13 weeks pregnant and all is well!

Today I am officially 13 weeks pregnant. At the end of this week when I hit 14 weeks I will be in my 2nd trimester. They (medical professionals) say that alot of discomfort from the 1st trimester magically disappears when you hit the 14 week mark. We shall see. This has not always held true in my previous pregnancies. So I thought I would give a quick update on how I am doing.

I have had quite a few headaches in the past few weeks. I am not sure why. I have been getting enough sleep and not doing anything to strain my eyes or anything. But I still get these bad put-me-in-bed type of headaches about once a week. Perhaps they are from dehydration because I seem to also have chapped lips alot as well. Chapped lips for me is a sign of me not drinking enough water. So I have been trying to drink more, but that makes me pee more and I would like to see something besides the inside of my bathroom in a day. I think the trick is finding balance. I am still working on that though.

My skin is a wreck. It is dry and yucky but also breaking out. I have some kind of excema type rash on the inside of both my forearms. Does not make alot of sense to be dry but breaking out. I guess pregnancy runs havoc on every system in your body. But I am encouraged because when I was pregnant with Jasmyn my skin was a WRECK the whole time. With Kaleb & Mason... it was fairly OK. So bad skin has = girl before. Probably an old wives tales, but I am still keeping my fingers crossed!

WARNING TMI APPROACHING***** SKIP to next Paragraph if you are easily offended******

So with previous pregnancies my breasts getting sore and swollen has been a tell tale sign of pregnancy. Meaning my breasts would be sore long before I even missed my period. With this pregnancy they were just fine. In fact that is part if why I was so surprised to get a positive pregnancy tests, cause my breasts were just normal feeling. I attributed my lack of sensitivity to the fact that I have breastfed a grand total of like 41 months (3.5 years) when you add up Kaleb, Jasmyn and Mason's nursing time. Usually first time Moms have the sore breasts because of a hormonal response of the final development of milk ducts and the breasts preparing for breast feeding. So I *thought* I might get lucky and not have the breast soreness because of my breast feeding "hard time" so to speak. Yeah. I am not that lucky. The breast fairy arrived a week or so ago and gave them a refill. They are now swollen, firm and sore. Not that I mind the firmness part, casue lets be honest after 41 months of nursing.... firmness is NOT a word I would usually use to descibe my breasts! LOL! But I wish they could be swollen and firm without the soreness. And since the Breast fairy inflated them again... Bra shopping might become very neccessary in the coming weeks.

END OF TMI**** Resume your regular reading!

I have been doing what I can to stay awake. LOL! Tim will attest to this. Try as I might I can not get through an afternoon without a nap. I try to get to bed at a reasonable time every night and get at least 7-8 hours of sleep. But even when I hit the 8 hours of sleep I still feel an afternoon low and need a cat nap to make it through the evening. My mind seems to not be as sharp either. Tim has always said that when I get pregnant I give 1/2 my brain to the baby. So as of now I only have about 1/16th of what I started with pre kids! Which is probably why the fridge is mostly empty and the bills are late... not because of the ecomony.... but because I don't have enough energy to shop or brain power to pay the bills! LOL!

I have been trying to take my prenatal vitamins in order to help with my energy levels and overall health. I have only recently be able to try as prior to this week I had been vomitting on a regular basis. Almost daily in fact. Maybe this is one of those things they (medical professionals) are right about having it end in the 1st trimester. That is FINE with me. I'll take it! So as soon as I was able to keep everything down I decided to try to take prenatals again. 5 days into it and I have been successful so far!

I also got my blood test results back from my thyroid blood draw from March 10th. Dr. L send me a letter to say the blood levels are perfect and to continue on my current dose. This is good news. We will continue to monitor the blood levels over the whole pregnancy on a monthly basis. Dr.L will adjust my dosage as needed to ensure the health of myself and the baby!

Most likely in large part to the fact that I was vomiting daily for a few months, I am still losing weight. I am down 9 pounds from where I was on March 10th. Or it could just be the way my body does pregnancy. I checked back on my previous pregnancy weight charts and it is typical for me to lose 10-15 pounds in the first few months and then level out during the middle months and then gain it back at the end. By the time baby is born, I am about where I started, albeit a little less tone in my abdomin. But lets face it... I did not start out with rock hard abs! I will just be happy to not gain a bunch of weight and still have a healthy weight baby!

The only other thing that has been interesting during my first trimester is the way crazy and VIVID dreams. I dream about people that I have not spoken to in years, some people that are no longer with us, and people in my every day life. Sometimes all these folks are scrambled together in a crazy party and sometimes I have one on one dreams with someone. None of my dreams are scary, although some of them are manifestations of my deepest thoughts and feelings. If I am angry about someone I will have a dream that they moved away. Or that I told them EXACTLY how I feel about them. In words that I would Not use in real life. In some ways it is freeing to have a dream confrontation with someone. It is very safe that way. No consequences to deal with. The only negative aspect of the vivid dreams is the moment when you wake up and you are trying to dicipher fact from dream. And also sometimes the intesity or vividness of the dreams wakes me up at odd hours and makes going back to sleep difficult.

I am just happy to be pregnant and happy to be experiencing every little moment of this journey. Tim & I intend for this child to be the completion of our family. So there is a bit of "savoring each drop" this time around. I thought that it might be bitter sweet. I am pleasantly surprised that I feel content and peaceful about our decision. This does feel like the completeion of this (infancy) phase of our lives. I am happy to be going through it, but I am happy to be nearing the end of this journey as well.