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?

so nicole's been reading this blog about this lady with a new baby, and in a recent post, she said she finally realized that she can't battle her postpartum depression on her own, and will be taking meds. which reminded me about postpartum depression. I think I'm at a much greater risk this time around, since I'm sort of depressed already (which is mostly to do with my job situation, ie I hate it) and since I am much more aware of things this time than I was last time. and I was depressed last time too, which probably had alot to do with my station in life, being on welfare, living with my mother, fighting with brett...I do remember that it was the first time I had experienced panick attacks. I remember leaning over the sink washing bottles not being able to stand upright because I felt like some invisible force was pushing on my chest and I couldn't breathe. it wasn't like some people describe panick attacks, like they feel like they're going to die and they are afraid, because I wasn't afraid to die at that time. though I loved trent very much even then and hated to be away from him, I wouldn't have minded dying, either.

anyway, I'm not sure if there are ways to safeguard against post partum depression, but I'm going to look into it.

in other news, this pregnancy is now a valid topic of conversation, as we told the masses. via email, which makes me feel like a dork. but it's nice to now be able to talk to people and when they say "what's up" I can tell them. and over the weekend, while at my father's, I told the rest of my brothers and sister, and they seemed pleased. two of my brothers have 5 kids each, so it's not like they are thrilled because it's old hat to them.

we hid eggs for trent for easter, even though I really don't believe he believes in the easter bunny. but it was still fun for sean, since he's going to have to help do this for Baby Whatever, which is what we've christened this child for the duration of this pregnancy. anyway, since he has to get good at this for BW, he enjoyed helping make the basket and hide the eggs.

next week is our next office visit. the doctor said that's when we "schedule" the ultrasound, so I'm guessing it's not going to be on that day and not going to be at that office. the hospital is about 38 seconds away, so it's not going to be a big deal to go there instead. and maybe we'll see the birthing center. it's supposed to be state of the art, like wallpaper on the walls and chair rail, which should make the discomfort of shoving a watermelon through the barrel of a bic pen much easier. I'll just look at the chair rail and know everything is going to be alright.

so we've talked about it again, and it could change, but we still don't want to know the sex of the baby. lots of people do, including me the first time, but to me, it's like one more thing for everyone, including us, to get excited about when the baby comes. patrice had the baby! really? and what was it??? it was a pointy headed hermaphrodite covered with fur!

I plan to take trent out of school so he can go with us. we talked a little about it last night again, because I am getting concerned that he's not too excited about this. I think going and seeing this baby on the ultrasound will make him feel more connected. I have some half siblings that I really don't feel any familial bond with, and I don't want trent to feel that way about this baby. like my sister denise, who is really my half sister, I want trent to feel as if this baby is his real brother/sister even though they have different dads. I'm going to do my damndest anyways.

it's 10:30am, and that means time for spaghetti o's. nausea is subsiding ever so slightly, replaced and supplemented by an awful heartburn that starts at about 4pm and lasts till about 4am. next time, we adopt.

they say it's always darkest before the dawn, and that was the theme of last week. which is why there are no entries. remember when I said I wished I could throw up and get it over with? they also say be careful what you wish for. in my thinking, vomiting would relieve the nausea, when in reality, it's just the opposite! yes! it makes it worse!! so pretty much all of last week was spent in relative agony.

knock wood, right now, the nausea is starting to subside and I haven't vomited since last week. of course, they say god doesn't close one door without opening a window, so you know that the nausea is being replaced ever so slowly with heartburn. but I consider that an improvement.

I definitely look pregnant to me. I can still pass it off quite well in public, but my belly's definitely out there. still it's very early and alot of the outside layer is fat, but what are you gonna do. I put away all my old pants and alot of my old shirts. no use torturing myself. but all the maternity stuff I have is for summer, so I'm a little at a loss of what to do right now. at the moment, I am wearing pink (yes, pink) sweatpants, size XXL. they double as socks since they go so far past my feet that I can tuck them under. sort of like footie pajamas. when I bring them up over my belly (that's pretty much almost at my boobs) they only drape slightly over my feet. but that's fine, since I've been getting awfully warm. they say that women's metabolism goes up when they are pregnant and that's the reason for the extra body heat. should come in mighty handy in july.

I'm having some trouble sleeping - finding a comfortable position. I am freaked out about sleeping on my back because of the whole vena cava thing, though I have been given conflicting information that sleeping on your back is okay and that if you cut off that artery, your body will let you know to flip over. I don't know. last night I was this close | | to sleeping on the couch. however, the most comfortable of our couches is actually a loveseat so my feet would hang over the edge, which is a small price to pay to actually sleep.

so the sleep interruptions have given way to some interesting dreams. here's one from over the weekend that I wrote down. it's a long one.

I am a boy harry potter's age and build. I am at a school/work that I don't like. I have a teacher that looks like indiana jones' father (later I remembered I mean sean connery) who makes a rudimentary boat that looks like a big snowshoe and he tells me he's going to escape. there is a boat launch and a big body of water. we escape - him, me, and my dog maggie. we get (mostly swim) to the other side of the lake and there is another school there, this one full of people who have accents. we almost get caught by a big russian/french woman who jumps in for a swim and sees us. my teacher packs the boat down really far into the water so she can't see it and they race back (swimming) to the other side of the lake, where we came from. other people on the shore see us. I hide behind a big boat on the launch. they see my teacher and the boat (but they don't know what it is) so we make a run for it. the russian/french woman helps us escape. we swim underwater for a long time till it's safe to use the boat. we get to an overgrown maze of jungle and water in the shadows and we go deep inside. I can see myself placing fake snake barriers (aka, barriers that look like snakes, but very fake snakes) to ward off strangers. we make a little shelter in the corner (the jungle has walls) in the soft pine needles (?) - me, sean connery, and maggie. cut to sometime later (like a movie) and apparently we had found a house in disrepair far back in the jungle. I'm watching now and the boy is trent, but still looks like harry potter. we get visitors but we're scared, and it turns out that it's just the russian/french lady bringing us food. but we hear a boat getting closer - we look out the window and it's heading for us. we realize that it can see the lights on in the house and they'll know there are people in here. we have to run to turn off all the lights. we are going up all the stairs to each floor - trent says there are 13 floors. it's like every single light in the house is on, we have to find every light switch. some seem to turn back on. I get to a floor and see out the window - the boat is almost docked and is making a report via radio. "we see lights going on and off - there is sufficient evidence that someone is here." I try to hide (but fear I'm too much in plain view, which happens every time I try to hide) and decide to make a run for it to tell sean connery. the boat guy sees me running and they make to come ashore. as they do, sean connery comes out and gives himself up, saying he lives there alone with his dog. suddenly we're on a well manicured front lawn of some building near a big driveway paved with white stones. as they lead him away, I hide under a very small bush, and I'm sure that they're going to see me. but I rationalize that people often don't notice the obvious if there is no reason to. sean connery, who is now sean my husband, says to the cops "well, I lived there and did really good for a while, had a wife and all, and then something happened during the superbowl and then suddenly, it was 42 years later. you know how that just happens sometimes?" in response to what I gathered was the question of how he got to be in a rundown but huge house. they pass me and sean notices me but the cop doesn't. he gets on a bus in handcuffs. he asks if the dog can be set free & she is, and she sits next to me but seems to take the focus off of me. people come to pet her but don't notice me. a woman asks what kind of cat she is. she's actually sitting on my leg but doesn't notice. the russian/french woman knows I'm there and plays along (telling the woman it is a dog, not a cat) and helps me escape again with maggie. cut back to the house, I'm now the russian/french lady and harry is long-haired and unkempt. I follow a car into the hideaway where the house is. harry tells me it's the pizza guy - his last meal before he leaves the house for good. I'm starting to wake up, but as I do I wonder what happened to the dog and fear she hurt herself on the steps and is slowly dying and will be eaten by harry - and even that harry hurt her on purpose to eat her because harry has changed so much.

anyways, it's great to be back eating again. only feeling slightly nauseated, I am beginning to eat more. like this morning, I had caesar salad for breakfast. I have to get all that kind of food in in the morning and afternoon because by dinner time, heartburn has kicked in. that's when I eat my typical breakfast stuff - yogurt, cereal. looking forward to a few weeks more when the nausea subsides altogether.

uggghhhhhh. I didn't leave the couch all day yesterday. so very sick. more sick than usual. it might have been because I spent saturday night at a party, was so hungry when I left that I made sean buy me a stauffer's mac and cheese salisbury steak microwave dinner, ate it, then watched autopsy on hbo until 4:30am. we got up around 10:30 and laid around, and as the morning turned to afternoon, I just got more and more sick. even eating didn't help. the only thing that felt good was sleeping. needless to say, I didn't sleep well last night (dreams about ghosts in my childhood house that moved all our clothes to different drawers and forced my mom to give our dog away) and now I'm not feeling so good this morning, either. and it's so nice out, it would have been great to take a walk yesterday. and today. but I don't think it will happen.

anyway, I finally removed the shirts and pants that don't fit from my drawers (hence that part of the dream.) I wore new maternity pants to the party saturday night. I felt a little silly, but no one knew they were maternity pants, so it wasn't so bad. I wore a maternity shirt, too, but it was one that didn't look big and tenty. or so I think, anyways. I just think it's too early for me to wear this stuff, but my mom says that if it fits, then I'm meant to wear it. nice advice.

anyway, since I'm now starting week 11, and week 12 (and the end of this horrid first trimester) is that much closer, I'm getting into better spirits. I just hope I'm not one of those people who stay sick through my whole pregnancy. if so, this would definitely be the last child I ever have. I am positive it wasn't this bad with trent. maybe that means we're having a girl.

I got some good news last week that has also lifted my spirits considerably. it made me infinitely more comfortable with things and excited. what is it? in due time, in due time.

sean starts his new job training today. he looked like a grown up when I blearily saw him through half closed eyes at 5am when he left for work. a crisp, new black polo shirt and boot cut khakis with new black boots. whatta man.

I cannot wait for these next 2 weeks to be over so that I can start feeling more alive again. this tiredness and infinite sickness have really taken their toll on me. someone told me that a cousin of hers got pregnant again shortly after having a child, and because she was so sick, she vowed never to have any more children. like I said, if I were sick throughout this time, this would be the last...and I gotta tell you, I'll be thinking twice before having another one even if the sickness abates when it's supposed to. but who knows. time enough for that later, when mother nature wipes my memory clean.

well, I just got back from the doctor's for my monthly checkup. first things first, I almost forgot to bring some pee with me, but remembered at the last minute. it was about 3 ounces, but apparently it was enough to test. all is okay with the urine. first up was weight check. wanna know how much I gained? nothing. I was SHOCKED. my pants don't lie, and I have exactly 3 pair that I can still wear, 1 of which is getting iffy. and everyone who has seen me and found out about my being pregnant has said "oh, I thought you looked a little more 'filled out' but I didn't want to assume." so that's a big ole mystery.

so the doctor tried to hear the baby's heartbeat, but we couldn't hear it. we could hear my heartbeat from the artery that leads into the uterus, so that's good, and he told me that sometimes that heartbeat is so loud that it drowns out the baby's. we tried for a while and didn't hear anything. so I'm still freaked out about the molar pregnancy. but I'm going to try to control myself until next month, where we hear the heartbeat AND get an ultrasound.

all the tests that I had to take last month were normal. no positive RH, no cystic fibrosis, no aids, no anemia, nothing weird or odd. so I am pretty good right now.

I can't get over the weight thing. it boggles the mind.

to celebrate, I'm eating a huge bowl of elbows and gravy. and I'm going to have a reese's peanut butter egg when I'm done. things are beginning to look up.

they weren't so rosy last night, however, when my nausea finally got the best of me after a meal of my most favorite food - mcdonald's cheeseburgers. up they finally came. so I am probably off cheeseburgers for a good long while, now. which is probably for the best.

I have another doctor's appointment tomorrow. I am hoping that I will get to hear the baby's heartbeat, but I'm not sure if they do that this time or not. someone recently told me about something called a "molar pregnancy" - which I read can be a partial or whole molar pregnancy. a partial is when a fertilized egg starts out as a baby, but can't be sustained (usually because there are too many chromosomes - the sperm brings 46 along instead of the 23 that complement the egg's 23 chromosomes.) a whole or complete or whatever is when a fertilized egg doesn't turn into a baby at all, but a weird mass of cells that look like a bunch of grapes. that usually happens when the sperm doesn't bring any chromosomes or the egg doesn't have any. so the whole or complete or whatever's cells can spread to other areas of the body (most likely the lungs) and are considered cancer, and treated with chemo. either way, with a molar pregnancy, you need a d&c and to wait til your hcg hormones are down to 0 for a year until you can get pregnant. anyways, I had never heard of it, now I know, and now I'm freaked out that I might have one of them. they usually find out when they try to find a heartbeat and can't hear one.

I know I'm going to feel better when I have some sort of real proof that there's a child in there, and when I stop feeling so sick all the time.

mother nature is so funny. I don't remember ANY of this with my first child. or any pain. it's like you just...forget. that is, until it happens again, and then you're like..oh yeah, that sucked.

on the plus side, my prenatal yoga (thank you, nicole) is making me feel more in shape and I enjoy getting out. sometimes, it's the only thing I get dressed for all week.

my belly is getting bigger and a bit more firm and round. just a bit though. apparently, when you have a second or third or whatever child, your body remembers what it went through before and starts loosening the muscles in your abdomen and letting your organs move around alot earlier than the first child, so you start showing earlier. I'm trying to convince myself that it's not fat, but I'll find out for sure tomorrow when I go to the doctor. I am thinking I gained about 10 lbs this past month. no lie. if the doctor tells me I'm gaining too much, then maybe you'll all believe that I am fat. ha. a lonely, forlorn ha.

so I figured out that the dream thing was because I was taking a nap during the day. I stopped doing that and I still wake up during the night knowing that I just had a dream, but not being scared out of my wits or remembering every detail. so that's good.

what's not as good is that the sickness has settled in. I wake up feeling okay, until I actually stand upright. that's when it starts. it only abates when I eat. so I'm eating a ton. and the sucky part is that I just FEEL sick, I don't GET sick. I wish I would, and get it freakin over with. so it ebbs and flows all day and all night now. I am in week 9, so in theory, I only have 3 more weeks of this - actually 4, since I'm just starting week 9. whatev.

in other news, I am fat. fat, fat, fat. and it ain't baby. it's gluttony. I fool myself into thinking that I should eat whatever I want because it's my body's way of saying I need that particular nutrient. and it's true sometimes - I crave yogurt, so I need the dairy and the calcium. I crave chocolate milk (I hate white milk, always have - my mom had to give me stawberry quik in my bottles as a baby because I refused to drink white milk) because I need the calcium and the vitamin d. I crave meat (and boy do I crave meat) because I need the protein and iron. so then it should follow that I crave the cadbury mini eggs because I need the...um...candy shell. and I crave velveeta shells and cheese because it has "cheese" in it. and I crave totino's pepperoni party pizza because it has all 4 food groups in it. meanwhile, I can only guess how many pounds I've put on. (and it will only be a guess, because I refuse to step on a scale. time enough for that at the doctor's office.) WTEWYE, aka the pregnancy bible, says you should only gain 3-6 pounds in your first trimester. I think I gained that in my first week.

there was this one girl at a job I used to work at that was very big. one might say slightly obese. anyways, she was out for a while and then one day she came back and there were balloons at her desk. I figured she might have had an illness or been in an accident or something. turns out the balloons said "it's a girl" - the woman was pregnant and I never even knew. we're all familiar with the typical shape of a pregnant woman, but honestly, this lady had rolls of fat and none of the rolls looked like baby. so this is my fear - I'll be 9 months pregnant, waddling around, and people will just be like "oh dear, what a fat woman."

then I get all freaked out because...should I really be worried about what I look like? as sean likes to say, I'm a "vessel" now, I should only be worried about making sure we don't have a pointy headed baby covered with fur, not my own figure. god, I wish I would throw up already, I feel so sick right now. anyways.

so the whole fat thing is because I think I am starting to show, which WTEWYE says shouldn't happen until the middle of month 4. I am at the beginning of month 3. so I am a fat cow. oh, thanks in advance to all of you who will write to me and say I'm not a fat cow. with all due respect, you're just trying to be nice, so be quiet. I'm fat. it's true.

anyways, I hate my job, I feel sick, I feel fat, I wish I were just bloated, I feel sick, I want some mac and cheese, I feel sick, and I like cadbury mini eggs. that's all for today.

Okay. I've decided not to take my prenatal vitamin so close to bedtime so I can stop with these dreams already.

Awful night. I felt sick all evening and really sick before bed. I woke up around 3:30 after the following extremely vivid dream:

I'm with my mom hanging out. I go to the bathroom and I am bleeding like crazy. Big clots and lots of blood. I start freaking out and I tell my mom and she tells me to call the doctor. As usual, my mom's not that concerned. I get the doctor's answering machine after forgetting the number a few times. I'm really frustrated that I can't work the phone right. The blood keeps coming. I start getting upset that I didn't connect more with this baby before I lost it, but then I think perhaps I didn't lose it yet and maybe I could just lay down and the bleeding would stop. So I lay down and try to call the doctor again. I get through and talk to a nurse who says that it's normal. I try to tell her that THIS isn't normal and I'm crying hysterically. I tell her to forget it, that I'm going to the hospital, but my mom starts driving and we're so close to the doctor's office that I tell her we'll just go there. I'm in the waiting room with lots of other people and I'm crying and freaking out and bleeding, bleeding, bleeding. The doctor finally comes out and talks to my mom, not to me. He says that it's okay because I was never really pregnant anyway. And my mom looks at me and says she's not going to tell people, she'll just say I lost the baby, so I don't look silly. She doesn't say this outright, but I know what she's thinking at that moment. Then I wake up.

It took me a good few minutes to realize that it was a dream, and that I didn't just come home and get in bed. When I did figure it out, I told sean about it, and then realized I was crying. I tried to go back to sleep but I felt too sick. I had a few dry heaves, then decided to go downstairs and get some crackers and water. I watched the end of mash and an episode of cops. I went back to bed only to have this very vivid dream:

I'm in a movie but I know it is also real. I'm in a german hospital surrounded by nazis. we're breaking out tonight though, because we know it's a matter of time before they start exterminating us because we're infirm. all the jews in the whole town are planning to rebel tonight. I help carry one of the bedridden outside, across the street, and up into a barn. the nazis are starting to fire at us. I'm up and inside. there's a woman at the foot of the steps with a billy club, she's just a civilian but she is helping the nazis find us. her head is shaved because they thought she was jewish but she convinced them that she's not and now she's after us. I have a suspicion that she is jewish but just trying to save herself. I kick her in the head and run back up the ladder. the barn is attached to a school and we're all so happy that we made it that we start celebrating. but it's a sad celebration because we know the nazis know where we are and it's only a matter of time before they do something awful to us. it's a movie and I know how it ends. some of us are in one of the classrooms dancing. out of the corner of my eye, I see a tall man with a gun outside the room. it looks sort of like one of us (but it could be another civilian who hates us) but I have to go to the bathroom. as I walk into the next room and leave all the people who are dancing, I realize that I forgot my purse. it takes me about 30 seconds to go back into the room to get it and in that time, the tall man has shot everyone in the room. I run into another room which turns out to be the office of the headmaster of the school. a woman runs in with me, another civilian. she holds a gun up to me but she's so scared that it is easy to get her to point it at her own temple instead of at me. then she just lets go of the gun. she tells me I can't be in here, that I'm contaminating the room. I know that if I don't kill her, she'll tell the tall man where I am. so I put the gun to her head and she gets on the floor. I'm trying to train the gun on her temple so I will only have to shoot her once. but her eyes keep multiplying and moving around her head - one second, she has three eyes and one is right on her temple. the tall man is coming though. so I just shoot her anyway. I can see through the door that they are blocking all the entrances and pumping in gas. she doesn't die when I shoot her so I have to do it again. and again. and again, this time right in the eye. she's still holding on. I'm crouched behind the coffee table by the couch and she's trying to clutch at the gun. the tall man is coming into the room. I am so afraid he's going to see me. the woman finally dies. the tall man moves on but now the gas is coming...and then I wake up.

I fell back to sleep after a few minutes of looking at things in my room (the light was starting to come in) and realizing it was a dream. I slept until 7 with no problems. I still feel sick this morning.

okay. background. baby is due to storm our house on october 23. so that makes me 7+ weeks. I feel queasy in the mornings and the evenings but have only actually thrown up once. heartburn is a problem. breakouts are a problem. last time I was pregnant, one day I woke up to a body full of hives - that hasn't happened yet. I was "allergic to being pregnant" - and that apparently means that the doctors weren't interested in telling me what was really up. I told my current doctor that and he looked at me like I was insane, so it must have been a pat-me-on-the-head kind of answer that the previous doctor told me.

I have had blood tests and urine tests to figure out stuff about this zygote, and haven't heard anything, so I am assuming no news is good news.

I have a tremendous amount of baggage left over from my first pregnancy that I am trying, rather unsucessfully, to sort out on my own. more than one person has suggested therapy. blogs are therapy, right?

things that I am concerned about right now, apart from the questions already listed, are that I had unreal expectations of what it was like for "normal" people who get pregnant and now that I am pregnant and like to consider myself "normal", and those expectations haven't been met, I am floundering a little. also, I am heavier now than I was at 9 months pregnant with my first son, so all the fantasies about me being carefree and cute in maternitywear are out the window. I'm going to be one of those women you see that you say "damn, I hope she gives birth soon, because she looks miserable and enormous."

oh, and the usual concerns about the baby being pointy headed, born with a defect, or born covered in fur..those kinds of things.

all in all, I'm just a big ball of worry with a tiny rice-sized bunch of cells with arm buds and a tail inside me.

hi. this is the first post in my blog. I hate the word blog. it's too much like blarg. big baby news today is that I am too fat to feel if my uterus is actually growing. the mood swings are coming fast and furious and today's lucky mood is...apprehension! some sample issues: how can I love a new baby as much as I love my son, will my baby be as smart as my son, can we afford a baby, how freakin fat am I actually going to wind up getting, and why some people have seemed less than thrilled and almost nonchalant upon hearing of our impending baby. and that's just this hour.