Back with a vengeance

My morning sickness faded…for a few days. Those few days were excellent. I was off the medication and was feeling like myself again and began to consider myself lucky that I was getting an early break from the madness.

And then it came back.

I tried going back on the meds, but it made me feel worse, and add to that drowsier than I had been when I first started taking it. I decided that I’d rather feel nauseous and actually throw up than have to feel like I did on the meds – continuously nauseous, drowsy, completely out of it and it also really dried out my throat.

The meds did curve some other things though, like my allergies and my gas, but I preferred to go the all natural way and just brave it.

Turns out that now, my most vulnerable time of the day is at night. The sun goes down and my stomach turns. I fear the night, but not the same way kids do when they go to bed. I become frightfully uncomfortable and feel like I fall completely apart as my husband tries desperately to put all the pieces together even while they’re still falling.

Please, let this part be over soon!!!!!!!

My Door Step

For the past month, every time I open my front door or walk up the steps to it after coming home from work, I search my door mat for the IKEA catalogue that was supposed to have arrived a while ago. Last year, I received the catalogue for the first time on my door step (the other times, I either took it from the showroom or my Mom-in-law was generous enough to give me theirs) and it was so exciting…until I accidentally threw it into the pile of recycling a few weeks later. Womp womp.

So I’ve been carefully eyeing my door step along with the others in my complex, noticing that this gift has not arrived and I’ve come to terms with the fact that it just might never come.

Then I read this article and while I am not outraged or anything like that, I did realize I would have noticed this change for sure.

Nice Try

I went to a conference for work today. I don’t have any real maternity-work clothes (thank Heavens for casual business casual which is what we usually sport at work) so I decided to venture into one of my more loose-fitting tops and some dress pants.

What a mistake. I am totally paying for it now.

My pants are not done up. They’re being held together by a safety pin, which I have repositioned 4 times so far today. I’m at maximum allowance.

My top is long enough to cover this horrific picture but the empire waist has become a little tight….well, TOO tight for comfort. I’m tempted to completely unzip the side and pretend that I totally didn’t notice.

The top of my top plunges a bit, so I pinned it so that it’s not so open. Something must have happened since this morning because it looks like it’s gonna pop and my boobs are going to explode.

I now look like I’m dressed totally inappropriately for a work function. Someone find me a mu’u mu’u.

PregnALLERGIES rerevisted

Scratch that. They're back. Boo.

Yes, but how is HE doing?

My husband is an all-star. He’s dealing with this whole thing very well. He’s a very patient man and so I’m very happy he doesn’t bite me back every time I have a swift mood swing or become whiny to the point that even I would want to punch myself.

He’s an amazing father already. I knew he’d be a goodie a long time ago, but seeing it slowly come to fruition even before the baby is actually born is so refreshing.

When he decided he wanted a pregnancy book for himself, the man researched the ones out there for soon-to-be-fathers before he made the purchase. What an educated consumer! Now, every night, he reads it while I attempt to fall asleep. Every so often, he tells me what it is he’s reading, things I should know that I haven’t yet covered in my book because well, I find it a huge challenge to sit still and read. Because I’m often off to Sleepyville while he’s sharing his newly-found knowledge, I only pick up some words and only remember them the morning (or a few mornings) after when I’m at work. Then I call him up or email him at work and ask, “Did you say something about bacon last night or was I dreaming?”

I think he will be expanding his repertoire in the kitchen too. He’s begun cooking more often because these days, when I try to cook, the smells bug me too much or I need to lay down half way through food prep. I’m telling you, I’m a mess and he’s cleaning me up. I’m sure it’s also interesting for him to find something to cook that I’m willing to eat. I’m so picky these days.

One of the best things he’s adopted is including our Little One in little things he does. In the morning, he leaves around an hour before I do because he starts earlier. When he wakes up, he kisses me good morning and then pulls up my shirt to kiss my belly. “Good morning Momma. Good morning Baby.” And with all this, he tries to do it without waking me, but I sleep so lightly these days, I catch it, and I’m glad I do. And before he leaves for work, he says Bye to us and wishes us a good day, followed by kisses, kisses and more kisses.

Throughout the day, he likes to give us a rub, he talks to the baby (often begging him/her to be nice to Momma so that she can stop feeling so nasty), and sometimes he checks out my belly button to see if it’s gotten any shallower since last time or my belly to see if it’s gotten bigger.

When we’re driving in the car, sometimes instead of reaching for my hand, he likes to put his hand on my belly, and in that way, it’s like he’s holding both of us at the same time.

At church, he makes sure that at the Kiss of Peace, he kisses me and shakes my hand and “shakes hands” with the baby too.

When night time comes, he closes off the day in the same manner he began it and says his I love yous to the both of us. He’s such a goodie.

I know I’m doing the carrying and all that other stuff, but I owe him big time. He’s just the best.

His fortune from when we were on our anniversary trip.

The "Learn Chinese" word was, "Father".

The fortune read,

"Many pleasurable and memorable adventures are in store for you!"

I love my...

How strange is this?

Something new

Our bodies just aren’t built to see every square inch of ourselves. I’m starting to discover that. I’m starting to see a part of my body that I never realized I would see or ever care to see.

The base of my belly button is ascending, my friends. It wants out and it wants out now. I took out my piercing a while ago but that was because the barbells would stick out of my clothes, not because I was turning inside-out!

Isn’t it a little early for this thing to start its protrusion/INTRUSION?

I’m not one to play with my navel, but I find myself checking the shallowness of it every so often. My husband has started talking into it like an echo is supposed to resonate but doesn’t because it lacks depth.

Just another one of those got-no-control-over-my-body-anymore things.

The Silliest Self-pity in the World

You just might think less of me after this post but I thought it’d be funny to write about it.

I’m lamenting my bikinis.

I didn’t have a “one last hurrah” with them or my body and now I see all these girls in bikinis on TV and I’m jealous. I have mentally sorted my clothes into two piles – “wearable” and “unwearable for the time being”. My collection of bikinis falls under the second category. As I think about them, I wonder when I’ll sport them next in public (notice, I remain optimistic and say “when” and not “if”). Who knows what my body will look like after this baby (and the next and the next and the next, etc.)? Why do I keep picturing the horror that was Kate Gosselin’s tummy? Will I even fit into them when my body is done shooting out babies?

I hope so. It’d be a terrible waste of clothing. Well, not completely. I mean, I would donate what I can’t use but I’ve learned to love certain pieces so much I’d probably overload a container with “clothes I want to keep forever and ever”.

I wonder if my stomach will ever go back to flat again. I look at it now and it has taken on a shape that I have never seen before. I wasn’t a big kid growing up. Even when I was a baby, I’m told that I wasn’t one of those thick ones with bitable legs. At my heaviest ever, I was 3-7 pounds overweight for my height, and well, given how short I am, I don’t think that’s too heavy.

Now, I am the new owner of a round belly. I have never seen this view of my body before (i.e. I look down, and between the usual view of my boobs and my toes lies…my belly button). I’m not lamenting this change though. It’s quite interesting…Don’t you think?

I don't know what's with the ketchup and mustard.

What a shame

One of my good friends and his brothers are in a band called The MacHams and were supposed to open for Creed. I say “supposed to” because it didn’t happen. Click here, here and here to find out more.

Getting out of bed

People get out of bed every morning…or every day, I should say. It’s much easier for some than others. Everyone has those days where they would prefer to stay in bed and not face what the day has in store for them. This was what my morning was like, but whatever, I got out of bed.

Everyone also has those days where they want to get out of bed because the day has something special to offer. They look forward to something big, a milestone perhaps, a celebration, something that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.

These days, I get out of bed because as much as I would prefer to stay in bed because it’s comfortable and safe, I think it would be best for me to go out in the world and experience stuff, whether good or bad. There is much that the world has to offer me and it’s up to me to take it all in.

I’m really happy she got out of bed on Saturday morning. Such a brave, brave soul.

I just had…

…one of the most wonderful weekends in the history of me. I’m so so grateful and so so blessed. I wish there were words. I love you, Sisters. I love you so so much.

We saw someone today!

Usually, the first ultrasound is scheduled between 11 and 13 weeks. Just like any other pregnant woman in her first trimester, I scheduled mine. A few days after scheduling it, my doctor called me up and asked me to schedule another one...ASAP.

She wanted to check on several things:

• If the dates were right and
• If there was MORE THAN ONE BABY.

At our last appointment, I had told her that my Dad is a twin and that I have two sets of cousins who are twins. Considering that, that I'm showing, that I seem to have more intense symptoms and how much hormone I had in both my blood work and my urine test (I was told that it became positive within seconds, when usually it takes a bit longer, maybe a few minutes), she thought it would be a good idea to check. Also, she wanted to know if there was more than one baby because if there was, my pregnancy would be considered a high-risk pregnancy and she'd have to refer me to another OB.

So, this morning, we went. The technician took a few pictures at first and then called my husband in and showed us...our baby :)

The dating was correct, so we're right on schedule and we could actually see the baby's heartbeat. We'll probably get to hear the heartbeat at our next (and official) ultrasound.

And yes, unless there is one hiding behind the one we saw, we have ONE baby. (I swear, if there are actually two in my uterus, we're totally in trouble because they're already playing tricks on us!!) I'm actually a little surprised but I'm now attributing my size to the fact that well, I'm pretty small.

Today has been such a good day so far.

Here's our baby! The picture is a little blurry (it's a picture of the picture taken with my cellphone).

Hello Peanut!

PregnALLERGIES revisited

We're onto week 9 now and it seems that this pregnancy has somewhat cured my allergies! Why didn't anyone tell me that all I had to do to stop the sneezing and wheezing was get pregnant?! I'm kidding. But really, I'm finding that I'm sneezing less, with less of a runny nose. Maybe it's the season too, now that summer has FINALLY arrived, but I'm not sure. Usually in any given day, I'd sneeze maybe, 20 times and now I think I'm down to around 2-5 sneezes. It's wonderful!

Drooling in my Dreams

I’ve been dreaming about spaghetti and meatballs. In these dreams, I’m gathering the pasta, twirling my fork on my spoon and then, forking up a big meatball – all in slow motion. The whole thing is so tantalizing.

I’ve had the craving several times but never actually satisfied it…until yesterday. A few days ago I was flipping channels and saw almost the exact image in my dreams on TV, only this time, it was Giada holding the fork. This meant I caught the last few seconds of the episode, so I missed the entire recipe. I knew though that THIS was THE ONE.

So I searched online for it and found it…and made it. It was delish and everything I had imagined. Of course, I made some changes to the sauce since I can’t eat anything spicy, but overall, it was a dream come true!

Here’s the recipe. Enjoy!

They Know

Have you ever seen the way little kids interact with one another? I’m talking younger than when they’re mean to each other at the playground, like when they can only speak babyspeak and it sorta resembles a Look Who’s Talking scene. Kids know.

Even before I knew I was pregnant, children were randomly approaching me. Things like this would happen to me every so often, I guess since I’m small and may look like a child to some children, but in the past month or so, the frequency increased greatly as well as the amount of interaction.

I remember there was this one day I made a rare lone trip to the grocery store (my husband enjoys going grocery shopping together and insists we make sure we go together for the rest of our lives) to pick up a few things and there were children all over. Considering I was pretty pressed for time, I was rushing through aisles and around tables of produce and these kids popped up out of nowhere. One offered me a tangerine that she managed to peel while her mother wasn’t looking, feet dangling from the cart and everything. Another stopped me in my tracks and started conversing with me while his father looked around semi-frantically for him. A pair of siblings smiled at me from inside a cart, whispering to each other like they knew something about me that I didn’t know.

When my husband and I had confirmed it a few weeks later and hadn’t told anyone yet, my nephew, the youngest grandchild in our family, seemed to look at us differently. At first I thought it was just me and then my husband mentioned to me that he noticed it too. It was sorta like he was looking at me saying with his eyes, “I know your secret…”

And so now that the secret is out, for the most part, children are back to normal. My nieces and nephews who know officially have made my child(ren) part of their treasure hunts --part of the route to the treasure is to stop by “the baby” and say hi, so they come by and rub my belly before they continue their quest. They talk to me about how big the baby is now compared to the last time they saw me (a few days prior), what we’ll name the baby, what names they think work well…

I think our baby’s going to have some amazing friends.

Foodstration

If you’ve ever had the stomach flu, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. You know when your stomach is on the fritz and you can’t exactly stomach everything you eat? You start to get to a point where you’re just hungry but you know you can’t eat properly because your body just can’t take it.

I’m sorta there. I don’t get sick when I eat, but my body seems to reject the thought of food. Every so often, I do get hungry and do crave something, and then I eat, and after, I don’t want to think about food for the next few hours. I want to eat, but the taste left in my mouth makes me feel like eating may not be the best idea given how nauseous I feel.

I eat small meals throughout the day, if not all day long. It’s just easier that way. It’s better to have food in my mouth to absorb all the excess saliva than to just sit around and hope I don’t have to run to the washroom.

I miss being able to crave something, eat it and sit around satisfied and full…and then have itis. These days, I’m just sleepy all the time, not just because I’ve just eaten.

Alors, this too shall pass…only a few more weeks to go until it subsides, hopefully.

My Wardrobe

I have come to realize that my wardrobe consists of too many pieces that are too form-fitting. Now, as my body is rapidly changing, my form isn’t quite fitting for my clothes. I have a few pieces that are loose, but even some of those no longer fit me. How insane is that?

I tried going maternity clothes shopping last week and found that the stuff out there is pretty big. I’m not sure how I’m going to fit. I’ll still have to cut off half the pant legs of the pants I buy, I know that. I’m starting to wonder what it’ll be like to get dressed in the winter and be massive. I hope my snowboarding jacket fits when I’m huge because it’s the only winter jacket I have that’s pretty loose!

Wow, it’ll be so weird being huge. Already, I feel really big even though I’m really not. I just stick out.

To my Favourite

Happy Birthday Love...

You're the best thing for me in the whole wide world and I'm forever grateful for you and all you've given me. 

Love,

Treeh

Love is in the air!

Well, the time is now – my husband and I, being the first among our groups of friends to get married, have been yearning for the time when our friends will all take The Plunge and we’ll have wedding after wedding after wedding to go to. (My sisters who have been in this wedding whirlwind for years assure me that our wallets won’t have the same sentiments, haha.) We love weddings (I probably more than he) and we’ve been excited to go to some. It’s just so beautiful to bear witness to the union of two people in love and ready to commit themselves to each other for the rest of their lives.

Next year, we have at least 3 weddings lined up. Woohoo!!

So big congratulations go out to our most recent engagees, Paolo & April (my cousin and his girlfriend of forever) and Merry & Chris (our friend from high school and her boyfriend). We wish you many days of wedding planning bliss!