Being Pregnant Vol. 2

I'm almost halfway through my pregnancy, so I thought a "Being Pregnant" update was in order. I'll start with reviewing the things I touched on last time, and hopefully have a couple more to add.

1. Morning Sickness
Gone! No more queasy afternoons for me. Although there are some strong smells that will send me reeling.

2. Fatigue
I'm doing much better with this one. I can actually make it more than halfway through a movie again! Most of my fatigue is coming from sleep issues these days (more on that later).

3 & 4. Cravings and Aversions
Still no weird cravings (although there are some things I eat that Mike has always thought were weird - like dipping French fries in tartar sauce mixed with ketchup. What? It's good, I swear!). My aversions are all but gone, except for tomato sauce (which I guess is actually a new one). It's not that I can't eat tomato sauce, but there is a frozen lasagna that my dad microwaves for lunch every so often, and for some reason the smell of it just makes me gag.

5. Pregnancy-Induced Stupidity/Forgetfulness
This one is only getting worse. Examples: I have trouble typing sometimes. This morning, I needed to turn on my rear window defroster, and sat staring at my emergency flasher button with my finger extended going, "Wait, what am I looking for? That's not it."

6. Boobs
No longer hurt, and really haven't gotten any bigger... yet.

7. Sex (Ben, or any family for that matter, again, skip this section... for real this time.)
Let's just say I haven't been waking Mike up in the middle of the day when he's sleeping for night shift any more, but things aren't bad either :)

8. Sleep
Sucks. Most of the time. Tylenol PM is my savior. I still absolutely hate sleeping on my side, and since I'm almost 20 weeks, I really shouldn't be sleeping on my back at all. I really wish I had listened to all the things I read that said, "If you are not a side sleeper, start training yourself as early as possible. It will only get harder later on." Yeah. True.

9. Child-Bearing Hips
I seriously thought I had a pretty good set of hips for this whole child-bearing thing, but apparently not. I have had a dull pain in my lower back/pelvis for the past week and a half or so, and every so often I get a jabbing pain in my hips (think ice pick straight into bone). The latter of the two is especially disconcerting when it happens in the middle of the night after I have finally managed to fall asleep on my side.

10. Pregnancy in General
I've got to say, being pregnant is not easy. It is physically and emotionally challenging, and although my pregnancy has been relatively "easy," I have had some ups and downs. I see women with 5 or more kids and catch myself thinking, "Why would you do that to yourself!?" Don't get me wrong though, there are some wonderful things about it, too - hearing his heartbeat for the first time, seeing his little face during an ultrasound, feeling him move for the first time, thinking about what he will look like and who he will take after. As with most things, you've got to take the bad with the good.

To answer some of the most frequently asked questions: I'm feeling great now (except for that hip and lower back pain), we're having a boy, we haven't picked out a name yet - although we were getting quite a laugh last night from some of the lists in Meghan's books last night, and I'm just barely starting to show - if you didn't know I was pregnant, you'd probably just think I'm getting myself ready for winter.

I'll officially be at the half way point one week from today, and I can hardly believe it. It feels like it was just a couple of weeks ago that I wandered out of the bathroom with that ept in my hand and tears in my eyes. If it didn't seem real then, it certainly does now.