Pregnancy, months 1-7

I'm not quite at 7 months but I'm pretty close to it so I'll include it.

It's definitely been full of new experiences...from the first positive test, to the unexplained bleeding and misdiagnosis of miscarriage, to feeling the baby move for the first time, having my back put me on a leash (30 mins for walking or standing, some days longer), experiencing belly button pain (short-lived but still not fun), learning that my hamstring was causing excruciating pain in my hips/pelvis and how to fix it, the tendonitis in my wrist flaring up and changing from a muscle ache to what feels more like a bone ache, to just getting bigger and feeling more movement and loving it - of course, for many that means stretch marks. I don't have a bikini bod and stretch marks eventually fade anyway, so I don't care - other than feeling them. I never thought I'd feel stretch marks, but they're at times either painful or itchy. Oh, and the baby sitting on the bladder experience - very weird. "Oh no I have to pee sooooo bad!!! Hmm. I am pretty sure that was about 3 ounces, certainly felt more urgent than that."

I have good days and bad, but overall I like being pregnant. When I wake up several times in the middle of the night to pee or shift or whatever, sometimes I decide to check Facebook or e-mail and the baby wakes up and starts kicking. That's really my favorite part, and now that it's kicking and nudging harder I put my hand on it to feel it on the outside - and sometimes it feels REALLY WEIRD! Those times are the ones where the baby is trying to turn - but those days will be gone soon. I'm a little over 30 weeks now and the baby has some room to maneuver but in a few more weeks it will be so cramped the baby won't be doing too much of that. Then I get to have an Aliens experience watching my belly shift and move and maybe be able to ID a foot as it pushes out. Oh, that's something I discovered recently - even if I don't feel the baby moving, I can find where it's resting because of the extra hard quality of the tissues supported by a 3 pound little human.

We start self hypnosis classes in just under 2 weeks - and I even have money set aside for it! I'm excited because hypno birth is supposed to be calm and easier on the baby, and I get to be conscious of things I wouldn't normally have the pain tolerance to notice. The other bonus is that it's a skill I can learn and carry with me forever, my favorite sort of solution. The cost of an epidural is a lot higher than the hypnosis technique, and it's not something I can call on when I have other pain or just need a moment to pull myself together.

I'm starving - I forgot to even mention the appetite thing. Possibly the most annoying aspect of being pregnant has been (not so much lately, thank goodness) the roller coaster appetite. I eat a small amount and I'M SO FULL. However, 5 minutes later I AM STARVING! and repeat. I guess the overwhelming sleepiness hasn't been a picnic either.

Still, though, it's all worth it to feel our baby moving and know we get to meet her (I think it's a girl) soon.

Weight loss ticker

(I've placed this at the top so that as I go along, I can edit and change the ticker. All new posts will be below this one. -except for the baby ticker)

Yahtzee

It's been a while since I posted, so I will post about our crazy adventures with Yahtzee. While Kyle and I were visiting my brother's family and my parents, we played Yahtzee. I used to love that game and hadn't played it in several years...as it turns out, I still love it. So, I used some of my Christmas money to buy it when we got home.

I had just purchased it last week and we went to visit N&S for an evening of gaming. Every other time this has meant video games, so we packed our normal gaming bag. At the last moment I said, "There's not a chance in hell they'll actually want to play this, but I'll bring it anyway," referring to Yahtzee. We have 0 history of board games, so it was really unlikely (as evidenced by my statement). As it turns out, I wasn't the only one who loved it and S wanted to give it a go.

We played 3 games with the normal rules and then it got crazy. Kyle made up a "Speed Yahtzee" house rule whereby one person rolls their normal turn but at the end, all the players must score it on their card. It goes much faster because there are 13 turns total, not 13 per person. It's also insane because you would think it would be impossible to score differently. However, when I take a full house, someone else might take 3 of a kind and yet another might take one of the numbers...so it turns out weird. Last week we ended up playing 9 games of that because it was so fun - in addition to the 3 regular games.

We were there again tonight and we decided to try new and more insane house rules, such as: 1) Similar to Speed Yahtzee but with one roll per turn; everyone scores based on one roll and this translates to a LOT of zeroes on the board :) 2) Each player has to keep for one full turn (up to 3 rolls) one die from the previous player's roll. It gets pretty hairy toward the end when you have to save a number you don't need and can't use.

Anyway, it was quite a lot of fun and twice tonight I matched my card to someone else's - once with Kyle and once with S. Of all the times we played and that didn't come up, it was really strange for that to happen twice - and in a row, no less. Another time I matched S entirely except our 3 and 4 of a kind slots were reversed. I can't really explain that one!

Bonus - N had never played before and now she's a total fan too :)

In short, I love board games :)