In the meantime, I have some random thoughts on pregnancy... namely, the second pregnancy.
I really enjoyed my first pregnancy. Yes, I was tired (so I thought), but it was nice to be able to come home and hit the couch and rest after a full day of teaching. I went to bed when I wanted to, on the weekends I slept in. It was wonderful having 9 full months to mentally prepare for becoming a mother and I needed every second of those 9 months (probably needed a little longer! I was no where near as mentally prepared as I should have been).
Then comes the second pregnancy. NOT. FUN. The exhaustion is about the same, but then you have to add to that the boundless energy of a two year old. I come home from teaching all day long and I play with my little girl - who goes NON-STOP until she passes out at night! I just hit my third trimester and I've all but given up on having a clean house... the vacuum is just too heavy to push around! I try to cook two or three times a week, but that is all that I can promise my very forgiving family! I'm due April 20, and in "pregnancy years" every month seems like a year. I know that April isn't too long from now, but it seems forever away. Sweet friends keep trying to remind me how much easier being pregnant is than actually having the non-sleeping, constantly nursing newborn in your home - and I remember how difficult it was. However, I am still ready for April to be here. At this point I would rather be a sleep deprived zombie and be holding that precious little girl in my arms than to feel like I've run a marathon after giving my two year old a bath at night. You can come back to this blog in late April and there very well may be a post wishing for pregnancy because at least I was getting my sleep at night! But as of right now - I'm ready for pregnancy to be over!!
Not to mention that I failed my 1-hour glucose test and had to take the 3-hour glucose test a week and a half ago. I will say that it went much better than I thought it was going to. My problem is that I google everything. Retroverted uterus in the first trimester - I google it to learn that 3% of women who have retroverted uteruses (uteri?) can have miscarriages up to week 20 in the pregnancy - so of course, then I am freaking out that I could be in that tiny percentage of women. My doctor has encouraged me to stay away from google, but we have a long standing relationship and I keep running back no matter how many times he hurts or scares me. So - before my 3 hour glucose test I google it to find out what to expect. And boy did my good friend, google, have me expecting the worst! So for all you women out there who have to do this test you should know - it isn't really that bad. I read all about women throwing up, passing out, getting overheated, and on and on and on. None of this happened to me even though I was expecting it after everything I read. Yes, you can't eat or drink anything past 7pm the night before. But I'll admit this - I ate a large dinner in an effort to curve my hunger until 11am the next day when my test would be over - but I got VERY sick that night. So everything I ate was gone. I worried that I would be absolutely starving by the end of my test the next day, but I was fine. I went in, they took my blood, I drank the glucose solution and that seemed to get me through the 3 hours. I was definitely hungry when I left, but nothing that was making me nauseated or light headed. Also, I read that the glucose solution you have to drink for the 3-hour test is twice as much as the 1-hour and twice as sugary as the 1-hour. Not true! They gave me the exact same little bottle of orange glucola that I had to drink before the 1-hour test. And despite what I read, I didn't have to drink the solution every time I went back to have blood drawn. That was definitely a nice surprise! Now, having blood drawn 4 times in 3 hours isn't fun (I have the bruises still on my arms to prove it), but it really wasn't terrible. And I passed my test with completely normal numbers. So, I've continued to enjoy the ice cream and kit kats that I enjoyed before my glucose test! Thanks goodness - I need them to help me through this pregnancy that feels like it will never end.
Have I complained enough this post? Sorry, about that. I know that no one comes to this blog to read about me complaining about pregnancy. I am so incredibly thankful that God is blessing us with another child. I am happy as I can be to be pregnant with a healthy baby and I need to just be grateful. So now that I've gotten all of my complaining out to the blog world I am going to attempt to just enjoy my last few months of pregnancy and remember that my exhaustion is going to only get worse when I'm not getting 8+ hours of sleep at night! I just think I'm tired now, right?!
My verse to live by: "Do everything without complaining...so that you may...shine like stars in the universe..." Philippians 2:14-15.
On a different baby note - Baby's name is going to be Lillian Noel. Lillian is my grandmother's name. We are going to call her Lillian, but we are going to call her a shortened version as well. So how should we spell the shortened version? I need your opinion!! I want to keep the double L's, so our options are Lilly, Lilli or Lillie. Tell me your favorite!!
This makes me laugh...only for the simple fact that I LOVE google, too. But, I had to stay away from it while I was pregnant because it is scary! AND I think you have the right to complain when you are pregnant, end of story bc you earn it! :)
ReplyDeleteLOVE Lilly and hopefully will get to love on her when she gets here!
oh, the lovely google relationship.
ReplyDeletei don't see it as complaining. you're just sharing what you're going through, and encouraging those of us with only 1 child to remember to take our birth control ;) i've heard a lot of women talk about their 2nd pregnancies in the same manner. i, like you, thoroughly enjoyed my 1st pregnancy and know that i have a rude awakening with the next one. it is all totally worth it though! :)
i think i like lilli the best.