The Mom I Want To Be

Yes, this Willow Tree figure called "New Life" is just one of many things that made me cry this pregnancy. I have to admit, the second trimester isn't quite as frustrating as the first one. There are no more secrets to keep. There is no more nausea. I don't feel quite as tired anymore (but I still nap more than I ever did before). And even my acne has managed to calm down (Knock on wood! Knock on wood!). There are still some complaints present, however, and if I'm going to be documenting my pregnancy I regularly have to post both the good and the bad. There is still plenty of itchy skin. There is still plenty of random growth pains. I still have to go to the bathroom every time I stand up from the couch. Oh, and there's those lovely hormones that control my moods. I thankfully haven't had anything even close to depression so far this pregnancy, but that doesn't mean I've escaped the crying-for-no-reason stage (or crying for perfectly goo...

Christmas has come at last, and with it came holiday parties, feasting, and three relatives now who have rubbed my small but growing bump (I don't mind if it's relatives--it's strangers touching my belly where I draw the line). Being pregnant for the holidays is fun because not everyone gets to experience that, and there are many fun activities that can be incorporated for you and baby. I bought myself a holiday-themed maternity shirt and went out to take baby's "first" picture with Santa at our local Ethel M's Chocolate Factory. I went shopping at the Downtown Summerlin outdoor mall (scoping out baby items in the midst of holiday shopping) and mailed baby-themed Christmas cards to our relatives ("Have yourself a merry LITTLE Christmas" they proclaimed, with a photo of Hubby stroking my belly next to me). There were also plenty of baby gifts to get me ready for baby's first Christmas on the outside next year. Seeing the a...

I've made it to 14 weeks! That means I'm officially in the second trimester! Here's a quick recap of what pregnancy feels like right now. The Good: No more nausea! That nauseous feeling but never quite throwing up left weeks ago and hasn't really come back, which is definitely a relief! No crazy food aversions or smells that drive me crazy, though the super sniffer can still detect smells a little more strongly than normal. Baby bump! I finally have enough of a bump to be visible in photos, which makes me feel more like I'm actually pregnant and not just getting pudgy. Although when I wake up in the morning or look down at my belly, I still feel like I'm just getting pudgy. It will be a few more weeks before the belly completely forms into the kind of bump usually pictured with pregnancy. But that's at least something to look forward to about growing bigger by the day! Still hungry, still get to eat! Most foods taste delicious, and while I don...

It's official! As in, Facebook official, that is. We made our public announcement on November 22, 2018, Thanksgiving night, after telling the last of Hubby's relatives at Thanksgiving dinner. Here's what we said online: "One more Happy Thanksgiving to all my family and friends! This year, I'm excited to share that we have something extra special to be thankful for. Words cannot express how grateful, blessed, amazed, and overjoyed I was to learn this fall that I am now...a mother. Our family is growing, and though it be but little, it is fierce. This experience so far has taught us patience, gratitude, but above al l, just how much we can love someone we haven't even met yet. As we approach our one-year wedding anniversary in a little over a week, I can't help but think of our wedding speeches--how we have something new to fill our life bars, and fill our hearts whole with happiness. Jayson was generous enough to let me completely run with a Beaut...

I must admit I was terrified on the morning of November 21, 2018. My genetic testing appointment was scheduled for that afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving. At age 32, I'm not yet high risk, but the doctor offered non-invasive first-trimester screening for genetic abnormalities like Down Syndrome and scheduled us for the High Risk Pregnancy Center testing location at our last appointment. Hubby has an aunt with Down Syndrome, and the screening involved only blood work and an ultrasound--another chance to see Baby V up close!--so we agreed. But that didn't mean I was going to be calm as I waited through an entire half day of work wondering if the child inside me was okay. It had been three weeks since my last ultrasound when I last got a chance to see the baby. For all I knew something could have happened unrelated to genetics in that time. I'd taken an airplane to Texas, visited Mexico, ate bad food, gotten a subconjunctival hemorrhage in both eyes, and caught a sl...

Fudge, fudge, call the judge, Stephanie's having a baby! Wrap it up in toilet paper, send it down the elevator, What will it be? Boy? Girl? Twins or an alien?? On the plane ride at around 10.5 weeks to visit my grandfather in Texas, I started reading the young adult novel,  Ogre Enchanted , by the same author as my beloved  Ella Enchanted   (which I   first read in sixth grade). While it's not as good as the original, it's growing on me. The main character, Evie, is transformed into an ogre by a fairy's spell. As an ogre she's big and stout, quick to anger, and hungry all the time. My first thought? Oh, it's like she's pregnant. While early pregnancy doesn't have me quite feeling like an ogre (yet), there have been a few first trimester moments of discouragement as I begin to transform a bit myself--changes in skin, in waist, in health. Even in mood: my first moment of irrational sobbing happened in our Texas hotel room after I watched one of ...

The middle of the first trimester is going about as can be expected considering the types of articles I came across while frantically Googling whether or not I was the only one to feel this out of sorts (a.k.a. mildly squishy on a good day and full-on miserable on a bad day). First trimester can be miserable for a lot of reasons. It started with endless nausea, made especially worse by hunger, so I find myself eating ALL the TIME. Which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that the minute the nausea finally went away I worried I had gained too much weight too fast for the first trimester and lamented my growing "baby pooch," which is not a "bump" but instead a combination of food and bloat. There's the acne, which comes in the form of painful bumps appearing in the most uncomfortable places--ooh look, a new one almost every day! And finally, the sheer emotional drama of not knowing if everything's okay. Lack of bump, symptoms that co...