1st bump shot :)

Yes, I am aware there isn't much to see. I'm also aware this is probably all bloat still and not much baby. But I'm finally starting to "show", so I'm going to start tracking my progress through photos. Today you get both a full shot (with some awkward shirt twisting) and just a belly shot. Enjoy!

Baby Reeder at 14w2d

Crib = ordered.

Baby Reeder now has somewhere to sleep. Well, he/she will soon. The crib has been ordered, along with a lovely dresser that will also serve as a changing table. After a little shopping around, we agreed on an adorable coffee-colored crib from JC Penney. We'll be picking it up in the next few weeks!!

Note: I think it's too early to be ordering nursery furniture. Not that I think it's going to jinx us or anything, but it just seems too soon. I guess I didn't expect to be doing this for several more weeks. But the most adorable crib I've seen in a long time was on sale and just calling my name, so I caved. I'm in love. We're a mattress away from having every single piece for the crib purchased! Check that off the list. Since my goal is to have the room 100% ready to go by 30 weeks, I guess this helps get us closer to that goal.

Next up: cleaning out the nursery (of my scrapbooking crap) so we have somewhere to put the most adorable crib we just purchased...

14 Weeks.

How far along?: 14 weeks, 0 days
Total weight gain/loss: -1 this week, down 1.5 lbs overall
Maternity clothes?: Shirts only (God bless my cotton drawstring skirts.)
Sleep: Never enough.
Movement: Still no, but getting closer.
Food cravings: None. Aversions are back and I can't get full to save my life. Eating has become a chore.
Gender: The husband's praying for a boy, which will be interesting if we then follow Molly's advice to name the baby "Ariel" or "Beauty & The Beast" (1st name "Beauty", middle name "& The Beast" I guess...)
What I miss: Sleeping comfortably/on my back. I thought this wouldn't really be an issue yet, but, alas, it is.
What I am looking forward to: The 2nd Trimester "Honeymoon Period" I keep hearing so much about...
Best moment this week: The husband's first (unofficial) Father's Day :)
Weekly Wisdom: None, I'm too tired to think about it. (I'm such a whiner today.)
Milestones: Though it's not as cute as the produce comparisons, the baby is now the size of my fist!

My vice.

Anyone that knows me well knows I'm a sucker for TV shows/documentaries about things that will never, ever happen to me. Medical shows - like The Man Whose Skin Fell Off or Born Without A Face. Shows about prisons, polygamists, coinjoined twins. A huge fan of shows about high-order multiples (say what you will about them, I still watch Jon & Kate weekly.) Give me one of these shows, and I'll give you an hour or more of my time. It's not rare to find something along the lines of Raising Sextuplets or World's Tallest Woman in our DVR list.

Well now, of course, I'm obsessed with all pregnancy-related shows. Not the nice ones, like A Baby Story, but the weird ones that will never happen to me (well, hopefully.) Some of my faves - Little People Big Pregnancy, I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant, Twins By Surprise, and my new fave 16 & Pregnant. On last week's episode of this last one, the following exchange happened between the 17-yr-old father-to-be & the OB:

OB: Do either of you have any questions?
F-T-B: Yeah. Now that's she's been pregnant, will it be easier for her to get re-pregnant?

"Re-pregnant". Oh. Good. Heavens. The husband and I (yes, he's forced to watch with me) laughed quite a while about this one. This was preceded by the 16-yr-old mother-to-be not thinking it was her cervix that would dilate to 10 cm, but rather something else (I'll let you think about that one....I laughed hard, the husband was seriously grossed out.)

On the baby front: No real change. Baby Reeder's still sucking the life out of me. I can't physically eat or sleep enough to satisfy him/her, so I feel sick most of the time now. Still look fat, not pregnant. HATE coming to work in the mornings (so does the baby; he/she had me dry heaving in the kitchen sink for a while this morning to delay my departure.) But crazy me still LOVES being pregnant :)

Second Tri...finally.

All is well on Kingsport Dr.!

Baby R is finally giving me a break, even letting me go through the entire Dave Matthews concert last night without any issues (with the exception of 1 bathroom trip.) It's far too early for me to feel any kicks, but I'll be 18 weeks when we go to the next concert this summer, so I'm sure I'll endure a beating that time. But this time? Smooth sailing and a lot of fun!

How far along?: 13 weeks, 0 days
Total weight gain/loss: 0 this week, still down 0.5 lb overall
Maternity clothes?: Slowly but surely easing into it.
Sleep: I cannot get enough (and, unfortunately, don't.) Fatigue is worse now than it has been the whole pregnancy.
Movement: Um, no.
Food cravings: Anything made with lots of sugar.
Gender: No feelings this week.
What I miss: My camel-like bladder. This is not an exaggeration - I peed 11 times yesterday (yes, I counted), and that was just during waking hours. I used to be a 3-a-day girl...*sigh*
What I am looking forward to: The first "stranger comment", i.e. someone I don't know that doesn't know I'm pregnant to comment on my "status", i.e. finally getting out of this is-she-or-isn't-she state I'm in so people don't think I'm just gaining back all that weight I lost.
Best moment this week: My 2-yr old niece asking me if my baby was still sleeping and if she could see him/her.
Weekly Wisdom: A coworker (after I commented on how hot it was in the office) - "That's the pregnancy talking. That baby's going to suck the life right out of you." Good to know :)
Milestones: Finally making it to the 2nd Trimester!! 1/3 of the way there, baby!

Welcome back.

Morning sickness has decided to return in full force, but in a new, actually-throwing-up kind of way. Awesome. I've also hit a new level of exhaustion that I had yet to experience.

Brief life update: The weekend started out well, but quickly went downhill. No more P.F. Chang's for this baby; I believe it was the root of the constant state of discomfort I was in Saturday night (which had me in tears at one point.) By Sunday, I was completely wiped. So much for the burst of energy and lack of symptoms that are supposed to come with your second trimester...

Oh no he didn't!

I forgot to add this to my earlier post today:

The husband actually used the term "beached whale" in reference to me lying on our floor last night. And this was after my 4-mile walk.

(I promised you I would post this. I hope your parents read this.)

Ugh again!

Seriously, stomach? Do we really need to play this game? I realize that a little munchkin is currently taking up some of your space, but you're killin' me today.

Not only am I extremely nauseated (my morning sickness did not get the memo that it was supposed to be OVER by now), I constantly feel hungry, like I haven't eaten in 3 weeks. I'm so ravenous, yet I've been filling my stomach every 1-1.5 hours. In the past, Cheerios, an apple, and some cheese & crackers in a 3-hour span would have been more than enough to keep me satisfied. We're apparently past this point. Holy hell, how much can one girl eat? Not to mention, I don't have the energy to come up with 8 snacks a day to bring to work!

Fan Lady Update:
So the woman at work that likes to keep the fan running all day "just to block out noise", the fan that rattles and gives me a headache (not an exaggeration) and generally makes me want to throatpunch someone, says to me yesterday: "Now when we fight over the fan, we'll have all sorts of hormones flying around, your pregnancy hormones and my menopausal ones *awkwardly laughs*."

Go ahead, I dare you to touch the thermostat one more time. Try it. See what happens.

12 down, 28 to go.

How far along?: 12 weeks, 0 days
Total weight gain/loss: +1.5 lbs since our 8-week doctor's appt, but still down half a pound overall
Maternity clothes?: Why yes, yes I am. Not much, but a few things here and there.
Sleep: I would love a nap right now.
Movement: Not quite.
Food cravings: Garlic bread at the moment, but it changes by the minute (And no, Mom, I don't need you to make a LaRosa's run for me!)
Gender: You'll know when we know.
What I miss: Patience.
What I am looking forward to: This bloat belly to turn into an actual baby belly so I no longer look like I ate one-too-many Chipotle burritos!
Best moment this week: I've got 2: Hearing Baby Reeder's strong little heartbeat again and starting to spread our wonderful news!!
Weekly Wisdom: When people find out you're pregnant, they feel entitled to tell you the worst, most painful labor story they've experience/heard of -or- to tell you how their morning sickness lasted well into the 3rd trimester. Thanks folks, just what I need to hear!
Milestones: We're under 200 days!

OB visit #2.

Doctor's visit number two is officially behind us! We got to hear Baby Reeder's heartbeat again, trucking away "in the 160's" this time. Still nice and strong :) It took the nurse a minute to find it (mostly we could just hear mine.) But when she finally said "...and that's the baby's heartbeat," all I could say was "That's great news." I cannot explain the relief that comes with hearing the heartbeat at 12 weeks (which I will be tomorrow!) All the scary pregnancy books make you think you'll lose your baby at any moment, until you hit 12 weeks and hear the heartbeat. Then it's like you've graduated into a class of risk-free expectant mothers, which is just as ridiculous an idea.

Anyway, all is well with both me and the little one. I've gained 1.5 lbs since our last visit, but since I was down 2 lbs at that one we're still under about 1/2 a pound (well, probably not now after that Chipotle I just had for lunch! yummm!) All of my bloodwork and lab work was good, too, so I get a (self-imposed) A+ for this visit. We'll go back in 4 weeks :)

So now the fun begins. The cat is officially going to slowly emerge from the bag. We're giving our family permission to spread the news and I plan to tell co-workers tomorrow. News travels fast in the Dale, so it's only a matter of time before everyone knows!

I've regressed.

Ugh. I've been telling everyone for a week now that I'm feeling better, most of my symptoms are going away, I think I'm finally getting over the 1st trimester sickness, etc. I was confident I was over the hump.

Baby disagrees. I was up last night at 3:30 for an hour. I haven't done this since like week 7. My mind was racing, I couldn't get comfortable, I was even singing Dave Matthews songs in my head :( After a couple hours of sleep, I get up and immediately feel a headache coming on. To top things off, I totally threw up before I left for work, which is so unusual because I haven't actually gotten sick once the whole pregnancy.

Are we really going backwards? I've heard that around weeks 11-12, the placenta starts to take over to nourish the baby and these ridiculous hormones start to drop off. Apparently that can cause a small bout of morning sickness recurrence. That better be what's going on with me. I don't know that I can handle Round 2 of this....

Little Pumpkin.

So according to my week-by-week pregnancy book, my uterus can now fill my pelvis. Seriously?! I'm imagining that's like the size of one of those little pumpkins - you know, the ones you buy for little kids that you can't actually carve so they have to just draw on them with markers. Yeah, that's ridiculous. I mean, sure, it's housing my lime-sized little one right now and he/she needs room to move around. But it's weird. No wonder I pee every ten minutes - my organs can't compete with the pumpkin that's taking over!

In other news, had my first pregnancy migraine on Wednesday, the effects of which I'm still feeling today. It wiped me out completely. The trauma of it caused me to lose 3 lbs again. But not to worry; I had potato skins for dinner last night to fill the void :) My mom, after hearing about my craptastic night on Wednesday, came to my house and did all my laundry and ironing, as well as cleaned up my bedroom (and closet!) Nevermind the fact that she showed up with a pumpkin pie and Cool Whip, just because I had blogged that it sounded good. I'm not used to being spoiled like this. I'm so blessed to have Superwoman for a mom :)

Are you having a kid?

How far along?: 11 weeks, 0 days
Total weight gain/loss: Still not sure, should have an official comparison of my scale vs the doctor's on Tuesday.
Maternity clothes?: Minimal, but seriously on the horizon.
Sleep: Getting better, though I could use a good 12-hour straight snooze.
Best moment this week: Friends' reactions to the news at a wedding in Peoria (however, worst moment this week = driving there...)
Movement: Still weeks away.
Food cravings: Pumpkin pie sounds like heaven, but I don't know that I'd call it a craving.
Gender: No guess this week.
What I miss: Sleeping in on weekends (and yes, I know this will never happen again)
What I am looking forward to: Our 12-week appointment on Tuesday, then finally spreading our good news to the world :)
Weekly Wisdom: Don't fight the hormones, they'll win every time.
Milestones: I've made it to 11 weeks without seriously hurting someone at work. Pat on the back!

And now my 'Best moment of the week' story. We'd decided that we would spill the news at the wedding this weekend, but only if someone figured it out. Well, a few hours into the reception I hear this:

"Sarah, are you having a kid? Because you've been drinking a lot of water tonight."

This was the husband's college roommate, the one we voted least likely to figure it out. His bluntness made me laugh. Didn't take long for everyone else to catch on - lots of hugs and excitement (somewhat unexpected coming from a bunch of guys - and ones we don't see often.) Makes me very excited to tell people that we're even closer to.

Glowing? Nada.

People always say pregnant woman "glow". Um, no. There's no glowing here. Dark circles under the eyes? Check. Attack of teenage acne? Check. Stains on my clothes because apparently pregnant women become uber-klutzy? Check. But glow? Not quite.

Other recent observations:
- Cocoa butter really does make you smell like chocolate.
- Maternity shirts may not yet be needed for belly reasons, but will very soon be needed to accommodate the ever-expanding Girls.
- Being a recovered nail-biter, I'm not used to the strength and length of my nails now and may need to *gasp!* cut them down soon.
- I feel like it's super-obvious that I'm "with child" and can't fathom that no one else sees it.

Oh, and one final thought: if this woman at works turn the fan on one more time, I swear to God I'm going to unleash some killer pregnancy hormones on her ass.