crazy amounts of energy

now that "the curse" has been lifted i am finding myself with a crazy amount of energy and positivity!  thank goodness for this fabulous turn of events in the 2nd trimester, i was starting to feel so sad that i was in a funk for 2 months.  i am started to really struggle with clothes though. i love that jay has always been so into my curves and encouraged tighter clothes to show them off but now i am stuck with about 3 options of looser clothing i own.  this is going to be tough for work summer clothes, otherwise i'd just live in sun dresses through september!  thanks to some good friends and their suggestion, i'm now unbuttoning my jeans and looping a hair tie through the hole and button. fabulous solution!


i am so so excited this week i got "the belly book" in the mail today.  it is just as i had hoped, a totally adorable way to document the ultrasounds, belly, cravings, thoughts, and humor of this process.

this friday will start spring break for this teacher and it will also be the day we get to tell our extended family.  i think i created a cute way to tell them through email, i'll post later.

oh and tomorrow is our 12 week appointment ........ eek!

week 12ish picture... and the curse has been lifted!

after gathering some cute ideas online to document the baby belly, i decided to do a comparison to produce (like bump.com does) with weekly sign idea.  i may be doing it every other week, or it may depend on how cool the fruit or veggie is that peanut is the size of at that time!  

also... the curse has been lifted. afternoon sickness has disappeared! i heard around week 12 your nausea and absolute exhaustion just goes away but i was skeptical.  knock on a 100 pieces of wood but i'm on day 2 of feeling back to my old self.  it even made me a less grumpy teacher today and i think it will overall make me happier.  now i'm a little freaked i have an appetite again.  i lost 9lbs in the first trimester so i didn't have to start worrying about the pounds creeping on.  now that i'm back to my old appetite plus a little more hungrier i'm having anxiety about accepting the new lbs.

how many weeks along?

i never understood why that when i asked pregnant women how far along they were, they always answered in that annoying "i'm ___ weeks."  it made me feel so dumb to need a second to convert this into months, but now i know why they answer in terms of weeks...

BECAUSE EVERY WEEK DESERVES A BADGE OF FREAKING MERIT!

if i told people that i was almost 3 months pregnant i feel like it does not take into account every excruciatingly long week of nausea, back pain due to things stretching, moodiness, and extreme exhaustion. being pregnant, is so very tough to say this least (and i'm only 10 weeks experienced) so yes, i will be that person who will answer you in terms of weeks. why? because i deserve it! :)

it's 4 o'clock... the beast is here

guess what? "morning sickness" can happen at any time of the day, and fortunately for me that time is from 4pm-bedtime.  i am soooo lucky that i'm not constantly sick during school hours when i'm teaching.  when the clock hits exactly 4pm you better believe you can find me on my couch, dead to the world.


 How far along? 10.5 weeks
Baby is the size of: a prune... yuck.
Total weight gain/loss: -9 lbs due to weird diet and recent stomach bug
 Maternity clothes? bought 2 pairs on sale at gap maternity, skinny jeans and skinny black pants for work. don't think i necessarily need them yet, but holy crap... a stretchy waistband?! sign me up!
 Stretch marks? no
Sleep: tired by 10pm, up in at 'em by 8:30am. college laura would be ashamed.
Best moment this week: slowly recovering from this horrible stomach bug
 Have you told family and friends: add the in-laws to our list!
 Miss Anything? being able to stay up late
 Movement: nope
 Food cravings: all i had was gatorade and jello since sunday.  now i just downed some queso dip and tostitos. yikes.
 Anything making you queasy or sick: this freaking stomach bug on top of being pregnant! it was so much more intense than any other stomach sickness i've ever had
Have you started to show yet:  losing weight has helped, but still a little around my belly button area
Gender prediction: i keep having dreams with the baby in it now, and it's a girl.  however, i have previously craved things only my husband loves to eat so that also convinced me it was a boy. we still have to wait til mid-may to find out!
Wedding rings on or off? on
Happy or Moody most of the time: moody.  sorry everyone... again.  i am a little more positive about being pregnant now, even though the timing is soooo off!
 Looking forward to: the end of the 1st trimester (no more nausea and finally a legit baby belly instead of looking just fat)
 

telling the in-laws

we were so fortunate with timing to be able to tell jay's family the big news while we were up visiting for our niece's 1st birthday.  due to the fact that jay is so excited, our plans to wait til sunday didn't work out entirely.  we wanted to make sure our niece had 100% full attention on her for her birthday, so jay chose to tell just his parents and brother the morning of the party.  over breakfast he told them that we'd be needing help at my sister's wedding... with their 3rd grandchild.  his brother and dad said "delta?" but his mom knew better and said "oh my god, are you pregnant?" and looked at me.  we had to rush to finish errands shortly after, but wow was it helpful having them know. usually i'd help for lahara family parties by moving furniture, preparing italian meat dishes, and lifting heavy items to clean up.  they quietly and subtly in front of the guests forced me not to do anything.  

we were able to tell jay's sister and brother-in-law the next morning, we asked them out to breakfast as the whole big family.  We had our 4 year old niece whisper into nina's ear that she was getting a new cousin.  That was a lot of pressure on a 4 year old so what came out the first three times was something along the lines of "allyson... my new cousin... my baby." :)  i finally had to re-whisper it in her ear and then everyone heard.  it is so nice i can finally talk to nina about this, i was feeling frustrated that i am once again the first of my immediate family and best friends to get married and now having a baby.  but then i remembered that now i have an "older sister" to rely on!  i left new jersey with 6 of nina's baby books...

and a horrible stomach bug.  words can't describe how much worse a stomach sickness is when you're pregnant.  i have a stomach of steel and haven't even thrown up with morning sickness yet.  preggo + stomach bug = a night of getting sick that rivaled my 21st birthday.  i was horribly sick yesterday and found out that it is actually harder to be seen and treated if you are sick and pregnant.  no one would take me because i was too much of a liability if i had fetal dehydration.  the ob said if my fever got to 101* then to go to the hospital because it was dangerous for the baby. gosh darn it if my fever hovered at 100.7* all day.  so i was left with no treatment or medicine, just to tough it out. yikes.  i hope you're doing okay, peanut!

telling the sissyfaces

i was so nervous to tell my two sisters about peanut! 

starting with kelsey, i got to tell her first.  there is almost a 7 year gap between my "goober" and i.  we are constantly in different places in our lives but i'm so happy amy's wedding as co-MOHs and now this experience will bring us closer this year. kelsey actually predicted this baby would happen!  we skyped in beginning of january and she told me how amazing it would be if i would just have a little "nugget" now so it would be here in time for the wedding.  i literally told her "omg can you imagine? worst timing ever!" she's been wanting jay and i to have a "little nugget" ever since we got married.  i unfortunately had to tell her the news on skype. i was so blown away by her immediate tears and shouts of congratulations.  kelsey definitely wins for best reaction so far (btw, if anyone ever tells you that they are pregnant, please don't open your mouth agape and say nothing. it freaks the pregnant lady out!)  kelsey shot off pretend confetti on skype visual effects and i got to show the picture of peanut to aunt kelsey.


then there was telling amy. i really really wanted amy to have her year as a bride and i was so upset that i'll be taking some of the attention away from her. however, i'm now so excited that he or she will be able to come to amy's wedding a few weeks later.  telling amy and matt was causing me a lot of anxiety. i don't know why i thought they'd be upset, i guess i had 4 weeks to think about it and built it up in my head.  we told them through skype as well, i asked the two of them if i could invite one more person to their wedding.  as responsible bride and grooms they said "NOOOOO we have no more room!"  i told them this guest wouldn't need to eat or need a chair.  amy thought for a moment and then guessed if i was pregnant.  when i said yes, matt yelled "i called it!"  i guess sitting them both down to skype does give off a suspicious vibe :)  i apologized so many times for the bad timing and they seemed completely unphased by it and said "are you kidding? we don't care!"  this is why i love my sister and future brother in law so much.


this has been fun having a secret just in my family all week even though i'm sure it's killing all of them to still hold it in for another month.  now i've been able to text my mom and sisters when i bought my first gap maternity skinny jeans this weekend and a text picture of a box of toaster strudels (my weirdest craving to date.)  i'm really enjoying this time where they only know.

this weekend we are traveling to new jersey for our niece's 1st birthday on jay's side of the family.  my sister-in-law is the most selfless person i've ever met, she is always putting other first.  so jay and i decided not tell his family til sunday when we leave to go back home, we want allyson to have a perfect birthday party focused all on her.  this will be my in-law's 3rd grandchild so although it won't be a new concept, i know they will be so excited for jay.  i'm leaving it up to him to figure out how to tell his family.  partly, i think he deserves to tell them the news more and also because it will prove to him that there's pressure in how to share the news and that it makes you nervous to actually tell them! i want him to see how it feels since i've been the one to tell everyone so far.

 *i am love with this card that kelsey made us.  inside it says "congrats on your little raspberry!"  all the websites tell you what size the baby is based on produce, this week the baby is the size of a raspberry!