Pieces of Anna

That's right, we finally did it! After actively searching for a place to buy since the end of September, we finally found our humble abode that we are calling home. Everything happened rather quickly once we made the offer, and we were lucky to have found this place before our lease ran out at the end of this month. We actually closed last week and moved in this past weekend. We are now living out of boxes and diving head first into all the aspects of home ownership (seriously, so many things have happened already, and we haven't even lived in our new place for a week). More details to come on how we found our place, the crazy Boston area market, what it's like to move while five months pregnant (hint: I don't recommend it), and of course, photos! I made sure to take photos of our new place before we moved in while it was still empty, so that we would capture the true "before" look. Stay tuned!

I'm writing in real time now! Yay! First, I just want to acknowledge that I am at 20 weeks now, which means that we have made it half way through this pregnancy, and that seems kind of unbelievable. The second trimester continues to be much better than the first. I feel a hundred times better, the nausea is all gone, my appetite is back, and sometimes I feel so normal that I forget that I'm pregnant. (At least, until the next time my back starts hurting or I can't get myself comfortable in bed despite the fort of pillows I build around myself every night.) So, early on in this pregnancy, I got it into my head that we are having a girl. I don't know where this "knowledge" came from, but I was just so sure of it. The rational side of me kept saying that it could be a boy, and I would be happy either way, of course. But my intuition told me it was a girl. Well, a couple of weeks ago, we finally found out the gender of our baby! And what do you know... we ar...

I wrote this post on March 31, 2013. I am officially in my second trimester, and I couldn't be happier about it! First of all, it means that we can finally tell people about the pregnancy (we chose to wait until the end of the first trimester in order to get past the riskiest part of the pregnancy). But even more importantly, I am feeling much, much better these days. The morning sickness lasted over two months. During that time, I didn't throw up once, but I was constantly nauseous (this is not an exaggeration). I did learn to function with the nausea, but it was hard to eat, never mind enjoy food. The fatigue that I experienced in the first half of the first trimester let up somewhat, so I was able to stay up until a more reasonable hour, but I still got tired faster and easier than normal. The nausea finally let up a few days ago, around 15 weeks. I thought it would slowly go away, but it was actually kind of a sudden transition. One day, I woke up and the nausea was...

I wrote this post on February 18, 2013. The blog has been silent for most of the month of February, and there are two reasons for it. One is that I started a new job at seven weeks pregnant. All of a sudden, I have a lot less free time on my hands than I did during unemployment. But it is also the nature of the job - I sit and stare at the computer screen for over eight hours in a row, and the last thing I want to do when I get home is more of the same thing. The eye strain is incredible. The other reason for my radio silence is the effect of pregnancy. I've actually learned how to function with nausea (more or less), but the fatigue is inescapable. When I get home from work, all I want to do is take a nap on the couch. I've even been going to bed at some geriatric hour of the evening, which is highly unusual for a night owl like me. I know you won't read this blog post until at least the second half of March, but I hope that when you do, you will understand and forg...

I wrote this post on January 29, 2013. Week 6 of pregnancy has definitely taught me to take it one day at a time. One day, I feel mostly normal and like my usual self (except for the pregnancy truck induced fatigue), and the next day everything makes me nauseous. I haven't experienced any real morning sickness yet, as I've managed to keep the food down, but it hasn't been an easy task. [Correction: apparently being nauseous counts as morning sickness, even if you are not vomiting.] Some of my favorite foods, like pork and beets, became surprisingly intolerable at times. But then, on other days, I would eat an entire burger. Go figure. On the worst days, eating bland food has helped. In my case, that was matzoh (my Jewish version of crackers). Keeping pieces of matzoh in a ziploc bag on my nightstand to eat first thing in the morning before I get out of bed no longer seems like a ludicrous idea. Here I am at 6 weeks: 6 weeks That's not a baby belly yet, that...

I wrote this post on January 22, 2013. ... No, they don't. Probably because I don't have a yard. But ohmygod, holy boobs! The symptom of the week has definitely been a growth spurt in my bbs. That's 'boobies' in pregnancy forum speak, for all the uninitiated folks. By the way, the number of acronyms on the pregnancy and TTC (trying to conceive) forums could easily rival the military. But back to the boobs. They are in pain and they are growing out of control. I am only five weeks along, and already I am busting out of my regular bras. And those bras had some wiggle room to begin with. I knew that breasts increase in size during pregnancy, but I didn't expect it to happen so early on. What am I going to look like in eight months??? (Update from the present: now that I am in my second trimester, the boobs have grown two cup sizes.) I should stop complaining, though, because really this is the bombshell stage of pregnancy. The belly bump isn't showing ye...

I wrote this post on January 14, 2013. We just embarked on the biggest adventure of our life, and I am over the moon! I can't believe it finally happened, but the proof is in the pee stick pudding. A week ago we found out that I'm pregnant! I'm still a bit in disbelief because the journey to that little word was a bumpy one. People always tell you that getting pregnant is the fun part, and it certainly was in the beginning. But when all that fun was not resulting in a pregnancy, I began to worry that something was wrong. After several months of disappointment, I bought Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler (I highly recommend this book) and started learning about my body. And boy, did I learn a LOT. Some things my body was doing right, and some it wasn't. I turned the conception process into a science experiment, me being the primary guinea pig. Every month, I tweaked a variable and noted observations. Every month, my hypotheses failed. Until now...