We’re in day four of the second heat wave of the past month and I want to die. Being pregnant in the summer is quite possibly the worst time—especially if you don’t have central a/c and you work with a laptop (hello heat wave on the legs).

Thursday marks 30 weeks of being pregnant, and the past couple of been my least favorite. I passed the first glucose test, but just barely, so they made me take it again. Some BS about my liver and blah blah and the next thing you know I’m sitting in a hospital for 3.5 hours, getting my blood drawn every hour. This, after fasting since the night before and swigging 100 ML of the nastiest orange drink known to man. Friday was a rough day.

Our last ultrasound was about a week and a half ago (I know, I know, I’m behind), and I’ve decided my baby looks like Gollum:

The tech helpfully took a picture of his foot, too, seeing as how it’s permanently affixed to the underside of my ribs:

They tell me the kicking is a good sign that he might come early, and honestly, it is my one desire. Four weeks early kid, you can do it!

Yet another fun aspect of pregnancy? Pregnancy brain. (And yes, that is the technical term for it.) Basically the brain swells a bit when you are pregnant and certain aspects, namely memory, become hampered. Fortunately it goes away once the baby is born, but for now, I’m stuck with a worse-than-usual short-term memory (ie, I literally have to right everything down from a 10 minute meeting or I forget everything from the first 5 minutes) and an odd habit of just forgetting words in the middle of sentences.

The Chop thinks this is awesome. Particularly today when I said, “yippity do da doo bird,” or something along those lines. Basically I make no sense. It’s highly irritating to me, but highly entertaining to those I work and live with—yet another aspect of pregnancy that they don’t tell you occurs.

When we were in Provincetown I went and got a pedicure at a local salon, where two early-20-year-olds were working. They ooh’d and aah’d about my stomach, felt the baby kick and we discussed all the stuff that nobody mentions about pregnancy…

Your feet hurt, your back hurts, your stomach hurts, you can’t get up by yourself, putting on pants is painful, you don’t sleep well (or at all), it’s freaking hot, you get random heartburn FOR NO REASON (even if you just drink water), your feet swell if you’re on them too much, you can’t shave your legs comfortably, you run into things constantly and, oh yeah, sex becomes a logistical nightmare.

Happy Fourth of July!

Today it is 87 degrees, well on it’s way to being way-too-fucking-hot-to-live, and so the Chop is celebrating Father’s Day by sitting on the couch in front of the air conditioner. It’s supposed to be high 80s all week, which really sucks when you’re pregnant.

The Peanut has gotten very good at kicking regularly now, and slowly but surely, my belly button is getting shallower—which is really bizarre. I read an article the other day about how, yes, a lot of women love pregnancy, but a lot of women really hate it. It’s uncomfortable, painful, hot and irritating—and yeah, I think I fall into group B. Pregnancy? Not my favorite thing. I’m looking forward to having a baby, but the nine months wait time is a pain in the freaking ass.

An old friend of ours recently had a pre-eclampsia event that resulted in her delivering by C-section right around 29 weeks (she was four weeks farther along than me). The baby is doing great, no longer intubated I believe and now that he’s a week old, about 2 lbs. I know it’s stressful for them, but part of me thinks, hmm, early delivery might not be so bad.

My goal is 35 weeks—the doctors have discussed inducing me a bit early depending on my liver—which means I have 10 weeks to go. 10 of the hottest weeks of the summer, sigh, 10 weeks where I have to ideally finish four major projects. Ugh.

One of the worst things about moving one year and getting pregnant the next? Cravings.

In college I became addicted to nime chow, an Asian soft roll, with shrimp, bean sprouts, etc., and the most amazing vinegar-type sauce with peanuts. Sadly the only two restaurants that I’ve ever found who carry it… an hour+ away. Fortunately there’s a branch of one of those restaurants about 30 minutes away, but after a day of working, 30 minutes seems like forever.

Then there’s two of our favorite restaurants in Newport, both eclectic, one with more Mexican flavors—the best fish tacos of all time. Chop’s mom was in town last weekend, so after a lighthouse tour on a boat (surprisingly, I did not get sick—go baby), we ended up over there, Chop in tears as he ate some incredibly hot jalapenos.

My goal every weekend is to convince Chop that going south for dinner (or lunch), is a great idea. I’ve only succeeded once, lol. An hour and a half, he says, for dinner? I guess if you really want, but let’s get all this done first. Stuff which ends up taking most of the day and by 4PM, I’m ready for a nap.

Word to the wise, don’t move and get pregnant right away. You will be sooo sorry, lol.

Last weekend the Chop and I went to a local hardware store to get some paint samples. I, of course, completely forgot about the low/no VOC nonsense, so yesterday we ended up at Home Depot. Two gallons of (pregnancy-friendly) paint and supplies later and the nursery is about to begin.

The best part is that we’re not the greatest painters and the Chop would prefer to be cleaning the house (and mowing the lawn and doing anything else besides painting, omg, the horror), so he is currently killing time by getting coffee and taking grass clippings to the dump and I’m debating the best way to drop cloth the floor.

During the testing phase, I got two colors up just fine, but the darkest one managed to splatter everywhere—the floor, the baseboard, the door (wtf)—so we decided it’d be best to cover whatever we could.

So far, it is not going well.

Yesterday we received a check from FEMA, a “grant” if you will, to help cover “some” of our basement expenses. The Chop, being the smart guy that he is, is all, I’m just glad they sent us something! Me, being the practical (read: bitchy) person that I am, is trying to figure out how they came up with just over $600.

Especially considering DRYING the basement was around $3000. And I received our electric bill for last month, with all those fun dryers, and that was over $400. So seriously, what the fuck is $600? We’ve received quotes to add French drains, add new sump pumps, finish the basement with tile and redo the walls and so far, it’s most definitely going to cost over $20K—hello SMA disaster loan—so to me, $600 feels like nothing.

Also, definitely boy. And the nice ultrasound tech wrote it on there helpfully, just in case we weren’t positive:

Tomorrow my mom heads back to WA, after spending almost the entire month with us, cooking, cleaning and hanging out. We had a lot of fun, and she quite enjoyed buying maternity clothes (everyone needs to wear maternity jeans—most comfortable jeans EVER) and baby clothes (and stuffed animals). She was supposed to watch our house while we went to Italy for our honeymoon, but due to the complications of being pregnant, we rescheduled and she decided to come anyway, lol.

I’m 18 weeks today, which means I have a bump, my boobs have gone up half a cup size and I’m pretty sure I can feel something moving in there. Although it could be indigestion. Or gas. Who the hell knows, pregnancy is weird.

Yesterday we went for an ultrasound (mom was quite excited) to check all the parts (spine—check, 2 kidneys—check, good heart—check, penis—check).

Yep. I’m having a boy. It’s quite a shock to the Chop and I, both having expected a girl. My parents are thrilled (they always wanted a boy, lol) and we’re coming around. It’s odd, when you think you are having one thing, and it turns out to be another, it can be quite emotionally surprising.

I was originally planning on blogging regularly this year… focusing on, if not every day, at least 4-5 times per week. Unsurprisingly, that has been quite difficult, and although part of it is I have too much work, and part of it is there’s nothing interesting to blog about, the other part is that there was an elephant I didn’t want to mention and I found it almost impossible not too.

So instead I blogged some, but kept most of it un-posted.

Drumroll please…

We found out about eight weeks ago that apparently we are highly fertile. Yes, we managed to get pregnant the same damn month we got married—hello Christmas 2009. You were good to us, weren’t you? 😛

Today I’m supposed to be 13 weeks, although according to the ultrasound yesterday, I’m 13 weeks and 6 days, so frankly how they calculate that is beyond my understanding. If at my first ultrasound they said I was 7 weeks, 1 day and at my second ultrasound (when I should’ve been 12 weeks, 6 days) am 13 weeks, 5 days… the baby grew faster? I time-traveled? The kid is just extra-long because Chop is tall? (That’s the one I’m hoping for.)

At around 7 weeks I started feeling not so hot. My liver issue, which they thought was because of estrogen/hormones, appears to definitely be because of estrogen/hormones. My LFTs were all elevated, I was terribly nauseated, exhausted and itchy. My dad started me on the SAM e again and the nausea and itching went away and the LFTs went down.

Unfortunately the itching is returning with a vengeance, so we’ve upped my dose, but sleep and every day life has become quite irritating.

In good news, the baby is kinda cute—although it’s a true my side thing to stick your butt in the air when you’re supposed to be taking a picture. Sooo typical.

I’ve also added a new category, Peanut, and have posted all the posts into it, by their correct date.

We went to see my liver doctor today. All in all it was highly uneventful—he said, “well it looks like your levels have come down without you doing anything,” to which I responded, “I’ve been on SAM e and that’s why they are down.” I found it very annoying.

I don’t think he believes me. Which is odd, considering the first time I was sick the SAM e was what worked—and it was the only thing that worked. After all the pills, tests and scans they could muster, SAM e managed to get me healthy in three months.

He doesn’t think it will affect the peanut—granted, he Googled SAM e and pregnancy while we were sitting in the room—so at this point we carry on as planned. Me ingesting five pills a day (in addition to three others—pregnancy = vitamin overload) and counting on my dad to make sure I don’t turn yellow.

My LFTs came back last week—elevated, as expected. I now have an appointment with my liver doc, an appointment with a new, hi-risk OBGYN at the best hospital in the area and a inordinate level of stress that I’m trying to corral.

We upped my SAM e, which has helped immeasurably with the slight itching and overall exhaustion, but I’m still slightly freaking out. My mother is really no help, talking about several months of bed rest, them potentially moving in toward the end (kill me, seriously) and the possibility that we will have to induce me early.

Personally I’m trying to take a positive approach to the whole thing… and it mostly works, on days I don’t feel sick or really tired or my side is really sore, lol.