Not All the Neurosis Is Gone

I'm 16 weeks pregnant. I did a bow pose in yoga this morning. Did I smoosh my baby? (Like, to death?) After the belly sequence the instructor said if anyone (ahem) was pregnant and he didn't know it, she probably didn't want to do bow pose. But I practice yoga frequently and I know the variation for bow pose is camel--which I hate usually--and honestly I just listened to my body and it felt fine and so I did a bow pose for 5 breaths. But now I'm kind of freaking out. I THINK I've felt the baby move since then? I have been feeling little jabs for a little over a week now, typically about once or twice per day. So not regularly. Not reliably enough to say for sure that I felt the baby move and everything is fine. But if I stop and think about it...I know it's fine. I'm barely showing and again, I didn't feel a speck of discomfort while getting into, out of, and while in the pose. I found this on Yoga Journal:
"In the second trimester, when the energy often feels enhanced by the pregnancy and the body, although swollen, is not uncomfortably large yet, stronger backbends may feel expansive and juicy. If you practiced Ustrasana (Camel Pose), low lunges, Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (Bridge Pose), or even Urdhva Dhanurasana (Backbend, Upward Facing Bow Pose) before you became pregnant, they can now be incorporated into a sequence."

I like it--expansive and juicy. Oh wait, that says upward facing bow pose, i.e. wheel. Damn it! Although regular bow pose "can feel invigorating" in the first trimester, which was only 3 weeks ago. I know there are many instructors who recommend no inversions while pregnant or menstruating, and frankly that just doesn't resonate with me at all. Headstands feel awesome when pregnant and can be done safely when they have been part of your practice for a long time. With my first pregnancy I was still lying on my belly and doing belly poses, albeit NOT bow pose, until 24 weeks. So anyway, here I am going on and on and on and f'ing on!

Would I be this neurotic about it if I hadn't lost my first baby? Although not because of yoga/activity/falling off my bike at 18 weeks (true story). I guess it's the thought that I could have done something wrong? But I really think all is well? If I could be sure that would be nice. Should I invite myself to the hospital for a very expensive heart-rate check? I have an appointment on Monday morning thankfully. Sigh...this is exhausting! I'm going to confine myself to bed rest and a feeding tube for the next 24 weeks. Right after I eat the raw milk cheese I bought today.

Sprout Photo Dump

Aaaand, cue the high-pitched screaming part of toddlerdom. My perfect angel baby has gone to the dark side. But you'd never know it based on these pics:

These are now (and probably always will be) unretouched. Sorry about the boogs. Sprout already takes after his dad when it comes to posing for a picture--uhhh, OK, look awkward and creepy...cheese?

Officially Acting Like a Grown Up (Not My Kid, Me)

Darn "beautifully formatted" chart! I give up. I'm sorry the last column is illegible because of the graphic arrangement on the page. I'm just saying no to perfection here. Anyways, I need to update the number of puking episodes with this pregnancy. I randomly threw up after dinner last night. Maybe it was the Easter candy, but I didn't think I was overdoing it. Feeling kind of crappy again today, but we are out of all sodas except diet 7up and the diet thing isn't sounding good right now. And does 7up have sodium benzoate in it? Crap! I just checked...potassium benzoate. No more citrus sodas for me until the total cessation of my childbearing and breastfeeding years. :( Anyway, almost all past episodes across pregnancies were true morning sickness, which is way less gross, as it turns out, than having something to throw up. Sorry for being graphic, but Mr. E was out playing poker last night and there was no one to commiserate with me.

Not that two weeks between blog posts is abnormal for me, but I actually have a good excuse this time--we bought a house!! I possibly NEVER thought I would say that. I don't like being tied down. Yes, marriage was a HUGE and in some ways unexpected step as well. I don't like having to let go of fantasies of moving all around the country and even the world to live in new places. I feel like such a grown up. I wish I were feeling a LITTLE more stable in my job, but I am cobbling together more hours and it's highly unlikely that I will be staring down a lay-off by the end of this year or early next year. I also have this grand idea for Mr. E to start a food truck, so maybe there will be that.

Here's a picture of the house. I totally, totally love it, which was something I could not say during months of house hunting, until we found this gem:



You can't really tell from the picture, but it is vinyl siding, which is also something I never thought I would say about a house I would say that I loved. I'm an all-brick kind of girl. Also, the front yard is really not as big as it seems, and it's in a city neighborhood, even though it looks like it's all along in the country. In fact, the interstate is very close. And very loud. But you can't see it. Everyone tells me we will adapt to the constant whooshing noise within a week. It's 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, all wood floors in every single room (when we started looking at new construction--which this is not--the most bitter pill to swallow was all the carpeting), and has a fabulous fenced-in back yard with new Trex deck and brick (hooray!) patio. I'm so excited we found something older and I'm proud of us for not succumbing to the suburbs. No judgment there, I totally see the advantages, it's just not the right place for us. We were pretty close to choosing suburban new construction though. I'm so excited! We close June 20 and will move that weekend. Now, the big question is, professional movers, or pizza and beer bros? Then the next big question is, crap, how are we going to pay for all the new stuff we need????? Lawnmower, grill, deck furniture, new baby furniture (Sprout's crib, which I suddenly hate and which he has scraped all the finish off of with his teeth, will become his toddler bed), area rugs, a bigger TV of course, furniture for an extra room and guest bedroom, the list goes on. Seriously, how do people do it? Oh, I forgot to mention the best part, aside from the attached garage and laundry that is not in the basement...we are two blocks from a huge park. We're talking tennis courts, basketball courts, ballfields, of course a playground for the kids. I am in heaven! If only I could ride my bike to my favorite yoga studio. The house we were eying in that part of town sold two days before our showing. I feel better knowing that we probably did the same thing to people eying our new house. (Just kidding. Ish.)

Then, Then and Now (New and Improved)**

We got fabulous news last week: MaterniT21 results came back negative! The little bean--who remains un-nicknamed--is A-OK when it comes to chromosomes. We have decided not to find out the sex of the baby this time, but in that moment on the phone with the genetic counselor, when I could know, I was suddenly DYING to know! After a few minutes, a few hours, a whole day, a whole week, I do not need to know again. It will be fun this way. And we can always change our minds with a simple phone call.

It amazes me how different this pregnancy is from the other two, while at the same time being similar in many ways as well. I've prepared this comparison chart for your reference:

	1. Blue	2. Sprout	3. Baby 3
Pre-pregnancy weight	141	136	136?
Maternal weight at 1st/2nd appt.	141/140	138/138	138/137
Maternal weight at birth	150 (25 w, 3 d)	160? 162? (38, 4)	hoping to keep it under 165 again
Nausea, on a scale of 1-10	8	3	7
Puking, # of episodes	3	10?	4
Latest puking episode	9 or 10 weeks?	22 weeks	10 weeks
Fatigue, 1-10	6	5	8
Food aversions?	don't think so	yogurt	not really
Food cravings?	sour & salty	sour & salty	sour & salty
What?	lemonade, rye bread, pudding	lemonade, bagels, grapefruit juice, potato chips	lemonade, labne,french fries/chips, gummi bears^
Boy or girl?	boy	boy	?? #
Zits?	no	no	yes
Wide ass?	no	yes	no
Moodiness?	no	no	yes
Headaches?	yes	no	no
Started showing/ getting funny looks at my belly
	22 weeks	17 weeks	not yet
Capable of wearing normal clothes at 25 weeks?
	yes	shirts, but not pants	we shall see
Anxiety that something would go wrong in pregnancy, 1-10
	3	10	5
Anxiety over life changes generally, 1-10	10	1	4

Suggestions? What would you like to see in the (now beautifully formatted) chart?

** This blog post actually IS both new and improved. Contrary to what Chris Rock believes, it is possible in certain contexts. 
*10 is not HG, but the most severe of "normal" nausea
^ I have repeatedly craved gummi bears and I bought some but have yet to actually eat them
# twice as I have been filling out this chart I wrote "boy" for Baby 3, but I don't really have a "feeling" either way