Week 32: Ok, so guess what… I’m pregnant…

31 weeks, 4 days.

I did something I almost never do this morning – missed class. Given how tired I was yesterday just doing small things and how yucky I felt when I woke up in the middle of the night last night, I let my prof know I might not be there today, and he was totally cool about it. I hate missing that class though – it’s really interesting and thought-provoking, and my German needs as much help as it can get before Small Monster arrives. I also have to admit that my German is always better after class, and I feel much more competent since starting it, even if I know my German needs a lot of work – this is the first German class I’ve had where German isn’t explicitly the focus of the course, but rather, it’s on a topic (in this case, the German experience of war) and it’s conducted in German with German sources, etc. It’s nice to be at the point where I can do that – it took me much less time to get to this level of competence in Spanish (and I suspect my Spanish was much more correct, simply because I was younger, had more formal training, and not much other language interference going on), so I’m rather happy with where things are and where they will go. But anyhow, I hate missing class, and I figured given a choice between getting completely better and missing class, I’d just have to give in today.

And guess what? I feel marvelous this afternoon. Tired, but marvelous. So it was all good.

But guess what else folks… I’m well-and-truly pregnant. Yes, yes, I know, you’re shocked, but I’m so pregnant that I just broke down in absolute, bawling tears exclaiming how dumb and embarrassed I felt about something that had happened, and my poor, lovely husband was stuck trying to figure out how to comfort me. It was the kind of overwhelming crying I haven’t experienced since I was a small child, I think. It’s not that it was over nothing, but it wasn’t over much, it certainly didn’t warrant me falling apart.

All I can say is this: HORMONES (search for the words “1000 times” in the text to see what I’m getting at).

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve had hormones and mood swings since the beginning, though up to the past couple of weeks I’ve been able to feel them come on and usually head them off – but lately it’s bad. As in super-sucktacular bad.

Baby is making my stomach jump all over, waking me up at 4 am (which is fine, I don’t mind so far). Cravings for chocolate are uncontrollable. Nesting urges are increasing. Hormones are turning me into a crazy woman. People are finally asking me when I’m due without any hints that I’m pregnant from me or the evil husband. I gush over all babies, even the stock photo ones. I think I might, possibly, be pregnant. I’m very perceptive like that, ya know?

Anyhow, apparently I promised my next post would have belly shots. I wanted to wait until tomorrow when I’ll be dressed a little less sloppily, but, eh, if I don’t do it now, I may never do it, so here they are. My clothes are a mess, my hair’s a mess, and in the second one I look like I’ve gone slightly loony, but here they are anyway:

That “glow” on my face isn’t a glow – my face is red often, yes, but the glow in these pictures is unfortunately chloasma, a really fun added pigmentation that appears on one’s face during pregnancy and is exacerbated by the warm, friendly, very bright Colorado sun. I don’t have it that badly (it just looks like a tan for the most part, which would be fine except for the fact that I don’t tan), but when I’m really blushing it makes my face almost look purple. Fortunately, I’m not blushing here.

Maternity t-shirts are the least flattering of all maternity clothes, but they’re super-cheap and it becomes much less of a shame when food falls on them, which, let’s face it ladies, it does all the time when you’re pregnant…