greetings earthlings....

I am at work, finishing the last night of my 5 in a row. no, i did not schedule myself this way, my managers clearly hate me and are punishing me. ;)
so, after talking with some friends, I have decided to post some interesting, if not humerous issues related to being knocked up, as only one of my friends have actually been privy to the experience. May this serve as my two cents on the matter. :)

the changes that happen to your body are very strange. here are just a few of my favorites, without oversharing...

1. i consider pregnancy a hostile take over of your body. now, all of the pregnancy books sing the praises and beauty of being "with child", but i bet, that if you secretly polled women, a majority of them would tell you that being knocked up sucks. for various reasons. but i promised i wouldn't overshare. plus, apparently rosey cheeked, glowy pregnant women aren't actually supposed to tell people that they don't like being pregnant. kind of how nobody really used to talk about sex in the 50's.

in the first trimester:
you are lovely shades of green for most of the trimester, if not all of it like i was. you don't want to put ANYTHING in your mouth, let alone the healthy foods that the books tell you that you should be feeding the baby.
you are so tired that you can not for the life of you keep your eyes open. it's an inexplicable form of exhaustion, and i actually fell asleep mid-conversation with my in-laws one night at dinner. it feels like you are constantly in a nyquil fog, sans runny nose.
everyone likes to tell you how your body is changing...i havent figured out why this happens. in a 3 day span, i had 3 different people come to me and tell me that you couldn't tell i was pregnant from the front, but you could certainly tell from the back. who says that? and what does that mean exactly? do pregnant bottoms look different from non-pregnant bottoms?

in the second trimester:
the nausea subsides, but then come the cravings. lucky for me, i didn't crave anything unnatural. citrus seems to be a big craving for lots of pregnant women, or so they tell me. i like pickles. salty, crisp pickles. and anything related to the carb family. but, that isn't really anything strange for those that know me. i guess i haven't really craved much of anything in particular. although, i am always thirsty.
the baby starts moving, and it feels really funny. tickley. or, as i have described previously, it kind of feels like someone is bumping into you from the inside, dull and blunt. there isnt really any rhyme or reason to it either.
your pants stop fitting and you have to buy maternity pants. that is really annoying. maternity clothes are ridiculously expensive!
you start getting moody and inexplicably anxious for no reason. oh wait....i was already doing that. ;)

as i enter into the third trimester (!)...
since the belly has popped, i find that my balance is going. you can't really bend at the waist anymore, so you have to squat. have you ever seen a roundy pregnant woman try to get up from a squatting position? tonight, i fell on my bum trying to do that. thankfully a friend at work lugged me to my feet. :)
and as hard as it is to get up from these positions, you are suddenly all thumbs and drop EVERYTHING all the time. and you bump into things all the time. and, really easy concepts are suddenly difficult to understand because your head seems all foggy.
those nice, dull, blunt baby movements have turned into quick jabs that can make you jump right out of your skin. most women know what it feels like having your cervix jabbed.... but it's a whooooole new experience when it's being jabbed from above. repeatedly. as you are trying to sleep. or watch tv. or do anything. also, you suddenly know what those movements are. i can tell the difference between a punch and a kick. and, the nugget is on a schedule already, bless her little 4-chambered heart. she likes to wake up and raise a ruckus JUST as i am going to sleep. no, no, no. so, i just rock my body back and forth for awhile, and off to sleep she goes. i wonder if she will like that when she's part of the outside world, or if that is just a private little mommy-and-me moment.

it's so strange to think that i am 7 months pregnant. tonight i told someone that the concept of me physically holding my baby and having to take it home in 3 months is kind of like me telling you that next week, green, spindley aliens are going to land in your front yard and move in with you and your cat and your husband. for all of time. how will the alien get here? what do aliens eat? how green is a green alien? will the alien try to communicate with me? or burn me to death with lasers? do you think the alien will resemble Alf and want to eat my cat?? it's kind of like that. you have the notion that something is coming....but you don't have any of the details, and you won't know anything for certain til it gets here.

i guess we'll just have to wait and see what the rest of this trimester brings, and hope that it's good stuff from here on out.