What I've Been Doing

I fully intended to update this weekly or at least bi-weekly.  There were intentions to create a 14 week post...that never happened.  Then I thought that a 16 week post would be appropriate...that didn't happen either.  Now here we are at 19 weeks, 4 days...what have I been doing?

Well, let me share!

1. Recovering from the hell that is the first trimester.
The first trimester made me daily wonder why anyone, in their right mind, would do this again.  How could any human being go through this and then willingly choose to go through it again.  I lost 10 pounds.  I vomited more times than I can count.  And when I wasn't vomiting, I felt like I was going to vomit.  And when I was vomiting, I was also peeing on the bathroom rug underneath me because bladder control during pregnancy is a joke.  That was fun.  All I wanted to do for about 3 months was stay in bed and cry.  I wanted the world to stop so I could get a grip on things and not feel like I was completely out of control.  And for the love of everything edible, I wanted to be able to eat and enjoy what I was eating.  I'm pretty sure I fell off the face of the earth during this time.  More than one week passed with me not putting on clothes or showering.  Just crying, puking, and sleeping.

2. Trying to be a functioning human being.
This was difficult.  We quickly ran out of clean dishes during my first trimester experience.  My husband was taking many classes, had an internship, working, and leading in our church.  Oh, and taking care of the pitiful heap of flesh that was his wife.  I really wanted to function too!  So sometimes, I would try to get myself up and clean something.  Frequently that ended in dizziness and tears.  It took 7,000x more effort to do basic things like mop than it did previously.  So a lot of my extra energy went into trying to make our home (and myself) look semi-respectable.  I was not too successful.  Though, once a darling friend whom I call Walrus came over to help me clean my entire apartment.  Angel.

3. Attempting to engage my doctoral-level studies.
Attempting and failing.  It's hard to get to morning classes with morning sickness.  It's hard to pay attention when your body is building a human and your thoughts are preoccupied with motherhood and the location of the closest bathroom.  It's hard to study when you're crying.  And it's difficult to remember things with pregnancy brain.  This quarter, whenever attempting my duties as a graduate student, I felt like a half-sleeping, drunken cat.  It was sad, really.

4. Being somebody's therapist.
Turns out the world doesn't stop turning when you get pregnant...so I still had to drive 20-45min away (depending on traffic) to practicum two days a week and give quality psychotherapy to hurting people.  It takes a lot of energy to share in someone's burdens.  It takes even more energy to do that while simultaneously willing yourself not to vomit or pee on yourself.  But, sweetness of sweetness, my supervisor and colleagues have been amazing.  And some of the volunteers in the cafeteria discovered my pregnancy and would go out of their way to bring me pickles.  Angels, I tell ya.

5.  Doctor's appointments.
OMG, there are like a million.  Everybody wants to check you for something or other when you're pregnant and it seemed we were at the doctor every week getting one test or another.  And at one point we were even told that something could be wrong with my kidneys and we were sent to a maternity specialist who was very far away, where we sat for a very long time in a very scary waiting room with very sick expecting mommies.  Then (thanks to God) we were told that we're just fine and I should drink more fluids... Though I'm so thankful for that...I really feel like that could have been sent in an email and saved me from 1 week of anxiety.

So that's about it.  That's what I was doing for the past month and a half.  But I'm in my second trimester now and I'm baaaaaack!