Questions

People who know I'm pregnant continue to ask me one of two questions: How are you feeling? and Are you excited?

I'm feeling pretty not-pregnant, thank-you-very-much. I was lucky enough to avoid morning sickness and only had minor fatigue in the first trimester. True, my stomach is getting bigger. But frankly, a month or two of no exercise and eating too much and my stomach gets big anyway. (Only this time I'm not trying to hide my stomach. It's supposed to get big.) My hair is thicker, my boobs are bigger, and I've been itching like crazy at night, but really, nada. I guess I'll believe it when I feel it.

Am I excited? See above. It still doesn't seem very real to me. And when I really stop and think about it, I have mixed emotions. I think, "What have I done? My body will never be the same, our lives will never be the same, there's no turning back, ahhhhhhhhhhhh..." But I also know that the love I've felt for other kids in my life will be multiplied a thousand-fold for my own.

I think the only person who has asked me a truly insightful question about my pregnancy is my eighteen-year-old niece, who said, "Are you scared?" Yep. But I used to change her diapers, and she turned out pretty great.

Pregnancy Dreams

Last night I had my second pregnancy dream. (In my first, which occurred a few weeks ago, I dreamed I was nursing baby mice. I would really prefer it if no one tried to analyze this one for me. Thank you.)

In it I was cleaning out my belly button (c'mon, like you've never done this) and it popped to the outie position. Now, I have read that this can happen later in pregnancy, so it's not that strange that I dreamed about it. However, I then pushed it back in, thinking, "I'm not ready for this to happen yet."

Weird.

First Trimester Officially Over

So I guess what they say is true...a pregnant woman's hair really does get thicker. This may not seem like such a big deal to those of you with normal, non-limp, non-stringy, non-flat-no-matter-how-much-you-curl-it-or-how-much-product-you use hair, but I am amazed. I admit that every time I came across this tidbit in my pregnancy books I thought, yeah, sure. But now my hair is actually approaching the thickness of everyone else's...

Of course, the same books also say that once you give birth your hair tends to fall out in CLUMPS as the strands you would have normally lost over the past nine months all come out at once. But I'm trying to focus on the positive here, people.

Eleven Weeks Today

I'm finally starting to feel pregnant. The other day I went out searching for some stretchy pants since the last time I tried to wear my regular jeans I felt nauseated all day. Nothing at Salvation Army came even close to something I would wear if I weren't pregnant (high-waisted polyester, anyone?), so I finally caved and went to a second-hand store devoted to maternity and baby items.

The owner -- he was Middle Eastern, I think -- was a little overbearing. I was scanning through the jeans in the "small" section because, even though I'm more of a medium, sometimes smalls run large or things get misplaced. He walked up to me and said, "You are a small?" I said, "Well, probably a medium," and he said, "I think so too! The mediums begin here!" and pushed all the smalls I was looking at over on the rack. I have dubbed him the Maternity Nazi.

He also informed me that I was due in August (thanks dude, I had that one figured out) and that the baby was a boy. I'm not sure the baby even knows what gender it is yet, but I'll keep that in mind.

I did find a pair of jeans I would wear anyway (dark-rinse denim with slightly flared legs) that had a three-inch band of elastic where the regular waistband would be. I plan on wearing them this Friday night when my husband's band plays. I haven't been out on "the scene" in months. No use subjecting baby to cigarette smoke (second hand, mind you) and rock 'n' roll until all those vital organs are formed. Then, all bets are off. Just kidding.