Simpleton Pleasures

Blogging from my phone in Jared's clinic, which I'm visiting for the first time EVER since we moved here almost a year ago😬 I'm going to blame preschool. We used to visit Jared for lunch like once a month when he was in residency, but now lunch time is hustle to preschool time. And since Friday is Jack's day off preschool, I usually spend the day in some version of jammies, pumped not to have to get anyone ready to leave the house. Jared's little clinic is so cute! He's pretty behind on office work but it's our date afternoon--and one of our last before Jack's done with preschool. So I'm hanging out with him here and hopefully we'll have time for a little date when he's done.

It's been a pretty good week! I'm 19 weeks along today. For the first time in my pregnancy I woke up this morning not feeling nauseated. Evenings are still icky. But I wanted to jot down some highlights from this last week:

-I don't need to use a stool to take a shower anymore! I turned a bucket upside down and had to sit on it to get through showers through my first trimester. Then it got so I only needed it if I was showering in the evening. And now I never need it!

-I'm no longer needing a zofran every day! I only needed one 2-3 times this last week. I think I'll meet my goal of being off by 20 weeks. (Still on all my antihistamine nausea meds though)

-I started easing back into taking my prenatals this week. I had to stop taking them at 6 weeks because I would vomit as soon as they hit my tongue, but now I'm able to stomache half of a dose most mornings. I learned that other than the folate in them, prenatal vitamins don't help the baby anyway, they're for mama. With Jack's pregnancy I never got to a point where I was well enough to take my prenatals so this is big for me at 19 weeks. Hopefully it won't take me a year to recover from malnourishment like it did last time.

-On the note of not being malnourished, I've officially surpassed the weight I was when I delivered Jack, and I'm so happy I could cry. Three cheers for not being confined to a sick bed or strapped to a barf bowl.

I'm doing so much better than I thought I would be by now. My only goals for the first half of my pregnancy were to survive it, and to try and take zofran less than last time to minimize some of the unpleasant side effects. Now I'm feeling up to setting some new goals for the second half of my pregnancy. Nothing too crazy:

1. Take vitamins and floss more regularly

2. Continued grace for myself--if all I accomplish during this pregnancy is just surviving, that is good enough!!

3. Have hospital bags packed and the car ready to go by the time 3rd trimester comes along. My hospital is an hour away from our house, and last time my labor moved pretty quickly so there can be no dilly-dallying when labor hits! I'm comforted knowing that if we get stuck in traffic and things move too quick, at least Jared's delivered several babies before😅

4. Light strength training for arms and pelvic floor. My last childbirth WRECKED me. This time I'm hoping to be more prepared.

Ok! That's all I've got! Time to convince Jared to save the rest of his work til tomorrow!

Phone Blog

Gonna cough out a mediocre blog post real quick. Last week was overall pretty good. I'm still feeling at least queasy all the time, but sometimes I'm able to not think about it. But I overdid Easter and so today I feel lousy. It was a fun weekend. We spent Saturday with Jared's parents doing their ward Easter egg hunt, going out for lunch, seeing the renovation progress on their flooded house, and going for a nature walk. Jack was 10/10 all day. So happy. Loving the attention, loving the egg hunt, all the things. Fun. I love age 4. When we got home I tried to prepare my Sunday school lesson for the next morning but just could not focus for the life of me. Evenings are just hard for me in general when pregnant, so I gave up, halfheartedly helped Jared set up and hide an Easter basket for Jack, and went to bed.

Jack woke us up bright and early 6:30 Easter morning, pumped to go hunt for eggs. Pregnant Laura is just doing enough to get by, so there were only 5 eggs, placed in pretty obvious places, but there was a toy dinosaur in Jack's Easter basket that made up for the lackluster egg situation. I have been VERY tired this past week. Afternoons are rough to get through. I don't know if it's a second trimester thing, or if it's a bi-product of going to sleep a little later than I did in the first trimester (I mean, I'm still down for the night by 9-9:30, so nothing crazy). Anyway, after the egg hunt I needed half an hour to eat, medicate, and regulate the nausea situation. Then I downed some caffeine and prepared my Sunday school lesson. Church was nice (until we got cornered at the end and Jared was given a THIRD calling and I was asked to speak next week, for the second time in 4 months--small ward lyfe). So we went home and I got down to business with easter dinner prep. We had Jared's parents and brother over for dinner. Mama L made the besssst ham and some sides/dessert. I made 4 sides. Nothing too crazy, except that I'm at maybe half capacity right now so it took me all afternoon until they arrived. We had a delicious dinner and fun evening. It's been rare for us to spend Easter with family this last decade, so that was really nice.

After they left my body gave up on me. My feet and back were SO sore. The belly situation is pretty intense already, and after eating such a big meal I was uncomfortable in the worst way. Plus, nauseous. Plus, I tend to have a hard time falling asleep after long social gatherings. I finally fell asleep around 1:00 a.m., and today I am feeling the effects. Nausea city. Yay. Me and Jared tried to make the most of our Monday afternoon date. We recently had the realization that Jack only has about a month left of preschool, meaning we've only got a handful more child-free Monday afternoon dates before Jack's home for the summer and then we have a baby. Our plan was to go see a movie, but as it turns out, there's only ONE movie theater within half an hour of our house, and it doesn't have any afternoon showings on weekdays. Our plan B was to drive into Arlington for an ice cream date. But there was only one ice cream shop and it is closed on Mondays. We tried two other dessert places, also closed on Mondays. At this point we were running out of time but drove 15 minutes to the next town over that has a Cold Stone. Enjoyed some ice cream, and then since there was a Costco next door we ran in for some staples before rushing home to pick up Jack. A bit of a date fail, but now we know to plan better for our next/final month of dates.

That's about all I've got for now. Here are a few pics from our weekend (dropped the ball on Easter morning pics--I'll try and get a cute Sunday pic sometime in the next few weeks and pretend it's our Easter pic):

^^Tried to find a pic of me from this last week, but this was the only one hahaha. I can always count on Jack for these glamorous, candid pregnancy snapshots. This actually seems like a very accurate/generous portrayal of Laura in the Wild on any given pregnant day.

Easter Weekend 2022

Happy 16 weeks of pregnancy according to my OB and 17 weeks of pregnancy according to me! Based on my last period and baby's current measurements, I'm definitely 17 weeks along today. But they measured baby a week small at my first appointment, so they pushed my due date back a week and it seems like they're never going to correct it. Oh well. With Jack I went into labor naturally a few days before my due date so I'm not particularly worried. But when people ask my due date, I honestly just shrug haha.

I had my 16-week appointment today. Thank goodness we switched it to a virtual appointment, because my doctor had to run in for an emergency c-section and they would've had to reschedule an in-person visit and I would have spent my entire day driving to and from Kirtland for nothing. Instead they just called me, told me he'd be late, asked if he could call me for a quick phone appointment instead of the virtual video appointment, and an hour later I had a 10-minute phone check-in and was done. Amazing. Phone-call OB appointments 4evr and evr amen. (Obviously I'll go in for my 20-week ultrasound, but whenever possible I will be scheduling virtual appointments from here on out.)

This last week was "Spring Break." There was one day that hit 70 degrees and another day that snowed big huge fluffy snowflakes. Nothing that stuck, though. Jack was pretty much over his cold, but Jared and I both caught a cold (not sure if it was the same one or a different one Jared brought home from work) and are still recovering. It hasn't been too bad except for if I accidentally cough too deeply I have to order everyone to STOP MOVING AND TALKING RIGHT NOW!!!! and then hold very still and not breathe for 30 seconds while I wait for this awful wave of "girl you gonna puke" to slowly roll through my entire body and hope I can just ride the wave until it passes. I'm very grateful this cold came at 16 weeks instead of last month, because I would have been puking at every cough if I was 12 weeks along, but at 16 weeks I was narrowly able to hold the pukes off. Hallelujah! I still have rough nausea times most days, but I truly think I might be done with the vomiting this pregnancy. (Keep in mind that I'm still needing to be on FOUR kinds of nausea meds to maintain this level of functionality, and I'm still very nauseous every evening. Woof. Thank uuuuuu meds. Could be so much worse rn.)

Jack's strong dinosaur phase continues. He has a children's encyclopedia of dinosaurs, and he knows the names of like 50 different species. I took him to Lake Roesiger on the 70-degree day this last week and he played dinosaurs with other kids on the beach most of the time. Very cute. Here are some pictures from our week!

^^Jack made this war headband and glued it to his hair. Yes, glued it. And I watched him do it. And I am so tapped out when pregnant that I didn't do a single thing to try and stop it. Today he painted dinosaurs with straight-up undiluted FOOD COLORING. Do you know how bad that stuff stains? And guess who went and fetched the food coloring for him when he requested this activity? Yup. This pregnant gal. I am soooo tapped out. You want it, you got it. Cookies for breakfast? Awesome, have at it. Non-pregnant Laura makes responsible parenting decisions. Pregnant Laura literally cannot be bothered to make a single responsible parenting decision. Good thing Jared's here in the evenings so Jack can eat a vegetable and get his teeth brushed once a day. The bar is LOW here right now, but I know it's just for a time and season and everyone's gonna be OK.

^^Savvy used to get 2 runs a day when we lived across from open prairie in Wyoming. Now she lives in a crowded neighborhood in Washington with a pregnant lady and doesn't get out NEARLY enough. Whenever she gets taken for a decent walk in the woods it's zoomie central.

^^I love these dudes.

K-razy Spring Break

Well hey. We're all sick but at least it's springtime!

This last Monday Jared and I had plans to drive half an hour north to La Conner to check out the blooming daffodil fields if I was feeling up to it. This was going to be a date since Jared only works til noon on Mondays, but Jack had a wicked cough so I kept him home from preschool and he joined us. He did a covid test and it was negative, so I was like, "Get me out of this house." We had a good time! We had lunch right next to the water--fish and chips at a restaurant my brother Jordan took me to when they were living in this part of Washington 3 years ago. After lunch we walked down the boardwalk and Jack loved watching the boats. Then we drove around and saw a bunch of pretty daffodil fields in full bloom! Unfortunately there were no places to pull off on the side of the road to get a picture. I felt bad because Jack was under the impression that he was going to get to walk around the fields, but that didn't happen. So we pulled off next to a fire station that had daffodils growing next to it and snapped a picture on our way home.

Jack continued to have a cough of death for the rest of the week (just a bad cold), so he stayed home from preschool. It was cool and all, but now he has "spring break" next week, so another week without preschool. Plus Jared is busier than ever at work, leaving before we wake up and getting home around 7:00 every evening. At least Jack's not that sick anymore, but now Jared and I have minor colds. I will say, a cold usually really harshes my jam, but when I hold a cold up next to my pregnancy nausea, I can only roll my eyes at it. Anyway, here's a couple more sicky pics from the week:

^^Tossed Jack my phone to buy me a few minutes of rest, and this was the result. Proooobably the only "bump" picture you'll get for a while, so thought I'd throw this one in here. You can't really tell since I'm laying down, but I actually have a pretty intense bump considering I'm only 15 weeks along. I started showing at 8 weeks (google tells me it's mostly bloat showing through my diastisis recti, fun). But back pain's already starting to creep in. Time to bust out the belly band at just 16 weeks along. Yay. Gonna be a fun year.

That's pretty much all I've got for you! The nausea situation is slowly getting more manageable during the morning/early afternoons. It's kind of up to me how a day's going to go now. As long as I eat something before I get out of bed and every hour throughout the entire day (yes, every hour) and don't fall behind on my meds, most days are pretty good until around 4:00. I mean, I definitely still feel lousy compared to normal, but it could be so much worse. I only had one really bad day last week, and I think it's because I wasn't careful and didn't eat for a 3-hour stretch of time. So anyway, here's to another week of constant snacking, and fingers crossed no one throws up!!

Springtime

Another week down, 26 to go! Nausea update (sorry, I know these are probably boring, but helpful for me to have a detailed record to refer back to): about the same as last week. I've started tracking how each day has gone on Jack's preschool calendar to see if I notice any patterns. Evenings/nights are always "bad" or "very bad," but daytimes now are more like "bad, ok, good, ok, bad, ok, good, ok . . ." At 14 weeks I categorize a day as "good" if I'm able to get a few things done while Jack's at preschool and just feel "queasy" all day instead of knocked out with the nauseas. An average/ok day is a day where I feel nauseous enough that there's no way I'm going to get anything done, but not bad enough that I throw up or need to take a zofran. A bad day is where I'm very nauseous, taking zofran, and possibly throwing up while Jack watches Paw Patrol. I'll occasionally feel up to cooking a simple, easy dinner if it's a "good" day. Something along the lines of soup or pasta. Nothing involving raw meat though. Jared picks up a lot of the dinner slack, as do leftovers, cereal, and frozen pizzas. And I'm still taking a zofran pretty much every night and going to sleep between 8:00 and 9:00 in the evening. I'm really hoping to ease off zofran completely by 20 weeks (my other nausea meds don't have bad side effects, just zofran). I think it's going to happen! Eyes on the prize!

Last weekend I found some old birthday money and me and Jared pooled our loose cash to get the car I drive detailed. Our cars are both old and we normally wouldn't splurge to detail either of them (I drive a 16-year-old Honda Accord, Jared drives a 26-year-old Honda Accord), but my pregnant nose couldn't take it anymore. I'd find myself breathing only out of my mouth every time I'd drive to Jack's preschool, and if I accidentally breathed in through my nose I'd be scrambling for a barf bag. The car doesn't really smell bad when I'm not pregnant, but 16 years of dog, teenage Jared, and baby smells seeped into the seats and it needed a good shampoo. It was 150% worth it. My car experiences have improved immensely. Our neighbor owns a car detailing business he does from his driveway, so it was extra nice to just drop it off two houses down.

I had an OB appointment this last week. Everything looks and sounds good. We opted not to pay for the genetic test that would tell us baby's gender early--we both feel totally zen waiting for the 20-week ultrasound for that. I think if I didn't get so sick during my pregnancies I'd be dying to find out as early as possible. But as it is, it's not like I'm feeling up to decorating a nursery or buying baby clothes yet, so I'd rather just wait to find out and get excited when I'm feeling better. Kind of like a pregnancy halftime intermission to keep me motivated and looking forward to something. It'll be a fun birthday surprise come May. I'll let you know when we find out.

The weather's starting to tease us with spring in Washington. Lots of trees are blossoming and I think we'll head up to Skagit Valley for the tulip festival sometime this next month. Costco was selling cedar hedge trees for a great deal, so Jared borrowed his parents' old suburban and went ham planting 13 of them as a privacy hedge in our backyard. If he can keep them all alive I'll be impressed. They look great though! Even though they're still small and don't provide actual privacy yet, they make our backyard feel really cozy/cute somehow? I'll update with pictures in a few weeks.

Jared's parents and brother came to visit and pick their suburban back up on Saturday. They took us to the little Thai restaurant in our town for dinner. Usually I'm trying to cram protein down my throat every two hours because it keeps me feeling stable for longer, but I couldn't stomach any meat and just ordered myself a big green-papaya salad. Scarfed it down, took home the leftovers, ate them immediately, and then spent the rest of the evening pining after it and craving more papaya salad. Cravings aren't something that happen for me when I'm pregnant, but I realized that since I'm basically only prioritizing protein when I eat, I haven't had a proper intake of fruits/vegetables in months probably. I think my body's angry at me. And two days later I'm still craving an enormous green-papaya salad. I'll probably send Jared to grab one for me when he gets home. Weird/fun to finally have a food craving.

Jack's in a strong dinosaurs phase. He loves playing with dinosaurs and learning about all the different kinds of dinos. He just walked into the kitchen and asked if we had any broccoli or salad. I gave him a bowl of spinach leaves and off he went to feed all his herbivorous dinosaurs haha. I love this age so much. Speaking of dinosaurs, I'm still not taking many pictures, but here are some pictures from the first time we discovered "Dinosaur Lake" over the summer. (So named because Jack had all his dinosaurs in the car with him at the time.) Very excited for lake days like these in the coming months.

Herbivores

We're almost out of the first trimester!! I'm feeling about the same as last week--some decent days, some bad days, evenings remain pretty rough, but at least the overall feeling is less miserable than it was a month ago. I wish I had a crystal ball so I could gauge how much longer I'll be sick. If I knew I'd be feeling better by 20 weeks I think I'd be able to keep my spirits high. But I just have this downer suspicion that it's likely going to be a long 40 weeks of feeling nauseated like it was with Jack's pregnancy. Most nights I'm wanting to go to sleep for the night by 6:00, but have to wait until my last round of meds at 8:00 p.m. One of the more awful symptoms that I always forget to mention but plagues me constantly is the hypersalivation. It's this bad combo of my body producing way more saliva than usual in response to the nausea, and also not being able to swallow any saliva because it makes my stomach turn and sometimes triggers vomiting. (A majority of the time I can't stomach water either, but that's a topic for a different day.) So probably every 2-3 minutes ALL DAY LONG I'm running to the nearest sink to spit out a mouthful of saliva. And when I go to bed I have to keep a spit cup on my bedside table. Very gross. Anxious for the saliva issue to go away forever.

Wish I had more interesting updates for you. Jared continues to be a great help and dad. He usually gives the house a good cleaning on Saturday and he and Jack spend a lot of time building elaborate castles out of wooden blocks. I'm always trying to come up with new ways to pass the time. I am able to do 1-2 productive things a day, but beyond that I need to be resting or I'll pay for it. I've started practicing the piano because it's one of the only things I can do that feels restful and also distracts me from the nausea. TV and phone-scrolling aren't doing it for me anymore.

No new pictures this week, but here are some old Wyoming photos I never posted. These are from a day at Martin's Cove and Alcova Lake last year.

^^Jack's photography skills at Martin's Cove

^^We stopped at Alcova Lake on the way home and Jared napped in the sand.

Honestly we still miss Wyoming a lot. Our prairie right across the street, complete with trails and big sunset views, is pretty hard to beat. But if I'd been pregnant in Wyoming instead of Washington I might be feeling differently haha

Can't Think of a Title

13 weeks pregnant and I'm starting to feel optimistic that I'm sloooowly turning a corner on the nausea situation! Last week I wrote that I swing between feeling 3/10 nausea (low) to 10/10 nausea (high) throughout the day. And most of the day was spent in the numbers closer to 10. But today is the first day where I've been feeling a solid 2/10 nausea for most of the day. I absolutely have to make sure to keep up with my meds and be eating protein every 1-2 hours or I take a nosedive pretty quickly. And I know that as evening comes along the nausea will ramp up and I'll be miserable by my 8:00 bed time. But I've been productive the whole time Jack's been at preschool today--walking the dog, downloading photo editing software to our computer, blogging--which is absolutely HUGE for pregnant Laura. Last time around I wouldn't have been functional enough to do that many things in a day until I was maybe 30 weeks along. I've been doing this long enough to know that for every good day there are likely 2 or 3 awful days coming, but I'm getting through it. This last week I only threw up 3 times, which is great for me. Still reliant on all the snacks and all the meds, but things are starting to look up!

Since I've got my photo editing software back up and running, here are a few pics from my DSLR camera. Haven't taken any photos since Jack's bday so these are throwbacks from last month.

^^Jack is the main person using my camera these days. Love that for him, and for the documentation of my gLaMoRoUs pregnant self. This was probably taken in the evening, after my shower, eating my last bowl of Great Grains cereal for the night. If I don't eat something RIGHT before bed, I'll end up tossing and turning, fighting the nausea for an hour, and eventually losing and grabbing my trusty bedside barf bowl. Gr8 times.

^^A happy, bike-riding Jackie boy. I love age 4 so much. Definitely my favorite age so far. I love the conversations we have and watching him be creative and strategize when we play together. Last night he grabbed Jared's planner and started "writing" in it and telling us the schedule he was planning out for tomorrow. "First I'll wake up and have breakfast. Then I'll get ready for the day. Then me and mama will have a dance party. And then we'll snuggle!" And he actually is starting to write, and do a pretty good job. He sounded out and wrote "REED BOOK" all by himself. Even though it's not what I originally pictured, I'm so glad I'm able to experience the joy of a 4-year-old before our next baby arrives. For me personally, it will help to know that there is so much joy and life beyond the baby and toddler years, and to enjoy those young years while they last because they're fleeting.

Sunnier Days Ahead!

I'm going on 12 weeks pregnant here! Stamina waxes and wanes. Some days I'm like, "Sweet. Meds are helping. Still doing better than I was with Jack's pregnancy by this point." Other days I'm like, "My body is broken and I want to die." The hardest part, always and forever, is the constant nausea. When I was pregnant with Jack my nausea levels varied from 8-10 out of 10 every minute of the first half of my pregnancy. And then a little less the second half. This time it's a much wider swing. Still gets to a 10, but sometimes the nausea is as low as maybe like a 3 out of 10. But it's still constant, and that can really get a girl down. Honestly the only way out is through, and I'm grateful to be just about "through" with the first/worst trimester. Baby is growing healthy and strong, for which I'm grateful. I think I even felt a little flutter last night. Pritty kool.

My OB prescribed me some dissolvable zofran, which I started for the first time this last week. It actually has been much more effective than the oral zofran for me, but zofran will mess a digestive tract up BIG time. I'm trying so hard to take it only when I know I'm seconds from throwing up, which so far is usually twice a day. It's either zofran or reglan to get me through the day. Reglan isn't as effective as zofran for me and makes me feel kind of twitchy and off, but no digestive side effects. Just pickin my poison on a day-to-day basis over here. My dream is to be off all heavier meds by 16-20 weeks. Since I was super sick all through Jack's pregnancy I know I'll likely have to stay on unisom/benadryl the whole time, but if I can get off the heavier stuff with the rough side effects I'll be a happy camper.

Those are the updates for the week! Jared's schedule gets busier and busier with each month, but he still loves his job. Jack's living on snacks and screen time. And preschool. Thank heavens for preschool. He's started getting himself dressed for preschool because his grandparents got him Paw Patrol and Dinosaur shirts for his birthday, and he is PUMPED about them.