9w 5d

I like to celebrate each week of the world's slowest pregnancy passing on Friday's when I get off work. Of course, I don't actually start counting a new week until Monday, but that's another story.

My pregnancy continues to read like a "What to Expect When You're Expecting" chapter. I'm unbelievably sensitive to smells this time. Maybe I was last time as well, but I really don't think it was this pronounced. Recently, my cat, Piper, decided to start peeing in my front room. I mean, it wasn't just one or two urine spots, it was like she carpet bombed the room. Even from three rooms away in my living room, I could smell it and had to breathe out of my mouth until I begged KGII to clean the carpet (it helped that I bought a small carpet cleaner and some special "pet spot" cleaner"). The worst smell that I've ever encountered and to this day can make my stomach turn was my dog's vomit. My dog, Samantha, is the dumbest big dog you've ever met. She eats cat litter and cat poop and then pukes it up. If that sounds appetizing, trust me, it isn't. She was in her crate in the kitchen (thank God - on tile) and puked out the front of her crate towards the oven and then turned around and puked out the back of her crate, towards the kitchen table. I had just finished cleaning up one side of the puke and realized I could still smell it. I moved the crate and found an entire other side! Then my cat urped up cat food on the carpet and I was done. I got very, very sick and no amount of Zofran could help me cope with that day. I went to the Ob-Gyn for an Ob Education and another ultrasound (my third so far) and I was so miserable and must have looked so bad that my doc offered to give me an IV of Zofran and fluid. I declined, but then ended up not going back to work and just went home to lay in the fetal position.

This was my first abdominal ultrasound, which was a nice change. Baby Bean is looking more human like and less like a blob. I've settled for nicknaming this baby "Bean" because KGII put up such a fight to"Gremlin" (as in "I have a Gremlin inside of me that is making so sick that I want to die"). But, we could see little legs kicking in the ultrasound and the gestational sac is getting smaller and smaller. My next ultrasound is on August 31st to capture the world's most photographed baby in action again and check for genetic abnormalities. After a brutal fight the other night, I don't imagine that KGII will be accompanying me to any further Ob appointments or ultrasounds.

Another fun side effect of the hormone surge going on inside my body is my absolute craziness. I wouldn't trust my emotional reactions with a ten foot pole. I honestly have no idea how anyone puts up with pregnant women. We're insane. Obviously, I'm particularly talented and separating myself from the men that get me pregnant, so I'm not sure I can be any kind of relationship expert during pregnancy, but really, I don't even want to be around me sometimes. I watched "Baby's First Day" on TLC and started sobbing when a woman had a C-section and her and her Mom started crying. Just sobbing uncontrollably. Awesome. I love being a complete wreck. I love freaking out on people for no apparent reason when they don't actually deserve it. It makes me feel like a very accomplished human being. I went and saw Officer Hotness sing last night at a local coffee shop and had to force myself to not listen at times because she was singing so beautifully about love and I didn't want to start blubbering over my smoothie.

I'm told this is normal. I don't know. I have to wait until month 4 before I can consult my old archives and see what I wrote about last time. Between the morning sickness, the acne, and the hormonal craziness, I feel like the second trimester can't come fast enough.

8w 2d

I'm in that part of pregnancy where everything is dramatic and quite possibly the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Except I've been through this part before so I know that the hormones never really go away and I'm not going to feel like myself again for at least another year, if that. If that sounds overly pessimistic, let's not even talk about the fact that my Mom predicted my hormone-induced depression and encouraged me not to get pregnant again to avoid it. That's how bad it was the first time.

Yeah, clearly I did not take that advice to heart when I accidentally got pregnant seven months after she gave me that speech.

A huge part of my stress centers around my job - the job that I cannot reference on the Internet and directly address in any way. I tried once on Facebook and was promptly "talked to" about it. I cannot discuss any part of my job, my coworkers, the stress, or how it makes me feel in any "public forum". Although my semi-private blog did not come up in a google search of my name, I can only assume that it's just a matter of time before I'm in my boss' office discussing this with him. And that makes me sad. Most of the time, it makes me mute. I don't want to fear the wrath so I avoid the behavior. The only problem with that strategy is that I don't really have anyone I can talk to about the stress and how it's affecting me. Writing is part of who I am and how I cope.

It wasn't until after I got pregnant that I realized how much I was relying on vices and addictions to cope with my job. I drank, a lot for me, both socially and alone. I smoked cigarettes before cold calling and when I needed a break during the middle of the afternoon. I would text. Most of all, I took anti-anxiety medication when my throat felt like it was closing up and my heart was hammering in my chest and I still had to make 75 more phone calls. Then I got pregnant and all of those coping mechanisms (as faulty as they were) were stripped away. I can't drink. I can't smoke. I'm not dating and don't have texting to distract me. My friends get tired of hearing how sick am I and how hard this pregnancy has been on me so far. So I'm left with the anti-anxiety medication.

Here's the problem. The medication is a Class D, which is just one step about Class X in terms of safety during pregnancy for mother and fetus. The Reproductive Psychiatrist wasn't concerned when I told her I used the medication "as needed". She said it was a small, unduplicatable study that led the FDA to classify the drug as a Class D. My Ob-Gyn, however, keeps emphasizing that I should really be weaning off the drug and only taking it under EXTREME DURESS (her emphasis).

All I can say is, "I'm trying". I focus on breathing, but feeling like the world is falling apart around me and I will be homeless, living in my car with son in under three months, means there is only so much the mantra "I breathe in. I breathe out" can get me. There is no happy space I can escape to at work when my job is on the line. I take the medication, keep my head down, and worry with every pill that I'm causing irreparable damage to my unborn child.

In other fucked up news, I got in a car accident and my dog potentially broke the neck of my kitten. I found her dead when I came back in from doing errands. If bad things happen in three, can I at least keep my job and my baby? That's my hope right now. Keep my job. Keep my baby. Don't cause any birth defects. Focus on the little things.

7w 6d

I'm such a tease. I promised an ultrasound picture and then...I don't know...I think I got tired. Or sick to my stomach. Or tired of being sick to my stomach. Something along those lines. Here are the ultrasounds so far:

7w 1 d

5w

First of all, can we give a holla for my uterus? Look at the size of that thing in just under two weeks. The gestational sac is still visible in my second ultrasound, which means that I'm definitely closer to 7 weeks than previously thought.

The biggest news was that we saw the baby's heartbeat. I saw it immediately, just a flickering on the screen and it was such a relief. I had pretty much convinced myself that the baby just would stop developing at 6 weeks and never get a beating heart. Fortunately, that didn't happen. We both saw and heart the baby's heart beat, which was right at 144 beats per minute.

Notice I say "we" saw the heart beat? That's right. KGII came back into town (he lives two hours away) to go the Ob-Gyn appointment. When he saw the heart beat, he turned to me and very quizzically declared, "We're having a child?!?" I crunched my eye brows and said, "We were having one two weeks ago, too" and he said, "But now it's real".

Real indeed. I have more to say about KGII and what happened between us, but I'm still trying to process everything and learn from the experience. He is still around occasionally and we are trying to work on being friends. I literally just take it day by day, between the debilitating morning sickness and fatigue. I can't wait to put the first trimester behind me.