So far the pregnancy is going very well. I honestly can’t really complain. I just finished telling my mother in law that I’m fairly happy in terms of where I am at 22 weeks. I’m not huge yet so I am still capable of doing normal things, but I at least look pregnant most of the time, lol. Most of the early side effects are gone (nausea, the evil Chronic headache that was making me throw up every few days, etc) aside from random food aversions. Right now it’s chicken, but I think that’s partly because we had chicken too many times in one week and my body decided to start rejecting it.
Other than that, I’m happy. I can feel the baby kick so I know he’s okay and that makes me ecstatic, and everything else is just easy peasy as of right now. 
I’ve had ongoing eczema for years now. More specifically, I have what is called Keratosis Pilaris. It’s basically raised red bumps that are primarily on my upper arms and lower legs. I do have some on the top of my lower arms but it’s not so prominent. It’s really something I’ve gotten very used to and it doesn’t even bother me anymore. Sometimes during the winter it’ll become more obvious due to the drier weather, but I just have to remember to moisturize like crazy and that usually helps to a degree. There are medicated lotions and creams that claim to work, but I’ve never had too much success with any of them, and I don’t want to be putting medication on my skin the rest of my life. I’ve seen specialists and even places like allergist austin to see if maybe it’s something else triggering it, but it seems to just be a fairly common skin condition that everyone deals with differently.
One of the things that Jeremiah and I are very anal about is the cleanliness of our home. We have two dogs but generally you’d never know it unless they were barking at you or you walked into the area where their crates are. We are very diligent about picking up around the house daily, and doing a thorough cleaning at least once a week. With two long-haired dogs, we vacuum about every other day. If our carpets get anything on them, we immediately clean it up, run the carpet shampooer over it, and then every 6 months or so we search for something like carpet cleaning durham nc for our area and have our carpets professionally cleaned. I try very hard to make sure there is not dog hair all over my clothes, or a smell in my house. I pride myself on my house-keeping abilities and don’t intend to do anything any different, especially once we have another small child in the house!
Earlier today at a mom’s group I’m planning on joining, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about technology and how it changes things. She has a blogger account where she updates friends and family on her family and children. She posts pictures every few days and writes out blogs about how her kids are growing and what they’ve been up to. I mentioned that I need to post about my family more, but I am terrible about taking pictures. With 8 megapixel cameras on phones now, I never really find a reason to break out my actual camera and take pictures. I mean, my phone takes really decent pictures, but I tend to never upload them, or I only put them on facebook.
Technology is changing everybody and everything. The fact that you can post blogs to update your family on how things are going is so different then where we were 15 years ago. People are shopping online for everything from clothing to skb roto rack consoles! It’s just amazing how things have changed over the years, even from when I was a pre-teen and on AOL chats. :O
So everything SEEMS to be going okay with the pregnancy so far. I have an appointment tomorrow for an ultrasound and I’m really hopping and praying everything is good. I was starting to feel little kicks & movements here and there, and now the past couple of days I haven’t really felt anything noticeable, so of course that little paranoid tick in my brain is just wondering what’s going on down there.
My biggest complaint at this point? Just the general aches and pains that come with the territory. My back hurts about 80% of the time. The ball joints in my shoulders and upper back hurt pretty bad as well at times. I have that constant “I need to pop my neck” feeling that gives me a headache. It’s all stuff that definitely won’t get better before the baby is born so I just deal. I’ll definitely update after my appointment tomorrow so that y’all know how baby is doing.
When I was a kid, I remember my dad having a guitar that I used to be allowed to “play with” every now and then. I played the trumpet in middle school, and dad tried to teach me how to play the guitar a few times once I learned how to read the music. I was not interested for very long, and gave up after trying only a few times. Now that I’m older, I completely regret not putting more effort into learning an instrument. The trumpet wasn’t for me, but I do wish I’d tried harder to learn the guitar, or shown interest in piano lessons.
A few months ago, my sister offered to teach me to learn guitar, and even offered for me to borrow hers while I’m learning. I wish I’d taken her up on her offer because now she doesn’t really talk to me. I may end up buying either a cheap guitar or piano/keyboard so that I can learn, and in turn teach Matthew how to play. Of course, if he ever expresses interest in actual lessons, we’ll do what we can to arrange them for him. I grew up with little to no musical inclination so if my son shows any signs of it, you bet I’ll be doing everything I can to encourage it!
I have a hard time blogging because I don’t want to constantly blog about baby stuff. I mean.. it’s going to be most of what I talk about for the next.. forever, so I might as well slap the “mommy blog” label up in here and leave it be. I can’t just do that, though. I’m not the typical mommy blogger. I have no intention of flooding anyone with posts about breastfeeding and spit-up. Unless that’s what y’all want? Yeah?!
Anyways.
We’ve made new friends! I’ve been so excited over this new relationship that it’s probably quite obvious if you peek at my facebook. It’s a guy my husband works with and his wife, and they are very much like us in terms of.. they like to go to dinner & a movie, hang out, go bowling, have fun.. not necessarily partying it up like some our age. They don’t have kids so it’s not just baby talk all the time like it is with some of my mom friends (no offense to them, I love it, but it does get old! I’m a 25 year old girl, too, not just a mom).
Tonight we saw the new Underworld in 3D with them. I’m not sure how I feel about 3D movies. That was my first and I left with my eyes hurting along with the bridge of my nose where the hard glasses sat. I got used to it after a bit but it was still uncomfortable. I think I’ll stick to regular HD movies. After the movie we went to Cici’s Pizza for dinner, then skipped their dessert buffet & headed over to one of those fancy dancy yogurt bars that are all the rage nowadays. It was delish & totally worth it.
As for the baby talk, I’m 17 weeks as of yesterday. Last week I had an ultrasound and baby is doing great.. growth and weight are right on the marks and all tests have come back perfect! I’m so excited to progress further – especially once we get past 23 weeks which is when Jeremiah deployed when I was pregnant with Matthew. Woo!
THANK YOU for all of the congratulations on the last post! As of yesterday I’m 16 weeks pregnant.
It hasn’t quite become completely real, though every day I wake up feeling a little bit more fat. Unfortunately, even when I’m hungry, I really just feel and look like I ate way too much. I have two appointments this week; one with the perinatal doctor and one with my regular obstetrician. I can’t wait to see how the baby is doing.
I was telling my mom today that I keep forgetting that Jeremiah didn’t get to be around for my last pregnancy. I can never forget that he wasn’t there, I just forget that he didn’t get to experience all of the stuff that pregnancy entails. In a way I’m sure he sees it as a blessing, but he didn’t get to see or feel Matthew kick in my belly, he didn’t get to see him big on the ultrasounds and he didn’t get to be there for the birth or first 3 months.
I can’t wait for him to experience those things and see his reaction.. and see him get to be a part of all of this.
We’ve been waiting WEEKS to make it public, and now that I’ve told all family and friends I can say it here on a public website.. I AM PREGNANT!
This image was from a week ago, at 12w4d. Now I’m about 13w5d. Tentative due date is July 1st but of course they like to induce diabetics for health and safety reasons so that can always change. We’re very excited and can’t wait to watch our baby grow!
Did anyone do any customized gifts for family and friends this year? I saw a few people on facebook who got blankets with pictures or their names on it, or mugs with custom sayings. I even saw one guy who got a few custom lapel pins because he collects them. I think it’s cool that nowadays you can get basically anything done anyway you want it. I think I’d much prefer a thought out gift like that than a basic whatever that everyone got from the mall.
