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.
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.
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.
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.
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