Things I took for granted

After waiting 11 months to see that 'pregnant' on a test I thought everything would be wonderful and remain wonderful for the next 9 months. I was mistaken. First I realized 9 months is misleading.....the due date is set at 40 weeks, divide that by 4 weeks to a month and that's actually 10 months of pregnancy.

I was OK with that. I mean it took me longer to get pregnant than it will take me to incubate the little creature.

Pregnancy was great for me. Sickness? NONE! Well unless you count the few times I ended up dry heaving or the one time I actually threw up. The cause? Hunger. That's fine, I can fix that...I'll just eat. And eat I did. First trimester = eat whenever, whatever, where ever I wanted. Chips and salsa, in bed, at midnight? Of course! I ate a LOT of chips and dip. A LOT! Others were battling nausea. Not me. I was eating, eating and eating. The only time I had to worry about feeling sick was when I wasn't eating.

Then I made a mistake. I bragged about how great pregnancy was. "I just LOVE being pregnant. I don't know what everyone talks about!" What kind of karma was I wishing upon myself???

And then I did it.....on came the heartburn. Middle of second trimester my late night food fest were over :( No more salsa for me. We're talking waking up in the middle of the night dying kind of pain. Running to the bathroom begging myself to throw up just to relieve whatever was burning my throat. Tums didn't even touch it. Pepcid didn't work either. I seriously exclaimed to my doctor "There's a burning ball of death in my throat! Fix it!" So here came the miracle drug.....Prilosec. Relief. I could sleep again. Of course I had to cut out my late night snacking too :( Boy did I take that for granted during first trimester.

Then third trimester started. My thoughts of "This is going to be awesome! Pregnancy during the summer!" My dreams of cute summer dresses, days at the pool and lemonade were gone. Normally a VERY cold natured girl by January I was already burning up. Spring just brought hot flashes. Seriously hot flashes. I'm talking draping myself over my desk chair with a fan blowing on me and I'm still burning up kind of hot flash. Laying on my bed right by the air vent with Mark holding a hand-held fan over me kind of hot flash. The end of second trimester (OK the WHOLE second trimester) and beginning of third trimester were awful!! I've never been so hot in my life. I recommend all pregnant women get a hand-held fan AND a desk fan at the beginning of their pregnancies. I wouldn't have survived without mine.

Pregnancy in the summer was definitely not as great as I had imagined it to be. It was this very romantic, Hollywood kind of picture in my head. In reality it's been one big hot sweaty mess.

Thank goodness my mother-in-law has a pool because now I get to watch my feet swell to twice their size. The only footwear I can wear to work would be flip flops. I have one grey pair and one bright blue pair. And now I'm to the point where when I take them off I still have the imprint to show where they should go when I put them back on.

And on top of all this hot sticky joy? The return of heartburn. I can no longer eat my favorite food....pizza. If I do I can guarantee my heartburn is going to be bad enough to make my ears burn. Basically sleeping is out now too. Reflux likes to make surprise showings too.

Some days I'm just down right miserable. It's hard for me to get out of bed. It's hard for me to roll over in bed. It's hard for me to stand up from my desk and walk. It's hard for me to sit up.

But then I sit down, lay back and feel my little guy snuggled into my ribcage and I think back to the joy we felt Nov. 30, 2009, when we passed the biggest test of our lives....a pregnancy test and I know I would deal with all these little annoyances (OK big annoyances :) ) for 40 extra weeks if I had to do it.

After 11 months of waiting for him and 40 weeks of growing him I can not wait to hold him and finally give him his name. I know I speak for Mark when I say we are more than ready to start this next leg of our life.