scary.

I had to go into the hospital late Friday night/early Saturday morning. It's normal to experience some cramping and aches and pains in your abdomen area while you're pregnant because your muscles and ligaments are stretching and growing. It's when those pains don't go away with rest and fluids that you need to worry. 

That's what happened to me. Friday night I went out with friends to say goodbye to another friend who is leaving for Korea. I started feeling crampy then, but I chalked it up to being tired and also the constant shouting to talk above the noise. 

By the time I got home, I couldn't stand up straight. I washed my face and went to bed, knowing that before, this feeling went away with some rest. Although, before it never hurt this bad.

I woke up a couple hours later barely able to yell for Skip. We went to the emergency room and I was sent to the women's center where they monitored my contractions (contractions!!), did a bunch of ultrasounds on the baby and my appendix and gallbladder, drew blood, gave me two shots (one of which is making my leg super sore and tender over 24 hours later), and gave me an I.V. Apparently my potassium was low, which was also causing me to shiver uncontrollably. Eventually, about 5am, I was able to get to sleep without nurses coming in and checking on me. Skip slept in a recliner.

I'm still hazy about what caused what; were my contractions causing my potassium level to drop or vice versa? I have to call my doctor and go in this week for a quick checkup.

I'm extremely grateful that I was able to go home after about 11 hours. I was thinking the worst on the way to the ER: are they going to put me on bed rest? Am I going to lose my baby? It was definitely the first time I realized that not only was I pregnant, but I am a parent with someone to take care of. It also made me see how fragile everything can be and it can all be gone in an instant. 

While I'm still unsure of the exact details, I do know that everyone is ok. Me, the baby, everyone

By the way, we're naming her Story.

It's a girl!

excuses, part 2

I just went to the dentist's office. I'm a teeth grinder, and he asked me how my night guard was holding up since the warranty expires in July. I had to tell him that my dog chewed it up while he was showing off for my mom's dog.

"Oh man!' he says. "I wonder if the warranty covers dog damage. Don't leave before I call them to see that way we won't have to charge you for a new one." I'm grateful, those things can run a couple hundred bucks (yes, I know Walgreens sells $20 generic one size fits all night guards, I've chewed through about 3 of them). The ones my dentist makes fit to your teeth perfectly and are made of a hard material that lasts a couple years.

His hygienist, who is also pregnant and due a month before me, yells after him, "Tell them she's pregnant!"

Everyone takes pity on a pregnant girl who can't sleep because her teeth are grinding too hard, right?

excuses, excuses.

Being pregnant is a love/ hate relationship. For the most part, I hate being pregnant. Well, definitely I hated it at first. My Body for Life body was becoming no more, my skin was breaking out like crazy (crazy!!), I was nauseous, I couldn't run my half marathon, and all I ever wanted to do was go to sleep.

But now, I am slowly looking less like I'm chubbing out and more like I'm pregnant, my skin is a bit more under control, the nausea is almost gone (just please don't make me cook meat), and I'm a little bit more awake. And, as a bonus, I've discovered the pregnancy excuse.

For example, last night we had James over for his birthday. Everyone was having a great time, but I was exhausted after having flown back from Cleveland that evening and rushed around in a short amount of time to straighten the house and pick up Tucker from The Bets' house before people started arriving. About 9pm, I was getting a headache I was so tired. This isn't abnormal, I have always been a tired person. I went upstairs to lie down for just a few seconds before going back and waiting for all the guests to leave, when I remembered that I was pregnant. 

Hooray! "Sorry guys, I think I have to go upstairs and lie down. I'm exhausted." People took this as a great idea, since I was pregnant and all. I really was exhausted, I can tell the difference between regular tired and pregnant tired, and last night I was definitely both, but now that I can pull the pregnancy card, I look like less of a party pooper.

So today, when I locked my keys in my car in a rural Missouri town over an hour from home, and the locksmith said it might take 2.5 hours before he could get there, I wanted to say, "But I'm pregnant!" I knew that wouldn't make a difference, and luckily I found someone else who made me wait only 45 minutes. I guess the ol' pregnancy card isn't always a way out. Or in, in this case.

food.

I'm hungry. Here is what I ate today up until about 10 minutes ago:

Yogurt blast Cheerios with skim milk

Peanut butter crackers

Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips

Panera/ Bread Co.:

-broccoli cheddar soup (about 1.5 bowls)

-1/4 of a chicken salad sandwich

-chips

-Greek salad

-short bread cookie (not all of it, but you know... just most of it)

Diet Pepsi (aspartame and caffeine??! My baby will have 3 arms!)

That should be enough. Enough clearly until dinner tonight. Nope, I got home from work and was legitimately hungry again.

I just ate 2 turkey hot dogs with ketchup and mustard. 

I don't have any weird cravings, I just have cravings. For food. Immediately. I have food turn offs: vegetables, meat that I have to cook myself, and poultry is hot and cold for me. On the other hand, I can't get enough fruit or cheese. 

I'm trying to not make the mistake I hear a lot of first time pregnant ladies make: eating a lot using pregnancy as an excuse. But I'm not kidding people, I'm hungry. Right now.

I have also recently rediscovered Ramen noodles and I can't wait to eat it for dinner tonight. I mean I am really excited.

"Oh!'

"Uh oh, you're starting to show!"

I'm starting to hear this more and more often. It's a strange phenomenon because, really, they're telling me I'm getting fatter. That's what happens first, mostly, when you get pregnant, you just look and feel fat before you really look and feel pregnant. Which is exactly where I am right now. But, instead of it being an all-over weight gain, it's mostly just my tummy and my sides. I mean, yeah I've gained some weight everywhere else (ahem, butt), but noticeably in my stomach. Which is why I'm hearing the "showing" statements.

It's funny because it's confusing. It's hard to know what to think. Someone just told me they can see that my stomach is bigger. Until now, I could only relate that kind of comment to some serious weight gain and I need to hit the treadmill. But now I think, oh, riiiight... not my fault! Nope, I am totally gaining this weight through no efforts of my own. Ok, so I didn't need those Doritos. But mostly it's just my kid getting bigger, and how can I help that?! (By the by, he or she is the size of an avacado now... mm, avacado.)

I can't! Bring on the Doritos!

eh.

"Most of the current wisdom says that a pregnant woman can continue exercising to her full capacity, but that she should not take up new or more difficult regimens after becoming pregnant. To be completely candid with you, I did not know how to exercise moderately. If I wasn't working out to achieve strength or to stay trim, I would just as soon skip the whole thing. Since the stakes were so high, I wasn't willing to gamble with how much was too much. And since there comes a point when exercising lightly becomes a waste of time, I just gave the whole thing up."

-The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy

Ok, so before you give me crap about the book that I'm reading, let me first say that this pregnancy book is awesome. It isn't dry and boring like the other ones that I'm reading, it feels more relatable, and this lady talks just like me and cracks me up. So deal with it people, pregnancy books suck and if you can find one that isn't mind-numbing, read your heart out.

Case in point: this paragraph I have typed out for you, straight from the author's mouth/book. It pretty much sums up how I feel about exercising right now. The chapter I'm in has the author's top 10 list for reasons why keeping up your gym membership isn't totally necessary during pregnancy. It's something I really need to hear right now as my gym outings are levelling out at about once, maybe twice a week. When I do have the energy to go, I use the elliptical machine, but find myself really pushing myself and working hard, then I start to worry that I'm depriving my baby of oxygen. It sucks. Again, going to the gym as a stress reliever, in this instance, might be a tad counterproductive.