Weeks 16 and 17

I'm currently 18 weeks and change and I can't believe the difference a few weeks can make! Sometimes I just feel NORMAL for a few minutes. My belly isn't hugely heavy yet, and now that my SI joint pain has improved thanks to taping my diastasis while the top of the uterus migrates past my weak umbilical area... now that I don't feel like vomiting all the time and I only *sometimes* gag when I blow my nose... now that I feel kind of normal tired and not deep-down-in-my-bones fatigued... it's easy to forget, for a moment, that I'm growing a baby. Then, of course, I stand up, or wait on houseguests hand and foot for 3 days, or spend too much time in the car, and I feel it. Physically and emotionally, I feel it.

I'm happy to be second-trimester pregnant this summer as opposed to hugely pregnant or freshly postpartum (as I'm accustomed to being in the summer), but it's pretty gross out there either way. This week, my primary symptoms are fatigue, mood swings, backne, and heat rash in my cleavage. It's super glamorous to type that out, by the way. About as glamorous as it all feels. All of those symptoms are exacerbated by, if not outright caused by, the dang humidity and the subsequent sweating. I'm doing my best to add salt and electrolytes to my water, or else to drink juice or coconut water or fruit popsicles, but... the sweating and the itching. It's too much and I'm grumpy and then exhausted if I am outside for too long.

However, this past week I accidentally felt the baby kick from the outside. Given that I really only feel movement a few times a day, and it's still pretty subtle, I was shocked. But also really happy. With all the loss around me and in the world right now, there's been a lot of tension in the already but not yet that pregnancy entails. I'm VERY anxious for my appointment tomorrow. We are bringing the kids to see the baby on the ultrasound, but I can't quite kick that niggling worry: what if it's not a happy ultrasound?! But I currently have no reason to believe it wouldn't be, so we are proceeding forward. We have the BIG ultrasound with the high-risk OB in two weeks, and I'm more worried about that one being emotional, so Ross and I will be sans big kids then.

Also, I realized yesterday that I might be freaking out because I'm not magically MAKING USE of this time. Am I just going to be more tired and depleted 20+ weeks from now when I'm huge and then postpartum? I feel like I need to catch up on 18 weeks of life I've missed out on, as well as nest for the next 20 weeks before I run out of energy again. I have to remember I feel drastically better in comparison, but I still feel 36 years old and pregnant with two small children in the house. I've been struggling with 1-2 hours of middle-of-the-night insomnia every night, too, and it's taking a toll.

Time to be accountable to the fact that self-care will require a little bit more than JUST intensive rest like the first trimester did!