Week 14: The System… is Down… (with apologies to Strong Bad)

13 weeks, 5 days.

Argh!

Well, I’m realizing there’s a gigantic flaw in my patented To Hell With That Shit ™ system for dealing with other people’s drama – sometimes they just won’t take no for an answer. I finally just had to start filtering some e-mails to /dev/null so I won’t even see them anymore; I did this upon deciding that the consequences of total lack of involvement were by far preferable to getting sideswiped by The Drama every couple of weeks. Some of the implications of that really hurt, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

It has not been a good week.

I do, however, find myself actually rather relieved when I look at the big picture.

In other news, I can actually feel the little bulge where our future monster lives under all of that padding on my belly. I have to be lying down in the right position to feel it, but it’s really sort of cool. I’m walking a little strangely as well, because bits and pieces of me are starting to shift around – I always thought the fact that pregnant women waddle was because they were so encumbered, but I’m not encumbered by weight yet, so it’s gotta be the shifting bits. I’m looking rather anatine when I move around. Soon Donald Duck will have nothing on me.

Unfortunately, the beginning of the protusion of said bump means I can no longer sleep on my stomach. I hate not sleeping on my stomach. And when I’m not sleeping on my stomach, I prefer to sleep on my right side. Guess which side I’m supposed to sleep on? That’s right, the left side. I hate sleeping on my left side. The only thing the doctors and I seem to agree on is that I shouldn’t sleep on my back, and I rarely do that anyway. So… sleep sucks.

I have a special pillow to help me – the Snoogle – which wraps around one side of me and comes up the other, but it doesn’t help as much as one would think. And the fact that my husband long ago stole my favorite snuggly pillow – one which I got before we were even dating for 10 bucks and which I cannot find a substitute for – and refuses to give it up just aggravates the situation (N.B. This is the source of an ongoing playfight between us – I’m just waiting for him to read this and make a face at me ) !

I’m trying to ignore the other stresses right now – it got so bad this week that I’d forget I was pregnant, and that’s uncool (of course, the worst thing about being pregnant at this stage is that it’s not that hard to forget anything, including that you’re pregnant – I’m looking forward to feeling the baby moving in a few weeks so that it seems more real!). Then I’d remember I was pregnant and get really worried about the effect stress might have on the baby. Anything that stresses me out that much right now just doesn’t need to be something I deal with!

So anyway, Sunday I’ll be 14 weeks; at 15 weeks I have my AFP4 test done, and at 16 weeks I get the genetic ultrasound. Time is moving slowly, but it is moving!

(P.S. For those who are curious, the title is a reference to this and this…)