17 Weeks

Today I am 17 weeks.  Amazing.  And kind of scary.  It's scary to think about how little time we actually have left to prepare for these munchkins.  I am just going to get bigger and bigger as time goes by, which will also make me able to do less and less, I'm sure.  We have a LOT to do to get our house ready. 

I'm embarrassed to tell you how unprepared our house is for these babies.  You know the show Hoarders?  Yeah, well, I'm not quite that bad, but it sure feels like it.  Actually, one room is that bad.  It's the room I throw everything in when I need to make the rest of the house look presentable.  Sigh.  So. Much. To. Do.  Our garage?  Yeah, well, we've lived in our house for 9 years now and we have never fully unpacked.  It could probably be on Hoarders too.  Sad.  Really sad.  So, that is what we will be working on for the next few weekends.  The garage and the hoarding room need to be cleaned out so that we have a place to put all the stuff from the room that will be the nursery.  We are hoping to have a garage sale at the end of September to get rid of a ton of stuff and hopefully make a little bit of money while we are at it.  Mostly though, we just hope to get rid of everything.  Okay, I can't lie.  We need the money too.

Yesterday I turned in my resignation letter to the high school, making it official that I will no longer be the Head Varsity Softball Coach.  It's a huge change for me.  I've been a part of the softball program at the school for the past 19 years.  I've spent 9 months a year coaching softball.  It's kind of nice to not have to worry about it anymore, but I am going to miss my girls so much.  It's also hard to hand the reigns over to someone else.  I'm torn between wanting them to bring in a really good coach that I would trust to take over the program, and wanting them to bring in a really crappy coach that will emphasize the impact I made on the program and what they are missing with me gone.  Truthfully, I just want someone that is going to come in and take care of my girls and help each one reach their full potential.

As for pregnancy stuff... in just over 4 months, I have only had 4 whole days of getting sick and literally puking.  After the last two times, I decided it's a pretty darn good thing it didn't happen every day for me because I would literally have black eyes.  One time, I had a lot of broken blood vessels under my eyes, which gave me some major baggage.  The last time, my eye lids reacted with the broken blood vessels.  I can't imagine what it would look like if that happened even two days in a row.  Ugh.  I feel very lucky that I haven't had very many days like that.  I've had other days of being nauseous, but I have nothing to complain about and have actually felt pretty good the last week or so.

Eating is rather difficult for me though.  Nothing sounds good.  Not a lot of things really taste very good either.  I'm trying to do a good job eating balanced meals, but I know I'm not coming anywhere close.  It really comes down to what I can stand eating.  Two things that are always okay are Mexican food and ice cream.  I usually don't keep ice cream in the house because it's always been a weakness of mine, but our freezer is staying well stocked of it right now.  I do keep myself to just one bowl of it a day, but I could very well eat it all day if I let myself.  I wouldn't consider this a craving though, because that is normal for me, preggo or not.

Sleeping is also rather difficult.  I am up 3 or 4 times a night to pee and I have an extremely hard time going back to sleep.  I just can't seem to shut my mind off.  It is not uncommon for me to end up awake for a few hours between about 2:00-5:00 in the morning.  This is not a problem on the weekends when I can go back to bed and sleep for a few more hours, but during the week I have to get up by 5:30am at the latest to get to work.  I read a lot of your blogs during the middle of the night.  That's the only good part about being awake when I should be sleeping.  I've been able to catch up on all your blogs!  No longer am I three weeks behind!  Woo-Hoo!  In fact, I just signed up for ICLW for the first time in months and I can't wait for that week to get here.  I haven't participated in quite awhile.

Hubby and I have been going for walks 3-4 nights/week.  At 13 weeks, I went for a walk by myself one day and found myself to be extremely winded after just a mile!  And it was just a stroll, not a serious walk by any means.  It concerned me, until a NP explained that my lungs are just compressed by the babies.  I was worried that I was just THAT out of shape and wondering how I was going to do this whole giving birth thing!  The walks have gotten better since that day, but sometimes by the end it is pretty slow going.  I feel extremely winded when I climb stairs and have trouble holding a conversation for a few minutes afterwards.  It's a strange feeling.  It's important for me to either keep walking or swimming (which I haven't done yet) to help prevent preeclampsia.  Hubby's been a trooper about going with me, which is great because he needs it just as much as I do and it's nice to spend that time together.

Maternity clothes have been a challenge.  Pants have been anyway.  I have ALWAYS had a hard time finding pants that fit me.  I am not very tall.  Okay, I'm short, at 5'3, but I am not very petite.  I have big hips and thighs, so I have always had trouble getting pants to fit up over my hips and I'm finding there is not an exception to that with maternity clothes.  I have tried on soooo many pairs of pants.  So far, I have two pair of capri's and that is it.  Otherwise, I am living in my sweatpants and athletic shorts.  The sweatpants work perfectly for now, as that is what I have to wear for my work uniform anyway.  I'd like to think they will work throughout the pregnancy, but time will tell.  I also have a hard time justifying spending a lot of money on pants that I will only wear for a few months and then never again in my life.  It's not like I will ever be pregnant again.  We know that for fact, so it just seems like a waste of money to me.  Yet, I have to wear SOMETHING!!

I have an appointment with my OB this Wednesday.  I haven't seen her since I was at 9 weeks, so it's been awhile.  I'm excited to hopefully be able to hear the heartbeats again, but otherwise, I really don't know what this appointment will be for other than just checking in. After that, my 20 week Anatomy Scan will be just two weeks away!  So excited for that and to finally know for sure what these babies are going to be.  Any guesses?  Boy/Boy, Girl/Girl, or one of each?  We have an idea, but we are waiting until we have confirmation before we get too excited about it one way or another.

17 Weeks