Almost.23 weeks

How Far Along? 22 weeks and 6 days.

Baby This Week?  Baby is about 11 inches long. He's hearing more and more from the outside! His taste buds are beginning to form as well as nerve endings and he's starting to be able to experience the sensation of touch!

Symptoms? I had a few good days in a row this past week. Yesterday was kinda yucky and the first part of today. Malcolm is moving all over the place in there! He's still small enough to be able to flip over, so sometimes there's some massive movement!  

Cravings / Aversions?  About the same as last week. As long as I'm eating constantly, I don't feel too terrible. Not good for the waistband though. I'm gonna have a lot of work to do. But I'm trying to cut myself some slack here.  I've gotten in shape before. I'll do it again.

Goals for the Week? I don't have any. Lol. I just want to feel good enough to do normal people things.

Mason? He is doing good. We had a few rough nights/days because of the teething business but his top 2 teeth have finally completely broken through the gums so he's doing better now. 

21 weeks

How Far Along? 21 weeks exactly. 

Baby this Week? Malcolm is about 10.5 inches, or the size of a banana!  He's starting to grow some eyebrows. And his lips are becoming more pronounces.  Basically, he's just growing away and continues to practice some of the basic motor skills. 

Symptoms? I'm trucking right along.  On and off nausea still.  But I've been able to actually go do a few things like go to.the grocery store or have a quick coffee with Aprill. I'm still not feeling great but it's manageable at least!  Lots of baby kicks going on and Garrett is able to feel them pretty good from the outside!  Oh and a fun new development...I have a hernia.  Nothing that needs surgery at the moment, but painful, nonetheless. It's to the right of my belly button.  I see Dr. Miser on Monday so I'll be able to follow up with her then.  Also another ultrasound Monday so hopefully everything is still stable! 

Cravings / Aversions? I still have a hard time with the smell if anything cooking. But I'm starting to want a bit more variety in my foods.  Been able to eat some bland veggies...so that's definitely a good thing. 

Mason?  His top two teeth are just starting to break through the gums! So he'll have 4 teeth here very shortly. He's pretty busy these days!  And usually pretty happy. I'm just glad I get to actually spend more time with him now that I have a good chunk of the nausea under control.  

Goals for the Week? I really don't have any super specific goals this week. It's honestly getting hard to have goals when I have restrictions.  But I suppose I could just have a goal of staying on top of the nausea again and to also not aggravate the hernia. 

20 weeks

How Far Along?  20 weeks and 3 days

Baby This Week?   Malcolm is about the size of a cantelope or about 6.5 inches from head to rump!  He's beginning to become covered in vernix, which is a waxy substance that protects his skin from the amniotic fluid. He can hear sounds from the outside now.  He's also starting to build up that oh so wonderful meconium, which will eventually be his first poop. (One of the positives of having a c section is dad usually has to deal with the meconium situation) lol. We had our anatomy scan this week too so I know that munchkin weighs around 12.5 ozs!

Symptoms?  I am happy to report that I've been fairly ok this week. Still super gaggy but not as bad as the last few weeks.  I even went to the grocery store today. Progress! I just hope it keeps getting better.  Outside of the nausea, the back pain has started. And also hip pain. That's new for me.  It's only when I sleep though. Also been getting super lightheaded when I stand up too fast.
Cravings/ Aversions?   I'm coming around on my food choices.  I actually devoured some beef jerky today. Still eating far too much processed foods.  But hopefully as I start feeling better, I can eat more fruits and veggies.

Goals for the Week?  I want to do a little bit of work on the patio if I have more days like today.  We'll see what the next few days are like!!

Mason? Little man is a beast!  His top two teeth are just starting to break through the gums so he's been a bit cranky. He also started doing planks and downward facing dogs this week!!! He's really big into pushing buttons too. Love that little guy.

And here's the 20 week bump.

19 weeks

How Far Along?  19 weeks exactly.

Baby this Week?  Our baby BOY is about 6 inches long from head to bum.  His senses are becoming more developed.  He's moving around quite a bit (which I can feel him subtly.) He can respond to light. Mostly he's just growing away in there! And I'm loving feeling the kicks!

Symptoms?  As you all know...I've been very sick so I won't go into all those details. As of right now, I'm managing ok with the nausea.  I wouldn't say I feel great, but I'm headed in the right direction! Moving on.  My other symptoms..  My back has started to ache a bit. My butt muscles are sore where I've been getting my progesterone shots.  Heartburn.  Oh and my hands have started going numb again while I sleep. So I started wearing my wrist guard thingies again. Hopefully, the carpal tunnel won't be as severe this time!  Oh yeah...and smells. Oh god, the smells. Ugghhh...  I could be feeling OK but if I smell something stinky, I feel soooo sick. It doesn't even have to be stinky! Roses. Fresh cut grass.  It's so random...

Cravings/Aversions?  I wouldn't say I'm craving things...but I can tolerate sandwiches. Granola bars. Fruit snacks.  And a few other things but it's a very small range of food that I can stomach right now!  And aversions are everything else. Lol


Goals for the Week?  I am just hoping to make it through the week with no really bad nausea spells! I still have waves of it where I'll have to go lay down for a while.  But it's nothing like it was. It's tolerable...

Mason?  Mason is growing like crazy. He's 10 months old today. I just can't even imagine my life without him anymore.  When he stays at Garretts parents house, our house feels so empty...especially now that he's such a busy little guy.

Slowly Feeling Better

So I suppose I should update thus blog when I DONE feel like a depressed mess.  I am having some good days intermittently but one thing I notice is I'm extremely effected by smells.  Yesterday morning, the smell if fresh cut grass (which I normally love) made me feel so sick. So it's a bit of a mystery what will set me off.

This pregnancy is so weird.  I'm going to try to do a weekly update tomorrow.  I'll be 19 weeks.  But I haven't done my weekly update since 15 weeks!

It seems like I'm very slowly getting better.  I still have setbacks but definitely going in the right direction.  I'm able to help with Mason a lot more and help around the house. So that's been helping with my self worth. I've missed spending time with Mason sooooo much. He stayed the night at grams and gramps last night and I miss him so much. This house is not the same without him here.

Oh. We also announced that Mason is getting a little brother! That was pretty fun. I'm excited to be a mom of boys!

Perspective

So...I'm 18 weeks and 2 days today. I've spent the last almost 3 weeks basically bed ridden with crippling nausea.  And today I am reflecting on how hard it was to hear people bitching about pregnancy back when it was all I ever wanted.  

My thoughts now?  I still would never bitch to someone going through infertility or any kind of loss.  I don't publicly bitch on FB or IG because I don't know who is going through what but I know that enough people on both have fertility issues.  I bitch on my blog because this in my space and people are here by choice.  I think the key is to know who your audience is.  I even moved from my infertility blog to a new space to give people the option of following me here.  

Having said that, I hate being pregnant.  I don't hate what comes at the end. But I make a terrible pregnant person.  It's beyond stressful considering my history and this time around, the nausea has been so crippling and I have fell into a bit if a depression.  This is not a good time.  No one can reasonably expect me to feel pure joy and happiness when I can't even take care of my existing child, and barely take care of myself or the baby growing inside me. Yet, there's a part of me getting mad at myself for not being able to be grateful at any given moment.  This may be something I need to eventually address with a therapist, in all honesty.  Because it's a reoccurring theme even in this blog when I intended to leave the guilt in my last blog.

But I digress.  

Both my babies are complete miracles in their own way but I am going to be so happy when I'm done with pregnancy.  Forever.  And can go about my life like a normal, crazy, busy, sleep-deprived parent.  That will be a glorious day. Only 5 more months...  

This pregnancy is solidifying my desire for this to be our last baby.  It's just too stressful.  And I never thought I would have 1 child let alone 2.  G is on board with 2 babies.  

I will say, I am feeling better so far this week.  My hope is that I'll just slowly start feeling better and better each day until I feel good enough to go back to worrying about the normal things like preterm labor.

We have a follow-up appointment tomorrow so I'm hoping that I am gaining some of the weight back that I've lost...

Still sick, but stable...

I seriously love my OB. She called me personally today to check on me. Of course, I missed her call but she left a super sweet message for me.

My status right now is "Meh." Last night, I got my hopes up because I felt pretty good. I had this weird feeling that I remembered vaguely to be hunger. I sat out in the living room with my family until it was time for bed.  Woke up feeling pretty ok too. Then, bam. Yucky again. Although not terrible but enough to render me useless for the day.

Siiiigggghhhhh...

I cried a lot today.  I want my life back.  I just keep telling myself, this won't last forever.  In fact, that's what I meditate over and over in my head. Sometimes, I throw in an "I can do this" when I'm feeling especially weak.  It really does seem to help but I just hope I don't have to continue this the whole pregnancy.

It's funny because when I first found out that I was pregnant, my worries were nothing about this. Yeah, I had nausea Last Time but nothing like this.  I didn't have to go in to get an IV for fluids. And I've had to do that twice.  I had 2 veins collapse while they were doing the IV because I was do dehydrated.  I've hardly had time to think about the other stuff.  ya know...that whole incompetent cervix thing.

I made it into my OB appointment last week finally.  luckily, my cervix is holding up for the time being. I can't imagine trying to deal with that on top of this nausea.  I would just tell them to knock me out, throw a feeding tube in and wake me when my baby is here. Ugh.

I have a follow-up appointment next week because my OB was pretty concerned.  So we'll see how I am next week. They are also going to show G how to do my intramuscular progesterone shots so I don't have to do office visits every week.  Good thing needles don't make G squirm because they are pretty big.

Overall, I am doing better than the last couple weeks.  But it's still only when I'm laying down. If I get up too much, I feel sick again. I'm on a regimen of Phenergan suppositories every 6 hours, alternating with Zofran. I take unisom at night and a half tab in the morning and I'll be adding B6 3 times a day to see if that helps.  Oh and I will be adding prilosec as well. If that still doesn't work, we'll try something else. At least my OB is serious about helping me!!!  She could see the misery on my face.  Not to mention, I was intermittently sobbing while talking to her.

The good news is that baby looks good and my cervix is still intact. Our anatomy scan is in early June so we can relax a bit more after that.  I do know this will be worth it in the end.  But that doesn't make it any easier at the moment.  I definitely have a new appreciation for people who have to live with chronic nausea. It's so debilitating.

We know the gender of our baby, too.  I'm hoping and praying I will feel better so we can still do a mini gender reveal.  This is, indeed, our last baby.  And I got screwed on a lot of things last time so I truly hope we can do at least a few things on our pregnancy bucket list.