Many Firsts

After little to no thought and 1 friend’s suggestion, I thought I would start a blog. For the time being I’ll mostly be writing about my pregnancy so I can look back and remember what it was like, although I’m not sure I will forget. This is my first pregnancy and I’m 28 weeks along, a little less than 3 months to go. I’m pregnant with a boy whom we thought for the first 22 weeks was a girl. I’ll get into that later. We have nicknamed our child “Poppy” because when we found out I was pregnant, the book told us the fetus was the size of a poppy seed. We used Poppy as a code name for a while until we were ready to tell people we were expecting. (Now I’m not so sure that was a grand idea because we are having a really hard time coming up with an actual name for the little guy) A little background for you: My husband (Charles) and I have been married for 2 years. We met on match.com only to find out we would have met a month later at a wedding (which consisted of Charles’ 1st cousin and my college roommate) which we were both a part of. We have since forgiven the bride and groom for not introducing us and letting us spend $29.99 a month on finding a “match”. :) So after we met, we dated for about 2 years and then we got married. After some trial and error we are now expecting out first child in June. Who would have thought something the size of a poppy seed inside of you, would change your world? You hear women telling different stories of their pregnancy, some good, and some bad. No matter how many stories you hear, nothing can REALLY prepare you 100% until you go through it yourself (just the same, no amount of stories can prepare you for the arrival and the rearing of the little one). Those women who say being pregnant was the best time of their life must be angels on earth. Seriously. Don’t get me wrong, there are moments that have been..…worth smiling about? Maybe the fact that I threw up for the first 22 weeks and due to that, I have only gained 7 pounds total. That is something to smile about. And I do like the fact I can feel Poppy moving a lot through the day, that’s always refreshing and neat. Somehow the blissfulness you hear people talk about, must have skipped over me. It's funny, the 2 main things you hear about is morning sickness (which is NOT limited to the mornings) and being tired. Why does no one tell you about the other stuff? Other stuff like, your skin becoming unbelievably dry. I had NO clue I would suffer from extreme dryness. I’m 27 and my skin looks as though I’m 60 and have never used a drop of lotion. What about the bleeding gums and random bloody noses? ‘THE book’ (all you moms and moms-to-be know I’m referring to the what to expect book…) says you have increased blood flow going to the baby therefore your veins are more sensitive. Wow. All from a Poppy?!? I had heard that smells make you nauseous and might last your entire pregnancy, now I know why! You develop the nose of an entire K-9 unit. My husband is amazed (and slightly annoyed) at the things I smell. I also never realized a person could gag. so. much. I gag at everything. The trash. The dishwasher. The dog. Leftovers. Steak. I even gag when I sneeze! What is that really about? I'm so hoping my gag reflexes go back to normal when I have the baby or we are going to have serious issues with dirty diapers. These are just the minor things. You hear women have hormones and it seems every male who has experienced living with a pregnant woman, puts out warnings. "Dude, its BAD." "Just wait..." "You think your wife is crazy now." All these warnings and still, not prepared. I myself was not prepared. I had an idea that I might be pretty emotional because I tend to be a crier (even without growing a Poppy). Well the waterworks came at about 15 weeks I would say, maybe sooner. I wasn't crying ALL the time, just making up ridiculous things in my head and blaming them on my husband. This got old for him very fast. Poor guy. He got so frustrated that he actually told me to go cry to my mother because he didn't want to hear it anymore. At first I thought, what a real asshole move but he had already put up with it for a good 6-8 weeks. (I of course did go to my mother and those of you who know me, know she is my BFF 90% of the time. And yes, she did make things better just by making me some decaff sweet tea...the way to my heart!) After the crying stops, I realize how crazy I really am. It's a sad situation. How is it that we have no control over this? More importantly, how do you explain to men that we truly have no control? They will never understand, I'm afraid. Such an unfortunate part of pregnancy. How many women suffer from a lack of sex drive during pregnancy? From what I hear, (again with the stories) your sex drive is either greatly increased or decreased. And by decreased I mean there is no drive at all. I had also heard that it depends on the gender of child you are carrying. Boy=increased drive and Girl=none. This is not true for me. If I could have less than none, that's how much I have. I don't want to be looked at in "that" way, don't touch me "that" way and certainly do not even suggest or ask about it. The answer is no. This tends to add to the husbands frustration. Rightfully so because I cant expect him to go an entire 9 months without it. I'm mostly curious as to why it is so different. Even in the beginning when Poppy is just a poppy. Why does what you are used to, all the sudden become completely wrong? It is a mystery to me, much like everything else during pregnancy. The last thing I'll talk about in this post is the fact that pregnancy has given me a backbone so-to-speak. If you know me, you know that I'm not usually a very opinionated person. I rarely speak my mind, I almost never voice my disagreements and I hate confrontation. I was, for the most part, happy being that person. It seemed as though I was pretty easy to get a long with and people liked me. Things have changed in this aspect of my life and I'm still trying to get used to it, not to mention all the others in my life. I have had several foot-in-mouth situations and many opinionated/mouthy moments. I'm pretty sure the other night at my husbands birthday dinner, I went off on his 80 yr old Granny because she was trying to give us name suggestions. I spent the next day apologizing for my actions. I got mad at a guy one day because he said he "needed like 18 more hands" in order to carry his lunch...I told him to be glad that he has more than 1. I did not apologize for that because people should be thankful for what they have. I'm also pretty sure I'm responsible for my girlfriend and I never getting invited back to a group we hang out with once a month due to my opinions on going to a dog park and a scentless candle. I'm apparently very passionate about these to topics. I'm starting to enjoy this new me. It gives me hope that I will be able to, one day, stand up for my kids when they need me or be able to tell another mother that her kid made my kid upset and she should inflict some type of punishment. This is one pregnancy side effect I hope stays. I look forward to blogging more in a few days! I'm sure I will expeience several more unexpected pregnancy firsts that I will need to vent about.