Symptoms

When you first see your OB for your first pregnancy, you generally start to hear one phrase over all others: "Every pregnancy is different."  Why do doctors, friends, and family start to tell you this?  Because it is 100% true.  Already, I know for a fact that not everything about your subsequent pregnancies will be exactly the same.  For instance, I had very little nausea with Bella.  This time, at least one meal a day, I get sick the moment I put food in my mouth.  Thank heavens my doc believes in medicating a pregnant woman with the appropriate drugs so that she can survive the rough parts of pregnancy.  The medicine they give me helps a ton.

There's also the fact that growth alone will cause your pregnancy to be different.  I've said it before, but I'll say it again, I already look like I did at 15-17 weeks last time.  I am now 10 weeks.  I've started to show quickly, so I've had the growing pains more quickly as well.  You know those cramps and twinges that come with your uterus rapidly doubling in size over and over again.  To get an idea, your uterus doubles in size by somewhere around the 10th week in most first pregnancies.  You can't even tell a woman is pregnant by then, and that thing has already doubled!  In a lot of cases, ladies don't start having growing pains until after that doubling point.  Well, I think its safe to say that I'm past that.

Then there's the moodiness.  Things that normally wouldn't bug me, bug me.  For instance, during our trip to Tulsa, we talked about what a crunchy mom is.  The more I thought about it, the term just really bugs me.  When you think about it, the style of parenting isn't crunchy, that makes the parent sound abrasive.  It's more of a natural style.  Those moms and dads do things in a more natural way, just as parents would have had to do centuries and even millennia ago.  Although, some of these moms and dads can be abrasive about their beliefs, so can parents with other parenting styles.  Its bugged me enough that I'm sticking with natural mommy, not crunchy mommy (besides, they aren't peanut butter either....). 

Another aspect of moodiness is the weeping.  Oh yeah, I cry like a little girl, often.  ESPECIALLY if you put a medical show on that either deals with children, infants, or birth.  It also doesn't matter the age of the child.  So long as they are talking about a mother or father and their child, I get weepy.  This honestly just never left.  After having Bella, I became more emotional about things like weddings and birth and hardships.  I couldn't go a day with out watching a baby show and getting teary eyed.  I started to get a bit better about it, but by May, that was over.  I was back to weepiness!

There are loads of symptoms I have yet to deal with, like back pain that has nothing to do with me picking something or someone (Bella) up.  Or the intense heartburn that comes with having no room for your food to work itself out in.  Then there's the best symptom of all that doesn't usually cause a mommy pain but joy instead: fetal movement!  I know not every mom is with me on this one because often times, baby kicks mommy in the ribs or the stomach or the bladder, but for me, it is my absolute favorite thing about pregnancy!  With the annoying, pain in the butt stuff comes the wonderful, stop-in-your-tracks-and-smile stuff.  Its only a matter of time until I get to re experience all of these things (most likely), but I think I'm ready for it.  BRING IT ON BODY!