The Shrimp

Hooray! I think this is my second time posting on our blog. Maybe I'll become a regular...but don't get your hopes up. I suppose I'm our only hope for this blog as dental school has officially consumed Jared's life. Maybe that will be the pressure I need to keep up with this thing...maybe even bust out the camera more often and download my pictures! Annie knows how great I am at downloading pictures. It only took me like a month to send her pictures she requested. Apparently just downloading pics on the computer could be quite the accomplishment for me. Anyways. Folks, the real reason I am here today is to officially announce...we're pregnant! We are thrilled! As of today, we are 13 weeks along...almost clear of the first trimester. Hooray for that! According to babycenter.com, our little tyke is about 3 inches long from head to bum--apparently the size of a medium shrimp. At our initial doc appointment at 10 weeks, February 26th was determined to be our due date. So mark your calenders, people! We have a baby coming at the end of February! In case you needed a visual, this is how big our baby is, in baby form, of course. So I was expecting to have a pretty breezy pregnancy as my Mom had three fairly easy pregnancies. She experienced some nausea and discomfort, but not unbearable or super out of the ordinary. But don't be so jealous just yet. Yes she had pretty easy pregnancies, BUT, an epidural could not be placed on the woman. Three babies, au naturale. Yikes. I am not cut out for that. I am a super wimp. As for me so far, my Mom and I are virtual opposites (and for placing-an-epidural purposes, hopefully we continue to be opposites!). I was hoping me and nausea wouldn't get too friendly during pregnancy since nausea and my Mom were mere acquaintances. But...some pretty intense nausea set in for me around week six. I didn't panic too much as I knew nausea is a very normal symptom of early pregnancy. Whatever. Just deal with it. It was about a week and a half or two weeks later that I had experienced a week plagued with nausea and lost four and a half pounds that I decided something had to be done. I called in the doc's office to set up my first appointment and to tell them what was going on and came out of it with an appointment and a prescription for phenergen. Apparently (according to Kaiser, anyway) if a pregnant woman has already lost weight due to nausea and vomiting they skip the wimpy remedy suggestions and give you the real stuff if you want it. Thank you Kaiser and kind phone nurse. I want you all to know that phenergen is a drug of the gods. Life on prescription meds in awesome. Now I see why people get addicted. Just kidding. Really. Besides being drowsy and chill all the time (in addition to the normal first trimester sleepiness) life is great. I'll take drowsiness over n/v any day. Even now, every once in a while my body freaks out for unknown reasons and I experience the n/v all over again. Days like those are great reminders of what life could be on a daily basis and I become more grateful for all those people who used a lot of brains and their precious time inventing phenergen. In addition to being grateful for all the smart people of the world, I am also grateful my body responds to oral phenergen since the next option for me might look something like this: Erin in a frantic search for a large box of gloves and some lubricating jelly. Thank the heavens that hasn't happened. (If those weren't enough clues... there's only so many natural orifices on one's body that a med with more systemic effects can be placed. You do the math.) Anyways. Hopefully the n/v thing will slow down a bit since I'm moving onto the next stage of pregnancy. I've experimented not taking phenergen a few days in the last couple weeks...didn't go over so well. Someday it will all subside and I can stop being a drug addict. Until then, I'll continue to be chill Erin...which surely trumps acid-breath Erin. My only request through all of this? Any mother's request--that my baby is healthy. I would take feeling sick all pregnancy long to guarantee my baby's health. Too bad we can't make bargains like that. Life is truly a miracle. I feel incredibly blessed to be pregnant. And in all reality, being sick is probably a good thing. Not everyone endures the more typical symptoms of pregnancy, but if they're present, it probably means things are moving along as they should be. And for that, I am grateful. To our little shrimp, we love you and can't believe we still have to wait 27 more weeks to meet you. But take your sweet time in there. Do your thing. I don't want to see you any earlier than 25 weeks down the road. Is that clear?