Fifteen weeks

Week-o-the-Orange:


I'm afraid my true bump last week was a fluke, brought on by airplane flights and fast food. Doesn't this week look smaller? Nate thinks I'm just being psycho/getting used to it. But it just seems less substantial now.

I had one of my co-workers grope my stomach without provocation this week and another stated 'Awe, a little beer gut. That is SO attractive' in a way that made me wonder if she was being serious or not. A beer gut? Come on. Don't taunt me with talk of the a-a-a-a-alcohol.

Let's talk about my GI system for a second, shall we? Things just ain't right down there. All sorts of strange musical noises emerge from my gut and they sound like any of the following: screeching, popping, barking, clicking, and my personal favorite.....the Dumb and Dumber gurgle. Not only am I full of enough gas to implode a small house but I'm also constipated like a mo-fo. 'Tis awful to miss out on daily regularities and I almost wish my Dumb and Dumber gurgle would lead to a similar fate as the movie, enough said. Ah, the beauties of pregnancy....let me just finish my bowl of Raisin Bran while I type this.

Speaking of odd happenings in my innards....I'm not 100% sure but I think I *might* have felt the little orange move last night! I know, I know, at 15 weeks it's incredibly early for a first time mom to feel anything other than 'gas bubbles' but come on, when your stomach plays it's own musical instrument made from gas all day long, how in the heck are you supposed to tell a difference between a juicy fart and a baby kick? So I just wrote off the 'flutters' I've felt for about a week as as part of my ever-growing GI issues. Until last night....

So I was laying in bed nearly passed out asleep, when all of a sudden I felt a strong jab in my left lower tummy. I was laying on my left side and it was startling enough to perk me up and wonder 'Holy crap, was that the baby??' I almost woke Nate up but decided against it because it's not like it was constantly happening.....just that one little jab. Perhaps it was just a twitch as I was falling asleep, or a muscle spasm, or another gas bubble. But part of me really believes it was Mr. Orange making his presence known, like 'Dang, Mom...do you have to lay right on my head?' I don't know. Maybe it was nothing but it still felt like something. We'll see if it happens again anytime soon.

Another fun new symptom this week? Acne!! Yipee, whoo hoo, so much fun. I must say that I'm one of the blessed ones in the world who never experienced real teenage acne of any kind and yet I'm fascinated with zits. I love to pick and squeeze and pop anything I find so I guess it's a good thing that I have good skin without pimples. Well all of sudden this week I noticed about 4 or 5 little buggers smack dab on my forehead. Nothing major here, so it's not like I was super excited about attempting to pop them but of course I had to try anyway which left me with bright red and painful dots on my head. Nate immediately picked up on it saying, 'Did you try to pick something that wasn't there again?' to which I had to admit my attempts, but really there ARE actual bumps there. I just made them ten times worse with my picking, go figure.

Another obsession of mine is to feel for my uterus. I'm pretty sure I can locate the top of it right at the 3 finger mark above my pubic bone, which is right where it should be at 15 weeks but then again I'm not really sure. I've heard it described as a water balloon feel and considering that I palpate (poke, feel) with my hands all the time for my job you'd think I'd be all over this one. Which just leads to my endless prodding of my tummy....I'm sure baby appreciates my poking.

On the positive side of symptoms, I have boat loads of energy and even managed to run three days this week with my trophy run being a near 5 miler on Sunday. Of course, when you have to plan your runs around bathroom locations for your pregnant bladder it changes things a bit. And when you have major GI issues it definitely puts a kink into your run but I'm not going to go into detail on that one. Just think of Charlotte from the Sex in the City movie, then picture me, laugh, and move on...

But enough about me and my disgustingness, little orange is able to see light this week. So basically, if I wanted to annoy the heck out of him even before birth I could shine a flashlight onto my gaseous belly and he'll squirm away. He's breathing amniotic fluid which is both fascinating and mind blowing to me....how in the heck can they breathe fluid for 9 months then all of a sudden upon delivery they suck in air and never look back at their fluid-filled beginnings? So amazing but maybe that's the medical freak in me. Baby's legs are now longer than his arms and knowing our baby those legs might be freakishly long.

It's so weird to think I'm almost four months pregnant. Time flies, huh?