Pregnancy Thus Far

At 15 weeks now I have been blessed with a fairly easy pregnancy.

Like most women I dreaded the morning sickness the most.

I really really hate feeling nauseous, throwing up certainly isn't pleasant, but being nauseous is worse.

Thankfully I was only nauseous for about a week or so.

At which point, with a box of crackers hugged to my chest, I said "Crackers, your not just a cracker...your my...friend."

(Probably 2 people got that joke reference but I thought it was hilarious when I said it)

I also threw up twice, pretty recently actually but that can now be easily avoided by not taking my prenatals with breakfast.

The first trimester I was tired a lot.

Which made me very thankful I am a homemaker and can take a nap anytime I want.

I don't know how working women do it!

Growing a baby is exhausting work :o)

Being pregnant makes me feel productive all the time.

Sitting watching tv....I'm not "doing nothing", I'm growing a baby!

I'm not wasting time on pinterest...I'm growing a baby!

The hormones haven't made me too crazy, except for one incident.

Stephen had done something that upset me but it wasn't a big deal.

But then he came up to me in the kitchen and apologized and hugged me.

I suddenly started sobbing and he asked "why are you crying?"

And I said "I don't know!"

Then I started laughing hysterically and sobbing at the same time.

Stephen got so freaked out that he literally ran out of the room.

Meanwhile I stood in the kitchen unable to catch my breath I was laughed and sobbing so hard.

I pulled myself together in a few seconds but it was kinda freaky to have no control of your emotions.

After the fact it's pretty funny, though Stephen may have some PTSD from the experience.

The worst pregnancy symptom I have is that my left ear is clogged for a couple hours every morning.

This isn't a common symptom but I have scar tissue in my left ear from having lots of earaches as a child.

But overall it's been a really easy pregnancy and I sure hope it stays that way.

My biggest complaint now is my lack of a baby bump.

I was REALLY looking forward to having a bump and it just makes me sad not to have one.

(Or at least not enough of one to make me look pregnant and not just chubby, or like Stephen told his grandma on the phone the other day "She looks like she ate too many potato chips, but soon she'll look like she ate too many hamburgers.")

It's hard to feel pregnant when you don't look pregnant.

The reason I am not showing is because I have a tilted uterus.

Most women's uterus are straight up and down or tilted forward, mine is tilted back toward my spine.

Hopefully with the baby getting bigger it should come forward and I'll have a bump.

I just have a slight fear I will be one of those women who never really look pregnant.

But as I always tell myself, I'm healthy, the baby's healthy, that's all that matters.

I am getting my prenatal care from a home birth midwife (for those of you who don't know, I am really into home birth and wrote a long post about it back in February 2010)

She comes to my house every 4 weeks for my prenatal appointment.

She is very nice and knowledgable, though a little overly talkative for my taste.

I will of course have a different midwife when we move and she will be the one at the birth.

At one of my appointments my midwife said "I'm sorry if I seem a bit rushed today, I have 24 chicks in my car."

Apparently her payment at her last prenatal appointment was a bunch a chicks.

She also said that she was once given a horse to pay for her services.

I thought that was pretty awesome.

She also works with a lot of Amish people.

She used to work at the on post hospital so she knows the OB/GYN staff there really well.

It makes it easy for me to do my tests and ultrasounds at the hospital when I need to.

This connection was really handy when we had a scare at my 12 week appointment.

She came over on a Monday and she brought her doppler to listen for the heartbeat but she couldn't find it.

She said it was no big deal and that she would just stop by later in the week to try again.

Thankfully I was able to keep calm all week and not freak out (totally a God thing since I am such a "freak out" kind of person)

She come over Friday afternoon and was trying to hear the heartbeat and it was taking a long time.

I was getting more and more nervous.

Then she asked "when is your husband going to be home?"

I really started to freak out then and said he wouldn't be home for another couple hours.

She said she would call the OB clinic to see if she could just bring me in and do an ultrasound to make sure everything is all ok.

So me and her jumped in her car and headed to the hospital.

I was really freaking out at this point and was so scared that I was going to get bad news and Stephen wouldn't even be there with me. (he was in class)

But we got there and she was able to find the baby right away with the ultrasound and then finally got the heartbeat on the doppler.

It was such a relief to hear that little thump-thump.

I guess our baby is just an introvert like its parents :o)

So yeah, that is basically it for now.

I will do another belly picture at 16 weeks and hopefully will be at least a little bigger.