40 Weeks

With my official due date coming up tomorrow (alright so I started this post back on June 17th...), I wanted to recap some highlights of pregnancy.  (Mostly I want to do this for myself...but also for the very few who read this post).

The first trimester was difficult, but not as difficult as some ladies have it.  I didn't want to tell a soul at first.  Adam had a hard time understanding this...he would have told everyone we knew as soon as we found out.  Luckily, he agreed to wait until I said it was time.  We saw the doctor for the first time at 10 weeks and heard the heart beat.  At that point the doctor said there is a 5% chance of miscarriage.  So, we decided to tell people about 3 weeks after that...just to be sure.  Based on the numbers, the measurements, the math, the doctor put the due date as June 18th.  That seemed forever away.

The first trimester I was sick everyday from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep.  Nothing sounded good to eat, but I soon found out that I felt better if I did eat.  So I had to take snacks EVERYWHERE...I had to eat every couple of hours or I'd be sick as a dog again.  I had baggies of cheez-its, gold fish, granola bars, crackers...and of course a bottle of water everywhere I went.  There were granola bars stashed in Adam's car and my car, just in case we forgot to take snacks when we were out.  Adam was great about putting together little snack bags of all these things.  We took them everywhere.  I couldn't eat just anything too...certain smells and foods became off limits.  With that in mind I ate a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

This is my first pregnancy so I worried (and still worry) about anything and everything!  It is sometimes exhausting worrying about all the stuff I worry about!  =)

But everything is all so new and different...I took to the internet to look up every "weird" thing.  And every "weird" symptom always turned out to be normal.  The internet is a funny thing...it will give you great information, but it can also make you even more crazy and worrisome, so I stopped looking at it because sometimes I drove myself crazy with it.

At 16 weeks we were caught in a freak blizzard in New Mexico, got into an accident (and I didn't even think to go get checked out as the hospital), and got stranded for 2 days...that was scary...and quite the adventure.

As it got closer to the time of the anatomy scan I became increasingly curious about whether we were going to have a boy or a girl.  Everyone (and I do mean everyone) was convinced we were having a boy.  I read through countless lists of "Old Wives Tales" to determine the sex...in the end the results were always 50/50.  Ha!  Half of the tests said we were having a boy and half said a girl.

At our anatomy scan we were able to see our baby up close and personal.  It was the craziest thing to see our baby on the screen.  The lab tech gave us a guided tour of my uterus and pointed out all the important parts...the heart, the lungs, the brain, etc...and she revealed that we were having a GIRL!  When she first said it I didn't believe her because my mind was so set on having a boy.  At the end of the scan she went back over the "girl parts" and it was clear we really were having a girl!  Adam had the biggest smile on his face when we found out.  I think for a second he was a little disappointed that we weren't having a boy, but I know he was singing a different tune really quickly.  He was very, very excited to be having a little girl.

At 32 weeks I stopped working out.  It just became too uncomfortable and Adam said I looked "unnatural" when I was running.  Haha...what a goofball!  Hopefully I'll continue to workout longer in my next pregnancy.

Ok, overall, I loved being pregnant.  I didn't have any major problems, and most of the symptoms I felt weren't over-the-top.  I liked my growing belly, and I was lucky enough to make the journey and NOT get any stretch marks.  Towards the end of my pregnancy (like the last 2 1/2 months) I experienced ridiculous heartburn and acid reflux.  It was so bad that I'd wake up in the middle of the night chocking on my own vomit.  It was way gross and very scary.  Also, my feet and hands started to swell...a lot!  I couldn't wear any shoes except flip-flops.  And it hurt to walk...I thought my feet were going to start floating and carry me away!  Also, I got tired of not being able to sleep on my back.  I'm totally a back sleeper or stomach sleeper.  Sleeping became increasingly difficult as I got bigger and bigger.  It was a whole production for me to shift from one side to the other in bed.  Plus it was slightly painful, as I could feel the baby move with me.  Oh and buying maternity clothes was depressing most of the time...no cute clothes for cheap.  I mostly wore my same clothes up until the last couple of months.  I wore Adam's t-shirts a lot, and I wore dresses as shirts.

Well, I guess that's about it...it's been a long journey, and I've enjoyed it and can't wait for the next step!