7 Weeks.

It's 7:18 pm, and I'm just hanging out on the couch biding my time until it feels not-too-lame to go to bed. I'm shooting for 8, but we'll see if I make it until then.

We made it to 7 weeks on Friday, and this teeny tiny babe in my belly is officially the size of a blueberry. It still blows my mind when I get those little updates from a pregnancy app that say things like, "Baby is 10,000 times the size it was at conception." That is a LOT of growing happening, little one.

I am still sick. Very. I'm pretty sure Sea Bands are not effective at all, but I wear them all the time (even to sleep) superstitiously. Because I don't want to not wear them and then throw up. Just in case. You know. They are like weirdly sporty-looking security blankets that make an odd circular imprint on my supposed anti-nausea acupressure point.

I washed my hair today. (Bragging.) It feels really good. It has been a long time (let us not count the days!) since I washed all of it. I know I washed the top half last week. It's long and there's lots of it, so it takes effort to wash and dry, and I only have so many good minutes per hour. I used up all my morning ones taking a long shower, washing my hair, and drying it. Then I threw a load of laundry in the washer, and I had to lay down for like an hour, and then I fell asleep on the couch, and then I went up to take a "real" nap in bed and slept for nearly 4 hours, without moving from the spot I fell asleep in.

I'm taking it really easy on myself. It is a relief. I feel like all the give-yourself-grace-Jamie! work I've done over the past few years is getting a real workout now. I'm not pushing to hard. I push just enough to feel it, and then I let myself be where I need to be. My sweet little body feels really separate from me right now. It is tired and sick, and it feels much older and more weary than my spirit does inside of it. But I know it is doing its best, and I am trying to honor that by letting it rest. We have a long and weary road ahead of us, and I hope that gentleness will help me endure better and more happily.

On Friday or Saturday night (I don't know which; they all run together) I had the clash of the pregnancy symptoms. I won't elaborate in detail, but there was much throwing up and other unpleasantness and I laid on the carpeted closet floor in our bathroom. It was terrible, but I have decided that though throwing up is awful and I hate it, it's okay if I have to do it. It's not the end of the world. Somehow that makes the nausea a little easier to handle. I don't have to fight my body; I can let it do what it needs to do.

I've been grasping for support and meaning and purpose from my Heavenly Father. It is so difficult for me to go through something that seems so useless. Being nauseated doesn't help my baby or my body to be healthier. It feels very pointless. I feel very useless sometimes, and disheartened, and looking in to the long long days and nights that will come before it relents is a weight on my heart. I try not to look at it, because it doesn't help, but big things like that--you catch it out of the corner of your eye sometimes, even when you're trying not to. And it sticks for a while before I remember to go back to day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.

I watched this talk from General Conference the other night, and cried, and felt a little lift. I can bear this ickyness and sadness if it is "the work God gave me to do." I don't know why He chose this kind of work, when I am so good at the kind that is productive and visible and measurable, but He has, and I am trying to keep that perspective. There are things for me to learn in this, I know. I just wish it was a little more pleasant. ;)

Tonight Steve is out with friends at a concert in town. Guster. He has been so tired. The other night while the kids were getting ready for bed, he fell asleep slumped over on the ottoman and snoozed and snored there for a good twenty or thirty minutes.

Poor love.

He has been good as his word (better) and has taken over meal planning, cooking, shopping, dishes, and lots of parenting, and he has taken good care of my heart, too. I hope I am taking care of his. That is the hardest part of this for me--harder than being still and feeling sick and never knowing what will stay in my tummy. I just hope I'm doing okay for him. I hope he still feels loved.

I miss him tonight. Part of me is very sad not to be with him and not to be able to be his date and feel like his sweetheart. But all of me is glad for him to have a break and to play and to be happy and light and not in charge of our whole little world for a bit. That can make a person tired, and I hope this will be nice for his sweet heart to get a little recharge.

Keep growing, little baby. <3

6 Weeks.

Baby turned six weeks on Friday, and the morning sickness got real.

I woke up from a deep sleep in the middle of the night and jumped out of bed because I had to throw up. I hate throwing up. But it's funny the sort of casual resignedness I took it with. Felt that telltale feeling. Got out of bed and grabbed a hair-tie from my bedside table, wrangling my hair into a ponytail as I walked to the bathroom. Quietly got rid of whatever it was that my stomach didn't agree with. (Really actually quietly. I left the bathroom door open but didn't wake Steve.)

Sometimes I need moral support, but it was just a quick awful moment and then it passed. I rinsed my mouth out and got back in bed.

Honestly it's not even the throwing up that gets to me. It's the constancy. The feeling, always, of being about-to-lose-all-my-food. I look forward to sleeping just so I don't have to think about/feel it. Unconsciousness is a very healing gift, and I am thankful for afternoon naps and a self-imposed earlier bedtime.

Unisom seems to be helping. SeaBands seem to be helping (maybe). Eating almost constantly makes a difference. (I am very tired of eating.)

Looking at Juliette and reminding myself what this is all for--another sweet little human added to our gaggle of giggly wonderful Walton babies--is helping. I believe it is going to feel worth it when I hold that new babe in my arms.

The kids have been amazing helpers. They don't know why they're helping yet, just that Mom is feeling sick and laying on the couch a lot. The big kids recently learned to clean the bathrooms, and they clean either their bathroom or the downstairs powder room every day. Gracie has been making lunches for the kids. Charlie puts Juliette to bed at nap time so I can stay downstairs on the couch. They pitch in like troopers and I am so thankful for their good attitudes and capable hands. It is making this much easier.

Steve has been wonderful, too. He always is. He's made me foods I crave, jumped in to take over kid lunches, kitchen duty, meal planning, and chores as needed. He hugs and cuddles me. We talk about the baby, and he supports my escapist needs by planning homes to build or cruises to take or whatever fun daydream is happily distracting me.

And for the first time, I am at a place where I recognize I can do some things, but not all the things I am used to doing. Before the pregnancy, I had a massive list of things I worked through each day, as well as daily tasks. Today I typed up a new list--just the things that will really matter to my well-being and our family's. Enough things to get me up off the couch and doing things, but not so many that I'll feel overwhelmed and useless and start crying. I think it helps to have some small expectations of myself to keep me moving, and to release all the other stuff so that I can focus on keeping my body and attitude in the best places.

I'm not really craving anything in particular, but baby does seem to be pleased with cheese. Annie's macaroni, Laughing Cow spreadable cheese on carrots or Wheat Thins, and grilled cheese sandwiches have all fallen into the "edible" category lately. I can eat some vegetables, which is happy! And some fruits. Mostly carrots and apples. I'll take it. As in my other pregnancies, anything made of wheat (bread, cereal, etc.) other than Wheat Thins is disgusting. Peanut butter (usually one of my favorite foods) is revolting. Like, I can't even stand the smell of it. At all. :) Also, strangely, pizza. I took one bite and knew it was a mistake.

I'm falling into a new routine. And I'm still and quiet a lot more, so I'm talking with the kids and taking time to just watch them play. It's always good when my body has to slow down, because it helps me remember to focus more on stillness and attentiveness and less on getting all the things done.

I am discouraged, but time ticks on, and this too shall pass. Here's to getting through.

Charlie on Babies

Charlie and I (and barely-5-weeks-of-baby) ended up hanging out on the cushiony table at the pediatrician's office Friday, while Charlie did fun stuff like nebulizer treatments and getting his ears cleaned out. (Poor kid.)

Since we were biding our time anyway, I figured I might as well have a little chat with him and feel out his opinions on more Walton babies. Our conversation went approximately as follows:

Me: So. Do you think we should we have any more babies in our family?
Charlie (agreeably): Yeah.
Me: How many babies do you think we should have?
Charlie: Maybe one, two, three more babies. So we can have six kids!
Me: Six?! That's a lot of kids!
Charlie (grins): Yeah!
Me: What kind of babies would you want to have? Like, girl babies or boy babies?
Charlie: I'd want to have all girl babies because I like girl babies, like Juliette.
(My heart melts. The sweetness!)
Me: What should we name the girl babies?
Charlie (frustrated): I don't have any good names for them.
(after a beat)
Charlie: ...like maybe Leia should be one of the babies!

Things I Can't Tell My Wife

My wife is starting to ride the nausea train, and I need to get off the tracks. The problem? I have an obnoxious sense of smell, so I also smell a bunch of narsty things. Normally I comment on them. Now I can't.

Also, I work in an Emergency Room. I see / hear / smell disgusting things. Most aren't good for dinner conversations, but I (until nausea time) can tell Jamie of my adventures.

So... I need an outlet, and here it shall be.

So, for gross stuff I can't yet tell Jamie about, for the risk of making her throw up:

1. A dude came into our ER with a massive heart attack that we needed to intubate. Prior to putting the tube in, he vomited all over the place, and hit the cardiology fellow and my attending. I was at the head of the bed, so out of the danger zone. But my attending got it in the face, coat, scrubs, and Apple Watch. It was... amazing.

2. I cleaned out our kitchen garbage can. I don't know what was growing at the bottom of it, but it was mushy, black, and stinky. I love bleach. It almost made me vom, so I couldn't describe it to Jamie.

3. Jamie bought corn dogs today. Corn dogs are disgusting, and very stinky. But I can't tell Jamie... that would make her sad/mad. She knows I hate them, but the little orange seed inside her body is winning the nausea battle, and it's a fight I can't win. Also, I can't kiss my wife when she smells like a corn dog.

I will, however, repeatedly tell her how much I love and appreciate the sacrifice of going through this just to bring a new little life into our home. She knew going into this that this was going to happen, and she is still sacrificing her health and sanity to bring a new little soul into this place.

It's starting.

Saturday night after dinner, I felt wrong. Just off. And I knew:

The nausea was starting.

I've been taking a preemptive anti-nausea cocktail of B6 and Unisom every night since two days after I found out I was pregnant (on the recommendation of my doctor, don't fret!) and I admit that in the back of my mind I secretly hoped that maybe this time I wouldn't get knocked down so hard with morning sickness... Or... at all?

Saturday wasn't bad. It just wasn't right. Things (like the ground beef I'd just cooked and so desperately wanted in our spaghetti sauce) were irrationally disgusting me. Aversions. And I had that wrong taste in my mouth. And I just felt kind of... icky.

I told Steve after the kids went to bed that I could feel the warning signs. My days of morning-sickness free dining were numbered. Bless his heart, he told me to get to the grocery store immediately, and buy whatever I wanted.

I walked through and picked out anything that looked delicious and/or potentially edible in the forthcoming nausea days.

The spoils included:

Dole Orange Mango juice
White Cheddar Cheez-Its
Wheat Thins
Laughing Cow spreadable cheese
Medium cheddar
Strawberry Toaster Strudels (with 30% more icing?!)
Various soups
3 pints of Ben & Jerry's (2 for me, 1 for Steve): Chocolate Fudge Brownie and The Tonight Dough

By the next morning, things were starting to taste wrong. My Dole juice was sad (but Steve happily took over, and drank it so quickly that he got a minor allergic reaction to the mango, which usually only happens when he eats the actual fruit).

And its gotten slowly worse over the course of this week. First it was just in waves, but today it has been pretty much all day long.

After we dropped Charlie off at preschool, Juliette and I made pilgrimages to CVS and Trader Joe's, where I picked up Sea Bands (CVS) and copious amounts of ginger flavored things (ginger, crystallized ginger, ginger mints, and triple ginger snaps) as well as things my crazy pregnant body thinks I want to eat: two types of meatballs, some chicken sausage, and a package of frozen corn dogs. I comfort myself that these are all about as healthy as they can be, since they at least came from Trader Joe's.

So I'm officially morning sick. It's sad and I'm not a fan, but I'm trying to keep my eye on the big picture: this is an infinitesimally small effort on my part when I consider that the end product of an uncomfortable pregnancy is a brand new beautiful human life. A brand new Walton baby to love.

Do Sea Bands actually work?

Does ginger truly have anti-emetic properties?

Will I need to add Zofran to my already pill-heavy evening medicating routine?

And will I ever get the Sourdough Jack burger that I have been irrationally but powerfully craving for the past three days?!?! (The nearest Jack in the box is 1 hour away! Woe!)

The answers to these questions (and more!) that you didn't ask will be revealed in the coming weeks!

What lightsaber color?

So... we have a problem.

On Christmas, Gracie and Charlie got plastic lightsabers. Jamie's parents bought each of them their own color - blue for Gracie and green for Charlie.

And precious little Squish? She did so great all of Christmas. She would get so excited with any new gift and would play with it until told to open another present. The only time she got jealous? When she saw her sibs open their lightsabers.

"Whew is Jee-yette's yight-saboo?" she asked sweetly. Sadly, there was no lightsaber for this little girl's Christmas. Jamie's parents saw this heartbreak in person, and came to the rescue. They ordered her a red one (Darth Vader's color - the dark side - don't tell her?), which showed up 2 days later.

It was a Christmas miracle.

Now the next problem...

There are only 3 lightsaber colors available for these toys.

This is Walton Babies: Episode IV

We need another color.

Episode IV: A New Baby

Transcribed [almost] word for word from my journal entry on December 30, 2015.

I'm pregnant.

I took the test today. This morning. Mom and Dad are visiting, and I thought I'd wait, but my calendar said this was day 27 of my cycle. And I couldn't wait. I crept upstairs while they were engrossed (Mom playing Legos with Grace, Dad teaching Steve how to use a Dremmel) and peed in a cup (glamour) and dropped four tiny drops onto a Dollar Store pregnancy test and counted. You're supposed to wait 2 minutes.

With Charlie I saw the pink line immediately.

This one I stared at, watching the control line turn dark pink--and then nothing.

My heart was hammering.

I was counting--68, 69, 70.

Nothing.

I was almost ready to throw it out. I felt a pang of disappointment. And then somewhere around I'm guessing the count of 110...

Was that a line?

I turned it to the side a little. Was I just catching the reflection of the empty line where the pink line would be--if I was pregnant?

Or was it--was it?--a real second line?

I watched it for another 30 seconds as slowly, slowly it became clear enough to see.

It was a second line.

A baby...?

Should I tell Steve?

Maybe I should take another test first, to be sure.

I could go buy one later, tell him for sure tomorrow.

But it turned out I couldn't wait. I went downstairs and asked if I could borrow him.

Upstairs in the bathroom, I held out the test.

He was incredulous. (We hadn't been trying that long!)

We laughed. We hugged. He told me he was excited. He said people will really think we're crazy. :) I told him--we already have three, what's one more?

He had to go to work at 2pm. At 2:47 he texted me:

"Um... Baby?!"

And I just keep looking at our positive test. <3