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Sunday, Apr. 14, 2002 - 1:26 p.m. - Popping Out
I guess I’m not showing as much as I feel like I am, though, because last night we went to a friend’s 40th birthday party and many of the people who didn’t know about my pregnancy either didn’t notice my blossoming belly or didn’t want to ask (thought I had just gained a lot more weight). Everyone was very excited for us when we told them though because everyone knew how much I love babies and how much I wanted my own. So a lot of people were really excited for us. It’s nice to be on the other side of infertility and finally feel a bit safer about getting excited about being pregnant and be able to start to believe that come September I’ll be holding my own baby (though I still worry about saying that and jinxing myself even now). And yet, I don’t think I’ll ever feel like I’ve left that infertility experience behind. I’ll always feel differently about my pregnancy than I believe I would have had I been able to conceive without assistance or easily. I might not be “infertile” any more in the “clinical” sense of the word, but mentally I still think of myself as an infertility patient. Despite my blossoming belly my hunger has decreased significantly in the last few weeks. I’m getting to the point where I have to force myself to eat something on a regular basis and I’m eating no more than I did prior to pregnancy. I sometimes wonder if I’m doing my baby harm by not eating more, but I also don’t think forcing myself to eat is good either. I mean I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, but I’m not starving for them like I was before. In my first trimester it seemed as though I was hungry (starving) every 2 – 3 hours. Now if I eat something I’m perfectly fine for a good number of hours. I’m often not even very hungry by the time dinner rolls around. I don’t want to limit my food intake, but I certainly don’t want to eat just because I think I should and gain unnecessary weight. Well, I need to get going. I’m off to a Mary Kay Pampering Party at my neighbor’s. She bid on, and won, this party at her daughter’s school auction and invited me along with a number of the neighborhood ladies to come and indulge in a pedicure and a chance to play around with makeup. Each of us even get 25 dollars worth of Mary Kay products to take home. I’m not much of a makeup person, but perhaps I’ll find some nice moisturizing lotion or something for myself. Besides it will be good to get together with the neighborhood ladies and chat. I’m sure they will all have advice for me in regards to my pregnancy since all of them have children. I’ll also get a chance to check out the cradle my neighbor offered to let us use for when the baby is first born. I believe her father made it by hand, so I would think it would be special. It’s nice of her to let us borrow it, that way I won’t have to purchase a bassinet or something for those first few months (I probably would have bought 2nd hand). Today is also my brother’s birthday and we were invited over to my parent’s house for a steak dinner with the whole family, but since my brother is very sick again (very bad cold -- he had pneumonia earlier this year) we’ve opted to stay home. Michael doesn’t want to risk my getting sick during my pregnancy. I’m a bit sorry about that, and I probably would have chosen to go, but he does have a point. So far (knock on wood) I’ve not been sick at all during my pregnancy, and I sure don’t want to start now. Instead, we’ll just have to go over to my brother’s and deliver his birthday gift to him personally when he is feeling better again. I did call him and we sang Happy Birthday to him over the phone, and he said he understood our decision not to go to dinner and that he doesn’t want to be responsible for making his prego sister sick.
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I’ve noticed and a friend noticed that seemingly overnight (or at least in the span of a week since my friend saw me last) that I’ve started to pop out. I now look noticeably pregnant. I’m only 18 weeks 5 days, not even half way there and I definitely look pregnant. Is this early? Most amazing to me, though, is that my belly is getting hard and taught from about my waist (or where my waist used to be) all the way down my belly. It’s such a strange sensation that I find myself rubbing my belly all the time now to feel it. It makes me finally feel a bit more pregnant. (I’m still not really feeling pregnant if all is said and done.)
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