The Unadventures of Tracie

Thanks everyone for your kind comments. You'll be happy to know that I'm feeling MUCH better today. The combination of a good night's sleep, seeing my mom, getting the house cleaned (thanks Mom), seeing my doula, and receiving calls and comments of encouragement has made all the difference. From everyone I've talked to, it's pretty normal to be wavering between two extremes at this point. (My extremes being "totally ready" and "freaking out.") So D-day is today. And I'm not surprised that Morgan's not here yet. I really didn't think he was coming early. I'm thinking he may make his appearance sometime later this week. If not, I'm willing to bet he won't be any later than the end of next week. We'll see if "mother's intuition" pays off this time. I'm enjoying my leave from work. I'm still home most of the time, but it's nice to not feel like there's something I'm "supposed...

With one day to go till my estimated due date, I'm currently a nervous wreck. The last several days my mood and feelings have been all over the place. One minute I feel confident and prepared. The next I feel totally intimidated and scared out of my mind. Yesterday was good. I felt ready to go. Last night I couldn't sleep and now I'm tired and feeling totally overwhelmed. I hate this not knowing when. The whole "this could happen any second" IS not good for my relaxation. I'm so worried that I'm going to go into labor tired and unprepared. And with my whole goal to have a natural birth, I'm worried that if I'm not in optimum condition, my goal will go down the toilet. And that will depress me. I've spent MONTHS preparing for this upcoming day. And it's all one big question mark. Can I really do this? Really? Part of me is SO ready to have this all over but the other part is petrified about the unknown, even with my months of preparation...

So I'm pregnant. And my feet are huge and swollen. And shoes are uncomfortable. So I decided to buy my first pair of Crocs (or at least imitation brand of them). I've shunned these shoes for several years now. Everyone had told me they were comfortable, but let's face it, they're not the cutest footwear. They used to be everywhere and on everyone. So now that I had finally decided to get a pair, they are NOWHERE to be found. Seriously. I have now looked at Walmart, Target, and Payless. I can find some for men and tons for kids, but NONE for women. I somehow missed the craze. So now that I NEED these shoes, I can't find a single pair. I don't know if the search is worth since I only have a few weeks till the baby anyway; however, I have heard that your feet can swell postpartum as well. So can anyone tell me where I can find a pair of these shoes?

30 weeks So when I did my pregnancy post I forgot to mention a few things. One is I have now joined the Belly Stretch Mark Club. About a week ago I had just got out of the shower and looked in the mirror, and lo and behold, there it was. That purple little devil. I know it shouldn’t really matter. I’m already covered in stretch marks all over the rest of my body due to my constant fluctuating sizes growing up. But my belly was the ONE place I didn’t have any. But that has now changed. I have since gotten another one since then and I will probably get much more. I guess I should be more vigilant about applying my cocoa butter cream. Other “fun” pregnancy changes: My stomach is now hairy and dry. I’ve never been a very hairy person, but I have dark, ugly hairs residing on my belly now, as well as itchy, dry skin that likes to flake off every once in a while. My breasts are getting bigger and saggier by the minute. (Austin doesn’t mind the size change, but I do.) I really can’t imagine th...

Though I've talked about being pregnant a lot, I haven't really blogged that much about it. With only 60 days till my due date, I wanted to do a post about my experiences being pregnant thus far. If you don't want to read about it, feel free to skip this post. 6 weeks First Trimester I've already written about how I found out I was pregnant and how we initially told everyone. In the beginning I was excited and nervous and couldn't really believe I was actually pregnant. I felt pretty good in the first few weeks, besides the sore breasts. Around 8 weeks or so, morning sickness hit. It felt worse than any nausea I had heretofore experienced. I learned quickly to not get up too fast and eat frequently. I ate crackers and sucked ginger mints. (By the way, I hate crackers now.) I did not throw up very much. Mostly because I will do ANYTHING to avoid throwing up. I'm not one of those people who will throw up and get it over with. I'll try to make it go away. I fou...

Austin and I recently went in for our twenty-week ultrasound. I was really nervous for several reasons. Like other obsessive, neurotic (or otherwise normal) people, I constantly worry about the health of my baby. Am I getting enough nutrients? Is the baby growing? Does our baby have some weird birth defect? Has our baby stopped growing? Am I going to lose the baby? These fears have been compounded upon due to the fact that I have not yet felt the baby move. :( (Still stressing about this one as I am coming upon 22 weeks here.) I was also nervous because we were finally going to find out the sex. Though I (and many others) have been convinced it's a boy from the beginning, I was a bit anxious to discover for sure. It was SO relieving to see our little baby. There were two arms, two legs, toes, fingers, a belly, head, back, spine, brain, heart, and other organs. I can't begin to relate the relief that it looked like a baby (albeit a very small one) instead of a mutant. Since ...

So now that word is out I wanted to share my experiences thus far. If it's TMI for you, just skim. Austin and I had decided last year that August 2008 was when we'd start trying to get pregnant. I went off the pill end of June and we crossed our fingers. I took a test end of August. Negative. End of September I was getting really anxious as I had a few possible signs that I was pregnant but I've had that in the past and I'm pretty neurotic. I was supposed to wait until October 5th to take the test, but I was getting curious. I had to know. We had an early test left over from the month before so I decided to take it, not expecting anything really as it was really early but I just couldn't wait any longer. So on October 2nd (which was a Thursday) I took the test and lo and behold two pink lines. But one was really faint. So then I was uncertain. Was I or wasn't I? I im'ed Austin over gchat and let him know that I might be pregnant and told him what happened. ...