Getting Bigger

Today I am 5 months pregnant (minus the two weeks). I feel like I'm really on the downhill now, even though I've just started to feel - and look - pregnant. It's now getting more difficult to bend over, and I'm constantly thankful that I wasn't hit with the obesity gene - that this is only temporary. I feel more full after I eat, since there seems to be less room in that area. My appetite is as healthy as ever, but feel more discomfort now after eating. Rob and I went to dinner at some friends' house last night, and I had a small bowl of soup, a small plate of steamed beet greens, two biscuits and, though I was too full for a piece of the apple-cranberry pie (great suggestion, Rob) that we'd brought with us, a slice of that. A little ways into our game of Spite and Malice (a wonderfully entertaining card game), Rafi and I each had a slice more apiece, which totally set me over the edge, along with the three or four cups of nettle tea I was drinking (along with the loose leaves that hadn't be strained. I threw up in a coughing fit once we got home and were brushing our teeth. Please note, however, that brushing one's teeth is a most opportune time to vomit - just try not to do it in the sink. Yuck).

So yeah, I'm feeling kind of funny these days. I'm not loving the bleeding gums one bit. I was a good flosser before, but now I'm doing it twice a day in an effort to strengthen my gums, but it's all in vain. All in all, though, I'm enjoying this quite a bit.

The grapefruit is pink...and still bald.

Rob and I just got back from an ultrasound where the technician said, with great confidence, that we're having a girl. I'm glad to know for sure. As crazy as this sounds, though, as I laid there on the table, hearing that there was no sign of a cleft palette or any other defects, all I could really think was, "Oh, gosh...please don't let her have hair; I don't want to have to shave her head..." I'm sick.

Sorry, Gail...

I feel badly for slighting Gail, my sweet - and oh, so pretty - niece, when I praised her brother Jack. Nothing was meant by this. In fact, Gail's funny ways are making me excited about having a girl, most likely. We'll have a clearer picture tomorrow when I go in for an ultrasound. Rob was pulling for a girl, since that's all he knows. And, while we're not making this public knowledge (as I type this to post up on the interweb for all the world to read) - at least not around our small town ; my stepdaughter, Zoe, had requested to be kept out of the loop, for the surprise of it. At first she protested when we wouldn't tell her, but she hasn't made a peep all week, so I think she's getting over it. I told her we were all set on clothes for the time being (especially since our little lemon - which is now really a grapefruit - can't even wear clothes yet!), and would be for quite some time, and she's settled down in her excitement to stockpile on baby clothes.

So, at twenty weeks now, I'm just starting to show a little bit more, though my coworkers are always commenting on how unpregnant I appear (this coming from people in a place where a good 96% of the populous is overweight; I guess I still look pretty rail-thin in comparison). I am, however, feeling quite clumsy and off-kilter, and EXTREMELY fatigued. I'd be more than happy if I just went on bed rest right now and didn't get up till after I'd given birth.

I miss running. Yesterday Rob, Zoe's grandmother, Filomena, and I went to Zoe's cross-country race to cheer her on, and I ached a little bit from wanting to be running with them. Months ago, back in the mid-spring, I'd had big plans to run in my third Baltimore Marathon, which is happening this year on my birthday, which is next weekend. Needless to say, I scrapped that idea once I decided I'd rather have a baby this year. Still kind of a bummer that, even if I wanted to do it, I simply wouldn't have the energy. This business is hard work.