28 weeks

So I've read a few blogs of people comparing their pregnancies to their last ones by what they wrote down about how they feel and stuff. Because I really don't keep a journal very well I thought I'd put how I am feeling and stuff on here for logging purposes.

So I am 28 weeks today. Another week down and only 12ish more to go. The first part of this pregnancy seemed to go by incredibly quickly. Then I hit about halfway and things seemed to slow down a tad. I think after 20 weeks I started my countdown because days past were finally becoming more then days left. Then I started keeping track of how many days left till I had only 100 days left...sometimes I think that made things feel slower but oddly enough it seemed like just yesterday I was counting down til 100 days left and now I'm well past that and have 80 some days left(obviously give or take because who knows when this little one will come). So as slow as it seems to go sometimes it's still going by pretty quickly. A whole heck of a lot quicker then last time. Not that I am not as equally excited this time as I was last time, cuz I assure you I am, but Audree is with me now and helps keep me occupied and pass the time away. I am very excited though to have a newborn in the house once again.

Physically I am much worse off then last time. Every morning I wake up and my uterus aches as well as my pelvis and groin muscles. My hips ache while I sleep and sometimes the aching lasts into the day because it got so bad at night. The baby is already squishing the living daylights out of me. I'm not sure if she will be a big and/or long one but it feels like she is. But I'm just so stinking short that really any sized baby would be squishing me.

The heartburn is only manageable when I take the prilosec everyday. Really all it does is shut down the acid so my food still digests very slowly and comes up uncomfortably in my throat but it doesn't burn. I'm still way uncomfortable because of it but thank goodness for no burning. That really is by far the worst of it for me.

When I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom sometimes I feel like I am going to throw up because the baby is stretched out from me being in the sideways position for so long and then I get up and everything inside me seems to squish but the baby seem to stay stretched out and the pressure it puts upwards is sometimes pretty painful. But then I lay back down and everything is just fine.

Speaking of going to the bathroom(don't worry, I don't think this is TMI, but if it is I apologize). In high school and in college I was pretty infamous for my ridiculously small bladder. Then after giving birth to Audree my bladder seemed to grow a gigantic amount and I could sometimes go 3 full hours without having to relieve my bladder. Well even though pregnancy makes you have to pee a lot more it's still not as much as it was when I was pregnant with Audree. It's kind of funny because that's one thing about the whole labor thing that I am grateful for. Because I had the epidural I couldn't use my bladder muscles and I had so much urine in my bladder that they were threatening to put a catheter back in even though the epidural was wearing off. Anyways after the absolute longest pee of my life I'm pretty sure my bladder grew and though it probably could have caused a bladder infection and other issues with bleeding(apparently you aren't supposed to have a full bladder or else the after bleeding doesn't slow down like it is supposed to) but hey, it turned out to actually help me out and I have been really grateful for that.

So the contractions have been pretty annoying. I must say that I really hate feeling contractions. Last time I don't think it bugged me as much as it does this time. I get them pretty frequently, mostly caused by having a full bladder or holding Audree while going up the stairs or bending over often while my bladder is full and I just don't know it until I have the contraction. Sometimes I really think I just have an incredibly touchy uterus and that's why I have so many contractions. But the doctor isn't concerned at all. He says if I have 5 in an hour then I need to slow down and if the contractions don't slow down with me then I need to go get checked out. But that never happens. More often then not when I stop cleaning the house, or stop walking, or go to the bathroom the contractions slow way down.

I have a step cousin that just had her baby. She's irresponsibly brought 2 babies into this world both which weighed less then 2 pounds because my cousin gets severe toxemia. I see these underdeveloped children of hers and I burst with gratitude that I am blessed to have healthy babies. That my body doesn't see fit to try and rid itself of the baby before it's due time. Don't get me wrong, it's a miracle that babies can survive when they are born that tiny, but I am so grateful not to have to deal with the stress that comes with that and being scared that anything could go wrong for the first couple months of the baby's life. I often complain about having huge babies and how I just wish that this one wont be huge like Audree but really I am just truly happy to have a healthy baby. And no matter what this baby weighs I will be incredibly happy if she is just healthy.

Emotionally I really think this time around has been harder for me too. Some days my self esteem is incredibly low. Last night I saw a picture of myself and just got so depressed about how fat I think I look. Last time I remember thinking I was such a cute pregnant person. I gained weight like I was supposed to and I thought I carried really well. This time around I honestly don't think there is anything farther from cute then me. Mark is constantly insisting that this isn't true but it's just how I feel. I don't feel cute or sexy(which Mark likes to tell me and I usually get angry about it because who wants to be called sexy when they are pregnant?? Maybe some people but my hormones just scream anger when I hear stuff like that) or small. I feel zitty, fat(like my love/back handles are the most noticeable things on my body), frumpy and misshapen. I try to get ready to make myself feel better but then I see a picture of myself or something and realize that I just don't look that great. Or I see my love handles when I look in the mirror and want to cover myself with a ginormous shirt. Or I weigh myself and see that I am only 6 pounds short of what I weighed at the end of my last pregnancy and I still have 12 weeks left and usually it just makes me wanna cry.

Don't worry though, I know all this has a lot to do with hormones and that it wont last forever. I do have my good days where I don't worry about this stuff but some days stink. I wish I was more motivated to work out so I could keep my weight gain steady. I just have no passion for working out and I have a really hard time doing stuff that doesn't yeild immediate results. It's really hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Plus with my current pregnant situation the sciatic nerve pain can be almost too much that going walking or any other physical activity leaves me nearly unable to move or walk. Some days it's better then others...today I am actually doing really well but for the past like week I woke up every morning and still struggled to walk. Plus like I mentioned early I am incredibly sore in all the parts of my body that are involved in walking. Oh well. Mark has started going to the gym and I made a deal with him that every day he goes to the gym I will either take Audree for a walk or walk on the treadmill. That means I have to walk on the treadmill today. I'm trying to not think about it until Audree is down for her nap(because that's when I have to do it) but I promised Mark so I need to do it and I can't back down or else he'll have a reason to back down and I want him to be healthy and lose weight. He seems to get sympathy weight gain. It's happened both times I've been pregnant. Hopefully he loses some of it like he did last time. But I want us both to be healthy, so we are trying and I can only pray and try hard to be successful. Sometimes it's so easy to talk myself out of stuff like this.

I'm sorry that this post may sound a bit negative but I wanted an honest recording of how I feel. There are things that are going great in my life. I have Audree who keeps me laughing and smiling even when I am not feeling amazing about myself. I have all the nursery decorating to look forward to and keep me thinking positively. I have been really really good the past two weeks at cooking for my family and that makes me feel a ton better about myself. We have a decent amount of frozen dinners stored up and I'm planning on doing more this weekend so I'm looking forward to saving money and time in March because of all the meals we have stored up. And I'm glad that I've done this seeing as I wont be up for much cooking come April when the little one comes. So we should also have a decent supply stored up for that.

And now I'm just rambling and this post probably couldn't be more boring so I think it's time to stop. Pregnancy is tough but I know that the after pregnancy is so much more worth it.