Week Nine, Not so Fine

I still can't believe I'm a week away from my first appointment. It seems like too much time is passing for me to go with questions unanswered. It also seems like there are things they should have told me not to do until my appt., for ex. drinking caffeine (luckily, I already knew this one and cut back on my own), however there are things that I keep finding out that I'm doing, that I shouldn't such as using acne medication. Who'd have thought? My appointment is on Monday and I have a WHOLE list of questions for them.

Week 9 is already different from week 8. I had no morning sickness last week. This week, I'm not so lucky. I always pictured morning sickness playing out like this: 

You wake up feeling great. Start your day. After about an hour, you feel nauseous, run to the bathroom, and dry heave a bit. Nothing happens. You feel miserable. 20 minutes later, you finally throw up. And then you throw up a few more times before noon and then you're better.  

With a name like "morning sickness" I thought it would be designated to the whole morning. Well, my morning sickness is different. This is how my days have been playing out. 

I wake up. Feel sick. Eat breakfast, and feel better. 30 minutes after I eat my stomach kills. Everything I eat goes right through me (not coming up) and it lasts all day long. I walk around with constant stomach aches and eating only helps me feel better for up to 30 minutes if I'm lucky. Also, I crave foods, and when I put it in front of me, I feel sick to the point of throwing up. Take it away, and 15 minutes later, I'm craving it again. Go to sleep feeling sick. 

I would so much rather have the "morning sickness" I imagined. That way I can tell people I'm out of service until about noon everyday. This thing I've got going on, I never know when I'm going to keel over or have to run to the bathroom. It SUCKS. 

My solution: write down everything I eat and how I feel afterwards. That way, I can start eliminating the foods that make me feel worse. 

Enough about that. Last week I rented a whole stack of books from the library. I've read two: the book of baby names (we already have our list written down of ideas!) and The New Mom's Manual by Mary Jeanne Menna. This book is awesome for first time moms. It basically gives ideas and opinions from other moms. And it's completely unbiased. One mom will say she loves a certain product, another mom will say she hated it. It's great because it gives you different aspects of situations which allows you to think of what will work for yourself, rather than being told what to do.

For example, there's a section in there about disposable diapers v. reusable. I never would have even considered reusable diapers until I read the benefits (keeps baby from breaking out, more comfortable, etc.) and how they are used. I had no idea that there were liners that you flush down the toilet, they came with snaps rather than pins, and how much less they cost. I totally would have considered this option (because let's face it, I'm going to be doing that much laundry every week anyway, what's a few more diapers to throw into each load?) except for one part that really turned me off. Many mothers mentioned with reusable diapers, you usually keep a pail of a baking soda mix by your changing areas to soak the soiled diapers. For me, keeping a pail of water in the house seems gross, tacky, and a recipe for disaster when baby starts moving around. That there made me realize that I want to use disposables, but I'm glad I was able to assess each side first before deciding. 

With disposables being our options, I have already started clipping out coupons, joining the "Pampers exclusive" list for discounts and savings and we're going to start buying diapers now (7 months out) to start stocking up so when the baby gets here, we won't have to worry about that spending money and can use it on other last minute items we'll probably need. 

My biggest challenge that I need to start working on (other than getting through the day without cringing pain) is the dogs. We have three very, very needy pups who always try to get up in my lap and jump on me in the middle of the night to cuddle. It's going to be hard telling them "no" when it's my favorite part about waking up to balls of fluff in my arms, but I don't want any harm to the baby when I start ballooning up. Also, it's going to be a work in progress when the donut baby gets here to make sure they don't get jealous or angry. 

There was one VERY exciting part about my week last week. I went to an ultrasound appointment to have a cyst on my ovary checked out (I made this appt before we even knew we were pregnant and I waited almost a month for it, so I was keeping it!) and at the end, the girl said, "I'm really not supposed to do this but..." she turned the screen and showed me the baby! It was so little! I had a little round head area and a tadpole body. So exciting to think that this little bugger is causing me so much grief!  I love every second of it :)