Eating habits

One of the things I was not prepared for was the way some things just do not taste or sound good to me. For example, chicken looks and tastes gross. We used to eat it almost every night. Clif bars don't taste very good - when I used to love them and bought a box from Sam's right before I got preggers. My sweet tooth is out in full force, and I'll be honest, I don't have the willpower I used to. I ate a Hershey bar yesterday and it wasn't even that good. I don't really like plain Hershey bars. I would not have done that without all these hormones running around!!

I do want to eat steak or red meat - something I rarely ate before. Luckily, we have that half a cow in the freezer so I'm good to go. I have some nice NY strips thawing for dinner tonight.

16 weeks

I've lost my husband to his new teaching job and football practice, so I'm back to taking these photos myself.

• This week, I weighed 207. Still a little higher than I'd like but at least not such a drastic increase.
• The "bump" is definitely here. Yesterday at work, someone asked me if I were pregnant for the first time without any prompting or prior knowledge. She said she could tell.
• My ear is still clogging up all the time. Almost every day now.
• The skin at the top of my stomach is starting to stretch - I have an itchy dry patch that seems to go away when I lotion it up in the mornings. Hopefully that will prevent additional stretch marks to the ones I earned in college.
• I can feel the baby moving!!! Such a strange sensation at first. I didn't really know what to expect, but it's super odd. Today I was wearing tight pants (my own pants, with the hair tie as a clasp) and I think the little nugget didn't like that so much. Whenever I sat down, I imagined it pushing back out because that's when I could feel it.

Two more strange things

I forgot one on my list!! My ear doing this strange clogged feeling, where my hearing sounds muffled in just the right ear for a while, then it will go away. I asked the OB about it and she said no big deal - all mucus membranes are expanding and producing more mucus. Great.

I started sleeping with a humidifier to see if that helps. So far, it's not, but it probably helps the hubs and his morning sneezing ritual, so I'll keep using it anyway.

Here's my 14 week picture - a different shot of my other weird thing. I'm finding this is so much easier than my belly band for now. I can just use a hair tie to keep my pants on. You can see that I'm not that much bigger, because the clasp is only about an inch and a half from it's original hook, but no way is it going to meet with its partner. Everyone is saying I'm starting to show - just a bit.

Strange things

Maybe you've heard that pregnant bodies do all sorts of things, maybe you haven't. Here are some of the weird things I've noticed so far:

1. I have a strange rash/bumps on my upper arms. I think some people have these all the time, but I don't so it's weird to me. They don't itch, are not red or pimples, just bumps. 
2. I have a lot of dreams. Last night's dream was about an awesome food buffet. I was having a great time until the hubs woke me up. 
3. I am starving. When I get hungry, I can usually wait a while until I eat. Now, I start to get shaky and a lil nauseous if I don't eat pretty soon. I also can't eat very much. If I eat too much, when I burp I throw up in my mouth a bit (gross, I know.) but that's apparently because the valve that closes at the top of your stomach gets loose. 
4. I can't walk fast. I used to walk super fast to get to a meeting at work. Now, I'm the slow poke holding everyone else up. It's really annoying to start panting immediately.

Rockin' the radio

The baby websites and books tell me that the squirt can hear muffled noises. We recently bought a mom-car SUV so I have a pretty sweet Bose stereo system now. I mean, that thing can bass. So, I've been exposing the squirt to some nice rap music on the way to and from work. I like to turn it up so you can actually feel the bass, not just hear it. I'm going to love it when the baby comes out singing some serious beats.

13 weeks

As you can see, the hubs is now on board to take the photos. I didn't bother to fix my hair or put on makeup so this is what the baby will see me look like all the time.

The damage is beginning

Written Friday, August 5, 13 weeks pregnant

I'm having a really hard time accepting this whole weight-gain thing. I don't really feel pregnant yet. Other than being beyond hungry every couple of hours and peeing twice as much as that, I feel pretty normal now. We did get to see the little squirt the other day for about an hour at my 12-week ultrasound, so I know it's in there. But, I just feel like I've gained several pounds and that I need to quit eating and work out more. I know HOW to lose weight and there's this little internal battle almost daily about should I eat more - no I should stay hungry longer, then the other side of me reminds myself that there is, in fact, a wee little baby (about 2 inches tall) rolling around inside my stomach and is probably hungry too.

I really don't want to gain more than 30 lbs. I started this journey at 195-ish, but we'll go with that. At 13 weeks, I weigh 202. One of the charts online says I should only weigh 200 next week at 14 weeks, so I'm already ahead of the chart. And I'm not happy about that.