Stories of the first trimester!

Hi friends!  Well, if you haven't heard already, The Neeley Crew of Two is soon going to be a Crew of Three...which is very exciting.  Only one major problem-I've gotta come up with a new name for our blog!  "Crew of Three" just doesn't quite have the right ring to it.

Tomorrow I will be 15 weeks, and right now I'm feeling...better :).  I still throw up just about every single morning when I get out of bed, but I get through with my "morning puke", eat a good breakfast, keep my snacks on hand at all times, and I usually have a pretty good day after that!  This semester all of my classes start in the afternoon which has been a tremendous blessing. I've been plugging along quite nicely.

Now lets rewind about 9 weeks.  At 5 weeks 6 days (yes, I know the exact day!) I was SLAMMED with morning sickness.  Actually, it was more like "all-day-all-night-sickness" and "heave-till-you-burst-capillaries-under-your-eyes-sickness".  It was...horrible.  Ugh, it was so awful.  I lost 10 pounds.  I was in Arizona for weeks 6-9 when it was at it's worst.  It was such a blessing to be with my mom!!  I don't know what I would've done!  I also came down with bronchitis while I was in AZ so I was just a ball of hormonal, sickness mess.  Good times, yo.

I would definitely say that my biggest symptom has been nausea, but there were also a few things (actually two things) that NO ONE warned me about.  First of which is that you MAY experience extreme nausea accompanied by extreme hunger.  Conflicting feelings?  Not when you're pregnant!  Holy cow!  I don't know how it's possible, but I feel the sickest on an empty stomach and vice versa (hence the necessity of having snacks on hand!).  Usually when I feel like I'm about to die, I'm also freaking starving! This usually turns into a vicious cycle of eating and throwing up...at least it did during the first trimester.  Now that I'm "officially" a second tri girl, it's just in the mornings.

Now the second thing that no one warned me about kind of crosses the "tmi zone".  If you're sensitive to that, you may not want to continue reading, but it's been nice having you :).

Are we ready?  Are you sure?  Ok, I'll fess up.

The second thing that no one, and I mean NO ONE, warned me about was that you may get extremely constipated.  Oy, that one has been killing me!  YIKES.  Also, if you take zofran while you're pregnant to help with the nausea, it's biggest side effect is that it can make you constipated.  This all leads to you being a plugged up hot mess.  I don't know why other friends/pregnant people didn't warn me about it. I mean, ya, it's kinda gross.  I certainly haven't been at the pinnacle of attractiveness lately, but I definitely would've appreciated a heads up about that one.  So this is for my friends who haven't had a baby yet, it MAY (every woman is different) happen to you.

Other than all of that I really haven't been dealing with much.  My face is constantly breaking out, and I'll get the occasional headache, but I feel like thats nothing compared the nausea and, you know, the poop thing.  But like I said, it's definitely getting better, and I'm hopeful that with each coming week it'll only get better...that is until I'm the size of a planet (and student teaching!), but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Being pregnant and knowing that a little life is growing inside of me makes me gush and squeal with happiness.  Our plan was always to wait to have children, but now that it's "our turn" I find myself constantly smiling to myself all day.  Regardless of what I've been through, and will go through later, I have no doubt that it will all be worth it a million times over.  What a wonderful and sacred calling I have been blessed with.  I couldn't be more grateful.  Now I need to stop typing before I start crying haha.   Three weeks until we know if we're having a little boy or girl!!

-Amber