, for some reason. What was I thinking?