20 weeks
Half way there. It feels great, I can’t wait to meet this little girl (although, obviously, please keep baking for a hood while longer). The sickness clears more and more each week – and I feel my old brain come back more and more. It has been nice not only to be able to focus on work when needed, but to enjoy doing so.
This pregnancy is different from Sam. Although I am less hungry, and seem to eat less, I am putting on more weight – 10 lbs so far. I don’t mind really, but I try to be mindful of only eating when I am hungry and stopping when I am full. Other than that, the second trimester (so far) has been characterized by exhaustion and nesting – neither of which I really felt with Sam.
The exhaustion is mind-blowing. By 9 am I feel like my limbs are heavy and my head is already fuzzy with tiredness. The physical exhaustion seems to be accompanied by a general malaise: everything seems like too much effort. A blog post? Too much. Do some crafting? Can’t lift this mass off the sofa to get to my crafting room. I have spent a lot of time on the internet surfing around, ‘pinning’ pictures for the nursery and watching TV (Parenthood is my current binge watch of choice).
Binge watching buddy
It is sort of sad because Wes is determined that this will be my last pregnancy, so I had decided to full revel in it, in a way I couldn’t with Sam as so much was going on (new marriage, new job, new state, new house… yeah, not sure I would recommend that as a course of action). And I love looking back and reading my posts about being pregnant with Sam (if that sounds weird, I am generally obsessed with pregnancy blogs), so I know I’ll regret not having more for Bubble.
But the tiredness is pervasive and unexpected. It might be because I am chasing around after an (adorable) toddler, or it might be because, as expected, I am bigger this time around
21 weeks with Sam
21 weeks with Bubble
Or
because work has been harder, or because I am 100% less fit going into this endeavor (think 1/2 marathon running body builder benchpressing her bodyweight vs. struggling with a 5K and doing 10bs weight while walking on the treadmill). Doubtless it is a combination of all these things. But it also feels different, this pregnancy (almost as if my 1.5 children are totally different individuals 😉 ). The other sad upshot is that I have been having caffeine every day, which I have been really trying to limit to one cup a day. Not always 100% successful if I am honest. And I am also cramming sugar into my mouth to help with the tiredness. So yes, I’ll take my tea with a side of McVities Caramel Digestives and a dose of guilt, thanks.
Have also developed a teapot obsession. This one was $100 (!). That’s maybe a topic for another post.
Wes is often on at me to ‘slow down’ and spending time doing nothing immediately productive has been a fun discovery. Discomforting but fun.
The other major difference to Sam’s pregnancy is nesting (not hugely compatible with exhaustion, I have to say). Serious nesting. I never understood what nesting was, and really thought it was just a fancy name given to people who wanted to decorate their nursery, or some such. Ha! Now I know. Now I know that it is fixating on every little out-of-place object. It is feeling deep discomfort that WE HAVE NOWHERE TO SORT OUR MAIL – and demanding hysterically to know: what are we, Savages? It is staring at a PC lying quietly in the corner of the room and hearing it mock you until you scream “I can’t take it anymore” drag it into the garage. None of this happened. OK. All of this happened.
Wes pressure washing the house. An essential home task, I felt.
Luckily Wes has been supportive – think two IKEA tips on his own. And pressure washing the house. And building a bed for my Mum who is coming immediately in August. Why, you ask? Either (a) He feels sorry for me, as I have been dragging my ass out of bed at 6 am and cleaning like a crazy person until 8, while also getting ready for work and getting Sam ready for school. Picture me, toast wedged between teeth, mug of tea in hand, wielding a duster while potty-ing a toddler; (b) He likes the result and wants to contribute to it; (c) he can’t take the nagging; or (d) he is having an affair with a lady who doesn’t need chub run in the Texas heat and feels guilty about it (I did get flowers this week. Hmmmm). IN THE END I DON’T CARE. As long as he is hanging up our chalkboard mail sorter, dressing windows and choosing rugs, I am good with the motivation.
And, while the nesting is genuinely stressful and exhausting, I am glad it is here for a minute. I have cleaned out almost every room, coordinated all the upstairs to a palette of grey, white, blue and yellow, got the downstairs functional and cute and our home is now just that: our home – not an impersonal house. The kid(s) (
Greatest thing ever
So… I’m wondering, with he house furnishings budget depleted to nearly nothing, and the cleaning covered, what I am going to spend up to 2 hours a day doing now? What will be my new ‘thing‘? What on Earth will I nag Wesley about? Can our marriage take the strain of a tidy house? Probably. I am sure there is something else I can obsess over.
The Crafty Momma 