Pregnancy Brain...

...or rather "Pregnancy No Brain" is a little known side effect of being pregnant. Or at least I think it's cause I'm pregnant. Jeremy at work said I should have warned him I would become so retarded later into my pregnancy (he is joking) so he could have been more prepared. Devinder says I often just stare off into space and it takes him a couple of tries to catch my attention. I also have absolutely no short term memory and never ever interupt me when I'm talking cause the chances of me getting back on the original topic are slim to none. The best example of pregnancy brain is one that a woman in my Prenatal Yoga class told me last night. She says it used to take her 20 minutes to walk to work, and now it takes her 40 minutes. She says she doesn't feel like she's walking slower, nor does it seem like the walk is longer, but it is and she absolutely cannot account for the extra 20 minutes! She says she leaves her house and then wham she's at work and hardly remembers the walk at all, it's like it never happened...

Graceful...

Heather at Our Life Voyage, posted a bit about gracefulness during pregnancy, wondering when she was going to be as graceful as all the etherial photos of pregnant women we are inundated with. I wrote back that I don't know if I have been graceful yet thru my pregnancy. Definately after 4 months of being quite sick, feeling better made me feel more alive and energneic. Now that I am growing rather large in the belly area, I feel beautiful and womanly, but I don't know about graceful. I make grunting noises without realising it everytime I bend over or stand up, I waddle when I walk and I am constantly burping and farting. And really, I think you just forget that image of gracefulness cause you are too busy in the moment just being very very pregnant. Last night Devinder and I tried to take some artsy farsty photos of my pregnant self and I have come to the conclusion that gracefulness when you are pregnant only happens in photos. You see, when I look at this photo I feel like I must be very graceful, but I know when we were taking it how I was really feeling, and it wasn't at all graceful...

30 Weeks

The bun is 3/4 done - only 10 weeks to go! The bun kicked me so hard this morning I let out a gasp and lost my breath for a second. Sandy at work said it's probably trying to find the door out cause it's getting awfully crowded in there. Here's an update on my 30 week pregnant self:

- I am feeling tired, like I could sleep for days if I was allowed to. I sleep fine thru the night still, with the excpetion of running to the bathroom every 2 hours or so. I have no problem getting back to sleep after my many trips to the loo.
- The peeing is unbelievable to me. I have always had a small bladder, but this is ridiculous. Luckily Devinder's Aunt and Uncle were kind enough to lend us their van for the next couple months so I can drive to work. I thought quitting biking would solve my uncomfortable commute to work, but taking transit is just as hard, if not harder because it takes longer, so that's more time away from the bathroom. And it's not like before I was pregnant and I had to pee, it's totally different, because it hurts to move around at all until you've relieve yourself.
- I experienced dizziness & wooziness for the first time over the weekend, but nothing unmanageable.
- I've had a few nose bleeds, which are apparantly very normal with all the extra blood pumping thru my fragile blood vessels. I seem to clot quite fast so that's a good sign.
- My upper back hurts at the end of the day, but I am trying to sit up straight to avoid too much pain. Last night it hurt so bad I felt like I was having a heart attack. Devinder gave me a massage and it helped out quite a bit.
- My acid reflux has only gotten worse and I have given up on using raw almonds and now take Tums throughout the day.
- I have Braxton Hicks contractions all day every day. They are not painful but sometimes cause me to stop what I'm doing until they are finished.
- I hunger.

All in all, I feel quite good. I am shocked at how fast the time has flown by and yet at the same time when I think back to the beginning of this pregnancy it seems soooo long ago. The countdown has begun...

Yep, things are good...

My girlfriends are so lovely, it's so sad sometimes to think that I am leaving them. On Thursday I walked into what was supposed to be a casual afternoon tea at my friend Lynnette's place. Instead I was greeted by a room full of my best friends, streamers and balloons above their heads in both pink and blue with slogans like "Welcome Baby" and "Happy Baby Shower." How very thoughtful and touching, I am still giddy just thinking about it 3 days later. It was great fun talking about babies non-stop and the baby carseat they all went in on is exactly what Devinder and I needed.

We had our midwife appointment on Friday and all is well. I have gained 15 pounds so far and seem to be measuring okay. Devinder's mom came to the appointment just as my mom came a few weeks back. She said it really helped put her mind at ease with the whole home birth thing and she was able to have a lot of questions answered. We really love our new midwives here in the Comox Valley. We didn't really know that we didn't really like our midwives in Vancouver until we met these ladies. In Vancouver all we had to compare our midwives to were doctors and we knew we liked them better than my silly doctor. When we came over for our very first midwife appointment after we bought our house here, it was obvious right away how much better the Comox Valley Midwives are. I had talked on the phone with them briefly to set up an appointment and they remembered our names and everything we had briefly discussed on the phone a few weeks prior to our appointment. The midwives in Vancouver never did learn our name. Every time we came in for an appointment we had to introduce ourselves all over again. Also the Comox Valley Midwives take more time during our appointments and have really made a big effort to get to know us really well. We even know quite a bit about them and it really makes all the difference. At our Friday appointment we went over our birth plan and I think Devinder and I have decided to have our baby in the bathtub instead of dragging in an inflatable pool. It just seems a lot simpler and tidier and more practical. As well, something we learned at the shower from Pat whose daughter Jenny had a home waterbirth, is that with an inflatable pool it's a lot more work. Jenny and her husband Yorg really wanted it to be just the two of them for their first water birth, but they ended up calling in her aunt at the last minute because Jenny wanted Yorg by her side throughout labour, not constantly refilling the water and checking the temperature etc... Devinder and I thought briefly about who that third person could be, but still in our minds we really just saw it being the two of us. I think the bathub will allow us to have a more calm and relaxing birth, just the two of us there to greet our new baby...

Here is a funny picture of my sister and I in a sauna on a float for the Santa Claus Parade here in Courtenay on Saturday. She works for a health centre and they sell Saunas and since we all know parades are really about advertising, they loaded up one of their saunas and paraded it and us around town. Two pregnant bathing beauties...

Baby Feet

Noooooooooo...

...I had to get up and eat in the middle of the night!! I woke up around 4am, didn't have to pee, but something else was calling me from the inside. I tried to ignore it and just fall back to sleep, but I couldn't. Suddenly my thoughts were filled with food. I had no choice, I had to eat at 4am!!! Luckily all it took was a banana to quiet the hunger, for now anyways. I have been craving steak and crab and baked potatoes with sour cream. I just can't see myself whipping up a feast in the middle of the night, or can I?

29 Weeks

I am always excited, I never stop being excited. It will be fun having a baby, I want to bounce it on our trampoline like a basketball. Do you think it'll be too early in Febuary to go sledding with the baby? Marussia has been shockingly typical throughout these past 29 weeks. It's too bad we can no longer bike around together because of these strange contractions she keeps having.

Loves Devinder (aka Daddy-O)

Slowin' Down

Well, I think I might be pregnant! I know I know, it's a real shocker, but you know what, I'm really thinking it might be true. I have been feeling sooooo good (only occasionally nauseous in the mornings) and full of energy and well, just plain lucky to be so active, that sometimes I forget that I'm pregnant. But I am definately slowing down. I was on my feet at work all day taking down an exhibition, and I am so frickin' exausted now, I feel like I just ran a marathon. My hips hurt, my back aches and I'm just really tired. I also think today might have been my last day cycling to work as well. I keep having contractions while biking, which are normal and don't hurt, but they are getting stronger and when I have them now I just need to stop what I'm doing and let them happen. It's a little hard to do that when you're biking up a big hill. It's also hard to bike when I have to pee, and it doesn't matter if I go pee just before I leave, about 5 minutes later I really have to go, and it hurts! Yesturday I didn't think I was going to be able to hold it in all the way home. I had almost convinced myself that it would be okay to just pee my pants, after all, I could always shower as soon as I got home. But I made it. And tomorrow, I think I'll take the bus...

Marussia - 28 Weeks, Kyla - 5 Weeks

My sister Kyla is pregnant again! Everything feels different this time, like this one is for real. Maybe it's because we couldn't possibly believe that she could miscarry twice, but our spidy senses tell us it's okay to believe this time.

How to break a pregnant mommy's heart...

Well we are over at our new house in Cumberland for the long weekend. We came over with the intention of painting the baby's room and I have been very excited about it all week. Unfortunately it doesn't look like we will be doing that til next year! You see, when Devinder and I bought our own house we realised quickly that it was an opportunity to have better control over what toxic substances we let into our home. For example, we quickly went out and bought a very expensive completely organic cotton futon with natural wool as the mandatory fire retardent after we learned that regular fire retardent in mattresses has been linked to crib death.

We also learned of a non toxic paint which does not off gas it's toxins into the air you breathe everyday. We went to the paint store to purchase our non toxic paint only to be informed by the owner of the paint store that the paint may be non-toxic but they still have not come up with a non-toxic pigment system. He informed us that the paint would probably finish off gasing in about a month, during that time I being pregnant shouldn't be in the house breathing in the fumes. After it is fully cured, the only way it would be toxic is if it chipped off and our child ingested it! We hummed and hawed and decided that if the reason we bought our own house was so we could have control of toxins, then why are we about to put more in? It broke my heart of course, being so geared up to paint it all up pretty, and now it's just a white room. But I think I may have found a solution...

hmmmmmm...

...I wonder how much they really want to know about me? Well let's just say I did one of these, and I feel better than I have for my entire pregnancy!

Linea Nigra

Well now I am sure I just got a huge hormone dump because all of a sudden I have a Linea Nigra (dark line) running from my belly button down to my pubic bone. It is caused by pregnancy hormones that increase production of the pigment melanin and usualy happens in the third trimester. I can't believe how bang on my internal clock is, I mean I just started my third trimester 2 days ago!

Hello 3rd Trimester...

...hello hormone dump! Yes it's official, 6 months today or 27 weeks and BAM I'm into the third and final trimester!! And of course, as scheduled, my body seems to have dumped a large amount of hormones which is what I believe is causing this weeks nausea. I also seem to be VERY emotional, my breasts have started hurting again and I am peeing every 1/2 hour!! I'm not kidding about the peeing, I went pee about 6 times last night!! It's a bit ridiculous I have to say. Anyways, I am hoping that the hormones will regulate and I will be left feeling a bit better. Already I feel better than a few days ago when I actually had to miss a day of work I felt so crappy. And just when I've figured out how much I have to eat, my body suddenly wants EVEN MORE FOOD!! This is also contributing to my nausea, so I can't let myself get hungry which means I am now eating a small amount of food every hour or so. Ahhh the joys of pregnancy! Only 3 more months to go...

What The F*@#*K!!!!

Day three feeling nauseous. I was trying to ignore it, hoping it was all in my head, but I feel like crapola again today and I also feel quite mad about it!! I heard about women who only get a break in the second trimester and spend their 1st and 3rd hurling their guts out. Well, right on time, I am in my 3rd trimester in 3 days!! I am totally freaking out with the possibility of spending the last three months of my pregnancy studying the inside of my toilet bowl!! Nooooooooooo!! I must remain positive. I probably just have the flu, or maybe I ate some bad food. Yes everything is fine, you'll see, by my next post everything will be fine...

Braxton Hicks

I had read about Braxton Hicks contractions, but I didn't fully understand them until our yoga instructor explained them to us last night. Throughout the day my whole entire belly will get really hard and feel very heavy. I never really worried about it because it never hurt and honsetly, I just thought it must be the baby moving to the lower part of my belly. Whenever you hear the word "contractions" you instantly think "labour." I never knew that you actually start having contractions at about 20 weeks and all the way til the end of your pregnancy. It's your body's way of toning and strengthening the uterin muscles you will eventually use to push the baby out. It's cool that I know what they are now so I will recognize them when I am in labour and there is no need to worry about them until they start hurting, which of course is a sign that you have started labour, so hopefully not for another 13 weeks or so for me!