Pregnancy Notes

This post will document the pregnancy happenings I've been having that will hopefully be helpful in the future.

Due date: 1/9/2019

First Trimester (during roughly the first 15 weeks)
Aversion to most smells and food. The only thing I can stand to smell (and it actually smells good) is the bread baking at Subway's. I can also tolerate their sweet onion chicken teriyaki sub on white bread so we eat there when I can stand to. My taste changes daily and hourly so we have to determine what is for dinner at the end of the day when I'm about to pick Ben up from work. If I don't feel like eating anything, I can get by on anything tasteless like bread, milk, plain spaghetti and mashed potatoes. I can also stand to eat anything I ate as a kid like Mac and Cheese and PBJ sandwiches. Egg McMuffins are also a godsend.

I have trouble with my energy as well during my first trimester. I work a full day, pick Ben up, eat dinner on the way home and crash on the couch as soon as I walk in the door. Ben's cooking has been put on hold while I can't stand to tolerate any smells (unless I live at Subway's. They need their own bread-baking candle). He bought me a face mask to wear (picture a gas mask) but it doesn't work very well because I can then smell the mask and my face. Not pleasant.

Second Trimester (about the next 11 weeks) 
I am starting to eat regularly again. Food still does not sound appetizing though, but I can eat most anything and my super sniffer has died down enough where normal smells don't bother me. Animal smells still bother me a lot though. I'm starting to feel baby move more and we found out we're having a girl :) Ben doesn't like touching my stomach.

**TMI WARNING. SKIP THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED**
My sex drive has sky rocketed. So has my mood swings. I was put on antidepressants that I take only when needed because Ben doesn't seem to want to have sex ever. The few times we had it were ok but each time hurt more than the last. So life sucks right now because I'm not active.

Third Trimester (weeks 27 and on)
I am starting to get tired again, mostly from lack of sleep. I wake up every 2 hours to use the bathroom and switch positions. I can't lay on my back because it will close off an important artery to the heart so I have to sleep sitting up or on one of my sides—mostly my left. I can't spoon Ben anymore so he has to spoon me, which is hard because his torso isn't as long as mine. It's getting harder to breathe, especially after eating. Baby keeps me up most of the night jumping around. I swear she's going to be a gymnast. She loves listening to music, especially video game music by OC Remix. She's always bouncing off the/my walls when music is on next to her.

Ben and I are close to having a name for her. It's not what I wanted but it's pretty so I'll take it. We both like it and that's what's important. I've been having more and more Braxton Hicks contractions lately, especially if I'm sitting up at a 45º angle. Next thing we need to get ready for is a go-bag for the hospital and buying a freezer so we can start making freezer meals for when we're too tired to do anything.

Week 38
We have the go-bag packed, dresser full of baby clothes and thankful hearts for everyone's gifts to get us ready for the baby. I had my OBGYN appointment 12/26 (exactly at 38 weeks), he swept my membranes and confirmed I was 2 cm dilated. 12/28 I lost my mucus plug so everything is in motion! I'm hoping to go into labor in about a week because I don't think I (or baby) can wait until 1/9/19, even though that would be a neat birthday. If she stays in till then though, I will be induced to try to deliver her that day.

Wow

So it's been quite a while. Way too long to try to catch up on everything that's happened, but in a nutshell: Ben and I got married in LA, lived there for about 6 months while I worked as an art director and he worked in security. Moved to SLC valley where I took a job as a Jr. Graphic Designer with more pay than the art director position and Ben still found work in security. After a few years I changed jobs to work as a designer at Mountain America Credit Union and Ben lost his job for a few months and is now head of logistics at Coco Joy where dad is the President of the parent company and Beth is... something along the lines of Vice President of Coco Joy. I've now been working for almost 3 years at MACU and Ben about 2 years at Coco Joy.

This past year Ben and I finally visited China to visit his relatives and take a vacation with his family. While there, his mom prayed to every shrine we passed that we would have kids (more specifically a boy and a girl—twins). She made us pray at the big ones with her and took us to an herbalist that prescribed some weird medicinal tea we were supposed to take twice daily. I took mine about 3 days into it and it didn't bode well with my stomach, so I stopped taking it (especially since we were supposed to carry our own toilet paper and I did not have enough for the ramifications...). Low and behold, when we got home a few weeks later I got my first positive pregnancy test.

I was told to keep a journal of the pregnancy because it will help later. I might write it down later on paper, but before I forget, it's going up here in another post. To be continued...