22 Weeks
This week has seen the return of some unpleasant symptoms from my first trimester: bouts of low-level nausea, constant horrible taste in my mouth, and overwhelming drowsiness. I’m hungry most of the time, but every time I eat I’m left with this horrific aftertaste as though I haven’t brushed my teeth in months. Also: insanely itchy, dry skin, and eczema in places. Having more trouble carrying Miles for more than 10 seconds at a time. And I’m a weeee bit cranky and moody.
I feel positively enormous right now, even though I know I’m not and I’m going to get bigger. When I look at photos of myself 9 months pregnant with Miles, it scares me. How did I even stand upright with a belly like that? I thought by now my size would have evened out compared to my last pregnancy but I feel like I am still way bigger. I had my first fundal height measurement, where your belly is measured externally from top to bottom and centimeters are supposed to correspond with weeks – but I was 28 cm. Yikes. I always measured 4 weeks ahead with Miles but that is a little crazy, even though I know how inaccurate fundal height can be.
Another strange side effect of pregnancy: totally bizarre dreams. One involved me posing as a man in a repressive misogynistic society and even my best friend didn’t know I was a woman in disguise; I helped plan a coup d’etat with a German expatriate so I could continue to hide my identity. Recently I finally dreamed of this baby – I was in labor and ran up the dirt road where I grew up, to the top of a hill, and into a building where there just happened to be a midwife waiting. I squatted down next to a vending machine and pushed twice and baby was born. He was cute and small and had a lot of reddish hair.
Miles really cracked me up during this photo shoot because he remembered what we usually do and cheesed it up a little this time. It’s too bad most of these came out blurry and a little overexposed… I think the low light and snow outside the sliding door was messing with my camera. They’re still cute shots though, so I kept some of the blurry ones.
Miles went with me to an OB appointment for the first time (of course this would be the one where we got stuck waiting for almost two hours to see the doc). He was very patient but not in the least bit interested in what the doctor was doing with Mommy. He still doesn’t pay any attention to my belly and was completely bored by me putting a teddy bear in a swaddling blanket and calling it a baby.
Like the crazy person that I am, I have dragged out all the old newborn clothes and piled them up in the bookcase in Miles’s room… make that the boys’ room. Having two boys certainly simplifies things as far as clothing, organizing, and decor go. I have moved a lot of M’s toys down to our family room to make it more of a playroom, and the kids’ bedroom now is mostly for clothes and diaper changing. I basically have nothing else to do in preparation for baby but my nesting instincts are kicking so I guess I’ll just have to… clean. Ugh.
We have also gotten a bunch of new diapers lately. A generous friend gave me a supply of newborn/small prefolds and covers, and from someone else I bought 8 used medium or one-sized pocket diapers, 6 of which fit Miles right now (the other 2 are too small). This is a HUGE help to us – now we have a good basic supply and can add as needed. Yay!
My next appointment is not for another 5 weeks, when I get to take the gestational diabetes test and will be entering my third trimester. April seems so crazy far away right now with the whole winter ahead of us, but I’m sure the time will fly by on some level. I suppose we need the time to decide on a name for sure, although I will admit we might have one. But I’m not telling just yet! It’s a bit offbeat and we’re thinking maybe we don’t want to hear any critiques until there’s a cute baby face behind it. Plus I would like to have the option of changing my mind when I finally see him.
