I LOVE being pregnant. I love feeling the baby move and knowing that I'm doing everything I can to get this kid out into the world as healthily and happily as I can. I love that total strangers are excited to hear about the baby, are helpful and give me space, open doors for me, etc. I love my big pregnant belly and knowing that I am bringing our child into this loving and welcoming family.

And yet I hate my pregnant body right now. I feel fat, ungainly, ponderous, and like I'm a slave to my body's needs. When I need to eat, I need to eat NOW. When I need to use the restroom, I need it NOW, and usually every 45 minutes. I can't stand to be around strong smells, and the thought, let alone sight of lots of foods makes me nauseous one minute and ravenous the next. I hate it. I have sciatica, heartburn, nosebleeds, dry, itchy skin, my moods are all over the place, and my hair is so slippery now that it won't do a darn thing. And all of this is supposed to be normal.

Not to mention that while I definitely look pregnant now, in lots of clothes I don't look pregnant, I just look fat. I don't mind looking pregnant. I mind looking fat. I mind that when I got on the scale at the OB's office yesterday that the usually supportive and loving Gordon, who is losing weight, looked at the number and said, "We'll see who gets to 200 pounds first!" Thanks, babe, I already feel like a cow, and that isn't helping! I don't mind gaining the weight (it's for a good cause, after all). I do mind snide comments from my husband about it.

So I'm having this love/hate relationship these days. I want to look cute and pregnant, and yet most days I'm lucky if I have the energy to do more than brush my teeth and hair and throw on sweats. Looking cute and pregnant takes effort. Looking fat does not. Putting on makeup is a major achievement for the day.

I'm also not experiencing the typical energy surge and 'feeling great' second trimester. I still have morning sickness. Not nearly as bad as it was, but I still have it. I don't have a lot more energy than I did first trimester. I have some energy now, which is an improvement, but I don't feel GREAT like so many of my friends did when they were pregnant. Pfft.

The good news is that I'm healthy, the ultrasound and quad screen results indicate that the baby is healthy, and that is all that I ask.

Okay. I'm done being crabby. For now.

It's been a busy January. My aunt passed away on December 29th after a 2 month illness, so I flew to Ottawa to spend time with my uncle and attend the funeral. It was a really nice week in spite of the circumstances, and I enjoyed spending the time with two of my three uncles and my dad. It wasn't even that cold! The day I arrived it was bitter cold, and then it was about 50 degrees (F) the rest of the week. That did cause some unexpected issues, though. The fog was so bad that the airport was closed for 2 or 3 days. My one uncle ended up taking a bus to Montreal and flying home from there a day late, and then I ended up flying home a day late as well. It all worked out in the end, but we were wondering if we would even get out when we did!

Then we went to the big island of Hawaii for a week to celebrate a friend's 60th birthday with him. It was a great trip, especially since he flew us over there and put us up at this fabulous all-inclusive resort for 3 nights. Incredible place, and we had a ball celebrating with him. Then we went into Kona for the remaining 4 nights we were there and had an ocean view room in a big hotel. Not nearly as nice as the resort, but we didn't care because we were hardly in the room. We drove to Kilauea to see the volcano and Moana Loa, and drove to Hilo and up and around the entire island one day - it was great fun, and I was so exhausted by the end of the day that I could barely taste my dinner. Well worth it, though.

Another day we went on a snorkel trip, and took the boat from one bay to another (about an hour) and then snorkeled in this gorgeous turquoise water for a while, had lunch, snorkeled some more, and headed back to the dock. The snorkeling was fantastic, and even better than that was the whale watching! There was a mama and a baby about 100 feet away from the boat, and we got to see fin slaps, spouts, dorsal fins, and whale tails. I got some GREAT pictures. It was just breathtaking!

I hadn't gained but about 4 pounds thus far in this pregnancy, until I went on this vacation - and I gained 4-5 pounds in a week! I was more active than usual, but I was also eating bigger meals than usual. One morning at breakfast I had scrambled eggs, oatmeal, a glass of guava juice, and an entire papaya. Gordon could not believe how much I ate!

Now that we are back in town and settling back into our routines, I am going to try to eat more regular meals now that I am feeling better. Not as much as I ate during vacation, but I often graze and I don't think it has been helping me much lately.

I've been feeling the baby flutter around the last couple of weeks, and the flutters have been getting a bit stronger - almost a thump, but not quite. Exciting! I also had a quad screen test, and I know that the results are 'nice', but not much else right now. I'll get more specifics from my OB when I talk with her on Wednesday. Oh, and we have the big structural ultrasound next week to see how the baby is developing.

Happy belated Hannukah! Merry Christmas!

Wow. I just realized it's been SIX months since I posted here. I knew it had been a while, but I hadn't realized it had been THAT long! It WAS a crazy summer and fall, though. Lots of travel for school and weddings and fun stuff filled up the summer. I also graduated from the University of Santa Monica with my Master of Arts in Spiritual Psychology in late August, and spent quite a bit of the summer writing my Master's Comprehensive Exam for that. In September we went to Pennsylvania to be in my friend Suzanne's wedding, and then I went to my hometown in Virginia for a few days. I had a cold when I got home and was flat out for a few days.

Then the big news. I got pregnant in late September and have been so miserable with morning sickness pretty much from the very beginning that I was largely non-functional until I got so desperate that I got some anti-nausea medication, which has saved me- I don't think I could have gotten through the last couple of months without it. None of the usual morning sickness remedies were the least bit helpful for me!

So now I am 14 weeks pregnant, and we had an ultrasound and have seen the baby's heartbeat and have seen it move! After three miscarriages, we are overjoyed!

I've been doing a LOT of reading about pregnancy and childbirth and I have learned so much! I will share some of the interesting tidbits that I have learned from my reading through this blog. And now that I am done with school and travel for a while, I WILL post more often!

One small and exciting piece of news is that Gordon won us a Tempurpedic bed at a fundraising auction, for about half the price it would have cost us to buy it retail - we had just decided the week before the auction that we were going to buy one, and I hadn't even scoped out prices on the internet. He called me and said that he'd won an auction item for $1200 and my heart leaped into my throat. Then he said it was a Tempurpedic bed, and I got very excited! So that should be delivered in the next couple of weeks.

I'm doing well with all my supplements and the BTD - Dr. D tweaked my diet a little bit to enhance pre-pregnancy/pregnancy stuff, and I'm doing well with it. Not even trying to get pregnant for a few more months, though, so I can get my body as strong as possible beforehand!

We flew to New York last month and I wandered around the city for a few days and met up with some friends of mine. (Photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/casswoman/NYCMay2007) We had a ball in New York and then I was in a frenzy of activity to prepare for my school weekend.

Somewhere during my trip to New York I went to see Dr. D'Adamo again and got some good information on how to get my body to hang onto a pregnancy. I'm slowly incorporating the information and supplements since I tend to rebel against major changes. Baby steps. One little thing at a time, and then incorporate the next one and then more baby steps. Hey, it works for me.

More updates as things develop.