Maybe I'm just a skeptic.

There are a lot of pregnancy related things I simply don't believe in.

Cravings is one of them. Well, silly cravings. I do think the body will crave something you ~need~, like if your baby is depleting your calcium supply, you may crave dairy. But when I hear about someone saying they crave captain crunch? Nah. I think captain crunch just sounded good and tasted good and since a pregnancy was involved, the idea of "craving" came in mind and whammo! "I crave captain crunch!". Really, I think it's all a bunch of boohooey.

Before I ever became pregnant, I believed everything I saw in the movies and television. I envisioned my husband running out to the grocery store at 2am to get me some ridiculous concoction of snacks. I believed you really couldn't lift anything. I believed it all. And then it happened to me; pregnancy that is. Instead of just conforming and acting as I thought I should, I let my body tell me the truth.

Sure, I was extra hungry at times and certain things sounded good. But having my husband go get something for me in the middle of the night? Bah. I continued to work out, even running a 10k quite pregnant. I didn't have my husband do all my lifting. I had him to the heavy lifting, but it was rare when I couldn't do it on my own. I didn't act like a fragile flower.

Maybe I should have. I mean, I didn't "milk it" like I see some other women do. I had a friend who would go grocery shopping and she'd load up her car, drive home and then waddle into the house and lay down and tell her husband to unload and put away because she couldn't do it simply because she was pregnant. Um, who the hell loaded up the cart and the car? Yeah. She did. I just never wanted to be that type of pregnant girl. I would lay off when I had to, but it just wasn't really that necessary to do anything different.

My strong attitude does end up screwing me every now and again. Since my husband knows "the truth" about pregnancy (ie: a normal pregnancy. A bed rest / high risk pregnancy is totally different), I'm not going to be able to get waited on hand and foot. My husband is awesome with me though, as he would probably do anything I ever asked, but it's not something I get to just expect. Although, I did get yelled at when he came home to find his 8+ month pregnant wife shoveling snow. But it wasn't because he was worried about me. His words were something like "What are the neighbors going to think about me if they see you shoveling?".

What got me thinking about all of this was the nesting instinct. Now, this is something I do believe in, but only in late pregnancy. When the baby is about to come, a mother tends to get everything clean and perfect in response to her body's pending delivery. But simply getting in a cleaning fit anytime before that? No, it's simply called cleaning. I'm sure everyone has gotten into a cleaning jag one time or another, right? So do they still call it nesting if you aren't pregnant? Nope. It's just one of those things.

I was in my own cleaning mood last night and today. Along with cleaning, I was also organizing drawers and closets. Things like that. Our friend stopped by and declared I was nesting. Nope, sorry. Just cleaning.

I don't know why these things bug me. Maybe it's because I watched myself go through pseudo-symptoms with every 2ww. I know how powerful the brain is and I know how we as humans like to make associations. If I eat something "weird" when I'm not pregnant, I'm told it's gross. But if I eat the same thing when pregnant, suddenly it's a cute "craving". ~shrug~.

Like I said in the title. Maybe I'm just a skeptic.

note about the 16w pic on the sidebar... what the hell is wrong with my stomach? It looks all weird. Not round, but creased looking. I'm going to take another picture later tonight when the second half comes home. I'll leave that one up until I get a better one. But what if my belly really looks all distorted like that? Ick!

updated. I had another picture taken and it looks pretty much the same as the one I didn't like. I'm definitely carrying different this time so far, but "carrying" isn't the right word, as the baby is only something like 4 1/2 inches long right now.