Musings

Jena said now that I'm pregnant I have to restart my blog. I don't know about that yet, but there are some things I wanted to write down before I forget them so why not....

Right now I'm 18 weeks and 5 days. In some ways I don't feel pregnant at all and in some ways I do a lot. I feel like my appetite has come back to a much more normal level. I still wake up every night to go to the bathroom. This has been since the very beginning; I'm sure it's only going to get worse. I am tired. A lot. Not quite as bad as the first trimester but many days I get home from work and I can barely keep my eyes open. Sleeping isn't the most fun thing because I like to sleep on my back and stomach; both of which I'm told not to do. Sleeping on my back makes my back hurt and on my stomach lasts for about 30 minutes before it hurts that way too. Oh, it's also about a million degrees here. It's been very warm very early for us which is not good for me. I tried several times to keep running but that just wasn't going to happen and may have been part of the reason at week 15 I ended up at the doctors and having an unplanned ultrasound; so I have stopped that. My last 'complaint' is either sitting too much at work or my chair. I'm not sure which is the problem but I get pretty uncomfortable from either my work chair or not moving around enough at work. I need to just get up and stand and stretch a little but I've had to double cover a lot and that keeps me busy where I forget.

All of these things are really little and I realize that. This has not been a 'difficult' pregnancy. I haven't enjoyed being pregnant though and here is why, I think. For 11 years there have been no false alarms, no miscarriages, no anything. I've been told by multiple doctors that I would have to pursue fertility treatments to get pregnant. On top of that for easily 10-12 years I have had girl issues ongoing, every time I went to the doctor, etc. I can say this now, that thankfully about 2 years or so ago my problems got worse which led me to a therapist trying to find out if this was more than a medical issue. Thank you to this therapist she wanted me to get a second opinion and referred me to the best doctor and staff ever, Dr. Brooks. He is the only doctor since I was 18 that listened. He talked me through a lot of frustrations and didn't give up and we went through a lot of different treatments to finally get me to a point where I could say I was okay. So having spent 10+ years feeling out of control and frustrated with my body I was finally to a point where I knew what was going on. I recognized when things were okay and when they weren't. Well..... throw in pregnancy and I am not in control of my body again and I don't know what is going on and I don't know if it's right or normal. Put that on top of being completely blown away to even be pregnant and not entirely believing it means that there is a lot of wondering and worrying about things. There is a need for a lot of reassurance that only seems to come once a month when my doctor listens to the heartbeat or at an ultrasound. So that is why I am not a fan of being pregnant.

Now supposedly I should be feeling 'flutters'. What the hell is a flutter? I've googled it, I've asked people, and everyone has a different answer. I think everyone just calls a flutter what they think a flutter is and no one really knows if it is or if it isn't. (See my above comment about wanting reassurance. This 'flutter' crap is not offering that because I don't know if I'm feeling a flutter or gas).

I'm debating how long I want this post to be... but since it's really just for me.... who cares. Going back to when I first found out. I didn't even take a test for about 3 weeks because it wasn't unusual for me to be late back in the pre-Dr. Brooks days.... but it was Friday February 7th that I decided if I wasn't going to make a dr. appointment I would at least take a test. What really pushed me over the edge was that morning we were at the gym, 5 AM, and I started crying on the treadmill. I mean I was listening to Chris Mann..... who is so amazing you could cry, but I don't normally cry in the morning for no reason. So Friday night John gets home from work and I show him the positive test. Thankfully I'd had about 2 hours before hand to get the crying, hyperventilating, freak out over with. Well there is nothing longer than a weekend when you can't get into a doctor, can't even make an appointment until Monday morning. The doctor I wanted to go to couldn't get me in for a week and a half so I found another doctor that could see me that day because John had gone into an "until it's official" stance. I wasn't impressed with the doctor's office and honestly she freaked me out when she said she only wanted me to gain 10-15 lbs during the pregnancy. Thankfully I was referred to another doctor who I have really liked and seems much more realistic and approachable. I am happy to say though, that up to 18 weeks I hadn't gained any weight. I think that's out the window now, but I was feeling pretty good about myself. I'm still wearing all my regular clothes, which I like as well, but I'm not sure how much longer that will last.

We have the appointment set for May 9th to find out gender. That will be fun. We've interviewed 4-5 daycares and I've called many more. I think we have a decent idea of what direction we're headed there. I've thoroughly researched my works maternity leave which is AWFUL. At least we know now so we can hopefully prepare for it financially. I've also decided there will be no pregnancy pictures of me. I will not be taking a mold of my stomach, I will not be having a photo shoot with me and a fat stomach...nope not going to happen. I have made the request to have a picture of the baby and my puppies when the time comes. That's all I want. I guess that's about it for now.

The end?

I've been thinking about this for a while but I haven't done anything on it. I don't think I'm going to keep the blog. I mean, it's taken me over 3 months to do our cruise and honestly I'm not even 1/2 through it.

Also.. aren't blogs like where mom's post about their kids and all the ideas they found on pinterest? 2 things I do not have. Well I've been on pinterest like twice. I just don't get it.

So....there it is.

Barbados

The next stop was Barbados. We wanted more beach time and went to the Boatyard, a recommendation from our cruise director. It was pretty close to the pier and is just part of a restaurant. The sand in Barbados is beautiful. It has almost a pink tinge to it. We didn't like being hassled to buy stuff and it was a little more 'commerical'. That being said, it was still beautiful and we had fun. We relaxed, swam, played on the toys that were in the water for us, ate, and then called it a day.

The pier is also in a very commercial area so we didn't wander around much there. That was the night we had reservations in the steak house of the ship. I went and got my hair done and John had a shave. He loved it. The restaurant was nice and of course we had a good time. The picture of the cheesecake doesn't even do it justice for how big it was. We were convinced after the other 5 courses or whatever that John could still finish it and he got about 2 bites away and quit. We were disappointed.

To reference the other pictures...we had the late dinner so we would generally get back to the ship about 3 or 4 and then we'd grab a snack which included a 'few' ice cream cones. Then we would normally wander around on deck to see what was up and watch as the boat left port.

Day 4 Sea Day

Alright, I will try and work through this some more. This is why I need to be royalty and have a biographer for me.

The next day was our only sea day. We went out fairly early so we could get chairs in the adult only section. We spent several hours out there just relaxing. Stephanie had a spa appointment at some point. We did go take naps that afternoon and then we wandered and played cards until dinner. It was the perfect day at sea.

Day 3 St. Thomas

I really need to get this cruise blog post finished before I forget what happened!

So our first stop was St. Thomas. At the suggestion of our cruise director we went to Meaghans Bay. That might be spelled wrong, but I am too tired to Google it. It was beautiful, but it's a bay so not really any waves and the beach was long but short and lots of people! I can't even imagine what it would be like with more cruise ships there.

We spent a few hours there and then went back to the main street to shop. We did try to find a Foot Locker. That was a wild goose chase and all we did was get scared and hot!

Based on the pictures that night we watched a movie on the big screen outside for a little bit. I think this was also the night that John and I went back to the piano bar till about midnight because it was a piano bar and the talent of those people amazes me!

Day 2 San Juan

Sunday morning was Mother's Day and we were in San Juan. We ate breakfast at the hotel and then gathered up our stuff and headed down to the pier. Everything we'd read said it took 45 minutes to get to the pier. So we planned on going fairly early. Well it took about 15 minutes. So we were at the pier really early.

We were debating about what to do since we had all our bags and didn't know if we wanted to drag them around. We got lucky that we didn't have to wait long and then we were able to go check in. It worked out amazing because they took our bags, we got our room keys, and then we were able to go back out and wander.

I don't know if it was because it was Mother's day or because it was Sunday but a lot of the stores were closed. So we mostly just walked around. We got to see the fort, but we didn't go in because we didn't want to pay for it. We also found a Starbucks!!

We ate at a local restaurant called the Manolin. It was pretty good. One thing I learned is that they really like plantains in San Juan! We went back to the ship about 4 and found our rooms and wandered around the boat. 

Day one and a Test

I've put it off long enough. I need to write the post about our trip. I decided to wait until I'd made our photo book because that is more important! So here it is. I'm going to probably only get one day done tonight because I've been messing around with collage programs.

So we took a cruise in May. We went with Stephanie and Bart. We left Saturday morning and flew to Miami and then to San Juan. We got to San Juan about 8:30 pm which isn't too bad and allowed us to get settled for the night. We stayed at Embassy Suites and it was so convenient; right by the airport. We didn't have any issues with cabs or anything.

It's important to note that we decided to do this whole trip with just carry on luggage. We didn't have any issues except on the first plane where our bags didn't really fit, but they fit on all the other planes, so it must have been an older plane or something.

We just went to the hotel and we ate at one of their restaurants and wandered around.

PS - thank you to Jena for helping me with a collage program (not what I used here, couldn't commit to the price tag right now)