Shirt: Forever 21 (similar here)
Skirt: Forever 21,
(I have this exact same $8 skirt in blue, maroon, black, red, and teal.
They are so comfortable and go with everything.)
Tights: Forever 21,
Boots: Old Navy
(Yikes, I'm a walking ad for Forever 21 today!)
I present to you, my first official baby bump pictures. Fourteen weeks, suckers.
I'm aware there is little to no bump to speak of yet, but I like pretending. I made sure to take these pictures right after dinner in the vain hopes that what was really cheddar biscuits and vegetable soup would maybe just maybe look like some kind of human forming in my stomach.
A lot of people have asked me how my first trimester was. I really don't know how to respond except for that it was weird and I felt like someone else took over my body for a few months. I guess someone did.
Here's why it was weird. I used to always kind of make fun of pregnant people in my head. Like why do these women insist on taking so many pictures of their stomach and what is with the constant updates on what is developing this week with their little fetus and can you all please stop holding your stomach every second? It was very bizarre to me. I didn't understand.
Then I got pregnant. And all of a sudden it was the crazy train going at full speed. Things I never thought would matter to me were now of utmost importance. Is my baby the size of an olive or a grape this week? Damnit, I have to know! If I'm 11 weeks and 4 days can I start calling myself 12 weeks pregnant or am I still 11 weeks? Which is also something I never understood before I got pregnant, why pregnant people insisted on saying how far along they were in weeks. Whenever I would ask someone how far along they were and they would answer "29 weeks" I was flabbergasted. You think I want to compute weeks in my head? Tell me months, you idiot! And now anytime anyone asks me how far I am, I spit out the number of weeks before I can even think that that might mean absolutely nothing to them. My how the tables have turned!
Physically, the first trimester was rough on me. The entire month of December I basically felt like I didn't know myself. My body, which I have always prided on being strong and active, betrayed me completely. I was sick constantly. Getting ready in the morning I would be keeled over in the bathroom because my stomach hurt so much it was all I could do to brush my hair. I was 20 minutes late for work every morning because I just couldn't get my body to move. Thankfully I never puked, it was just a constant queasiness. The best way I can think of to describe it is after you've been traveling all day and your stomach feels totally off. You don't want to eat anything and you don't want to move- you just want to sit and wait for it to pass. That's how I felt all day every day. No food sounded good to me. (Grocery shopping was the worst! Looking at all that food made me want to vomit.) I lived on Saltines and Popsicles. (My students constantly asked me to share my crackers with them when I was eating in class. No, you sixteen year olds! Don't you realize what these crackers mean? You are dealing with a hormonal, pregnant teacher and it's the only thing I can eat that won't make me sick, now leave me alone!) When I went in for my twelve week check up I was surprised to see that I had lost four pounds since being pregnant. Hmmm... first trimester nausea as a diet trick?
Not only was the queasiness rough, but suddenly I was beyond exhausted. I have always had ridiculous amounts of energy, so I couldn't quite get used to my body's constant desire to just sit there. At school I planned all my lessons so I could just sit in my chair. Forget the wandering around the classroom and checking on the poor tikes, and you can scrap the fun, on your feet, creative activities. Out the window entirely! I was going to sit and they were going to like it! Every day I would come home from work at 4:00, lay on the couch until 7:00 and then move to the bed where I would promptly fall asleep. Getting a blog post done at night about killed me, and I felt the quality of my writing dropping off substantially, but I just couldn't create anything fun or positive or even semi interesting. I had no desire to go out, no desire to see people, no desire to wake up in the morning (See this post and this post if you don't believe me.)
Then there were the emotions. Usually I try to be accommodating and flexible to others' needs, but during those first weeks it all went right out the window. Greg would come home from work and I'd say, "Hey, I was thinking about heating up that leftover soup for dinner."
"Erm... that doesn't sound very good to me," he'd reply.
"Alright then screw it!" I'd answer, "Fend for yourself! I'm heating up soup and going to bed!" And I would.
The craziest thing of all happened over Thanksgiving break. Greg and I had planned on going to the temple together the Friday after Thanksgiving. We had been trying to go for weeks and always something came up. We had finally gone the Wednesday before Thanksgiving only to discover that the temple was closed. So we decided Friday, no matter what, we would go. I can't remember what happened but something came up, we ran out of time, and the temple got squeezed out of our day completely. Again. When I realized it wasn't going to happen for us that day, I went ballistic. Absolutely stark raving mad. Somewhere in my brain there was 1% part of sanity left that tried to tell myself that we would just reschedule and fit it in another day. But the other 99% of my brain had given itself up entirely to the dark side, and insisted that I would never go to the temple again, that everything that was once important to me no longer fit into my life and that I would live out my remaining 53 years of life in misery.
At first I just started crying, which is nothing too unusual as I am prone to crying. But then it turned into sobs. Within a few minutes I was bawling inconsolably. Greg was bewildered. He had no idea what to do with me. I flung myself on the bed and cried and cried and my body was racked with sighs and heaves and it was all so out of control. There have been two other times in my life when I have cried like that- six months into my mission with a companion who hated me when I was miserable and homesick and wanted to come home more than anything, and when my dad died. Only twice have I ever felt that hopeless and miserable. This occasion, a rescheduled temple trip, surely did not merit the same reaction.
But I couldn't help myself. It was like another person had seized my body and was making it cry without end. I remember feeling almost scared of myself in that moment, like "Who is this woman and why is she in my body?" I knew I was being unreasonable and crazy, but I had no control over myself. Greg lay on the bed with me and hugged me until eventually (half an hour later) the crying ebbed and turned into an occasional sob and then just sniffles and then finally, finally sleep.
So yah. There was that.
We were going to wait until twelve weeks to tell family, but I was so miserable at eight weeks that Greg basically begged me to tell my mom. I think he was terrified being the only reasonable adult around. He didn't know what to do with me- like I was some kind of dynamite that was going to explode at any minute. "You need your mom. I can't do this by myself anymore. Please. " He begged. Apparently being around a sick, exhausted, stark raving mad person isn't fun? Say whaaaaaaaa?
So we told our families and everyone was delighted and there was Christmas and wedding and a lot of not feeling awesome but the best news of all is that by 11 or 12 weeks I started to feel so much better and here I am at 14 weeks feeling 100% like my old self again! HALLELUJAH!
There you are, folks. First trimester in a nutshell.
Also, I am sorry if this post has felt very negative/ complain-y. I am beyond excited and grateful to be pregnant and consider it an absolute gift. I know that the sickness and exhaustion and crazy train ride will all be worth it when I have my own little ginger baby staring back at me.
If not, well, I've been told a lot of lies.
