Then and Now

It's funny to be pregnant again. It just feels like a once-in-a-lifetime experience, you know? And yet, here I am, 4.5 years later, in the middle of it all over again. In some ways I feel like it's a new experience—the memory of Seth's pregnancy having (finally! :)) faded somewhat—except that there's always this dawning recognition that, noooo, this is all oddly familiar.... Feeling a contraction again for the first time. Wow. Wow. It's all just strange.

So here's my compare-and-contrast!

Morning Sickness: About the same! General crumminess with most food feeling disgusting, but no actual puking. This pregnancy has had more lost breath and light-headedness.

PVCs: When I was pregnant with Seth, a heart condition I'd always had was hugely exacerbated. I get "skipped" beats—premature ventricular contractions. They used to happen a couple times a year and I didn't know what they were. (Elizabeth once famously noted: "Did you just have an aneurysm?!" ;)) When I was over halfway through my pregnancy with Seth, I out-of-the-blue started getting strong ones every third beat. (Instead of twice a year!) Got an EKG, found out they were benign PVCs, then dealt with the feeling of being super-nervous in the middle of a grueling physical challenge for the rest of the pregnancy (they're hugely unsettling). With this pregnancy, I don't think I even knew I was pregnant yet and the PVCs had already sped up. Haven't stopped.... Isn't it interesting?

Eyesight: Another interesting thing! My vision plummeted with Seth, and again with this one. I'm assuming it will go back to the status quo after this baby is born, like it did with Seth. We'll see!

Weight gain: I'm gaining at exactly the same rate, always weighing the same as before. To the pound! It's kind of amazing. I'm curious how long that will last.

Food cravings: With Seth I could only eat peaches and cottage cheese, whole milk, or orange juice for most of the first trimester. With this baby I've been able to eat most anything. My go-to food this time has been eggs! I have some form of egg on bread (often with cheese) just about every day. The protein is great....

My longterm craving with Seth was Oreos. No particular cravings this time around. Oh! And when I had felt the most morning-sick this time, I kept wanting Spicy Jack Quesadillas from Del Taco. I hadn't had many of those since . . . I had been morning sick with Seth! I had completely forgotten it had been my stomach-settler the first time around until Matt reminded me. Well! Nausea knows what it wants and doesn't change it's mind, I guess! Kind of funny.

Showing: I think I'm about two weeks ahead of Seth's pregnancy this time, maybe one. It seems like I'm showing at about the same rate. Everyone is still complaining about me being disappointingly small.... Sorry!

Waddling: Despite having a fairly small tummy so far, I've been waddling for weeks already! I don't think that happened with Seth until well into the third trimester. I guess my hips are already disintegrating! It's terrible! What am I going to do when I do have a major belly? Will I even be able to move? Stay tuned to find out.... [Dum-dum-DUM!]

Contractions!!: Cue more scary music!! The contractions story with Seth:

20 weeks—Felt my very first contractions. Thought it was interesting and kind of fun. It made me feel actually pregnant.

24 weeks—Contractions were coming lots of times a day. Started to be less fun....

28 weeks—Contractions every 10 minutes. Really annoying.

31 weeks—Appeared to be dilating. Admitted to the hospital. Contractions every 3 minutes. Sent home the next morning on anti-contraction drugs and ordered to bedrest for a few weeks. Oh, and did I mention the baby (Seth, that is :)) was fully engaged? Fun.

32 weeks... 33... 34...—Baby still fully engaged, contractions still every few minutes.

35 weeks—Baby still fully engaged, contractions every few minutes. I wanted to die.

36 weeks—Doctors sooo pleased I haven't had baby yet. Still fully engaged! Contractions every few minutes! I was starting to get pretty tired....

37 weeks—Nurses start finding humor in my sad, sad situation. "Hahaha! Here we were hoping to get you to 34 weeks, and now look, I bet you go overdue! Isn't that hilarious? Hahaha!" Oh, the thought! I could have died at those words!

38 weeks—Fully engaged, contractions every few minutes!!!! AAAHHHH!!

39 weeks—Thankfully, I never got to 39 weeks. Hallelujah! Oh, and did I mention the real labor only lasted four hours (first baby!), and that half of that was a deliberate slow-down...?

(When doctors ask how long my first labor was, they gasp at the four hours part. What they don't know is that I wanted to answer: "Two months. And four hours." Hehe.)

So for years now I've been fascinated to know: was it all a fluke? Would a second pregnancy go the same way? Or be even more dramatic? Or maybe a second pregnancy would be all normal...? Will a second labor be even faster, like, having the baby in the car kind of fast? Or what if a second labor is 12 hours or something? That would just be weird!

The answers so far:

12 weeks—CONTRACTIONS!!! [Dum-dum-DUMMMM!!!!!!] I. Couldn't. Believe it. Twelve weeks! Eight weeks earlier than with Seth. It was strange to feel that ol' familiar feeling over such a tiny, tiny spot instead of my entire abdomen, but there was no denying the loss of breath, the surge of "ugh", the general strangeness of the whole thing.

13 weeks—Yep. Definitely contractions. Definitely coming several times a day. Sometimes several times an hour! Sometimes back-to-back for 20 or 30 minutes!

And here I am at 21 weeks, when I had first felt the occasional contraction with Seth, and getting them all the time. Some of them are so strong they totally take my breath away. So how will the rest of this story play out...? I'm morbidly curious. I also don't want to know. I also can't help but find out! Stay tuned.

Tiredness: I was bone tired with Seth. But I'm pretty sure I'm even more tired now. With Seth I couldn't stay awake the whole first trimester and then I bounced back. With this one, I was a little more functional the first trimester, but it keeps getting worse instead of getting any better. I'm exhausted.

Excitement level!: Everything felt more intense with Seth. The joy and longing for that baby were overwhelming, but so was the cloud over our heads that had formed through lots of experience of my body being terrible at this. This time everything feels more . . . calm . . . . I forget sometimes that I'm even pregnant. When I really think about it, I feel all the joy we had with Seth—but then it's more mellow somehow. More content. And even though this baby was just as hard (in many ways, much, much harder) to come by than Seth was, the reality that, "hey, Seth worked!" has really done wonders to help us feel like the other shoe is not about to drop. We're feeling so content with this little girl coming.... It just feels right.

Movement: Watched Seth bouncing around like crazy on ultrasound before he even had arms or had lost his tail. I could feel Seth rolling around at only 15 weeks! This baby? She looked fairly active in early ultrasounds, but I didn't feel her until, no joke...the same day that Matt could feel her. Haha! Is that crazy? Almost 20 weeks. And at the ultrasound last week (she may have been sleeping...?), she hardly moved at all. Very cooperative for the ultrasound tech. Versus Seth who had been swimming like a frog too quickly to get the right pictures! I can't wait to see how their temperaments compare.