a shortie

It's lucky for you I'm a nice drunk.

---Sid, somewhat blearily, after a dinner with friends in which he drank two of the hugest mugs (32 oz.) of beer I've ever seen.

internet, meet Spagett

Sid came with me to my appointment yesterday, and in hindsight, I'm so glad he did. I wasn't expecting to get an ultrasound, but the doctor wanted to do one "for dating purposes". Turns out Spagett is right on schedule, only one whopping day off from the due date I'd been given based on my last menstrual period.

It was surreal. There on the screen was this little stubby thing wiggling around with it's tiny heart just fluttering away right in the middle of it's blobby little body. It was just an image on the screen until I realized holy shit, this tiny alien-headed gummy bear on the screen is growing inside me. Until that moment, this pregnancy had been just an idea, an abstraction. Yes, my body had changed in all kinds of weird ways and intellectually, I knew there was something going on in there, but seeing it made it real.

Afterward, Sid told me, "I thought it looked like Baron Werner Ünderbheit."



I think he's got a point.

who knew...

...that belching could feel so great? Because I hadn't been able to burp for the last couple of weeks without everything in my stomach rising up in my throat. And the past few days have been mercifully free of that phenomenon. I CAN BURP AGAIN, OMG! :D

So yeah, I guess I'm beginning the long, slow crawl back to feeling like a human being again. I have nothing but respect for those women who suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum, because if it were me, honestly, no matter how much I wanted the baby at the end, I'm not sure anything could convince me to continue feeling that awful. Also, I have a massive phobia of throwing up. MASSIVE. I fight that gag reflex to the bitter end, and then I cry. Personally, I am not sure I could handle being that sick for that long.

That friend of mine who was rubbing her pregnancy in my face will be jealous that I'm feeling better, because she's got hyperemesis. I feel bad for it, but on the other hand, the part of me that's not-so-nice says that turnabout is fair play. But I won't stoop that low. I really, really won't. Even though I'd like to.

NO my fucking cheese goddess

I can't eat cheese. Blasphemy, I know. But thinking about it makes my stomach try to crawl up my throat, so blaspheme I must. Tomatoes also set it off, which means that spaghetti and pizza are officially AWFUL. Damn you stomach, you temperamental bitch! DAMN YOOOOU! KHAAAAAAAN!

Whoever called it "morning sickness" was obviously a lackwit man, because I can't imagine any woman who'd been-there-done-that would call it something so misleading. Because you know what? MY MORNINGS ARE GREAT. I wake up feeling like I didn't sleep at all, but I'm not SICK. No, that sets in later, after I start getting whiffs of stinky things, like that funny phantom smell that stalks me all over the house. Smells like a rancid combo of poo, blood, and rot. I assure you, my house does not smell like any of those things. So unless there's a zombie with hemorrhoids and diarrhea hanging out in the bathroom, there's just no explanation for it.

I keep telling myself...

...I wanted this.

I hoped I would be one of those women who never get morning sickness. Aaannnnd, it turns out... I am not. I am lucky, but not that lucky. A few days before I hit the six week mark, I started feeling nauseated. It has not let up since then.

All I can do is lie on the couch and desperately hope I won't start retching. But the good part? If I eat exactly what I'm craving at the moment, seriously, the nausea goes away. It comes back, sure, but I can snatch a break for a few hours. The drawback is that I have been wanting things that I don't have in the house. Like yesterday: I would have straight up shanked someone if it got me some cream cheese on toast. We had none, and I felt too damn sick to peel myself off the couch and go to the store. Then I wanted salt and vinegar chips. Alas, none to be had.

Thank FSM that today I wanted a fried egg sandwich and I had the makings of one in the fridge. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to sit here and type, I'd just be lying on the floor moaning.

I don't plan on telling the family what's going on until I hit 12 weeks. Unfortunately, I have to make a trip down to see them all for my sister's high school graduation, and if I'm this miserably ill, I won't be able to hide it. Here's hoping I'll luck out and only be sick for a few weeks.

welcome ICLWers!

I guess an introductory post is in order, huh? Better late than never, right?

I'm Starky (not my real name). I'm 24, turning 25 next month. I grew up in Amish Country, Pennsylvania and I miss it dearly. My husband, Sid, (also not his real name) is 29. We've known each other for almost eight years, and been married for about three and half. Sid is in the Navy, and we both view it as a means to an end, it's not really something that we use to define our lives - he actually hates being called a sailor, just like I hate being referred to as a military wife.

Sid went out on deployment this past year, and when he came back we decided we wanted to start our family. A homecoming baby would be so CUTE, right? Well, it didn't work out the way we'd planned. It turns out that Sid's got low sperm mobility, high viscosity, and low volume. We were told that our best shot at conceiving would be with intrauterine insemination. Sid was not ready to admit defeat, and I spent a lot of time on this blog bitching about it.

We tried to conceive on our own for nine cycles, and I know that's not a lot by some standards, but you ladies know how even one month can feel like an eternity. The time.just.dragged. And then I had this crazy dream that I took a pee test and three lines showed up. One was pink, which meant I was pregnant. One was orange, which meant I was having twins. And the last one was black, which meant that the pregnancy was viable.

Three days later, I took a pee test for shits and giggles, not really expecting to see anything but that one familiar, depressing line. And there were two. It remains to be seen whether the rest of the dream was accurate as well.

scar stories

Sid and I were watching tv last night when this stupid commercial for some scar lightening cream came on. The woman in the commercial was "so ashamed" of her scars, and this cream was able to make her feel good about herself again. You know, the typical gimmicky line of BS.

Why be ashamed of a scar? Why try to hide it, or lie about it? I don't understand.

My mother got burned pretty badly on her arm about ten years ago, and it got infected, and left a pretty funky scar. It's barely noticeable, but if you know what to look for, it's a patch of slightly lighter, bumpy skin on her forearm. And she was so ashamed of it, it bothered her so much. One day I walked in on her complaining about it, how it was going to "mark her for the rest of her life." And I was gobsmacked. I'd never considered it like that.

When I was four, I fell off a swing and broke my arm. Really badly. We're talking bones sticking out, arm twisted around broke my arm. Where the bones stuck out, where the doctors cut it open to try and repair the damage, I have a pretty spectacular zig-zag scar on my forearm, about five inches long. Stupid people have seen it and asked appropriately stupid questions (DID YOU TRY TO CUT YOUR WRIST?). But I have never been ashamed of it. I don't try to hide it, and therefore, people don't really notice it. It is just part of who I am, and most people will not mention it, indeed, will not even see it until I specifically point it out.

I told my mother that scars were nothing to be ashamed of, that it was merely something that meant we have healed from physical trauma. If anything, we should be proud of our scars, because if you believe they "mark us for life" they mark us as people who have hurt, who have been scared, who bled and cried. They are testaments to pain, and to healing.

She looked at me cockeyed, but she never really complained about her scars again. Maybe she just thought I was crazy.