Photographic Proof I ~am~ a Dork.

I took some pictures today and snapped some self portraits. I'm in full no-shower-so-pull-hair-back-and-slap-on-some-makeup-that-is-too-colored-for-such-a-pale-girl mode. In my defense, the camera was brought outside to take pictures of the girls (which are displayed on my other blog) and the pictures of me were simply for fun. Self degrading fun, but still fun.

I used some of that "creme powder" thinking I was so smart in using a 2-in-1 type of makeup, until I see what it actually looks like on me. And my eyebrows should not be wearing more makeup than the rest of my face. And good lord, why do my teeth look so yellow? Ick.


This one was evidence of how fucking gigantic my boobs are right now:


Just for comparison, this is how I looked a little more than a year ago. Yeah. So this is kind of a huge change for me.


If I can say one thing about pregnancy, it is that it has done ~wonders~ for my problematic flat belly:


I think it's the orange makeup covered eyebrows that make me SO punk rock, don't you think?:


So I bid you farewell on this fine Saturday evening. Love you all!



Seriously. Have you ever met a bigger dork than me? My guess is no.

Staying up past midnight.

Back in "the day" my nights wouldn't even start until midnight. Yet last night, I got home a few minutes before midnight and I felt like I was a rock star.

Me and my friend, Laurel (no blog, but you see her comments around the blogosphere occasionally) went to a 9:55pm showing of "Burn After Reading". For any of you looking for a movie to see, I ~highly~ recommend it. It's classic Coen brothers, so it's definitely a dark comedy, but I loved it. So did Laurel. It's got an ending that anyone used to the Coen brothers would expect, so if you like movies that have to wrap up all the loose ends and questions, maybe this movie isn't for you.

The cast consisted of a very dorky Brad Pitt, a neurotic George Clooney, a clueless Frances McDormand, a smart ass braniac John Malkovich and a very bitchy Tilda Swinton. There were others in cast who played smaller parts, but their appearances made the movie for what it was. There was Richard Jenkins (the dead dad in Six Feet Under), David Rasche (I remember him most as the detective Sledge Hammer from the late 1980's series of the same name) and last but definitely not least, J.K. Simmons (apparently he's the police chief in the tv show "The Closer", but I remember him most recently as the psychologist on "Law & Order" and as Vern Schillinger in the HBO show "Oz"). Simmons' part was very small in the movie, but I may have laughed hardest at his lines.

Back to my night. Not only was I staying up past midnight, I wore my brand new Buffalo "secret fit belly" jeans:

And I wore my very favorite pair of Michael Kors heels. So yes, in my mind, I was a rock star.

A word about this new fangled "secret fit belly" thing. When shopping a bit for maternity clothes, I kept coming across this description. It's brand new to me, so it wasn't available when I was pregnant with Allison (2005) and I just didn't understand what the big deal was. Full paneled pants have been around forever. And then I tried them on. HOLY CRAP. It is awesome. The panel is ~thin~ and goes all the way up to your bra line, so the seam doesn't show through any of your shirts. I have some great full paneled jeans from the gap, but the stupid panel is a blue, to match the jeans. But the problem is jeans aren't supposed to go up over your entire belly, so having the panel matching the jeans looks ridiculous underneath your shirts. And again, the lack of a big seam across the top of your belly rules. I definitely give this one two thumbs up. Hell, I give it 4 thumbs up since my body technically has 4 thumbs all together for the time being.

My wonderful husband waited up for me last night (even though he had to get up at 6am) and my night continued to be rock star~esque. Let's just say neither of us went to bed until nearly 2am.

note: although I've already been talking about the p-thing in this post, this one goes a little deeper. I'm not one to give too many warnings, as if you are reading this, you probably already have the idea I'm pregnant, but the next paragraph may be a little hard to read if you aren't in the same place as I am. If you are having a hard weekend, just skip the rest and leave your comment before going off to the next blog. (yes, yes, I'm a comment whore. I ~lurve~ me my comments!)

The belly. Mine is now very pronounced and I love it. (Poor Laurel. I kept rubbing it and going on and on about the pants and this and that before I realized "nancy, shut the fuck up because you are talking to one of your ttc-sisters. I apologized, but only after the first good hour. Again, I'm sorry Laurel!) It's not in that super taut yet, so it's still nice and soft. I personally feel ~so~ sexy, but alas, my husband does not. He would rather me keep it covered by a sheet or a pillow when we're "in bed" so he doesn't have to see it during the act. But for me, I want to show it off and I want him to caress me there. Since I know how he doesn't share in my idea of sexy, I try to do what I can.

Last night, I didn't want to hide it. Instead, I slept nude and uncovered and snuggled my back up against his chest. So it was out there, no missing it. Yet I noticed how his hands never touched it. In fact, I noticed how he intentionally avoided it. He would run his hand up my thigh, around my ass, come forward to my hip in that little divot between pubic bone and hip bone. Then he would trace back, moving up my side and then moving in again when his hand was at breast height where he would continue. But he ~never~ touched my belly.

It actually made me a bit sad that he needed to pretend my belly doesn't exist. I think the swollen belly is just so powerful, as it is an outward acknowledgement of our love. Not that a couple needs to experience this during the baby experience, as it manifests it's way differently for a single person or a couple using a surrogate or adopting, but I have the belly so that's how I feel. And I started to think about it more and asked him, "What do you feel/think of when you touch my belly?" He replied, "I think of our child and it's my only way of bonding with him right now." And with that, I understood.

I feel sexy with the belly because it makes me feel like the epitome of being a woman. But to him, the belly signifies the actual child. I can now see how in the throws of making love, he doesn't want to take a moment to bond with his child. I can't be upset/sad about it anymore, now that I understand, but I still wish he could find me as sexy as I feel.

my uterus is confused. (diet and pictures too)

I feel ~very~ premenstrual. Very.

I'm on cd30 and I'm on birth control pills. I have 3 more days of the pill and I gotta tell you, I don't know if the medication is going to hold out what my body definitely wants to do. If it does start, screw the last 3 pills (or two, or one) because it's not going to matter THAT much. As far as I'm concerned, I would like C14 to get on it's merry way, get the HSS and find out what the fuck my follicles are going to do. Ovulate? Maybe. Hold onto the egg and create a giant cyst? That could be a very real outcome too. A shitty outcome, as I would really like to NOT have to go on birth control pills for another month to settle them down, but a possible outcome nonetheless.

My poor husband. And poor me. No sex for 11 days now. Plus, it was his birthday last week! No birthday sex. Oh, and I got my yearly cold sore due to the weather changing to cold. So none of that either. I feel bad for the poor guy. I think I may be done spotting as of today, so we may have some action tonight. That's if roller derby doesn't do me in.

(children mentioned & some triggery pregnancy pictures. Look away if you are having a bad day!!!)

Not much going on. Just got back from a weekend trip to the inlaws. They've got a crazy insane giant house out of town and it's great for the kiddos. They got to ride horses (not the inlaws) and run around and scream and do all the things kids do. I read. I ~never~ get to read anymore. Ever. So it was nice.

Oh - the diet. The diet! I started it today. It's a pre-packaged meal plan and I was inspired by Sara. (by the way, sara, you owe me something like $380 if this doesn't work.) I don't plan to do it more than 4 weeks, unless of course, I start to lose all kinds of weight and start to look like a model. Then I'll keep it up. I really wanted to do it to learn how to eat and what it takes to eat to lose weight. I'm a horrible eater - I always have. When I gave birth to Allison, I started cutting my eating drastically and I lost it. Oh, how I lost it. I'm sure the breastfeeding helped, but more than that - being literally driven insane by a small 15 month old baby and a newborn was the main culprit. As soon as I gained control of mmy life, I plumped back up to normal.

A little background. I'm 5'7" and athletically built. I was super skinny pre-30s and then I settled in at around 135. Still thin, yes, and it looked good when it was muscle. But when it was 10 lbs of fat, things weren't so great. I weigh more than I look like I weigh. When I tell people I weight 145 lbs, they don't believe me. But I do. I really do. And I actually think I weight 148 lbs, as I am under scale suspicion right now. My ticker may have to be upped soon, but until then, I'm sticking with the 145.

Let's do a pictorial ...

This is how I was back when I first found out I was pregnant (yes, we were a belly picture taking family). I was 8 weeks pregnant here and ~not~ showing. I was about 135 lbs pre-pregnancy and I worked out, so I carried it very well.

Holy shit. These pictures still frighten me. I was 185 lbs here and I ended up having the baby the next day. 50 lb pregnancy weight gain. Whoa.

This is 6 months after that last picture and I am 6 weeks pregnant. Again, not showing. But you can see how I'm a little "soft". I'm about 140 in this picture and ~not~ muscluar.

Ack. Sorry. Again, it freaks me out. And this is only one baby. I couldn't imagine twins inside me. I was huge. Not one of those cutesy little pregnant women. I was GIANT. Anywho. Yeah. I was 190 here, another 50 lbs weight gain. And I gave birth later that day.

This was me 8 months later. Ahhh. Skinnidom. Okay, okay, I was too skinny. I was 125 lbs without any muscle. It was weird how flabby and how skinny I was at the same time.

(In case anyone is interested in the entire belly progression through pregnancies, you can go here. I don't want to post all of them here)

The last picture lasted about 6 more months and I slowly started to gain. It also coincided with baby making. Was it due to the fertility drugs? I surely say it was. But it probably was only a small part of it all. Again, I eat terribly and it was my fault. Like I said earlier, sitting at 145 by this morning's scale, which may actually be 148. I would LIKE to get to 130, but right now, my goal is 135.

I'll update as things progress.