The joys of Pregnancy

I'll admit it; I feel like I had one of the easiest pregnancies!  After watching Erin endure 9 months of morning sickness I was terrified that I would end up the same way.  Lucky for me I was 100% the complete opposite!  The first couples weeks I was extremely exhausted and would feel a little queasy in the morning but I quickly learned that milk would cure that.  I have never drank so much milk in my life!  Paul and I used to buy half gallons and they would expire before we would use it all.  After I got pregnant I upgraded to buying my milk at Costco (2 gallons) which would last about 1 1/2 weeks. 

So many people talking about how wonderful the cravings are and that being pregnant allows you to eat what you want.  I never really had cravings but there were many times I created my cravings to splurge for something.  Remembering back to the girl at Costco, I also tried to not eat everything in sight in hopes that my belly would never hang out of my shirt!  Then there are the food aversions.  One night for dinner I cooked chicken on the stove in chicken broth and garlic, let me tell you that was the worst mistake!  The smell of that chicken had me gagging me for days.  The other was Mexican food!  I LOVE Mexican food and so when we went to visit our friends in Spokane I was excited to go out for lunch.  Unfortunately either I got food poisoning or the 24 hour flu bug because for the rest of the night I was up throwing up.  I told Paul the next day that I was so glad throwing up was not part of my every day routine because it was awful!  I stayed away from Mexican for several months after but lucky for me the next I had it Andy loved it as well.

My biggest challenge while I was pregnant probably came at about 32 weeks.  Since I had been blessed with that lovely stint of shingles in December I still had residual pain in my back and being pregnant only made it worse.  My Dr. referred me to physical and massage therapy which was the most amazing thing she could have done!  Every week I would get to spend 2 hours at the therapy center and it was pure heaven!  That was the only part I was sad about after I had Andy!

I know many people have mixed feelings about being pregnant but I truly loved it!  From the day we found out we had a little bean growing I became very protective of my belly.  We went to several Mariner games in the first couple months and I would always walk with my arms shielding my stomach.  When I first started feeling the little flutters of Andy moving it was amazing.  I loved feeling him move around and would always worry if I hadn't felt him in a couple hours.  I soon learned he loved chocolate milk and would really wiggle after I drank some.  (Maybe that's why he was 11lbs!!)  Paul was a little less excited about the movements and would get creeped out.  He would talk to my belly and feel the kicks every once in a while.  I loved when I was able to see Andy's kicks and punches.  I could sit and watch my stomach for hours.  I remember one day I was sitting at work talking with my friend Ashley when she yelped "Oh my gosh your stomach just moved!"  I was also lucky enough to not have many strangers attack my belly which I heard was a common occurrence.

The one thing I wish I would have done while I was pregnant was take a picture of my belly every month.  I originally wasn't going to take any pictures but Erin told me that was the one thing she wished she would have done.  I took pictures about every 4 weeks but when you have a little bean growing as rapid as they do, it's amazing how fast your belly changes.

I hope that in our future pregnancies I will be as lucky as I was with this one!