You already knew that I wasn’t dead, so me being alive isn’t the big deal (although, in a way, it’s a pretty big deal for me.) Instead, this is a different life changing event, although it is actually related to why I have been MIA for a while now.
For you see…
I am pregnant! 19 weeks along now!
Your pregnancy comes with a string of ultrasound pictures as long as your leg.
While I am excited, it hasn’t really felt real yet. For sure, the EXTREME EXHAUSTION in the first trimester was real. I have never been so tired in my life. My life revolved around sleeping. I went to work, came home, and slept. Often times someone else took care of my horses because I was THAT tired. Basically, every moment I could get away with it, I was sleeping. I slept 16 hours on the weekends. The moments I was awake, I daydreamed about sleeping. My life was planned for maximum sleeping time.
When I wasn’t sleeping, I was eating. Despite (or maybe in spite of) my low carb diet of the last year, it was all I wanted. All spaghetti, all the time. I needed that pasta. Moments I wasn’t thinking of sleeping, I was thinking of pasta. I did learn that a diet of all pasta and sleeping the rest of the time is actually not very healthy, and I gained about 10 lbs just in the first trimester. Ugh.
Week 13 started to ease up on the exhaustion and pasta obsession until it faded into nothing. Now, I feel totally normal, except I can feel my little parasite kicking at my insides. I first noticed the movement at week 18. It felt like a little gas bubble, but I knew what it was. Now the little bugger has gotten stronger, and usually when I am laying still, it was start up its drum beat of wailing on my insides. It doesn’t hurt, but it makes me wonder if it will get to that point.
But, despite all of this, it is strange to think of myself as pregnant. I had two miscarriages prior to this, so I just kept expecting it to happen again. But then… it didn’t. And I became a little obsessive with making sure it doesn’t happen again. I now use all organic bath/body products, which is something I’ve never cared about before. I actually gave up coffee completely for a while, after finding out that excessive caffeine can trigger miscarriages, even considering that maybe that’s what happened before? I drank a lot of coffee. Now, notice I only said for a while though, because I also suffer from chronic migraines, and have always used coffee to treat my migraines. Turns out that without coffee, I had headaches and migraines constantly, so starting last week I started drinking tiny amounts of coffee so I don’t feel like death. But I went like 10 weeks without any coffee, and that’s pretty impressive in my book.
I haven’t even been riding because I’m too afraid of something falling apart in there. I’ve already gotten sharp pains in my abdomen from pushing hay around, and it terrified me so much that I had ripped something vital. Between every appointment I think something bad has happened and the only thing that gives me reassurance is hearing the heartbeat at the doctor’s office. I was pregnant when Stu kicked me over the summer – what if he got me right in the gut instead of the leg? What if he does it again?
The horses cause me a little bit of anxiety, but not enough to do anything drastic. I enjoy seeing them twice a day, feeding them and messing with them. Stu is now the tallest horse in the field, and it’s hilarious to see him bossed around by the little pony. They are a major highlight of the day, and while I may not be riding, I am planning. I decided to use this time to really get some construction done. I have plans to redo the barn’s roof and siding, put up more fencing, and make some other improvements. That way, once the baby is born, I will have maximum efficiency to ride again. It’s going to be awesome.
12 week ultrasound
And I’m really really hoping the little parasite will be horse crazy. I think really we all wish our spawn will have the same interests as us. But if not… I guess we will cross that bridge when we get to it. I don’t know what else kids do. I know I rode horses. I guess other kids do like… bug collecting or something?
So now, at 19 weeks, I am feeling good, except for my inability to get a full night of sleep. What an ironic twist from the first trimester. I now wake up sometime between 1am and 4am, wide awake and full of energy. And then I’m not even tired during the day. Just the 5-6 hours of sleep, and I’m physically feeling fine, although unfulfilled. I did turn this into slightly a positive, and now I exercise at this ungodly hour. Yes, I am really that annoying person, waking up super early and working out. But since I already gained so much weight, I need to keep it under control. But at least I don’t obsessively talk about it like I am the next coming of crossfit, though!
Next week it the ultrasound when we find out the gender. We won’t find out right away, we are going to have a tiny gender reveal party with family, but I’ll know soon enough. I’m guessing that will make it feel more real, and we will discuss names, and I’ll finally clear out my clothes storage room to make a bedroom. Right now the clothes are way more real than the baby, and they need the space, dang it.
I’m really hoping that having this baby doesn’t interfere with my own horse ambitions anymore than it already has. Since I’ve obviously never had a baby before, I don’t know to what extent it’s going to impact it. But I’ll be doing my best to still keep my own life, even while caring for another. I’m pretty sure that babies/children will adapt to the life we want to led, but I’ll see how that works out when it’s actually happening. The best I can do is prepare now, and I think my property improvement projects will help out a lot with that. I’m really excited about those, and will actually have an update soon as they are scheduled to happen in November!
Let me know your experiences juggling kids and horses… potentially job too, that’s pretty important as well!