Finally more belly pics

Here are the belly pics some of you have been asking for :-)





The first two are from about 22 weeks.












The next two are from today which is 24 1/2 weeks.











I'm amazed at how hard and tight my belly is.

Absolutely Moronic Comment and My Petty Vent About It

I know in the grand scheme of things this doesn't even matter in the slightest, but it's bothering me right now.

So I have this friend/workout partner (yes, you've heard about her before and my frustrations with her), K, who is about two weeks behind me in her pregnancy. Everytime we talk, it's the comparison game, which I don't play. Also, she can't seem to talk about much of anything other than being pregnant, which is another game I don't play. It's a part of life, not an affliction. It is a blessing that many people in this world don't get to experience. Seeing me, they know I'm pregnant; I don't need to beat them upside the head with it by making them listen to the incessant babble about pains, agonies, and generally bitching about being pregnant. Plus, I am a little uneasy talking about it to just anyone. I don't feel I need to be the center of attention and this is one of the many places that K and I differ.

Anyway, on to my newest gripe about K.

So we went to the gym again today (she won't go to the gym without me and I walk 4 days a week, so we only go twice a week and then she bitches the whole time about how we don't go often enough). I guess I pissed her off because I was keeping a pretty good gate on the elliptical trainer and she was not able to (so what!?!?!). So then as we're lifting lower body today, I make the comment about how I'm feeling huge because my normally baggy t-shirt is starting to get tightish around my belly. Her response, "Well, you are huge."

Okay, now here is the vindictive, bitchy side of me. K gets mad because everyone says how cute my belly is and how pregnant I look. You can't tell she's pregnant because she's overweight. We all make choices. (She chose, despite our friend and I going on Weight Watchers together and keeping a 6 day a week workout routine and asking her to do it with us, to do nothing about her "needing" to lose weight before getting pregnant again.) I fessed up last week that I was getting nervous that I was heading toward the heaviest I've ever been (despite only having gained 7 lbs while pregnant, I gained some before). She bragged about having gained no weight, but maintaining her 80 lbs more than me! I'M HUGE!?!?! YOU'VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!! I'm still not even remotely close to her size and she has the nerve to tell me I'm huge!?!?!?

I know it's a dumb thing, but she has been one of my closest friends for the last 3 years. She knows all of my eating issues and my issues with my weight. She knows one of the things I'm most scared of is gaining too much weight. She knows this is my soft spot. Who exploits that? Who says that? Who is that mean?

I was feeling so good because all J's relatives and my relatives had commented on how great I looked and how I am so cute pregnant, and how it looks like I'm only gaining baby and going straight out. (Yes, I realize they aren't going to say otherwise, but to get compliments from my family about how I look is no small feat).

I'm just in shock. I can't even imagine making that comment to someone, let alone saying it to someone who I know has the sensitivities I do.

I know this is the one time I should not be self-conscious, but it's hard for me. It's so hard for me to feel unattractive to J. It's so hard for me to have this much external attention focused on my body.

Grrrr! Are people that clueless of what they say or that mean to say it anyway?

Long overdue update!

Now that the drama in my life is subsiding, I feel like I should do an update.

Soccer is officially over. I am done with it. I have no more duties or obligations left. It is a big relief and I am definitely sad at how it ended. The banquet went of nicely. We had quite a few families show up and most of the girls. My pain in the butt did show up, but oh well. My assistant coach showed up and was a pain in the butt, but I don't have to have anything else to do with her.

School is calming down. Teaching is definitely getting easier now that I have time and energy to devote to it. For the most part, my classes are great and I'm enjoying them. I'm not needing to do a whole lot of work at home very often which is nice too.

I'm working out now. I walk 3 or 4 days a week for around an hour. Twice a week, I go to the gym and do the elliptical trainer and lift light weights. I'm definitely feeling better and I think it is helping to ease the weight gain. According to my in-laws scale, I'm up two more pounds to make it around 9 lbs gained. I'm having a hard time being relaxed about how much I weigh. I'm so scared of hitting the heaviest I've ever been, but I didn't exactly start out very light.

Junior is moving around more. I feel the movements in the mid morning and then again starting around 5:00ish at night. S/he usually continues until I fall asleep. I don't know whether to classify this as a lot of movement or a little because I don't have any comparisons.

My heating pad and I are becoming best friends. My back has been killing me lately. I haven't walked since Thursday night, so I wonder if that is part of it. My sciatic nerve has been acting up a lot lately too. I definitely feel better after sitting with the heating pad for a while.

My heartburn has been tolerable lately, but I am still living on two Pepcid ACs a day and sometimes a few tums on top of that. My asthma started getting bad last week and it is still bothering me. It may sound dumb, but I feel like it gets worse when I eat or drink anything with sugar in it.

J and I are doing okay. We had a few rough days last week. It was only due to the stress of dealing with Thanksgiving with my family. We never fight or even argue. Discussions never get that far before they are settled. We argued three days in a row to where I would be in tears (one day I even started throwing up. We're fine now that Thanksgiving is over.

We have yet another appointment this week. I feel like we just had one.

I am falling asleep as I finish this, so I guess it's now bed time.

Holiday Drama SUCKS!!!!

So, here's the long story. We have had issues with how we spend our holidays for years. My parents -- scratch that, Mother -- doesn't give a shit about how we want to spend our holidays. It's what she wants. Period. End of story. So if we never got to spend a holiday with J's family or by ourselves, she wouldn't care. We've been doing the every other holiday deal: so we spend Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his. Then it alternates next year.

The problem is that J's family also goes on every other Thanksgiving, so we never get to see the side of his family that we want to see. There are 13 cousins on that side that we never get to see, plus 3 sets of aunts and uncles, and grandparents that we never get to see.

So we're trying to break this pattern because we want to spend our baby's first Christmas at our house. But, that's a whole different story.

So, we have Thanksgiving on Thursday. We're driving to my parents on Wednesday night. We'll get up and go to J's family's Thanksgiving (an hour and a half away) to spend maybe two hours and drive back to my parents in time for dinner. My mother quickly agreed to this. And then I found out why.

My parents have a 5000 sq. foot house with three bedrooms. Works fine until you have 3 sets of adult children. So, it's always a battle to see who doesn't get a bedroom. And guess who loses this time? Yes, you guessed it. It would be me, the 6 month pregnant girl who now has to sleep on the floor for 4 nights. When my SIL was pg with my nephew, the whole world bowed to her every whim, need and whine. Last time we were there for Thanksgiving and Laura was pregnant, we slept one night in the bedroom that R and L always sleep in and then we got moved to the basement when they arrived. This time, K and C will sleep in the bedroom that we usually sleep in and I'm supposed to sleep on the floor. THE FUCKING FLOOR!!!!! I'm 23 weeks pregnant and I'm supposed to sleep on the floor.

I don't pull the pregnant card very often. In fact, I've only done it once: I was told I was going to have to travel rooms. Other than that, I don't pull that card. I don't ask for special treatment, expect or ask for pity or even really complain about what's going on or how I'm feeling. Maybe I should!

I'm just in shock.

I've never been one to complain, ask for help, accept pity. Maybe this is why I find myself getting walked on.

At this point, I think we may be going to one of my friends' houses to stay. Wouldn't that go over well? Then we'll come home as soon as we can.

GRRRRRRR!!

Different World

I'll admit that I grew up in a sheltered, upper-middle class suburb. I remember in 5th grade seeing the word "Fuck" spray painted on a wall at my school and being horrified and so disturbed. I remember in 9th grade being shocked and dismayed when I found out that some of my classmates smoked. By the end of my freshman year in high school, I couldn't even face some of my friends who drank. As a junior in high school, I was horrified to hear that my best friend had given her boyfriend a blow job. This was my naive little world as a child; couple that with never having stepped foot in a public high school until my student teaching and you may begin to understand why it breaks my heart to see what my students go through.

Today we were on lock down. Not for the normal reasons: someone wrote a vague threat on the wall of the bathroom, or someone on a prison work party escaped from their cre (yes, it happens all the time). Not even for the really frightening situation where the floor plan of our school was found on an Al-Queida computer. At my school, we are in the middle of a gang war, and I am scared to death.

Here's the situation: Yesterday we had 5, yes 5, fights. 7:30, 9:00, 10:30, 2:30, and 2:45 - all gang related. Then there was a HUGE gang fight last night around 9:00 where one of our kids was stabbed by another one of our kids. This is the second gang-related stabbing of kids in the last month, by the way.

We were not to let kids into the hallways during class, be very aware of kids dress, and be in the hallway during passing time. We have 15 kids up for expulsion, 3 more were arrested today.

I'm just in awe. This was not anything I ever had to face and then we wonder how they are so screwed up.