Couch Living
I've basically been living on our living room futon couch lately. It's because of the slight aversion I've developed with our room--you spend too much time being sick in a place, and sooner or later, just being in that place will make you "feel" sick. So, I've come to space it out more with the living room, and the futon couch both in an upright couch position and down bed position. I don't sleep here though, for a lot of reasons, though two bigs ones: Loki and Dante. They're terrible at night these days--somehow they are operating at almost full nocturnal capacity, and are absolute terrors at night.
The past few days have been spent playing Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 (or Roller Toaster, as we affectionately call it). Before that I was watching my way through the seasons of In Plain Sight. I have also worked a little on my needlepoint that I got from Joanne's two weekends ago. It's been hard for me in the past two weeks, mostly because I've had more bad days than good days. On bad days, all I can manage to do is sit and stare--and if I'm lucky, I've managed to find a movie/TV show to stare at, rather than just outside the window or the walls. On good days, I can play video games or computer games or needlepoint (sometimes both, depending on the type of game).
Today has been the first "good day" in weeks. I have had actual hours where I didn't feel nauseous AT ALL. I almost didn't understand the sensation--I got into the shower and went, "Holy shit. I'm not nauseous at all at this moment! ......it feels like I'm missing something." After the shower, I had a bit of nausea, as is typical after I bathe (we tried a bath--same effect unfortunately, and I had to struggle with my increasingly useless abdomen muscles). But, the it WENT AWAY AGAIN. I went into a cleaning frenzy to get to the things that Brian has been putting off for weeks, while he focused on more pressing things, like my need to eat. I cleaned the toilet, which was repulsive, and the bathroom counter (if you can call it that--it just encircles the sink; our other apartment had an actual counter space on both sides...somehow, we down graded in terms of bathrooms), and the bathroom floor. I also got to cleaning the dining room table (which is where we store mail for some reason, and it gets EXTREMELY messy, very fast--to the point where you cannot see the pretty placemats anymore). I worked slightly on the kitchen, but that's when the nausea came back. At least I managed to get the bed made for the first time in.......it's been a good long while.
Now I'm back to sitting until the nausea calms down to a reasonable place. I may have overdone it ever so slightly in my eagerness. But, it was very exciting to finally have the ability to move around without feeling perpetually slightly car (or sea) sick. Of course, sometimes it's more than that just "slightly" (like now--I'm in approaching moderate, but it should calm down as I sit for awhile). Night time is the WORST. I have been getting terrible acid reflux, which enhances a feeling of nausea; this nausea is a burning eternal flame in my stomach. Despite my best efforts, I'm averaging a Tums almost every night. I have tried to do every-other-night at the least, but all it means so far is that those nights I have more trouble falling and staying asleep. Last night was one of those "skip" nights, and I kept waking up from it....so, I took some Tums. I hate this development of reliance on it, especially since this is really not the worst that the acid reflux is going to get (when my uterus really starts pushing on my stomach, it will be at least 5x worse).
In also exciting news, I've felt the baby. Not like kicking--that will be later when it actually has something resembling strength (it's about 4.5 inches now, around a Haas avocado size). But, it's bones have started to calcify, and so it's movement is finally detectable (it started moving around almost four weeks ago, but there was no way to feel it, especially since it floated in about 10x its size of fluid). It kind of feels like getting the butterflies from excitement or nervousness, but about 4 inches lower than your stomach. XD Unfortunately, this has absolutely zero excitement factor for ME. Other people? Oh man, it's like I told them that I won two free tickets to a concert. I'm afraid I cannot care much about these things, especially when I'm miserable most of the time. Right now, far more exciting to me is being nausea free for a few hours a day. THAT is what I care about.
I am also developing a noticeable bump, beginning under my belly button. Sort of looks like a cowboy's beer belly, to be honest, but it's not the same as when I've gotten fat. I'm also at 130lbs usually in the mornings, though just recently it sank back down to 128lbs. Most of that is probably not weight gain on MY part, however. You can tell that I've got more blood floating around in me, for one thing. It's actually a bit creepy/gross, and makes me want to get a tan: you can see the entire tracing network of my veins on my chest. Plus, you can see my veins in lots of other places, like my hands/wrists, my arms....*shudders* It's a little icky. Combined with the fact that my rib cage feels like someone took hold of the bottoms and pulled each one sideways, I feel a lot like my body has become some sort of strange science experiment. The changes of teen years have NOTHING on pregnancy, let me tell you.
Also, I've had some really terrible fatigue days. I have also had days where I vomit bile first thing in the morning. One day I was making my morning tea, and had to vomit, and the whole time I was trying to rush it because my tea was going to over steep. I didn't make it. =(
In other news, I have a massive under-the-skin pimple on my chin. It's almost the size of a dime. It's pretty big, and slightly painful. These are the realities of pregnancy that they don't ever go over in any film/TV show. In fact, we recently watched Look Who's Talking, and I was PISSED at the portrayal of her pregnancy. She throws up in the toilet ONCE, and is totally fine after (instead of exhausted, hungry, and more nauseous), and none of the problems of later pregnancy even figure into things--just that she eats a lot. ACTUALLY, towars the end of pregnancy, you can't eat a lot. Fun fact: your stomach becomes almost halved from the pressure of your uterus. You get hungry almost every two hours, but you cannot eat more than around a cup of food or so per meal. You cannot just snack on an entire packet of cookies. That's where *I* am, now, with my little bump. I've been eating a lot more than I did before I got pregnant, and despite my nearly zero exercise, all the calories get burned up anyway. It's like the lazy fat person's dream--eat lots of food, of any kind you want, and your body just destroys it. On the other hand though, I'm responsible not just for my own nutrition, but another person's, so no daily (or weekly...or monthly....but maybe every other month...ly?) donuts.
Though, to talk about that, I've only recently become more able to stomach "most" food. There are still few absolutely no-no foods, namely chicken, pork, bacon, and most fish (I seem to be okay with shell fish, or alternate "sea" food like eel, but salmon is absolutely out still). But, some of my earliest aversions have abated, like cucumbers and eggplant. Yesterday, I had eggplant, green beans, and mashed potatoes. For some reason, the only food I've managed to eat with regularity in my pregancy is the potato, one of my least favorite and least consumed foods in my normal life. Brian is a potato fan, but they're pretty toxic to the human body...and my baby is apparently a big fan as well. Must take after her father.
And no, we don't know that its any gender yet. It's FOUR INCHES BIG, for goodness sake. Any penis it has would be smaller than a grain of rice. I'll probably put off an another ultrasound until week 20-25 or so, where it will be a little more accurate. Of course, given how many people I know who were supposed to one gender and came out another, I'll be prepared for either just in case. We're both hoping its a girl, which means it'll likely be a boy, if there is a God, who gets his kicks and giggles from tormenting his creations. I'd like a boy, but I'd like him properly squished between two girl siblings. Boys and girls are very different in our society, and I feel like girls are much easier to raise up to a certain point (right around 16 or so is when things begin to get more difficult), whereas boys start out much more difficult and get easier with time (usually around 18 or thereabouts). I'm basing this judgment not only on observation of parents and peers, but observation of my own siblings (of which there are 17, with various mothers and parenting styles, so it's a decent enough sample for a call of one thing or another, I suppose). But, we're also both a little worried that we may have less in common with a young boy than a young girl, even one that we've raised. Brian will be almost useless with the Sporty Active type, though he says that he was That Kid when he was younger, before he developed asthma.
I'm ready for either, frankly. And I've prepared also for a child with a disorder, because that's sometimes how these things happen. However, I'd like to think that we're having a girl first. This is also because girls are so much more fun to buy things for than boys--it's not that the gender is naturally more fun, but that the industry is geared towards this, in an effort to start young in teaching girls that the only thing that really matters about them is their "beauty." Boys have to be "valiant and brave," which means "active," and therefore less effort is put into their things. And while I'll be doing my best to deconstruct the Beauty Myth in my girl(s), I'll still enjoy dressing them up and buying adorable things. I'd do the same for my boy(s), if they had the things available. Either gender is going to have at least one Monkey onesie, complete with hat. And for their first Halloween, they will be a Monkey. This is because this is part of the fun of being a parent--PAYBACK FOR THIS PREGNANCY. I figure I get the right to at LEAST a year of complete control over his or her life, and then the control works on a sliding scale for however difficult raising them has been (Terrible Twos? Add another two years to the scale. U_U). Haha, my mom actually loved both Sheena and I at two-years-old, and never understood the "terrible twos" concept that America has developed. Kids that age are fun!
Anyway. That's all I have to report. I need to lay down in a more prostrate position, as my stomach isn't settling at much as I need it to. I was hoping to get the recycling out, since its overflowing, but at this rate, it's not going to happen.
The past few days have been spent playing Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 (or Roller Toaster, as we affectionately call it). Before that I was watching my way through the seasons of In Plain Sight. I have also worked a little on my needlepoint that I got from Joanne's two weekends ago. It's been hard for me in the past two weeks, mostly because I've had more bad days than good days. On bad days, all I can manage to do is sit and stare--and if I'm lucky, I've managed to find a movie/TV show to stare at, rather than just outside the window or the walls. On good days, I can play video games or computer games or needlepoint (sometimes both, depending on the type of game).
Today has been the first "good day" in weeks. I have had actual hours where I didn't feel nauseous AT ALL. I almost didn't understand the sensation--I got into the shower and went, "Holy shit. I'm not nauseous at all at this moment! ......it feels like I'm missing something." After the shower, I had a bit of nausea, as is typical after I bathe (we tried a bath--same effect unfortunately, and I had to struggle with my increasingly useless abdomen muscles). But, the it WENT AWAY AGAIN. I went into a cleaning frenzy to get to the things that Brian has been putting off for weeks, while he focused on more pressing things, like my need to eat. I cleaned the toilet, which was repulsive, and the bathroom counter (if you can call it that--it just encircles the sink; our other apartment had an actual counter space on both sides...somehow, we down graded in terms of bathrooms), and the bathroom floor. I also got to cleaning the dining room table (which is where we store mail for some reason, and it gets EXTREMELY messy, very fast--to the point where you cannot see the pretty placemats anymore). I worked slightly on the kitchen, but that's when the nausea came back. At least I managed to get the bed made for the first time in.......it's been a good long while.
Now I'm back to sitting until the nausea calms down to a reasonable place. I may have overdone it ever so slightly in my eagerness. But, it was very exciting to finally have the ability to move around without feeling perpetually slightly car (or sea) sick. Of course, sometimes it's more than that just "slightly" (like now--I'm in approaching moderate, but it should calm down as I sit for awhile). Night time is the WORST. I have been getting terrible acid reflux, which enhances a feeling of nausea; this nausea is a burning eternal flame in my stomach. Despite my best efforts, I'm averaging a Tums almost every night. I have tried to do every-other-night at the least, but all it means so far is that those nights I have more trouble falling and staying asleep. Last night was one of those "skip" nights, and I kept waking up from it....so, I took some Tums. I hate this development of reliance on it, especially since this is really not the worst that the acid reflux is going to get (when my uterus really starts pushing on my stomach, it will be at least 5x worse).
In also exciting news, I've felt the baby. Not like kicking--that will be later when it actually has something resembling strength (it's about 4.5 inches now, around a Haas avocado size). But, it's bones have started to calcify, and so it's movement is finally detectable (it started moving around almost four weeks ago, but there was no way to feel it, especially since it floated in about 10x its size of fluid). It kind of feels like getting the butterflies from excitement or nervousness, but about 4 inches lower than your stomach. XD Unfortunately, this has absolutely zero excitement factor for ME. Other people? Oh man, it's like I told them that I won two free tickets to a concert. I'm afraid I cannot care much about these things, especially when I'm miserable most of the time. Right now, far more exciting to me is being nausea free for a few hours a day. THAT is what I care about.
I am also developing a noticeable bump, beginning under my belly button. Sort of looks like a cowboy's beer belly, to be honest, but it's not the same as when I've gotten fat. I'm also at 130lbs usually in the mornings, though just recently it sank back down to 128lbs. Most of that is probably not weight gain on MY part, however. You can tell that I've got more blood floating around in me, for one thing. It's actually a bit creepy/gross, and makes me want to get a tan: you can see the entire tracing network of my veins on my chest. Plus, you can see my veins in lots of other places, like my hands/wrists, my arms....*shudders* It's a little icky. Combined with the fact that my rib cage feels like someone took hold of the bottoms and pulled each one sideways, I feel a lot like my body has become some sort of strange science experiment. The changes of teen years have NOTHING on pregnancy, let me tell you.
Also, I've had some really terrible fatigue days. I have also had days where I vomit bile first thing in the morning. One day I was making my morning tea, and had to vomit, and the whole time I was trying to rush it because my tea was going to over steep. I didn't make it. =(
In other news, I have a massive under-the-skin pimple on my chin. It's almost the size of a dime. It's pretty big, and slightly painful. These are the realities of pregnancy that they don't ever go over in any film/TV show. In fact, we recently watched Look Who's Talking, and I was PISSED at the portrayal of her pregnancy. She throws up in the toilet ONCE, and is totally fine after (instead of exhausted, hungry, and more nauseous), and none of the problems of later pregnancy even figure into things--just that she eats a lot. ACTUALLY, towars the end of pregnancy, you can't eat a lot. Fun fact: your stomach becomes almost halved from the pressure of your uterus. You get hungry almost every two hours, but you cannot eat more than around a cup of food or so per meal. You cannot just snack on an entire packet of cookies. That's where *I* am, now, with my little bump. I've been eating a lot more than I did before I got pregnant, and despite my nearly zero exercise, all the calories get burned up anyway. It's like the lazy fat person's dream--eat lots of food, of any kind you want, and your body just destroys it. On the other hand though, I'm responsible not just for my own nutrition, but another person's, so no daily (or weekly...or monthly....but maybe every other month...ly?) donuts.
Though, to talk about that, I've only recently become more able to stomach "most" food. There are still few absolutely no-no foods, namely chicken, pork, bacon, and most fish (I seem to be okay with shell fish, or alternate "sea" food like eel, but salmon is absolutely out still). But, some of my earliest aversions have abated, like cucumbers and eggplant. Yesterday, I had eggplant, green beans, and mashed potatoes. For some reason, the only food I've managed to eat with regularity in my pregancy is the potato, one of my least favorite and least consumed foods in my normal life. Brian is a potato fan, but they're pretty toxic to the human body...and my baby is apparently a big fan as well. Must take after her father.
And no, we don't know that its any gender yet. It's FOUR INCHES BIG, for goodness sake. Any penis it has would be smaller than a grain of rice. I'll probably put off an another ultrasound until week 20-25 or so, where it will be a little more accurate. Of course, given how many people I know who were supposed to one gender and came out another, I'll be prepared for either just in case. We're both hoping its a girl, which means it'll likely be a boy, if there is a God, who gets his kicks and giggles from tormenting his creations. I'd like a boy, but I'd like him properly squished between two girl siblings. Boys and girls are very different in our society, and I feel like girls are much easier to raise up to a certain point (right around 16 or so is when things begin to get more difficult), whereas boys start out much more difficult and get easier with time (usually around 18 or thereabouts). I'm basing this judgment not only on observation of parents and peers, but observation of my own siblings (of which there are 17, with various mothers and parenting styles, so it's a decent enough sample for a call of one thing or another, I suppose). But, we're also both a little worried that we may have less in common with a young boy than a young girl, even one that we've raised. Brian will be almost useless with the Sporty Active type, though he says that he was That Kid when he was younger, before he developed asthma.
I'm ready for either, frankly. And I've prepared also for a child with a disorder, because that's sometimes how these things happen. However, I'd like to think that we're having a girl first. This is also because girls are so much more fun to buy things for than boys--it's not that the gender is naturally more fun, but that the industry is geared towards this, in an effort to start young in teaching girls that the only thing that really matters about them is their "beauty." Boys have to be "valiant and brave," which means "active," and therefore less effort is put into their things. And while I'll be doing my best to deconstruct the Beauty Myth in my girl(s), I'll still enjoy dressing them up and buying adorable things. I'd do the same for my boy(s), if they had the things available. Either gender is going to have at least one Monkey onesie, complete with hat. And for their first Halloween, they will be a Monkey. This is because this is part of the fun of being a parent--PAYBACK FOR THIS PREGNANCY. I figure I get the right to at LEAST a year of complete control over his or her life, and then the control works on a sliding scale for however difficult raising them has been (Terrible Twos? Add another two years to the scale. U_U). Haha, my mom actually loved both Sheena and I at two-years-old, and never understood the "terrible twos" concept that America has developed. Kids that age are fun!
Anyway. That's all I have to report. I need to lay down in a more prostrate position, as my stomach isn't settling at much as I need it to. I was hoping to get the recycling out, since its overflowing, but at this rate, it's not going to happen.