Pregnancy Journal

I've decided that in pregnancies past I've been just a tad bit too whiny about the discomforts. While I'm not one of those women who has "never felt better," I feel like it kind of takes away from the miracle of the whole thing. It's much easier to vocalize the negative feelings than the feelings of awe when you feel sick all the time.

I'm making an effort to be better. With that said, I attempt now to journal a few pregnancy quirks before they fade in my memory.

• I sometimes wonder if this baby will be born part sea creature since I crave a hot bath EVERY single night (this is in addition to showering every morning).
• For two months, the very thought of chocolate turned my stomach. I couldn't touch the stuff unless I wanted to pay dearly for it later. Chocolate! Can you imagine? Something once so integral to my existence.
  
• I've had those kinds of weird quirks with every pregnancy. For example, for a time during E-Man's pregnancy I could not eat chicken (usually quite a staple in my diet). With Soph, I could not have hamburger (but, let's face it, hamburger is nasty anyways). With all of my pregnancies I am repulsed by vegetables. Does anyone else have these reactions to food while expecting?
• I haven't noticed that wheat products make me sick, but I just don't want to eat them (again, weird since I normally have wheat every day).
• Besides chocolate, sweets in general have been making me v-e-r-y ill and achy in all of my joints. This is fabulous as a motivator to stay away from stuff I shouldn't have anyways. But, it's not so fab when I eat sweets in a moment of weakness. Six or so days around Christmas were pure torture when my iron will wavered with all the tempting goodies.
• I usually pack on the pounds like a crazed maniac during my pregnancies regardless of what I eat or how much I exercise. I feel extremely blessed for the fact that I am nearly 20 weeks and haven't gained any weight! In fact, for awhile I was losing weight. I'd like to say it's because of staying away from chocolate and sweets, but, like I said, in previous pregnancies it made no difference what I did. No amount of nausea or vomiting seemed to help with the weight issues either. Whatever it is this time around, I am so grateful. It was hard starting out a fourth pregnancy without losing the weight from the third. So, hopefully this means it will all come out sixes in the end.
  
• We are thinking about the name "Katie." Do you love it?
• In the months before I began this pregnancy, I was loving attending 5:30 a.m. body pump and spin classes at the gym (I'm a morning person). I was also loving hiking Malan's Peak with some girlfriends every week. A few months into the pregnancy, the gym classes and hikes fell to the wayside. It became hard to wake up by 7 a.m. to get the kids ready for school because I suddenly n-e-e-d-e-d 10-hours of sleep per night people! And, forget weight training, suddenly my vacuum cleaner seemed too overwhelmingly heavy to even consider getting it out and pushing it around. Yikes.
• Ahhh . . . the quirks of pregnancy. I'm trying to enjoy it as much as I can.