Oven Progress, Week 3

Let's talk about my diet, aka the most positive thing happening in my life right now. This is the end of the third week of Project Oven Repair, and I think I've lost about six or seven pounds so far. I say I think because I forgot to gauge my "Before" weight when I started. But I seem to be averaging about two pounds a week, which makes sense. Doing the Zone diet alone, you can generally expect to lose about a pound a week, and I've been combining it with regular exercise, so two a week sounds about right.

I've increased my workouts from three or four days a week to five or six days. Three of those days, I combine walking and jogging, and I've increased my jogging intervals to 140 paces (I started out at 100). I plan to keep increasing that by 20 paces every week until I'm jogging the entire distance. The other days, I either just walk the whole way, or I do Pilates or some combination of weights and calisthenics.

Well, that is I plan to do Pilates. But right now my house is so cluttered that the only place I can spread out my mat and do them properly is in my back yard, and I don't fancy having my neighbors watch me doing them. So I keep chickening out. I need to get over it, though, because they're about the most effective thing I've ever done for strengthening and toning.

According to my scale, I've got 15 to 20 more to go before I reach the high end of the healthy BMI range for my height. Of course, my scale usually registers about ten pounds lighter than doctor's office scales, which means it's probably more like 25 to 30. So if I keep on at this rate, I'm probably looking at about four more months before I really start to see a reversal in my insulin resistance and PCOS symptoms.

But in the mean time, I'm feeling better and my clothes are already starting to get baggy. Last year, before I realized that my size was causing so many health and plumbing problems and I decided I was perfectly happy being a size 14, I went through my closet and pulled out all of my "skinny" size 12 and 10 clothes to give to charity. Thankfully, I never got around to dropping them off, so they're still bagged up and sitting in my garage. I'll probably need to dig them out in another month or so.

I've also managed to cut my coffee intake back to two cups before switching over to white or green tea for the rest of the day. I think starting Monday I'll go ahead and try reducing the regular to decaf ratio from half to one quarter, and see how that goes. I'm also weening myself off of ginseng, and I've already cut out all sweets and alcohol, except on special occasions.

My secret weapons are taking my fish oil with my supper, and pistachios. I'd read in one of our many Zone books -- pretty sure it was Toxic Fat -- that taking fish oil with your evening meal will reduce late night carb and sugar (and chocolate) cravings, and I'm hear to tell you that doing this pretty much eliminated those pesky cravings for me. When I do get a craving, it's usually for something salty, and that's where the pistachios come in. They're satisfying and they also take work, so a small handful of them also takes care of the whole needing to occupy my mouth and hands while I watch TV thing. Plus they make a pretty healthy snack in small doses, so I have nothing to feel guilty about.

All in all, this is all helping me feel like I'm doing something for any future oven occupants, to prevent said oven from being a death trap instead of a place to grow life. And I keep telling myself that if I'm wrong about the PCOS and it turns out that all of this does nothing to prevent another miscarriage, at least I'll be healthier and I'll feel better, and that will better equip me to deal with whatever our future holds.

Emma Grace

This ultrasound was taken one year ago yesterday, and it's all we have of our second child (but at least it's something. All we have of the first one are memories). I remember like yesterday how the technician (who was awesome, by the way) told me that she wasn't technically allowed to tell me the results of the ultrasound herself, but that I'd know by the look on her face if she found a heartbeat; the anxious and tentative hope I felt when my baby appeared up there on the screen; and the gutted feeling when she looked over at me and gave me a slight, grim-faced shake of her head. And then she quietly left the room to give my mom and I time to hold each other and cry our hearts out, and came back a while later with this print-out.

It shows a fetus about 7.5 weeks along. Much too early to be able to recognize facial features, and we know that that hint of an eye and nose and cheekbone are tricks of the light and shadow, but that doesn't stop Matt from insisting that she looked like me.

I never told anyone that her name was Emma. Emma Grace. I didn't tell because we had no idea whether "she" was actually a she or a he, and because it was far too early to discuss names, and if she had gone on to be born there would most certainly have been disagreements and compromises made on the naming front.

But in my heart, this was my daughter Emma. Named for my grandma, Erma, which is a variant of Emma and much too old-fashioned and grandmotherish for a baby girl. Middle name Grace, because I knew it was only by the grace of God that she'd actually be born.

If I ever do go on to have a healthy daughter, she'll probably keep Grace as a middle name, if not a first name. But this name, as a whole, belongs to this baby, whose heart apparently gave out at only 7 and a half weeks, uniting little Emma with her namesake in Heaven, unbeknownst to Matt and I, who believed all was well.

I was 9 weeks along when the miscarriage symptoms started, and I had the ultrasound. They sent me for a D&C the very next morning, which was one year ago today. April fools.

My mom and sister went in together for a frame for the ultrasound photo. Mom took me to Hallmark to pick something out to remember Emma by. It was hard, and I broke down quietly in the back of the store, but ultimately I was pleased with my selection. The poem beneath the picture is a Chekov quote that reads:

We shall find Peace.
We shall hear Angels.
We shall see the sky sparkle
like diamonds.

Your mama misses you, Emma.

Baby, Baby

My birth control prescription runs out of refills after April, and I'm secretly contemplating not renewing it and seeing what happens. Except now it's not so secretly anymore, although I haven't talked to Matt about it yet. I want to make sure I really want to before I bring it up to him, because if he's ready to start trying again, I don't want to get his hopes up only to disappoint him by freaking out and changing my mind. Of course, if it turns out he's NOT ready, then this will all be moot. We have to both be on board with this for it to happen, and it's totally understandable if he needs more time to recover from losing his parents before dealing with another round of baby craziness. Heck, I'm not so sure that I don't need more time to recover.

But I keep thinking: I'm going to be 38. If we wait until conditions are perfect, we might be waiting forever, and we don't have forever. It will be a giant leap of faith, but maybe that's the whole point. Part of me is totally ready to move forward on this and wants to be pregnant again, damn the consequences.

The rest of me remembers how miserable my last pregnancy was--just the fatigue and uncontrolled ADD and not being able to drink coffee or take my energy supplements or my focus vitamins, not being able to work for more than a few hours a day because I just COULD NOT focus on anything for any useful amount of time--just that part was a big challenge, let alone the fear and anxiety, the fist of dread in my stomach every time I went to the bathroom and pulled down my pants, praying I wouldn't see that tell-tale red spotting that told me it was all over. Until I actually saw it, and part of my soul died.

Am I really ready to put myself through that again? Am I a masochist for even thinking any part of that might be a good idea?

Of course, even if I go off of BC at the end of May, it would most likely take several-to-many months to get pregnant (the last time I stopped taking BC it took us 8 months to conceive), so it's doubtful that I'd get pregnant right away, and we'd most likely still have time to adjust to the idea.

But the only way I'm going to do it is if I treat myself like I'm pregnant from day one. That means no ADD supplements, no ginseng, no caffeine, eating a strict PCOS-friendly diet and taking prenatal meds. I'd have to triple-up on fish oil to help mitigate the ADD, and purified fish oil is not inexpensive. I know that if I do this regardless of whether I stop the BC I'll be healthier in the long run, but it will be torture, and I'm not sure I have the will to endure it yet.

So that's where my head's at on the baby front. I'm praying about it, and sometimes I have peace about it, but sometimes the thought of getting pregnant again almost gives me a panic attack. I won't do it unless I have total peace about it. And, of course, if Matt's 100% on board.

***

UPDATE: Well, I had the talk with Matt. I just couldn't stand not talking to him about it anymore, and we were outside enjoying the weather and having a good moment, and it seemed like good timing, so I spilled everything I was thinking. And he's on board emotionally, although he understands if I decide I'm not; but in typical man fashion, he's more concerned that we're not ready financially. Whereas I'm more worried about the emotional impact if things go badly, and have faith that we can make the finances work if things go well.

Of course he has a point. He's been wanting to start doing part-time freelance photography, but first we need to get a better camera, and he needs to take some classes. He'd like to get that off of the ground before I become pregnant again, so I'll be able to cut back on my hours.

So right now we've agreed to both keep praying about it, and to keep talking about it, and to wait and see where our finances stand when my prescription runs out before deciding whether or not to renew it. And there you have it.

750 Words

I read somewhere the other day that a 750-word (or three page) brain dump is just about right for emptying your head so you can get over feeling overwhelmed and focus on what needs to be done. I'm pretty sure I have more than 750 words' worth of overwhelming crap stuffed in my brain right now, but I'm not actually going to count. "750 Words" is a nicer-sounding title than "Brain Dump," at any rate.

I'm having trouble with the whole baby thing right now. The 1st anniversary of my second MC is coming up at the end of the month (I guess the anniversary of the day her heart actually stopped beating is any day now) (and that's right, I said "her," because after almost a year of not really feeling sure or being afraid to commit to a feeling in case I'm wrong, I suddenly, finally have a strong gut feeling that baby #1 was a boy, and #2 was a girl, and it doesn't really matter if I'm wrong, does it?). I don't know if it's because of that, or because I'm still shaky from the loss of Mom and Rob and Bobo, or if it's because I'll be 38 in 3 weeks and I'm a little panicky that time is slipping away and we're going to lose our window of opportunity. It's probably all of the above. But after months of having finally reached a place where I could be around babies and enjoy them, and read about other women's pregnancies and feel genuinely happy for them, suddenly I'm back at a place where I just CANNOT deal with hearing about other women being pregnant, or being new moms, and being around all my little grandnieces and nephews is really painful again.

I miss being pregnant. I really want to be pregnant again, but I'm terrified of trying again without getting tested for PCOS first. And I'm frustrated over our insurance situation, and the fact that even if we could afford insurance, it would be another year before the maternity coverage kicked in, plus it's doubtful if it would cover PCOS treatment anyway since I'm pretty sure that goes under the Infertility Treatment category, and did I mention that I'm about to turn 38?

One thing I do not want to hear ever again from anybody is that hey, at least I know I can get pregnant, isn't that great? Because no, it's not great to know that you can get pregnant but that for some reason your body can't keep a baby alive, and besides, THIRTY EIGHT, so who knows what my aging ovaries are going to decide to do once we're finally ready to try again?

So there's that.

I also feel like my work is split in too many directions and nothing is really getting off the ground and I really need to pick one project and stick with it until it's done; but I also need to get paid, which means other people's projects take precedence. But I just want to block off about 5 days to get the blog class up and running, but then I'll need time to market it, and I have these other blogs that I've committed to, and trying to build my mailing lists and keep them happy, and I'm really not in love with the whole Internet Marketing thing right now, and every day I wish I could be writing instead. Writing fiction, that is.

Because suddenly I keep thinking about Dominion of the Damned and how it needs to end and how I can improve what I've already written, but how the hell am I supposed to find any time to write right now? And I really wish I could because it would do wonders for my sanity.

I didn't sleep at all last night, mainly because the plot of this book I don't have time for kept playing itself over and over in my mind. And also a whole plan for publishing and marketing it all indy-style.

I have too much on my plate, and everybody in my life really needs to stop dying right now, and I'm seethingly jealous of every mom in the history of ever, and I just want to write, and I also just want to go watch TV, and I want to go lie down, and I want to do all three of those things on a beach in the Yucatan while being served ice cold cervezas and margaritas and having my feet rubbed. Oh yes, I can dream.

And now you all know just how insane I am right now, but yes, it does feel better to get all of this down and out of my head. I think if I can get a good night's sleep tonight, then tomorrow I might actually be useful and somewhat less crazy. Here's hoping.

Those 2011 Goals Are Starting To Come Along

Lately I've had my head down, hard at work on Goal #1 - making my business more profitable. I wish I could say it's already done, but all of the marketing stuff I've done so far is just the tip of the ice burg, and so far I don't have any new clients or increased web site traffic to show for it. That's a little discouraging. But it's still early, and there's still a lot to do, and I know it's going to take time. I need to stick with it. I know that if I do, by the grace of God, things will take off eventually.

Last week, I got started on Goal #5 - Run a 5K. That should really be renamed to Get My Body Ready To Make a Baby, because that's the true goal. I've been reading up on PCOS, and apparently that condition can be controlled, possibly even eliminated, with a low-glycemic diet and plenty of exercise.

Of course, I haven't been officially diagnosed with PCOS, thanks to my insurance running out before the OB/GYN at the clinic could test me. But I have several of the symptoms, and I just have a gut feeling that it's what caused my miscarriages.

Reading about women who've dieted their way to controlling it and having successful pregnancies has given me a lot of hope, and it's motivating me to get back on/stay on track. I've found that when I'm faced with temptation, I just need to ask myself, do I want a baby, or do I want fill-in-the-blank-temptation? Be lazy and don't exercize, or be able to have a baby? Cake, or Baby? I guess maybe that's not quite as clear-cut a choice for some as cake or death, but for me, it's working.

So I guess that also ties into Goal #2, although I still need to get health insurance. But that comes back around to Goal #1, upon which most of my other goals also rely. And so: I'm keeping my head down, working on making that one happen. So it goes.

Unbirthday

So. Today would have been Baby #2's due date. It's weighing on me, but not as much as I expected. I think having NaNoWriMo as a distraction is helping, and between that and work I just don't have time to sit around and dwell on what might have been, which is a good thing, because boy, do I know how to dwell on things. I can't completely avoid thinking about it, though, and it's hard not to imagine how different our lives would be right now if I hadn't miscarried. Either time.

For those who are wondering, we are planning to try again, eventually. I still need to get health insurance, and the only private health insurer with a maternity plan that I've been able to find is Blue Cross, and they make you carry the maternity benefit for a full year before you're allowed to actually use it. Which is frustrating, but it's probably ultimately a good thing. It will keep us from rushing into anything, and it gives us plenty of time for me to get the testing done to try finding out why the miscarriages happened, and if there's any way to prevent it from happening again. It also gives us both plenty of time to get both ourselves and our finances in good shape.

So for now, we're hopeful that a baby is still in the cards for us a little way down the road. I'm just going to hold onto that hope while I take the future one step at a time.

Pregnancy Scare

I took a pregnancy test today. Thankfully, it was negative. My relief is as huge as the hours between when I first suspected I might be pregnant and I was able to take the test were agonizing.

For the past week or so, I've been feeling pretty tired, moreso than usual. I was shrugging it off, chalking it up to the heat, to taking on too many projects at once and pushing myself too hard, to not getting quality sleep... basically, any reason I could think of other than being pregnant. But then last night when I began to notice [Girly TMI Warning]breast soreness[/Girly TMI], I put two and two together and panicked, despite the fact that I've been faithfully taking birth control since three days after my last miscarriage. I mean, that stuff's only 99% effective, right? And it would just figure that with our luck, we'd fall in that 1% percentile of FAIL.

After my first miscarriage, I couldn't wait to get pregnant again. I'd been regaled with several stories about women who'd miscarried the first time only to turn right around and get pregnant again and have healthy pregnancies ending with healthy babies. Surely, I thought, I would be like those women. My miscarriage was but a fluke, and if we soldiered on, we'd still end the year by celebrating Baby's First Christmas. Then, two months later, I did get pregnant, and that pregnancy only outlasted the first one by a week.

It's been about two and a half months since then, and this time, I'm not ready. It's too soon to even contemplate trying again, because right now, having to go through all of that again would break me. All night long I kept reminding myself that God doesn't give us challenges that we're not strong enough to endure, and having my doubts as to whether that's really true, because I'm not strong enough yet. I've only just started in the last few weeks to feel like my old self again.

Besides which, I'm also taking various herbal and nutritional supplements and allergy meds, none of which would be good for a developing embryo. When we do finally decide to try again, I have a plan to stop taking all of these and start taking pre-natal vitamins at least six weeks before I stop taking birth control, to make sure my system is completely cleansed of anything that could potentially harm the baby. In the mean time, I'm working on getting my BMI back into the healthy range. I still plan to get good insurance so I can have our regular doctor check me out and follow up on the tests that the clinic recommended, and also so we can afford a really good OB and get the personalized attention that was lacking at the women's health clinic. Basically, I plan to do everything within my power to increase the next baby's chances of survival.

I don't know what I would have done if that test had been positive. I mean, my only real option would be to pray and hope for the best. But I would be afraid to hope, because hoping only makes it hurt worse when it all goes wrong. If it happened now, it would feel like an exercise in limbo, where I was stuck going through the motions of taking good care of my pregnant body while waiting for the inevitable. Needless to say, I'm nothing but grateful that I don't have to go through that right now.

A Spark of Hope, Extinguished

This won't be an easy post to read, but I'm feeling a powerful need to write it right now. I had another miscarriage. I'm sure most, if not all, of you who read my last post guessed that my "secret" was that I was pregnant again. As much as I was dying to announce it, Matt and I had decided this time to wait until we were safely into the second trimester to tell anyone other than close family. Well, we didn't make it that far.

My last miscarriage happened at 8 weeks. This past Saturday, when I reached the 9 week mark without any apparent problems, I was so overjoyed that I had to reign myself in from spilling the beans in my Livejournal. It was a benchmark I had been anxious to reach, and with only 4 more weeks to go until the second trimester it felt like I was practically there, and everything was going to be okay with this baby. The next day, the spotting started.

It was Sunday night when I first saw blood. I freaked out, panicked crying close to hyperventilating, and Matt had to calm me down. After that we just tried to stay calm and hopeful until we knew for certain there was a reason not to be. Monday morning I called my doctor's clinic, and they managed to work me into their schedule for Wednesday morning. I went all day Monday and all day Tuesday without any more bleeding, and my hopes were ratcheting back up, until about 1 AM Wednesday morning when it started again.

Later that morning, my mom picked me up and took me to my appointment. We'd ordered a new bed last weekend and it was scheduled to be delivered that day, so Matt had to stay behind in case it arrived that morning. As we sat in the waiting room, I still managed to stay hopeful. My mom told me about all of the women in her church and circle of friends who were praying for us, all of whom felt certain that I was going to have this baby. Also, the spotting had been bright red, which I'd read usually has something to do with the placenta not being attached correctly, but that the baby could still be fine.  Finally, the doctor saw me, and the physical exam didn't show any cause for concern, but she ordered an ultrasound to be sure.

We had to wait another hour or so before they could get me into the ultrasound, and by then I was starting to feel like everything was going to be okay. When we finally got back there, the US tech was great. She explained how she wasn't allowed to tell me if anything was wrong, but that she could tell me if everything was fine... which meant that her silence would indicate that there was no heartbeat. My mom held my hand as she performed the US, and after several agonizing minutes waiting for her to take all of my lady plumbing measurements, we finally saw my baby up there on the screen. I held my breath as she measured it, and then looked over at her. The grim look on her face told me everything I needed to know, but then she looked me in the eye and shook her head to confirm it.

I felt like I cried my soul out while my mother held me and cried with me there on the ultrasound table. The tech slipped out to give us a few minutes alone, but before she left I managed to ask if she could print a picture for me. I'm glad I did. It's comforting to have tangible proof that this baby existed. I didn't get that with the last one.

Once I was able to pull myself together, we were taken back to an exam room to wait for the doctor. When she arrived, she confirmed that there was no heartbeat, and that the baby died at 7 weeks and 3 days - one day before my last blog post. She suggested that we undergo genetic testing before trying again, which I don't know how or if we'll ever be able to afford. She gave me a choice between scheduling a D&C or waiting to see if I passed it on my own, and I chose the D&C. I passed it naturally last time, and that ended up requiring two trips to the ER and a lot of physical pain and stress that I would just as soon avoid this time if possible, and at this point I was ready to get it over with.

I went home, where Matt and I curled up in bed and just held each other for a long time. When we finally talked, it became clear that we're both too frustrated and beaten down to make any decisions about whether to keep trying, so for the time being we've decided not to decide--to give ourselves at least six months off from even thinking about it, and to go back to living our lives the way we did before we started trying. We even discussed the possibility of using the money we had put back for the baby to take a badly needed vacation somewhere warm and relaxing. We spent the rest of the evening putting the new bed together, because we were both feeling numb and we needed a project to distract us, and because Matt wanted me to be able to sleep off my surgery on a comfortable mattress.

Thursday morning I had the D&C. It went smoothly, and afterwards they loaded me up with pain pills and antibiotics and sent me home to recover. I was sore and had lingering nausea all day from the general anesthesia, but I didn't mind. It kept me distracted from the real pain of the whole situation.

I've pretty much felt empty and numb since I left the doctor's office on Wednesday, but since waking up this morning I've been pretty weepy. I think I'm just beginning to really process everything, and I'm sure at some point soon the dam will burst and my breakdown will be spectacular. Matt is, of course, grieving, but he did a better job than I did of staying detached and not getting his hopes up prior to the second trimester.  I, in fact, did a lousy job of it.

Outside right now, it's raining and thundering ( and hailing - April in Oklahoma's getting off to a proper start), which matches my mood. I may take some more pain pills and go back to bed after I post this. I haven't gotten a good night's sleep since the spotting started. I'd hoped that the pain pills would take care of that, but even drugged last night I didn't fall asleep until after 1 AM, and I woke up crying just after six this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. I've been pretty weepy all morning. I'm not sure what the rest of today will bring. I need a day (at least) to just rest and grieve, but we need to run some errands and I need to make some phone calls and cancel some baby-related appointments. Right now I'm grateful for the distractions, but I know that soon I need to give myself time to process everything before it sneaks up on me and we get that spectacular breakdown that nobody really wants to see.

I wanted to apologize to everyone I've fallen out of touch with the last couple of months. The first trimester fatigue hit me pretty hard, and while I was pregnant I literally was only ever awake long enough to get my work done -- not even long enough for that, really. I'm wondering how much sheer stress might have been responsible for this miscarriage. We were relying solely on my income, and with the fatigue I wasn't able to put in all of the hours I needed to to keep us afloat, which was stressing me out pretty severely. A couple of weeks ago we learned that Matt's finally approved to receive SSDI, plus I got approved for WIC to help out with groceries, both of which allowed me to be able to cut back on my working hours and took care of the majority of my stress; but by then it was already too late for the baby.

Anyway, at least I don't have the fatigue to contend with anymore, so I should start having more time for being social once we're done licking our wounds. Meanwhile, I'm going to keep cutting back some on my freelance hours and throw myself back into editing my novel (something else I haven't had time to so much as think about since getting pregnant and becoming full-time Sleepy Jean) and other creative pursuits, because I know those have the power to heal. For the foreseeable future, we're both going to focus on improving our physical health, and also on squaring away our finances, so that hopefully when the time comes, money won't need to be a factor in deciding whether to have that genetic testing done.

By the grace of God, I know that we're going to get through this and be okay. I just wish "okay" didn't seem so distant right now.

This Sucky Thing That Happened

Firstly, I want to offer heartfelt thanks from both Husband and myself to everyone who offered prayers, warm wishes, sympathy and support. Every bit of it has meant so much, and has helped to make this awful week slightly easier to bear.

In case you missed it, I spent last Wednesday in the ER following a miscarriage. I've spent the last several days since then resting and recovering. Physically, I'm still sore, but that's getting better. Emotionally, I'm still prone to random bouts of weepiness. We're both dealing with feelings of anger, of feeling ripped off and singled out. The last part is totally irrational. Since this happened, I've discovered that I know more women who've had miscarriages than who haven't. It just happens, and it happens often, and there are so many things that can go wrong in the first trimester that it's really a miracle that any baby ever makes it past that point. Statistically, it's no surprise that it happened to me. But that doesn't make it suck any less, or feel any less personal.

I feel tired and worn out on both plains, as does Matt. We're both ready for this to be over with, to put it behind us and move on. Yesterday my mom came over and helped us put up our Christmas decorations. We didn't really feel like bothering, but thought it was important to go through the motions, to remind us that life goes on. I think it helped. I also wrote this, which also helped.

Today (Monday, that is -- it's 2:00 AM on Tuesday as I write this) was less helpful. I had my follow-up appointment at the clinic, where the midwife thought she saw something during her exam that she wasn't equipped to deal with, so she sent us back to the ER. After four hours sitting around the waiting room, we spent another four hours hanging out in an exam room, where I was violated by all manner of unpleasant instruments, only to be told the same thing they told us after the first ER visit/violation: that my body's taking care of it on its own and I don't need a D&C. So that was time and money well spent.

Now I'm exhausted, but too keyed up from being stuck in an ER bed all evening to sleep. I'm also still up partly out of guilt - we confined the cats before we left so they'd stay out of trouble, thinking we'd only be gone a couple of hours at most, and I don't have the heart to lock them up again for the night so soon after they regained their freedom.

I'll probably spend tomorrow catching up on sleep, then on housework, if I feel up to it. After a few days of enforced bed rest, followed by several more days of sleeping and being too sore and sad to bother, there's a lot of it. Matt's been a big help, but there's only so much he's able to do on one leg. By Wednesday I'll get back to work, whether I feel like it or not--because life must go on, whether I feel like it or not.

Stuff and Things

I had every intention of dragging the Christmas decorations in from the garage tonight, but instead I ended up spending the last several hours setting up my new baby/nursery blog, Project Little Bit. I'll try to find time to write several posts over the weekend, and start posting officially on Monday, but it's not totally bare if you'd like to take a sneak peek before then.

Did you have a lovely Thanksgiving, dear readers (or a lovely Thursday, dear non-American readers)? I did. We spent it at my in-laws, where we stuffed our faces and hung out and watched movies and had a relaxing, food- and fun-filled time, and I was promised much future spoilage of the grandbaby-to-be.

Speaking of which, here's a state-of-the-pregnancy update for those of you who are concerned with these things (and those of you who aren't can just skip the next couple of paragraphs): I'm in approximately my seventh week, which, according to the charts they gave me at the clinic, means that Little Bit is starting to grow hands and feet, still has a tail, and is about the size of a blueberry.

Since finding out about our little blueberry, I've been eating better and forcing myself to work out regularly (it helps to have motivation), which has helped a little with the fatigue. Now, as long as I get in my afternoon nap, I do okay the rest of the day. I haven't had any morning sickness so far, thank you Lord, and I generally feel pretty good, albeit tired. The only really troubling thing is [TMI ALERT!] constant and at times almost unbearable booby pain. I hope so hard that it doesn't last through the whole pregnancy. Tylenol and a heat pack help a little, but, man. Owwwww![/TMI]

And now it's the weekend, which will be filled with pre-mom-coming-over house cleaning, followed by mom coming over for dinner, followed the next day by, hopefully, putting up Christmas decorations, with a break in the middle to have lunch with my oldest BFF. And also hopefully the afore-mentioned blog article writing, and, of course, napping.

How was your Thanksgiving (or Thursday), dear reader? And what have you got planned for the weekend? Are you putting up holiday decorations yet, or at all? Do tell!

Life Changing News Ahead

Oh, people. I wish I had a spectacular word count update to share and that I could blame my absence on being a writing machine these last couple of weeks, but that is not the case. I have a much better excuse, in fact, and that excuse is this: a bun, my oven has one.

Yes, you read that right. Come next July, we'll be welcoming a baby of the furless variety into the Bauhaushold, and nobody is as stunned at this new development as we are. Stunned in a happy way, but still: stunned. We honestly thought this wasn't meant to happen, and we were making big plans to become world travelers once my business took off well enough to sustain that kind of lifestyle. It only took us about a day to decide that we're cool with giving up those plans (or at least delaying them for twenty years), because this new thing is better.

As for the last couple of weeks, I've spent it mostly feeling too fatigued to do anything useful, and then shocked and fatigued, and then excited and fatigued, and unable to think about much else. So you can guess how good that's been for my NaNoWriMo project. Fortunately, I built up enough of a word cushion in that first week that I still have more than a snowball's chance of winning, but I have big obstacles to overcome to get there.

For one thing, I can't drink (much) caffeine, and I can't take anything for my ADD (which is exacerbated by the extreme pregnancy fatigue), which makes concentrating for more than twenty minutes at a time on anything a challenge. I also need a lot of naps these days. And work was slow during the first half of the month, but now it's starting to pick back up. and lastly, I'm not even sure if I want to put that kind of pressure on myself right now, plus I'm thinking maybe I should be working on getting Hero Factor ready to start querying agents ASAP. Dominion will still be there after HF is out in the wild trying to earn mama some income. Then again, the thought of throwing in the towel galls me a little, so I'm still undecided. With only ten days left I guess I'd better decide pretty soon and get to writing if that's what I'm gonna do.

Anyway. That's what's going on with me. Rest assured that I have no plans to turn this into a mommy blog (although I do have budding plans for a separate blog chronicling my attempts to furnish and decorate a nursery on a very tiny budget), although some pregnancy & baby talk is certainly inevitable. I'll try to use warning tags when it happens.

Meanwhile, if you're of the praying persuasion, we could sure use some prayer for a safe and healthy pregnancy, a perfectly healthy baby as the end result, and for doors to open up for us to improve our financial situation before the little peanut gets here. And also that we'll make good parents, that I will somehow discover the energy to keep up with a toddler, and that I won't be the kind of mom who forgets and leaves her kid at the store.

In related news: Glee COMPLETELY DESTROYED me this week when Finn sang "I'll Stand By You" to "his" unborn baby. Yay hormones!