Catching Up

Writing back in time is weird for so many reasons. I wish I actually had started my blog back in February, but frankly I was afraid to. What if something happened? I didn’t want my words haunting me forever, you know? I’m a lot more confident at 36 weeks pregnant than I was at five weeks pregnant, and I’m not afraid to write about it now.
Maybe the back in time posts weren’t a good way to start this blog, but I figure since I don’t have any readers at this point, they won’t hurt. Let me go ahead and get caught up to present day.

Personal Stuff:

At the beginning of my third trimester, I was still living with my in-laws, and would be for about two more weeks. I love my in-laws dearly, but I was ready to be in my own place. My MIL was sweet enough to throw me a baby shower before I moved to College Town USA with my husband. My friends came, and it was a lot of fun. I was sort of nervous about the whole baby shower games thing, but my friends and I are dorks, so we had a blast.
Our car was stolen… that was fun, thankfully insurance worked everything out, and we now don’t have a car payment, and had a little left over to buy a used car. Much to my husbands delight his grandfather sold him his mustang for our very very very very very low budget. I’m not very thrilled about our new car, cause um… car seat… mustang… it doesn’t work very well, oh and the minor fact that I can’t drive a stick shift, but I was unable to find a car in our price range that was an automatic at all, so my sweet husband decided to teach me the fine art of driving a stick shift.
Ten minutes later as I was sobbing in frustration because I couldn’t get the darn car to move forward in the parking lot we were practicing in, we decided attempting to teach me stick shift was not possible while I’m pregnant…. That’s the excuse I using anyhow, he still thinks he can teach me after the baby’s born… I’ve started putting away for a second car. I’m not a good driver; I’m not a confident driver, I have a difficult time in an automatic. It’s just not going to happen.
Then it was time to move! We packed everything up, collected our storage, and moved away to college town. Our new apartment isn’t anywhere as nice as our old one, but it’s not as bad as I thought it would be either. My husband did all the heavy lifting, and I made everything organized and pretty. We’re home. J It’s such a nice feeling to be in your own place. My husband started his new year of pharmacy school, and everything’s going really well.

Pregnancy Stuff:

Alright… the third trimester isn’t as much fun as the second trimester. In fact it gets less fun every week. My seventh month, I was thrilled because I stupidly thought, hey, this isn’t that big of a deal, then came my eighth month. It’s still not terrible. Other mom’s have had way worse.

Weight

So far I’ve gained about eight pounds. I’m trying to tell myself this is a good thing, but I kind of liked how earlier in the pregnancy I didn’t gain weight. My arms got smaller and my tummy got bigger. Actually I was thrilled. Now I look like a marshmallow. I was never thin while pregnant, I’m chubby. I’m used to being chubby, but it’s amazing how terrible eight extra pounds makes you look, and I’m only going to gain more.

Food

Eating got tricky. The baby is pressed against my stomach most of the time. When it moves I’m starving and have to eat, and then I do, and then the baby moves back, and then I feel so full I’m sick. I’m also back to that point where I’m really particular about what I eat. I pretty much just want bread, and very bland things.

Breathing

Breathing was really hard up until last week. The baby presses against your lungs, and they don’t get full, I knew to expect this, what I didn’t know to expect was that my exponentially growing breasts would be pressing on my lungs from the other side, making it not possible to breath. I was a DD before I got pregnant, I don’t know what the hell I am now, but I don’t like it. I’ve never been proud of having large breasts, in fact its always sort of sucked. I’d take a pair of cute perky c’s anytime. Big boobs= middle school hell, high school drama, and now inability to breath. Thanks boobs.
Luckily breathing got a lot easier a few days ago. I’m not sure why since the baby hasn’t dropped all the way yet, but I’m not going to question it.

Headaches and nose bleeds

I’ve never had a nose bleed before, my husband gets them, and he says the tiny bits of blood that dot my tissues every day now don’t count. I agree they are not as bad as his, but they suck. I’ve already gotten used to looking like I have Ebola when I brush and floss in the morning, but nose bleeds? I’ve never had an aversion to blood before, but now it makes me queasy.
The headaches aren’t bad; they go away with Tylenol and half a glass of soda. I know, I’m a terrible and selfish mommy for drinking soda, but I only drink it for medicinal purposes… the doctor said the amount of drinking is negligible, so I’m ok. They don’t want me to be stressed and they really want to make sure my headaches are treatable cause of my next fun symptom.

High Blood Pressure

Prior to pregnancy my blood pressure was 110/70. It slowly crawled up throughout the pregnancy and is now about 137/89. Big scary words were thrown around, but for the most part they just advised me to take it easy, keep an eye on headaches, and come in any time I feel off. No bed rest (yet) and I’m now far enough along in the pregnancy that they could induce safely if the numbers get to high. In the meantime I have to report my bp to them every day, and come in once a week for visits.

Insomnia

I can’t sleep for long periods of a time. Don’t know why, but I’m not fighting it. If my body wants to get used to sleeping an hour or two, waking up, moving around, and then napping for an hour or two, awesome. I’ll be better prepared for a newborn.

Sweat

I’ve been very sweaty and very hot all the time, which has translated into a really high power bill. That’s ok though, I can deal with sweat.

This is kind of scary. The baby is facing down and towards my back now, so its movements are harder to feel, also its running out of room. Consequently it doesn’t move as much. I worry all week, and then go to the doctor, and then hear her heartbeat and get reassured that as long as she’s moving ten times every two hours she’s fine. I know this on an intellectual level, but it’s hard to grasp why my baby went from moving ten times in ten seconds to ten times every two hours.

Yay! I’m caught up. As of tomorrow I’ll be posting daily entries, at least for the week days, talking about different pregnancy things, and my new life up here in college town. I won’t be posting on weekends, and I’m not sure what will happen to my every day posting once the baby gets here, but I’ll do the best I can :).

Moving

I’m going to divide my second trimester up a little more than my first, because so much more happened my second trimester. On a personal level, and on a baby developing level.

The first month of my second trimester was insanely busy. I had to give notice to my apartment complex, get everything ready to move in with my in-laws for a few months, and get a storage unit for all of our things, then help pack, and get everything moved into storage.
On top of regular moving stuff, we also had business moving stuff. I gave notice to the business landlords, gave notice to my customers, and had to do without employees after April 1st so I wouldn’t have to deal with a partial payroll quarter. Thankfully, without the preschool to worry about, I had lots of time to handle everything while my husband prepped for finals.
We cut store hours to just after school, and open weekends the second half of April, and only allowed crafts that could be completed that day. No more pottery painting. Our work-in-progress pieces were held at a friends shops so people could finish them (after giving customers plenty of notice) and we managed to sell what was left of our inventory, our kilns, our wheel, our shelves, and tables and chairs. Every item sold. We were actually kind of lucky. There’s a lot of other business that couldn’t make it this year that didn’t fair as well as we did, and no matter how sad it makes me that we lost the shop, I know that it really worked out a lot better than it could have.
I had a fun shower/going away party with my employees and friends, and when I got home I cried… a lot. I didn’t want to move, I loved my apartment, I loved my shop, and I loved my life here. Unfortunately life isn’t perfect, and things change, so at the end of the month, I turned off my open sign for the last time, looked around my empty store, turned in my keys, and the husband and I moved in with my in-laws.

I love my in-laws. They are the kindest, most generous people I know. I cannot thank them enough to taking us in for the summer. My mother-in-law is almost more excited than I am to have a baby on the way, and I liked the chance to talk to her and go through baby albums over the summer. I love her husband (still not sure if I should call him my father-in-law, my husbands father died when he was twenty, before he met me, but not by much, so he’s my husbands step-father, except I’ve never heard him referred to as his step father, just by his name. He’s super nice, I just have no idea what to call him, and it’s a sensitive issue for my husband. Will my daughter refer to him as Grandpa? Or just by his name? I have no idea…) he’s just the sweetest man I’ve ever met (outside of my husband that is) and I’m beginning to get along much better with my husbands youngest brother (now sixteen).
We didn’t get along very well at first, or maybe we did, and our not getting along was all in my head. My husband used to hang out with him a lot, and then we started dating, and he got promoted at work, and he started school again, so he didn’t spend as much time with his youngest brother. I felt bad about that, and partially responsible. Maybe it was all in my head, but I feel like he felt the same way about me, that I was in the way. Later, once my husband and I were married, and he would visit us over the summers, I was way less tolerant of any rude or immature behavior. The age excuse didn’t work on me, because he wasn’t that much younger than I was. My husband adopted the same outlook, where he used to brush everything off based on how young his brother was, and I think there may have been some resentment there. Now, at sixteen, he’s the same age I was when I met his brother, and I feel like we have more common ground. I remember being sixteen very well. It’s nice to get along.
The middle two brother’s though… I have no patience for them. They are both extremely immature and manipulative, they are 23 and 21 respectively, they both live at home, they both treat their mom like crap, and they both do illegal things that I just don’t abide by. One of them is physically handicapped, and I feel terrible for him, but that doesn’t make the temper tantrums he throws when his mother doesn’t buy him cigarettes and more ok. He’s physically handicapped, not mentally handicapped, breaking things when you’re angry isn’t appropriate for a five year old, much less someone who can legally buy alcohol.
My mother-in-law is nice, maybe too nice, because I would have booted them both out years ago. So while I enjoyed a summer of rent free living, and hanging out with my mother-in-law, and childhood friends (it’s nice going to your hometown for awhile), I also had to deal with police being called due to domestic disturbances as everyone downstairs screamed and shouted at each other, and broke things. My youngest brother-in-law, my husband and I would hang out upstairs away from the drama, but it was still very stressful. I was glad we were only staying three months.