pop

it has been a busy, busy week. it was my last week of school before our spring break, which at my school means a crazy week of projects and nothing normal at all. which for me means more time spent as an actual teacher (100% of the day with kids) and no time in my office to decompress or, as has been happening more lately, to put my head down on my desk and rest for awhile. but -- it's over and i'm officially on spring break for two weeks! the extra exciting news is that i'm feeling a lot better, too. the nausea has decreased significantly. i still get motion sick on the train and dizzy going up and down stairs or when i get up too quickly, but mostly my only physical symptoms now are constipation (ugh) and this extreme fatigue. but hey... i'll take it. i can eat again!

i did not have any doctor appointments to work around this week, which was nice in some ways but also very, very strange. however, i did have all of that bloodwork to take care of at the lab. i went on tuesday for one set of tests that had to be done four hours after i'd eaten and taken all my medicine, and then back on thursday for the rest that were supposed to be done after fasting for 6 hours. however, when the technician looked at the details of all of those tests she recommended that we split them across two days. i tried to shrug that off and told her how much blood they'd been taking for me regularly for the past year. seriously, i'm kind of an expert at this by now and i've never had a problem, even the times they had to take 15 vials. but when she really broke it down for me and told me exactly what we were looking at (33 vials!!!) i agreed. so we did 19 vials on thursday and then i went back this morning for the other 14. from what the technician told me, it seemed like a lot of these tests were looking for blood clotting issues. again, it seems like overkill to me... but whatever. the hubby keeps saying they're taking all the blood away from the baby but from what i've read i am making so much more blood these days that i can stand to lose some of it.

but the big news this week is that my belly suddenly popped. it is totally insane. i had been bloated since last week, which i knew was from the digestive issues i've been having and all of the other hormonal craziness going on in my body. and i looked the same as how i always look when i'm bloated after eating or before getting my period. but all of a sudden two days ago i started looking like an alien was growing in my belly: a perfectly round alien. i have a perceptible circle around my belly button that is kind of unmistakably a baby bump. i know i would have been excited about this if it happened in a few weeks as i expected. i really thought i had more time. so instead i kind of freaked out, especially because someone at work actually asked i was pregnant after seeing this belly development! it's super obvious when i wear t-shirts and normal clothes, even though my clothes aren't tight. it just... sticks out. so i'm trying to transition to some extra flow-y tops for a bit, just to keep it under wraps a little while longer. i'm also inheriting some maternity clothes from a friend in the neighborhood that is the keeper of a rotating collection, so that may help. but i'm going to need to go shopping for some new bras and other things this week. i'm still in shock about this. i know it's for good reason, and my new fancy scale says i haven't gained any weight yet, so i'm trying to calm myself down.

i'll be 9 weeks on monday, and we go back to the perinatologist on tuesday. i'm really excited for another ultrasound. it feels like ages since we've seen the little bean!