28 weeks (last week of the 2nd trimester) in Oklahoma visiting Phil's mission.
written during week 31/32: ...I know, I'm so on top of things around here. :)
I'm not sure where to go with this, but since I'm full swing into the third trimester I feel an obligation to keep track of at least the trimesters since I've been so inconsistent week to week.
The second trimester was not that much different from the first other than an ever growing excitement and love for this munchkin and of being pregnant. I love feeling this little guy move inside of me. I love the connection we have growing day by day. I love that he can hear us and feels my movement. I love the thought of Phil being a father and changing diapers and being my advocate and companion as we dive into parenthood. I love that he is SOOOO excited for this baby! I love that I'm responsible for his health and comfort. I love how much he is loved by my family and Phil's family already. I love that my dreams have become so vivid and memorable. I love that my clothes are a little tighter.. ok a lot tighter... and my regular shirts and pants have been put away and my wardrobe has simplified. I love talking to him and knowing that the more I do, the more he'll recognize me as his mom. I love imagining what he will look like, what he will be like. I love thinking about his little personality and the dynamic he is going to bring into our home. Being pregnant has been the most amazing experience so far and I only look forward with greater joy and excitement to what is to come. I look forward to giving birth and having that experience of bringing a new life into our home and family. It's still not even real yet. Everyday I think in wonderment, 'there is a baby in my belly.' I even exclaim several times a week to Phil, "There's a baby in my belly, how crazy is that?!?!"
Symptoms: As far as symptoms go the only ones I noticed were an increase in good mood. That's common due to an uprise in progesterone levels during the 2nd trimester. Though, I'm hoping it's not just hormone induced either way I am loving this positivity and renewed energy I feel. Heartburn has been relatively mild, it really just depends on when I eat and how I'm positioned. There are some positions when I lay that provoke it or if I go too long without something in my stomach. My nails have also been very brittle and dry. I think it's a combination of the winter months and just simply the hormones. My nose has been dry and bloody as well as my gums. My baby app says those are pretty normal symptoms due to the increase of blood in my body and being more prone to gingivitis.
Cravings: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches became incredibly appetizing after I bought some good ol' plum jam and made one for school lunch. It had been yeeeears since I had, had one and it just sounded so good. This accompanied with milk... Whew, sends me back! I've also been drinking more milk than usual and the pb&j was only a bigger reason to drink tons of it in one sitting. Putting peanut-butter on ritz crackers has also been a treat-of-wonders. Of course accompanied by a glass of cold milk. Mmm yum! I think I'll have some right now! :)
Vitamins I live on: I think one of the secrets to me feeling so great has been attributed greatly to the vitamins and supplements I've been taking. I take the New Chapter brand of prenatal vitamins that are food based and can be taken on an empty stomach. Before these were recommended to me I was taking the Nature's Way prenatal I got from Costco and looking back I realize that they made me nauseous when I would take my vitamins. That hasn't happened since I've been taking these. I take a Calcium called Super Cal by Young Living and love that they come in capsules instead of tablets which makes them easier to digest. I also take Young Living's Omega Gize3 which is their fish oil capsule. It doesn't have too bad of an aftertaste and usually goes away when I eat something after I take it.
The two wonder supplements that I take that I would HANDS-DOWN recommend to anyone pregnant or not, are the Young Living Essentialzyme and some sort of Potassium capsule. If you're prone to IBS and irregularity, I tell you what, I'm a very healthy girl, if you know what I mean. ;) Which is a HUGE deal for me! This is probably tmi, but seriously, for preggos who get constipated... this is a dream. Haven't been backed up once! Only when we traveled to Oklahoma and ate tons of meat and fried foods were my intestines a little frustrated.
The potassium has helped me to not get leg cramps. So far I can only think of two instances where I felt a charlie-horse coming on, but they never got to full excruciation, and I've been walking and swimming nearly every week now. After I felt one come on, I put some lavender essential oil on my calf and the sensation went away pretty quickly. Seriously, works, wonders!!
Diet: I eat at least 4 salads with romaine lettuce and spinach weekly, as I'm suppose to eat 30% raw foods and four salads as recommended by my midwife. It's been a little rough at first because we had nasty caesar dressing from Costco and now we're stuck with tons of it! Dang. So we just bought a good ranch and it's been easier to be consistent. (I would love to hear what your favorite dressing and salad mixes are, if you've got recommendations.) I try to eat a good amount of protein in the morning, it's suppose to keep my blood sugar levels stable throughout the day. I'm an egg person, so that comes pretty easy. I limit my sugar intake and luckily it's been really easy. I'm not a sugary-sweet eater (unless it's chocolate) But I think this kid isn't a big fan of sugar either. I eat tons of fruit though, so maybe that's how I remain satisfied. Apples are my staple because they're easy to take to school without getting squished in my bag and carrots are my go to veggie for the same reasons.
Mind loss: It's true what they say about loosing a few marbles when you get pregnant. I've definitely earned my hair color in the past few months. About a month or so ago I was unloading the dishwasher. I had started the load a day or so before and thought I'd take the initiative to unload them, whilst patting myself on the back thinking Phil would notice what a good wife I am. :) As I was unloading I noticed some grime on the silverware, this wasn't too out of the ordinary because it happened once before we had changed detergents, yet it hadn't happened since. "Ugh, maybe it was too full and it didn't clean them throughly," I thought to myself. Then I noticed a bit of grime on the under side of a few plates and I began to get agitated thinking that the dishwasher was really fudging up and that we may need to get it fixed since it obviously wasn't doing it's job. I finished unloading and explained the problem to Phil during dinner that night. We continued our weekly routines and when the dishwasher was filled enough to start the next load I went to put the soap in and noticed the soap dispenser hadn't opened from the previous run. "Oh man, it really is broken!" ... and when I forced it open I the soap hadn't dissolved and I finally put it all together. I never pressed the start button when I had "started" the last load! We had been eating off of dirty dishes and with dirty silverware for the past few days!! My thought process was so funny because I had gone through the motions of starting a load and yet while unloading I didn't even think to re-wash the dishes because of the grime. Oh my!! I still chuckle along side getting the heebie-geebies when I think about it.
Another thing Phil has brought to my attention this past week is that I always warn him about something 5 seconds too late. We had stopped at Macey's in Provo to get ice-cream cones the other day, they had already closed so we decided to go to Dairy Queen instead, as we were exiting the parking row he turned right and as he was accelerating through the turn I told him, "We should go left and drive down that other road, it'll be faster." He shook his head saying, "that would have been better to know 5 seconds ago before I had already turned right!" He then proceeded to tell me that this hadn't been the first time that I had given him prompts that were always after-the-fact. We were both chuckling about how absurd it was that I couldn't seem to vocalize my thoughts until the moment of execution had passed.
The exact same thing happened after dinner tonight. Phil was being awesome and putting the left-over dinner into some tupperware and preparing an extra one for himself for lunch tomorrow. He was combining the rice with the stir fry and as he was adding stir fry to a second container filled with rice, I said, "you can keep that one separate from the rice." "Ahh!" he exclaimed, "you should have said that 5 seconds ago!" We both burst into laughter and I kept exclaiming, "WHY do I do that?!" And when I think about it I still can't understand it. The only explanation I have is pregnancy brain or some serious communication issues. :)
Ups and Downs:
With all this said. I do believe that I have had an incredibly blessed pregnancy, as much as I know a lot of my health and good spirits has come from nutrition I know the greatest portion of it has been down-right a blessing sent from heaven. I know many women suffer tremendously during pregnancies and I can't even fathom how blessed I am and how annoying it must be for most women to hear that I'm doing and feeling great and have been since day one. Though some of the hardest things have come to me emotionally.
Along with the first trimester denial and struggle with not feeling ready, I finally got to a place of acceptance as I wrote about
here. I'd been incredibly happy and ecstatic ever since, until a few weeks ago when the "I'm-going-to-be-a-crappy-mom" phase showed it's ugly head. I have issues with getting and staying motivated a lot and found myself in a huge slum. I began to fear that this is how I was going to be and stay as a new mom. All the warnings we've been getting about the sleepless nights and all the things we are going to be missing out on when this little one comes were starting to drag me down. I also let myself get depressed about the idea of motherhood and thoughts like, "what the heck am I going to do all day?" "How am I going to entertain my kids?" "I just don't have it in me to do this!" "I just can't be a mom!" crept in. I can't thank Phil enough for talking sense back into me during the long hours of the night while he holds me in my sobbing floods of fear and hormones. He's so good to bring me back and comfort me, letting me catch a vision of what I am capable of. Not only that but he is so willing and worthy to give me a priesthood blessing any time I need it, and at this point I really needed it. It's so nice to have that re-fresher, hearing my Heavenly Father's words being spoken to me through him. Reminding me of how God sees me and how much he loves and trusts me, opposed to how insignificant and invaluable I feel sometimes. Oh how I love the Gospel and how I love God! He is so good!
Another heart wrenching struggle that has been ongoing during this pregnancy is to know that it should be my sister having baby number 12 in my family and not me. It has been one of the most difficult things for me and has really taught me how to mourn with those that mourn. She announced this past Summer that she was pregnant with her third child and she miscarried the baby shortly before I got pregnant in September. She may not know this but I've grieved many days and nights for her. I grieve that it is not her bringing in new life along side me. I wanted so badly to do this with her and find myself having cry spells thinking about it and agonizing over it. Further more she miscarried again and though she has been very resilient and positive I think about how hard it must be for her to see me. She is so great to me and shows a lot of excitement for me but I just know deep down the pain and frustration she must feel along side many women who struggle to get pregnant and stay pregnant. Phil and I pray for her daily and know that it's not in our hands, but the Lords, as all things are. I just have to trust that he is taking care of things and that the time will come that she'll have another, and if it doesn't, we just have to trust Him and know that everything happens and doesn't happen for a reason.
(Sniffle) Well.. (deep breath) (and sigh!) Now that we've travelled on that emotional roller coaster of a blog-post, you can now relate yourselves with how I've felt during this pregnancy. Prayers are welcome on behalf of my sister if you feel so inclined. :)
And now I'm at a loss for how to end on a more positive note.
Oh...
Good news!! We found a place to move and it's going to be so great an just the right size for us to live in until Phil is done with school. I'm so excited. We're moving because 1st off the basement apartment we are in now only has one bedroom and there's not enough space for us, let alone our little one and our contract is up at the end of this month anyway. We move after finals week! The next two months before baby get's here are going to be a whirlwind! We both have 3 more weeks of school plus finals and 8 weeks (or so) left until baby-boy is coming!! I can't wait to see his cute face, feel his soft skin, and nibble on his little neck. Oh how baby hungry, cooking this baby is making me! :) Wish us luck! Oh boy.. here we go!
