Sprite is a Wonderful Thing!!!

Those weeks after we found out I was pregnant, I had SO much nausea to deal with. It would hit me about noon or so every day, and last all day long. I hated it SO much. I can deal with bodily fluids of all sorts, from humans and animals alike, but I detest dealing with vomit, especially my own. Luckily for me, there was no rushing to the bathroom to empty the contents of my stomach. I managed to keep everything down, but I was miserable.

I was drinking a lot of water to keep my fluid intake up. I normally don't drink but a glass or two of anything during the day, and am usually on the verge of dehydration most of the time. But I know how much water goes into the production of the amniotic fluids, and into the baby's development, and I knew I had to change that. Plus, right after we found out I was pregnant, I came down with a horrid cold. So I breathed through my mouth at night while I slept, and could never seem to drink enough water during the day to get rid of the dry mouth I woke up with each morning. But I grew tired of plain water. I used to drink a lot of fruit juices, but those contain lots of sugar. My neighbor suggested Sprite to help calm my stomach, so I bought a 20-oz bottle. I didn't have any nausea that day, or any of the days following. I tried to keep my fluid intake even between water and Sprite, but water bloats me, whereas, oddly enough, the Sprite didn't. Eh, who knows, it's probably a psychological thing on my part.

But, I've changed my diet around a bit. I'm drinking more calcium enriched orange juice, since I can't handle any more milk than what goes into my cereal in the mornings. I only eat the cereals made with whole grains. Right now, that includes Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios, Kix, and Lucky Charms. Lucky Charms are made with whole grain oats, amazingly enough. I bought a box of Fruit Loops as well, but there is too much sugar in those, so I eat them sparingly. I bought whole grain wheat bread, whole grain Wheat Thins, a cantaloupe for Vitamin A, tangerines for Vitamin C, bananas for Vitamin K and potassium, grapes for the moisture and whatever vitamins they provide, apples just because they're healthy, cottage cheese for the protein (a serving actually has more protein than calcium) and low sugar granola bars, for the late night hunger attacks.

I am almost literally eating every two hours. I eat small meals, a bowl of cereal for breakfast, some fruit two hours later, a sandwich and Wheat Thins two hours after that. At night, I go a maximum of four hours before I'm woken up by my stomach. If I eat right before bed, I can make it through the night, at least until 5:30am, when my husband gets up for work. And my stomach seems to have forgotten the steps it used to take to tell me to eat. It completely skips the growling phase, goes straight to the hurting phase, and then right into the "If I don't eat soon, I'm going to be sick" phase. It does that at night, too.

It's bad enough that I'm a light sleeper, but these days all it seems I'm allowed to do is doze. It can take me an hour and a half to fall asleep, and then if my husband's restless, I don't stay there very long. Any little noise will wake me up, or prevent me from sleeping at all. As much as I don't like to, I've started taking an approved sleep aid before bed. At least I manage to sleep at night, and don't want to sleep all day like I was doing. I felt so bad for my husband, I laid around on the couch all day on bedrest, asleep most of the time, so he felt he had to tiptoe around the house. My poor dog Sabre feels the need to be near me wherever I am, including sleeping at my feet, so he slept all day, too. Poor baby, though, he'd get so much pent-up energy that he'd ask to go outside every hour. We hadn't taken him to the dog park in a few weeks because I hadn't felt up to it, or was asleep all afternoon.

But now, with the nausea pretty much gone, we're getting out and doing things more. Now I sleep during the day only out of pure boredom. I've lost interest in my video games, so I spend my day watching movies and reading. Then when Bryan gets home from work, we go out and run errands, or take Sabre to the dog park. Things are a lot better now that I'm sleeping a little better, the nausea's gone, and I have a little more energy. I play catch with Sabre during the day, or go out and kick the soccer ball for him, he's a pretty good goalie for a dog. At least the weather here is nice. It was 75 degrees at 5:30pm tonight. It's been pretty crazy weather, cold and hot off and on all month. I left the house at six this morning wearing sweatpants and a long sleeved t-shirt. And I only got a little chilly. I can imagine what my family in Missouri is going through.

In other news, our cat had kittens on November 7th. My mom said I get to be a grandma before I'm a mom, heheh. The cat had four kittens, each of them distinctly different. One is an orange tabby, one is all black, one is a gray tabby, and one is a white/cream color. I was hoping one would be a calico, because then my husband said we could consider keeping it. Lilo, the mom, is a black tortoiseshell, I guess you could call her. She's mostly black with brown and gold patches of fur, and a white patch under her chin. I have no idea what the tom looked like that bred her. She escaped from home in early September, and was gone for five days. This is her first, and we plan to make it her last, litter. I love kittens dearly, I would keep every one of them if I could, but the dog would go crazy, and so would my husband. The litterbox was his job before I got pregnant, she's his cat, but I couldn't help out with them now if I wanted to, and I wouldn't feel right asking him to clean up after five cats. We plan to either sell them to a pet shop, or give them away if we can. Right now, we have eight animals in the house, not counting my husband: a dog, a cat, a rabbit, a snake, and four kittens. Don't worry, the snake's only 14 inches long and a half inch thick, not nearly big enough to eat my rabbit. And we made sure to get one that wouldn't grow big enough to be able to eat my rabbit. That was my only stipulation on getting a snake. We've had him for a couple of weeks now. I'm trying to get him to eat. He ate the night after we bought him, but he hasn't eaten since, and we've been going through pinkie mice like crazy trying. He gets one more week, and then we're going to try some more desperate measures. Anyway, that has little to do with my pregnancy, just a little hitch in my day.

Well, it's time to eat, then check to see if our snake's eaten, and make preparations to go to bed. So this is my update.

TTFN!!!