Overwhelmed

Well.....let me just warn all ya'll that this post is quite possibly the longest post I have ever done.  Yes.  It is.  So getcha a nice tall cold drink and buckle up if you want to read to the end!

Hello.

What I'm feeling right now, and have been feeling the past few days, is being overwhelmed!

Overwhelmed with the fact that you all still read my blog.
Overwhelmed with you all praying for me.
I want to say thank you to all my dear blog friends who are out there and supporting me and praying for me and wanting to walk this new path with me.  God gives strength to me through you.  I feel your prayers! I definitely feel your prayers.   It's true that we can't do this thing called Christianity without each other, huh?

I'm also contemplating the thought that I'm starting this journey again at my age.  Yes, it is totally what we wanted, and God has seen fit to honor that want and give us another Life.  But the thought dogs me that I will be
Almost 38
when this baby is born!

That feels overwhelming to me.  Silly? I mean, it's not like I expect to suddenly break down and be frail and doddering and fragile overnight......but it seems older to me.  Yes, I know that Michelle Duggar, whom I admire very much, is now 43 and just had her 20th child.  Hey, suck it up, right??

I'm definitely having a different pregnancy this time around.  My pregnancy with Lucie was a stinkin' breeze!  This time, hmmm, it's, well, I'm not going to lie to you, it's been HARD! My body is doing weird things to me.  Migraines, twice a week for a while there.  Sickness, but never actually vomiting, all morning until 11 am.  Then again, hitting me at 4 pm till bedtime.  I have been so tired! I mean, tired is a gross understatement this time around.  I'd get up at 6 and by the time 10 am rolled around I was needing a nap again! I'd just lay on the couch while the kids did their thing and be drifting off to sleep before I knew it! I think I've been taking two naps a day.  Now, I struggle with laziness, and this just fed my slothful tendencies!

And hormones? Do you gals want to talk hormones with me? Cause I can talk hormones with the best of 'em! This pregnancy, I think an alien demon from the deepest reaches of Hell has inhabited my brain!! Seriously, I feel like someone stole my body and brain and I have no idea where they took them!  I've been a monster lately! I even told my husband I was done with him AND took my wedding ring off (which, if you know me, will totally horrify you because it's just something that I do NOT do! This ring is my most prized possession and I never, no never, take it off) and put it on his dresser cause I was not going to wear that thing anymore! People, it was ugly! Let me tell you, I've done a LOT of apologizing to my kids and my husband the past three months!

So, how am I doing now?

I'm 3 months and 5 days pregnant (can we just say I'm almost 13 weeks?) and let's do an assessment of how I'm feeling today:

• My nausea is almost completely gone.  I only get a bit nauseated right around bedtime.  Now ladies, I have never been nauseated when pregnant, with the exception of a week when I was pregnant with Samantha, so this is momentous! I hardly ever talk about this aspect of my pregnancies for fear of being stalked by mamas with AK-47's because of this.  I know that this is a big problem with most moms, but don't hate me!!
• The migraines have gone away.  I hope they never come back.
• I'm still tired.  I still absolutely HAVE TO have a nap a day.  Last night I started to fall asleep on the couch at 8 pm!
• The hormones? Well, when I asked you all to pray for me, I had a few days of bliss! And for the most part, the past week, I have felt more like myself.  I am drinking red raspberry leaf tea at least once a day, and this is great for hormonal problems and sleep issues and is a great thing for you all who struggle with PMS and really bad periods.  It's a miracle!
• The Musical Mailman Husband is trying to understand, he really is, bless his heart.  I feel so sorry for him because his little woman who he married is gone and in her place is someone he neither knows or understands! 

I'm getting back into the swing of things, slowly.  Laziness still stalks me and many times he wins, but I'm slowly taking authority over that and trying to do what I feel called to do around here.

Let's talk about weight, shall we?? Almost 5 years ago, I went on a wheat free/gluten free/dairy free diet, and it did wonders for me.  The day I went on this self imposed diet, I weighed 220 lbs and a size 20 was getting real snug on me.  I vowed to myself that I would NEVER go up a size.  I was already fat and just couldn't do it anymore.  I had so many major physical symptoms that it would take a separate post just to list them all! Within 48 hours of going on this diet, I started to feel better.  Actually, I can't adequately convey to you HOW MUCH better I felt.  It was nothing short of amazing.  Five weeks into it, I had lost 20 lbs.  Altogether I lost over 80 lbs.  I weighed 150 lbs for 3 and a half years.  I was a size 10-12.  Yeah, I felt skinny.  I have always hated myself and my body, but I was starting to love myself and accept myself and finally, after 36 years of being me, was starting to find out who I really was and liking me! Truly, I felt like a New Me and really loved the feeling.

Why did I include that seemingly unrelated paragraph in this post? Bear with me, I'm getting there! We started going to a new church last October and they had a potluck after every church service.  Oh joy.  Can you see where I'm going with this?? Yeah.  I started to gain weight.

I have gained 35 lbs in the past 8 months.  I'm back to feeling obese and frumpy and just generally gross! I wanted to do something about the fact that when I walked, you could here my thighs slapping together down in Arkansas, so I started exercising.  With Leslie Sansone.  Every single day.  3 Power Miles.  I started to firm up.  I lost 5 lbs! I was going to do it!! I'll tell ya'll that I now love exercise, and this is saying a LOT since I had always thought that exercise was torture designed to kill and maim me slowly. Now I'm an exercise nut and I can't exercise right now and I feeeeeel it.  But that's a post for another day!

Then I got pregnant.  Just two months after my latest miscarriage, I was pregnant, much to my disbelief and surprise! When I talked to Dr W about my weight and told him I was terrified of being obese and pregnant.......

He laughed at me.
He looked me square in the eye and told me I was indeed NOT obese and that I had absolutely nothing to worry about there, but he also admonished me to stop thinking about losing weight right now.

To date, I've gained 2 lbs.  I have been trying to reconcile myself to the fact that I will be over 200 lbs, more than likely, when this baby is born.  I swore I'd never go there again.  I was skinny when I had Lucie.  I look at pictures of me and envy that gal that I was. I had always wanted to be a Cute Pregnant Gal!  People couldn't even tell I was pregnant from behind.  I felt good.  Let me just tell you, I was HOT.  I'll use a phrase I don't love but let's just say I rocked my Baby Bump!

I know this is a long post, but hey, I warned ya!

So you can now tell the things that bother me and worry me the most.  Pray for me! Right now, I've already had some delicious tuna salad with celery and slices of provolone cheese.  I've had a banana.  I've had a half glass of my oldest daughter's Killer Lemonade, and I say half a glass because my Poor Son looked so pitiful cause he didn't get any that I felt deeply sorry for him and gave him the rest of mine.  What I wouldn't do for that Boy! And I can still taste the lemony, tartsweet goodness on my tongue! I've had a piece of Udi's gluten free bread with about a half a stick of butter and organic strawberry jam on it.

And I confess that I had three of my favorite Pamela's Double Chocolate Chunk cookies.

Yes, three.  People, they're bliss.  I think they ought to have a warning label on them!

And I'm still feeling hungry!!

I think I'll just shoot myself right now, and get it over with!!

Thanks for hangin' in there with me this long, gals.  I'll do a post tomorrow about what I'm craving and what I'm eating.  Don't think because I'm on a restricted diet that there isn't anything for me to eat.  I can guarantee you that this diet is perfect for me because I love all kinds of veggies and fruits and salad happens to be my dearest Homey, people!  So I'll do a post about my faves and you can see that I am NOT starving, and you wouldn't either, should you choose to embrace this type of diet.

Love you all so much!!  Talk to you soon!