Apparently another fun side effect of pregnancy starts around the second trimester involving my nose. According to my What to Expect Pregnancy Club daily email, “the mucous membranes of your nose may start to swell from all the pregnancy hormones circulating in your body, which are also increasing blood flow there. The result? Your nose probably already knows: congestion, and possibly even nosebleeds.” Oh joy.

Well, over the last couple days I kept getting these really bad headaches. Not headaches like I normally get, since I am a migraine girl myself, but intense pain right between my eyes. Knowing the majority of headaches are either due to lack of sleep, hunger, or dehydration, I was going to bed even earlier, frequently snacking, and drinking tons of water. Nothing was even touching this thing. Finally I cracked and took some Tylenol. (I know, I know. Stone me. I’m hurting my unborn child. But at least it wasn’t crack, right?) But even that barely did anything and wore off quickly. Starting to get desperate and thinking that my baby just wants me to be miserable for the rest of my life, I did what all desperate women do: I went to Google.

After skimming over all the horrible sites proclaiming I had every disorder or life-threatening condition in the book, I found something that clicked. I was having a sinus headache. I retrieved the email about my nose and it all made sense. The email went on to recommend some pregnancy safe solutions such as saline sprays, nasal strips or humidifiers. Since my family always had a humidifier when I was growing up, I promptly pulled up Target.com to do some research (they have great user reviews on products from REAL people not those whose paycheck depends on them pushing this product). Well last night after work I stopped in and picked up my new humidifier, set it up when I got home and went to sleep. And I woke up this morning, only slightly stuffy, but without a headache. Glory be!

For those of you (like my husband) who mock my choice of humidifier, I would like to point out that it got BY FAR the best reviews of all the humidifiers out there. Plus it was (comparatively) cheap! And I figure since this kid is the one creating the need for a humidifier in the first place, I can pass it along to Maybe Baby for in the nursery. Besides, it is really cute and the vapor actually comes out of the trunk. And how can you argue with that?

I am one whole week into my second trimester and have yet to make any progress on getting back to normal. Heh. Whatever “normal” can be while your body is being inhabited by another human being. Everyone keeps saying it is going to be gradual. I know, I know. But I was hoping for at least some hint that thing will start perking up around here. I mean, I am practically the most punctual person I know; I was hoping my body might take a hint and do things according to schedule. There has been no sign of the burst of energy the second trimester brings. No boost in my sex drive (are you kidding? He got me into this mess!!). Nope. None of the fun stuff. Still can’t brush my teeth. Still nauseous. Still vomiting. Still going to bed around 8:30 pm. *Sigh*

So the only real sign that things are progressing at all is my waistline. I seem to have lost it. I don’t quite look pregnant yet (hence the lack of belly shots around here) but none of my clothes seem to fit anymore. I only have a couple pairs of pants I can even zip all the way up. I have given up on button-up shirts due to my ever-expanding chest. I have come to rely on loose, flowing shirts paired with either my new maternity pants or I wear my regular pants with a belly band. Those are about the only things keeping me decent. I have ordered several things online (why is it that stores offer so many more maternity thing online than in the store? Pregnant women need to try things on to see if they fit MORE than regular people who already know their size. Duh!) that I am eagerly awaiting and I think I might venture into a fancy department store in the very near future to get some help with this burgeoning chest of mine. I don’t know how to control it, let alone dress it!

Anyway, so that is about all the excitement there is to report. Just watching my stomach grow while my dinner gets flushed down the toilet. Fun, fun times.

Since I just wrapped up my first trimester yesterday, I thought I should list out a few things I experienced so that the next time I am pregnant (Ha! Look at me already planning to do this again. Fool.) I can look back and know that everything is right on schedule. Also, its fun to share my misery and excitement with all of you who begged for all the nitty-gritty details. (Wishing you could take it back now, huh?) And you all know how I feel about lists. So here goes:

The Negatives

• Breast Tenderness. I actually scoff at the “tenderness” part because that doesn’t even begin to explain it. But yeah. That sucked. Buying a “nighttime” bra with no clasps, tags or anything pokey helped a lot. This just mean I was wearing a bra all day, every day (except in the shower, or course). I even started slipping into this comfy bra as soon as I got home from work because it was a little larger than my regular bras and I was adamant about not buying a bigger bra any sooner than I needed to. I tried to keep that flood gate closed as looooong as possible, cause once you start you just can’t stop.
• Frequent Urination. For those of you who don’t know, during the first trimester the amount of blood in your body increases dramatically, which leads to a lot of extra fluid getting processed through your kidneys and ending up in your bladder. Not to mention that your uterus grows at a very rapid rate and sits almost directly on top of your bladder. Since I have a small bladder anyway, I am constantly running to the bathroom to pee. The disappointing thing is that once I get there and manage to go, I squeeze out about a tablespoon. If I am lucky. Sometimes I just drip. There is no fixing this one. But I like to remind myself that I am getting exercise by running to the bathroom so many times a day. A pregnant girls gotta get her exercise.
• Morning Sickness. Or as we call it in the Bateman household: “All Day Sickness.” Now I didn’t throw up all day, every day. But I sure felt like it. I was nauseous from the moment I stepped out of bed in the morning to the second I crawled back in at night. The only thing that seemed to help was eating every couple hours. All. Day. Long. Oh and the Preggie Pops were good too.
• Food aversions. It wasn’t so much specific foods (besides veggies and chicken. Eww.) as much as it was food in general. Nothing sounded good. Ever. Which made it really hard to eat every couple hours (see above). Poor Simeon tried really hard with this one. He would make suggestions of things he could pick up or buy (God knows I wasn’t going to cook it!) but everything made my stomach turn. Finally my friend Jen mentioned that she was always able to eat cereal and ice cream. Boy did that tip help me out. We stocked up on those things and have been doing just fine ever since. Added Bonus: no cooking required!
• The Spotting Incident. Or as I like to think of it: “The Moment I Started to Worry.” The doctors, nurses, books and all of you guys really calmed me down on this one. So thanks for that. It’s just really hard early on because the risks are SO high and you don’t really feel pregnant. It’s times like this I just touch my breasts, feel the pain, and think, “Yep. Still pregnant.”
• Insomnia and exhaustion. I guess this one wasn’t so bad for me, as it was for Sim. My sheer laziness and inability to pry myself off the couch really got in the way of me doing, well, anything. It was the first time in my life I didn’t care if there were dirty dishes in the sink, if the laundry was washed, folded and put away, or if I ever vacuumed again. And the mounting dog hair in the corners of each room really proved this point. But Sim really helped me out and picked up ALL of my slack. But I am sure I will be back to cleaning like a mad woman once the second trimester is in full force. Not to mention once the whole NESTING thing kicks in. Look out!
• Brushing My Teeth. This was the easiest way to guarantee that I would throw up. Particularly in the morning. I tried everything I could think of: I switched toothpastes, I tried to not breathe through my nose while I brushed. Nothing helped. The worst thing is that as soon as you puke, all you want to do is brush your teeth. Such a vicious cycle! But I make myself brush my teeth at least once a day, so there is always that guaranteed dry heaving (or worse yet-full on vomiting!) to look forward to. On the plus side, I have come to love flossing. It’s good for my teeth and gums and doesn’t make me gag! Yeah!
• Heightened Smell. It took awhile for this one to kick in for me. So long in fact, that I thought I dodged that bullet. Ohhhhh no. Driving in the car became dangerous because we had to drive past other people! And restaurants! That were cooking! And the smells were all gut wrenching. It got so bad, I basically just stopped breathing through my nose. But there were times (like all the congratulatory hugs I would receive from people who had the audacity to wear perfume/cologne) I would forget and breathe in that tainted smell. My friend Chelle bought me some Peace of Mind and I tell you that has been a lifesaver!

And now that we are all depressed and those of you without children are swearing off sex for the rest of your lives….

The Positives

• Two Lines. Taking that pregnancy test and actually getting a positive was just about the happiest moment ever. Luckily I didn’t have to go through the emotional roller coaster of taking the test and getting a big fat negative as often as some women. I only ever took one test that turned out negative and it was because my cycle was messed up and I wasn’t ovulating. But seeing those two lines, however faint, has to be one of the best feelings a woman can have.
• The Ultrasound. Firstly having my doctor verify that I was in fact pregnant was a huge relief. Simeon had started to wonder if it wasn’t all in my head. That and I had only taken one test. What if it was wrong? But seeing the baby, our baby, for the very first time was such a gratifying experience. We had done it. We had finally made a family.
• The Scale. Normally I don’t get on a scale. I prefer to live my life according to the if-my-clothes-fit-what-does-it-matter-what-I-weigh theory. However, that theory goes out the window the second you find out you are pregnant. There is a delicate balance between gaining too much weight and not gaining enough. I was worried that my having to eat every two hours coupled with all the cereal and ice cream I was consuming would toss me head first into the “too much” category. I weighed myself the day I found out I was pregnant just to know where I was starting at weight wise. You can guarantee I was ecstatic the other day at the doctor’s office to learn I hadn’t gained a single pound! Not one. I guess throwing up does have its advantages. (Kidding. Only kidding.)
• The Heart Beat. Seeing your baby on a monitor is one thing, hearing it for the first time is another experience entirely. It can be a little scary when the doctor is “trying to find it” but once they do and you hear that comforting “woosh, woosh, woosh” noise it just warms your heart. For me, this was just another reassurance that everything was ok with Maybe Baby. For Simeon, it was THE most exciting moment. I think seeing the baby on the ultrasound was a little surreal for him, but hearing his baby’s heart beat for the first time brought a huge smile to his face. Afterwards he walked around for hours just chanting “woosh, woosh, woosh” and grinning to himself. It was absolutely priceless.
• Mommydom. Family has always been very important to me. Ever since I was a little girl I knew I wanted to have children of my own. Knowing that I am now working to create my own family makes me feel complete in a way I never imagined. I am going to be a Mother. Scratch that. I am going to be a Mommy. The one person who you can always count on when you need them. The one you want to be with you when you are sick or hurt. The one thing that always makes everything better. I totally cannot wait.
• Daddydom. Over the years, I have witnessed Simeon’s interactions with children. I even admit to “testing” him before we got married to make sure he could handle all the things that parenthood entails: changing diapers, giving baths, changing clothes, patching boo-boos, feeding, teaching, reprimanding, and putting them to sleep. While he is amazing at all of these things, (I wouldn’t have married him otherwise, right?) the latter is where Sim truly shines. He can get a baby to sleep in no time. He has this magical technique that more often than not results in both he and the baby sleeping soundly. I plan to use this super hero ability of his to the fullest extent during those rough first couple of months. But beyond the sleep skill, Simeon is going to be an amazing dad. I know from watching his eyes light up when he talks about our children. Or seeing the smile he gets when he sees other babies and then knowingly looks at me. And especially when he curls up to my tummy to have a chat with Maybe Baby and talk about all the things that are going on in our world. Like that old saying goes: Anyone can be a father but it takes someone special to be a DADDY.

Simeon and I had our 14 week appointment today. I was poked, prodded and tested, but it was all worth it when I heard this:

That’s right. That is my baby’s heartbeat. If you listen really closely there in the middle you can hear my doctor say, “I think the baby has dimples,” because all you could see in that doctors office was our smiling faces, dimples aglow.

While grocery shopping with my husband this weekend (because we have a working fridge!! It is no longer hotter in my fridge than in my house! Wahoooo!!) I was rushing to get the few things we needed to get us through to payday. (I don’t know about you guys, but replacing everything in your fridge when it bites the dust can be quite spendy. Especially on top of those other repairs we have been forced to pay for recently. Urgh.) In trying to stick to the “pregnancy diet” of all-things-healthy-that-I-can-actually-stomach, we bought some milk, bread, eggs, butter, fruit (oh the glorious fruits! Raspberries! Blueberries! Cherries! And Grapes! Oh my!) and several kinds of yogurt.

Being the loyal brand shopper that I am, I look for labels. So it really throws me off when they change the packaging on a product I have been buying for years. I can stand there looking at the shelves for a good five minutes and not see it right in front of my face. Well, they went and changed the packaging on my Lucerne yogurt. Since Simeon was with me, I didn’t want to make a big production of it and complain over something I cannot change (’cause you know he is just gonna blame my outburst on pregnancy hormones, when Hello! this is something any sane person would complain about, am I right?), I sucked it up, tossed 10 individual containers into my cart and went on about my shopping.

You can imagine my surprise when I went to have my healthy mid-morning snack only to tear back the silver top and discover a horror above all horrors: I accidentally bought *shudder* fruit-at-the-bottom yogurt. I don’t know if there is anything more horrible. I tried not to look as I stirred up the contents of my snack. The fruit just wouldn’t mix with the yogurt. There were unnatural globs of each section just refusing to blend. Who knew I should have brought a whisk to work?? Now, after five minutes of non-stop stirring, it looks like I poured cottage cheese into my yogurt. So. Gross. Luckily, if I distract myself enough and eat each bite without looking, I think I just might be able to eat my yogurt without gagging….any more than I have already.

Thankfully I have some fruit to eat later that I KNOW will not be making me sick to my stomach.

Well, I have officially done it. I am wearing maternity pants. I know I could probably have held off until the start of my second trimester (which was my original goal) but the three pair of pants I can still fit into comfortably were all in the laundry when I got dressed this morning. I could have squeezed into one of my smaller pair of pants (I even tried!), but it would have been pure torture and possibly causing injury to passersby should a clasp happen to fly off at any given moment. Everyone has recommended the rubber-band solution, but my work pants don’t have buttons, they have clasps/hooks, leaving me with the option of just not closing my pants. Which in my mind, really isn’t a solution as much as begging to humiliate myself.

In preparing for this sort of “emergency” I have been slowly acquiring some maternity clothing. Months ago even. What can I say? I am a planner (and a bit of an optimist). I watch the sales and when something cute is really cheap, I pick it up. It’s just good sense. So I have a (very tiny) section of my closet reserved for maternity clothing. It goes against all the organizational logic of my closet (clothing sorted by shirt sleeve length, then pants, skirts, and dresses–all broken down by color within the sections) but I have heard the horror stories of pregnant woman crying when getting dressed in the morning, surrounded by the entire contents of their closet, because they can’t find a single thing that fits. So I have interrupted the system and created a special “maternity” section to prevent any mental break-downs.

And let me tell ya, this morning I was very grateful for the special section.

One of the first pregnancy symptoms I noticed (besides the boob thing) was the fatigue. I understood the reason I was so tired All. The. Time. was because I was busy growing a tiny person inside my body. As well as the placenta, which would be the life support system for my baby. I also knew that as soon as the placenta was finished being created, around the beginning of the second trimester, I would get a surge of energy and the exhaustion that has me in bed every night by 8:30pm would pass. This was one of the thoughts that kept me going during those dark and exhausting times.

However, I was not prepared for the simultaneous exhaustion and insomnia. Every morning from about 3:00am to 5:00am I lay in bed and wish for sleep. I look at the clock and pray that more than two minutes have passed. I keep tapping Sim to have him roll over so I don’t hear him snore. Or breathe. I get up and pee. I re-adjust my pillows. I drink some water. Then I do it all over again. I know all the books say if you can’t sleep you should get up and do something else. But I am not about to leave the cozy comfort of my bed when I am this close to falling back asleep. No way man.

Now I know you are all thinking, “Well if you didn’t go to bed so early, you wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night/morning.” But you, my friend, would be wrong. I have thought this as well and propped a couple toothpicks into my eyelids and stayed up until the ungodly hour of 10pm (when I would normally go to bed). Then, not only do I wake up at the crack of dawn, but I also do not function the entire following day. Not good.

While I was never a napper before, I am able to slip in a quiet snooze on the weekends, which helps when we have plans to go out during the evening (all set pre-pregnancy. Natch. Who would make plans in the evening with a pregnant woman?) but during the day I work. And they tend to frown on me sleeping at my desk. Simeon and I have taken to getting take-out for lunch and eating in the car and then reclining our seats, closing our eyes, and listening to an audio book. We don’t allow ourselves to sleep because I have not yet mastered the Power Nap and would probably awaken hours later, creases on my face, make-up smudged, and drool dried on my chin. For some reason I don’t see that working too much either.

So for now, the early bedtime sticks. As does the early morning insomnia. But part of me thinks maybe my body is just preparing me for those 3am feedings you always hear about, so I don’t worry too much. Heck, if nothing else, it’s a great time for me to think through possible blog posts.

Urgh. So much frustration. So you know that old adage, bad things come in three’s, well it has taken full affect in the Bateman household over the last couple weeks. Firstly, my camera broke. Yeah, my super-expensive-extra-fancy camera. The whole back display part just stopped working. Nope, sorry, I don’t wanna play anymore. The camera part works fine, but since the back part also connects to the memory card (you are all laughing at my technical verbiage, aren’t you?) there is no way to save any pictures I take. Making the whole camera virtually a $1,500 paperweight. So Simeon and I have been looking for a good repair shop to take it in to. We took it to the place where we bought it and they said it would be $250 just to send it in for repair. Then it would be more depending on what needs to be fixed. Oh and it would take about 6-8 weeks. WEEKS. So yeah, we said we were gonna shop around for a better deal.

Then there was the incident with Heather’s puppy ‘Quila. Forgetting that she is only 9 months old and not yet trained to be alone for any amount of time, she decided to chew through a bottle of fabric softener and an entire bottle of hand soap. On the couch. Each one of different ends of the couch. So we had a little cleaning up to do. Then as we were cleaning it up, we realized one of her claws ripped the fabric on one of the cushions. The next day we took the couple cushions that were damaged into the place where we bought it. Luckily, we have only had the couch for six months and there is a one year warranty on the fabric. So they are in the process of making us entirely new covers for the ruined cushions. At least we dodged the bullet on that one. (The fabric softener and the hand soap, not so much.)

Finally, on Thursday morning I opened my fridge to get some milk for my cereal only to find that my milk was warm. I checked the temperature and it was a cozy 70 degrees in my fridge. For those of you who don’t know, a fridge is suppose to be a chilly 38 degrees. Just for shits and giggles, I checked our house temperature and it was set to 68 degrees. That’s right, it was warmer in my fridge than in my house. I hit the “max cool” button to make sure we hadn’t just left the doors cracked open on accident or bumped one of the digital controls. An hour later I checked again and it was now up to 73 degrees. CRAP. Sim pulled out the paperwork on the fridge (that we bought less than six months ago, thankyouverymuch) to see what kind of warranty we have on it. We were pretty sure we bought the extended warranty but weren’t sure what that meant. Regardless, Maytag has a 1 year warranty that we were well within the limits of. (We found out later that we got the 4 year extended service agreement, but on the paperwork it doesn’t say anything comforting like “warranty” or “guarantee” but it does have a cryptic “ESA4” which means our asses are covered) So I called Maytag and they said they would send out a repair man on Thursday. Yep. A week away. In the mean time we were terrified to open the doors of the fridge because just walking past it was making me gag it smelled so awful and we didn’t want to release that stench out into the rest of the house. Securing his title of “Best Husband in the World” Sim waited until I was going to be out of the house for a couple hours and took care of the task of tossing out the entire spoiled contents of our fridge. He took pictures (with our old camera) of everything because there is a $100 food spoilage clause that you better believe we are gonna claim. He also made sure that all the food (and its accompanying smell) was properly disposed of before I got back home. He even put the garbage can outside of the garage so that my car wouldn’t retain any smell that might have escaped his secure tying of all the garbage bag. Isn’t he the best?

So right now we are camera-less, missing a couple cushions on our couch and without a fridge for an entire week. Luckily we have a mini fridge in the family room where I am keeping a gallon of milk and my Brita, because Maybe Baby and I would have to move out if we couldn’t at least have cereal and cold water. Urgh. Can’t a pregnant lady catch a break??

Wow. I have definitely started a trend. A happy, growing, life-changing trend. Everyone is having babies right now! My friend Chelle is a few weeks behind me and now Carole just announced that she is preggers too! She is five weeks today, which puts her just seven weeks behind me. I gotta say, it’s a good club to be in.

When we started planning to have a baby, we were in the minority among our friends. Sure there were a few other people with little ones, but not many. Everyone was single, dating, or just newly married. (Not that it should change anything, it just felt like we were in a place not many other people our age were.) But now it seems like babies are springing up everywhere:

Our friends Ryan and Sarah came to dinner last night and brought along their new (to us anyway!) three-month old son, Elliot. Our other friends, Mitch and Jen, are expecting any day now. Toss Chelle and Carole into the mix and we are gonna have quite a few babies in our circle of friends.

And I gotta say, I think that is the best thing I have heard in a long time.

The extent of my holiday weekend pretty much consisted of sleeping, eating and watching movies. Just keeping up with the doctors orders, of course. But along with all the eating was much talk of all things baby. Natch. Particularly entertaining were the conversations with my niece and nephew.

Hayden, who is four years old, was very excited that I was going to have a baby. He is just reaching that age where he started hassling his mother for one and she (or rather her husband) is no longer able. So you could say he was a little excited. We had the following conversation:

Hayden: Aunt Carrie. When you have the baby, it can come over, right?
Me: Sure.
Hayden: And I can watch it? And play with it?
Me: Of course.
Hayden: But…not if it’s wild. Cause I don’t want the baby to be wild.

Hayden was also showing me an adorable clock he made at his Kindergarten orientation. It was made out of a paper plate and pipe cleaners with a little mouse dangling off the clock face. He proceeded to sing Hickory Dickory Dock and show me the mouse moving along the clock when all of a sudden he stopped dead.

Hayden: Should I give this to you? For the BABY?
Me: Why don’t you keep it and then you can teach the baby how to sing that song.
Hayden: Ok. That sounds like a good idea.

My niece, Emily, on the other hand is nine years old. She was excited for the baby in that shrill way that only a pre-teen girl can be: giggly and squealy. My sister insisted on checking her midwives chart the second I told her I was pregnant to see if I would be having a boy or a girl. Upon declaring that based on my age and the due date, I would be having a boy, Emily stated, “Check again, Mom. Aunt Carrie is supposed to have a GIRL.” So I was not at all surprised by this conversation:

Emily, dejectedly, to my stomach: Hello in there little boy.
Me: You know, your mom might be wrong. It could be a girl.
Emily, perking up: Really?
Me: Sure! So just keep thinking “GIRL” and we just might get one.
Emily, to my stomach: You ARE gonna be a girl, aren’t you? And what a good little girl you are gonna be!