I have so much to catch up on for recording this pregnancy. I hardly know where to start. But, it is 9:25 PM and I am unlikely to be good for much longer, so I guess I had better just jump in anywhere.
First, some updates on how I have been feeling. I still can't stand to wear pants/skirts most days. My belly is just too crampy and bloated feeling all the time. Once or twice a week, I run out of dresses (or just can't go out with unshaven legs again) and put on slacks. On those days, I usually end up back at home in a nightgown by dinnertime, just to relieve the pressure on my abdomen. So, I continue to peruse online stores for maternity clothes, bemused that dresses are so hard to come by. Apparently, I am in a distinct minority of pregnant women who can't stand a waistline.
Otherwise, I am feeling pretty good. Definitely less fatigued than in the early months, although I can still be found asleep on the couch by 8 PM more nights than not. Still, I am getting up at 6:30 every morning, and making it through the day, so that isn't terrible.
I quit taking the prenatal vitamins. I had filled my prescription at Meijer because they offer this scrip free. Turns out to have been a very costly free. I felt so sick and bloated and uncomfortable all the time while I took those. I happened to forget a couple of days in a row, and felt so much better that I haven't gone back. I tried a few different brands since then (free samples from my OB). They were better but still not great. For now, I will stick with my doc's okay to just take the extra folic acid and calcium and call it good enough.
My sciatic nerve is starting to act up now, at 21 weeks. Not as bad as I recall it from past pregnancies, yet. Just enough to jog my memory of how unpleasant that was at some point in my past. That may be the worst part of a pregnancy that is not my first. I have a distinct amnesia for the discomforts while I am not pregnant (must be a built-in, evolutionary mechanism for survival of the species). But now that I am committed, those dark flashes of memory come as near panic attacks from time-to-time as I begin to recall what I had buried, and realize that I have no way out but to march through it. I try to take courage by looking backward at the first trimester, though. I am close enough to that (this time around) to still remember there were days when I doubted I could survive the duration of the pregnancy. At the same time, I can already, just a few months later, look back with enough amnesia to say, "It probably wasn't actually that bad. Look how quickly it passed."
I have started to feel the baby move, finally. I was getting occasional twitches or flutters, but now I get an unmistakable "thump" at least daily. It is very reassuring. I know I will soon tire of the tyke keeping me awake at night or the like, but for now, I look forward eagerly to playing "push" with her through my abdomen. Or for the first time Jeremy or the kids can feel a kick. So much to look forward to.
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