Pregananant

(Title from this funny youtube video that my brother Tim shared with me right after I announced my gregnancy.)

You guys. I have tried to write a pregnancy post so many times. You don't even know. Every time I try it gets so long-winded and whiny that I just get disgusted with myself and delete it. But "write a pregnancy blog post" is on my list of things I need to do before baby is born, so let's do this! I will try keep it a reasonable length so I don't hate myself and I'll plug in the handful of bump pictures I've taken.

First off, if for some reason you didn't know, surprise! I'm having a baby! And it's a boy! He's due February 27, but with all the cramping and contractions I've been having lately he could come any time now and I wouldn't be shocked.

I'm very grateful that we're going to have a baby, but my pregnancy has sucked big time. There were times I legitimately worried I wouldn't make it out alive. That's why you haven't heard from me until now. I was honestly too sick to do anything but crouch on my bedroom floor with a barf bowl for the first 23 weeks, and the weeks since then haven't been a whole ton better. I'm slightly more functional but still unable to wean off my nausea pills. At least I'm almost done! Instead of giving you a play-by-play of every weird/horrific/difficult/awkward moment I've had over the past 9 months, I thought it might be fun to discuss the delightful interactions between my symptoms.

16 weeks. Our apartment complex. Professional bump model.

21 Weeks in Georgia.

The Morning Sickness Paradox. Ok first off, what the heck is up with morning sickness? I've been fascinated in talking to friends/family to discover that it's so different for everyone. My debilitating "morning" sickness has lasted all day and all night all pregnancy long. For me, the nausea was highly associated with my food aversions to literally everything. Even crackers/ginger ale/water. Just thinking about or catching a whiff of any type of food up until I hit 23 weeks was enough to make me lose it. And yet, the only relief I get from the nausea to this day is by eating every two hours. It's like food is both the trigger and the cure for the extreme nausea and vomiting. That's whack.

Nausea's Relief = Booty's Downfall. The only medicine I've been able to find that does anything to help my nausea is Zofran. It doesn't take the nausea away, but it does keep me from vomiting and take a tiny bit of the edge off. Unfortunately, a side effect of Zofran (and of pregnancy in general) is constipation. This is for sure TMI, but my constipation has been so severe in pregnancy that I've had hemorrhoids since week 15. I've tried to wean off Zofran several times to ease my poopy problem, but I always end up way sick. Not worth it. I'd rather live with a burning booty than spend my days cradling a barf bowl. Extreme nausea is way worse than physical pain. (and yes, I'm making sure to drink plenty of water and have lots of fiber.)

24 Weeks. At our hotel in Richland, WA, on the morning of Jared's residency interview. What a dapper guy.

25 Weeks. At my brother Peter's wedding luncheon in the Lion House.
Guys. I have spent 3 months of this pregnancy traveling around (mostly I was in Utah).
Also it was interview/away rotation season for Jared so we spent 3 months apart from each other!!

Hemmies' Relief = Heartburn's Rage. Jared calls my hemmorhoids "hemmies." I'm glad he's picked a career in medicine because otherwise I'd be mortified to talk about this stuff with him. Luckily he's seen dozens of cases of hemmies in real life and in textbooks, so instead of being grossed out he just gets excited to recommend treatment options. Not the point though. I just want to point out another example of how the only way I get relief for one symptom is by exacerbating a different one. The worst thing I can do for my hemmorhoids is spend my days sitting and walking around. I have to spend a good chunk of my day lying down if I want to keep them from flaring up. Unfortunately, lying down is not great for heartburn, which is another delightful pregnancy symptom! Many nights I have to choose if I'd rather my esophagus be on fire or my bum be on fire and then position myself accordingly. 

Urge to Nest vs. Need to Purge. Let's take a break from my weird physical issues and talk about the weird timing of this baby coming. Baby will be here at the end of February. We will be moving across the country at the end of March. We'll be moving somewhere else in June for Jared's residency, but in the meantime we'll live with my parents in Utah. I feel like I'm trapped in a cycle of packing things up to move, trying to minimize our belongings so we don't have to store them all summer, and acquiring all sorts of junk that we'll need for the baby. I really want to set up a cute nursery for this little guy, but he'll have to live in a pack n' play in our box-filled bedroom until he's at least 4 months old. Sorry dude.

27 Weeks in Billings, Montana, for another of Jared's residency interviews.
I went with him to as many of his Western interviews as possible so I could check out the area/attend the resident dinners.

Our fetus at 15 weeks. I'm excited to see if he's grown into that nose yet!

Water. Oh water. How I hate it, but how I need it. The weirdest things make me feel so sick in pregnancy--our clean laundry, my husband's natural aroma, our car, and water. Drinking water is especially difficult for me in the evenings when I feel most nauseated. Plus, I have to get up 5+ times a night to pee these days so if I had my way I wouldn't drink anything at all after 6:00. Unfortunately I have this fun condition called Interstitial Cystitis. I've had it for years, and the best way to describe it is that it feels like a dormant urinary tract infection that can flare up at any time and last as long as it wants. I'll have it for life and there is no cure. I can usually manage my cystitis by avoiding trigger foods (like citrus) and by drinking LOTS of water. In fact, the only way to get rid of a flareup once it comes on is to guzzle liters and liters of water. So anyway, as much as I loathe gagging down water all day, it's either that or crippling, burning pain. I'm so excited for pregnancy to end so I can like water again.

Other Fun Stuff. This bb either really loves or really hates car rides. If I'm sitting in a car for longer than 10 minutes at a time, he twerks up into my ribcage and pushes against it so uncomfortably until I'm able to either stand up or lie down on my side. This was great during our recent cross-country road trip (not). Combine the ribcage abuse with my hemmorhoids and I spent 90% of that drive lying down in the back seat so I wouldn't lose my mind. Shoutout to Jared for driving like 80 hours in one month. Also, I've been blessed with never-ending round ligament pain (cramps on steroids) and Braxton Hicks contractions in my last month of pregnancy. #soblessed.

30 Weeks. Christmas Eve. Driving across the country to make it to Jared's away rotation in Casper, WY, by December 27.

34 Weeks in Utah.
I feel like this is the cutest version of my bump. Shoulda done a maternity shoot at 34 weeks!

Me: 34 Weeks. Amanda: 36 Weeks.
My brother and his wife are due 2 weeks before us with a baby boy! I think today's actually her due date.

Me and Savvy for the majority of my pregnancy. We've had lots of bonding time.

My maternity shoot on the railroad tracks behind our apartment!
I include this awkward pose only because it's Jared's favorite of the bunch. He says it's very Lana Del Rey.
And since he was kind enough to be my photographer (and to talk me into getting this dress), I'll let him have that.

37 Weeks

I felt a bit silly doing the cliche train tracks photoshoot, but it was the easiest option. I wanted to take these somewhere I knew we wouldn't have any onlookers, and I didn't want to have to travel to go somewhere.
These train tracks are right behind our apartment complex through a hole in the fence.
We take Savvy for walks here almost daily.

These are the only "nice" pictures we took my entire pregnancy. So yes, I'm including all of them.

Jared and I binge watched "Poldark" a few weeks back. Jared loves that type of show and it must've put him in a romantic mood because he spontaneously brought me a dozen roses! It was a very sweet and un-Jared-like gesture (he's romantic in other ways but never thinks to buy me flowers), so I made a big thing of it and asked if I could use one in my photo shoot.

The fetch spot. It's so fetch.
Also, walking up and down this short, low hill gave me contractions for dayyyz.
It must be nearly baby time!