Pregnancy Update

Yes, these pictures are awful. I took them on my cell phone, as usual. I'm totally ashamed of the quality of the first photo. My bathroom mirror was FILTHY, but heck, it's the first picture I took of this pregnancy, and I only took it to send to my cousin Donna. :)

17 weeks along.

18 weeks:

19 weeks:

This pregnancy has been a lot different from my first. I'm SOOOOOO grateful that the saying "each consecutive pregnancy gets easier than the one before" actually applies to me. The first few weeks were very similar, but I was DETERMINED to get a grasp on things before the nausea got out of control. With my first pregnancy, I don't think I got nausea meds til around 10 or 11 weeks. By that point, I was DEATHLY ill, the meds did nothing. Taking zofran was like eating an m&m. Neither did a thing to help me. THIS time around, my (new) doctor wasn't interested in going for the big guns (zofran) early on. Which, inititally it totally frustrated me. But, I have to trust my OB, right? He "prescribed" doxylamine (sleeping aid), which is over the counter. I took it for about a week, with no change. Then I stopped taking it, and discovered that I felt worse. So I began taking it again, and noticed that the longer I'd been taking it, the better I felt. Yay! Now that I am halfway through my pregnancy, I've tried for the last couple weeks to ween myself off of it, but I feel AWFUL the next day (it's a night time med). So, I'm still taking my little blue pill once a night. Thank goodness Mckenzi is sleeping til around 10:30am, so I can sleep in some. Even waking up at 10 is hard. I feel like I've been hit by a ton of bricks, cuz I'm still soooo sleepy!

I started feeling him kick very early on. Probably around 13 weeks. I'm sure it was kicks, as it was obvious pokes and prods one at a time here or there, not the flutter of gas. It continued for a couple of weeks, but I haven't felt him as of late. Most likely because he's moved up, and he's not so low in my pelvis to where I can feel every little movement. I'm anxious for the days where he's regularly kicking me, so I can have some peace of mind about his day to day health. I will say, though, that with Mckenzi, I HATED the kicking. I started feeling her around 17 weeks, and Neal felt her for the first time at 21 weeks. And booooy did we ever feel her. She kicked so hard for him that first time, that we watched my stomach poke out. ANd she made sure to kick me with all her might every single time. Watching my stomach was like watching a cartoon stomach! Alien belly. If anything, maybe this means that our boy will be much more mild in nature compated to our girl. PLEASE, let it be. :)

We hired a housekeeper for the first time last week, and we were both in HEAVEN. She'll be coming every other week for the next few months, until it gets to the point where I'm ready to keep up with it all again. Will that ever happen? :P I'm so lucky that my husband agrees we can budget for this. The same day that our housekeepers came, I got a massage AND a pedicure. Lets just say that Neal got all the thanks he'd hoped for :) When mommy happy, daddy happy, everyone happy :)