Part 2 f 2

After finding out I was pregnant and taking a second dollar store test just to be sure, I debated waiting till the next day to tell Bear and doing something creative, or just calling him at work.  Patience and creativity did not win out.  I texted him the slightly blurry picture of the pregnancy test from my last post and then texted his friend at work, Brian, who actually checks his phone and asked him to have Bear check his texts.  Of course, cell phones being the way they are, the text didn't come in until after Brian told him to check his phone and Bear called in a panic to see what was wrong.  Not exactly a Hollywood moment, but we got it sorted out.  Bear was in disbelief and thought the line on the pregnancy test looked to light to be valid, but I told him I took two and then some relief kicked in, followed quickly by a dose of happiness.

I should mention my first thoughts after seeing the results of the test were, "Yes!",  "Sweet, no IUI.",  "Yay... River's not going to be an only child.", and finally "Thank you God.  Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"  I was so happy and so relieved and mostly just grateful.  It is hard knowing you have more children that need to be with you, but not being entirely in control of getting them here.

With River, morning sickness kicked in with a vengeance five days after I found out I was pregnant.  This time I got my hopes up when week five passed with just a little nausea.  As week six started, I thought I was going to get away with being one of those moms that could keep the sickness at bay as long as I ate every two hours.  I made it two days into week six and that theory was blown out of the water.  The puking started and never stopped.

On top of it, this time around the the fatigue was horrible.  People would always ask me if I was exhausted when I was carrying River and friends of mine that were also pregnant would talk about how they couldn't function they were so tired.  I was tired, but it was a normal tired, so I really did't understand all the moaning and groaning.  With this baby, 7:00 at night would roll around and my brain would literally short circuit.  It didn't matter what needed to b done, or what form of chaos was going on around me, I would literally fall asleep on the couch for an hour and nothing could be done about it.  Sometimes, I would have enough energy to actually shut my eyes, but other times they would just gloss over while I went to another place.

Under these peak conditions I started a new job.  I literally prayed my way through my 4 hour shifts, which at this time were 12-4.  Unlike with River, I was blessed to have a pretty consistent afternoon reprieve and usually would make it till about 3:30 before the sickness would kick in again.  I remember sweating out that last half hour, trying to take deep slow breaths and counting down the minutes till 4:00.  More than once, I barely made it to the parking lot before puking.

The reprieve was good and bad.  On days I didn't work, I found myself trying to get everything done in a 3 hour period.  I pushed it too hard a few times and would end up sicker than ever the rest of the night.  This is also how I ended up in the emergency room 24 hours before I needed to get on a plane to Florida.  Last minute trip prep proved too much for me.  After Florida, I went into pure survival mode.  River had hot dogs everyday, the house was going to have to wait to get cleaned and I never showered and rarely soaked in a bath.  My hair did not get brushed.  I just let it dry wet and I never even really looked in a mirror.  Thank goodness my job was a phone job.

About week 16 I started coming out of the funk and by week 18 I felt pretty good.  I was sick for a slightly shorter amount of time, so that's good, but it pretty much sucked and I've given up on the pipe dream that maybe next time will be different.  Now enough about the sickness and on to the fun details and differences.

• I could feel him move at 16 weeks... way sooner than River.
• I can eat watermelon just fine this time, but any kind of white potato (mashed, baked, french fries, chips) made me puke.
• Chocolate took me till week 22 to like again, but now I want it all the time,, but not nice dark chocolate... all I want is Hershey Bars???
• I am not a sugar candy kind of person, but I find myself wanting things like hot tamales and Swedish fish.
• This baby moves way more than River did, as demonstrated in the ultra-sound that took twice as long as River's because this baby would not stop moving to get measured.
• I have been way more paranoid this pregnancy that something is wrong.  I didn't feel him move for about 24 hours around week 18 (which is before a lot of women feel their babies move at all) and I actually went to the doctor's about it.  *I think it is because of the 3 people I know who lost their full term babies last year.
• Like with River, I am craving Mexican food again, but this time I can also still eat Chinese food.
• Onions do not treat me well and I avoid them as much as possible.
• My favorite food is spaghetti and it grosses me out right now, which makes me really sad.
• I get bloated with this baby and one time it was so bad it felt like a super strong contraction with no release.  After about an hour of intense pain that I could barely breathe though, I had the idea to drink a soda (which causes me to burp) and pretty much reenacted the fizzy lifting scene from Willy Wonka.  Classy, I know.
• I am more emotional with this baby.  My hormones, plus the heat, have made me a tad bit murderous on more than one occasion.  With River, I was a lot more zen like and I remember thinking, "This would normally set me off, but I'm just so happy I'm pregnant that I don't even care."  That is not happening this time... though I am really, really happy I am pregnant.

That's all the details I can think of right now.  I am so happy to be in the blissful part of pregnancy, where I am not sick and I get to feel my baby kick all the time.  It is truly a one of a kind sensation and I feel so lucky to get to feel it again.  I love having a little buddy with me all the time.  It makes work and traffic and mundane errands so much more bearable when I am getting secret little kicks along the way.  I really will miss this part (and probably only this part) of pregnancy when I am finished having kids.