Pieces of Anna

Forget-me-nots Pregnancy brain - a continuous, progressive condition in which you forget what you were thinking five seconds ago. May result in awkward pauses in conversations and poor hygiene. The only known cure is giving birth. I forgot to put on deodorant this morning. And I did not even realize this until lunch time. This is what I call pregnancy brain. I have to say that second trimester has been pretty great to me, I definitely lucked out. After the nausea went away, all the good stuff kicked in, sometimes literally. Like feeling the baby kick and having more energy. There is only one part of the second trimester that hasn't been kind to me, and it's affecting my brain. When I first read about pregnancy brain in my book, it was described as a feeling of absentmindedness. This sounded so innocuous that I mostly dismissed it. As it turned out, though, "absentmindedness" is a severe understatement, at least in my case. It started out subtly enough. I...

Dancing at our wedding Yesterday, D and I celebrated our one year anniversary. The weather cooperated with us once again this year, and so we packed a picnic lunch (complete with a quaint basket) and spent the afternoon in the park where we got married. It has been one roller coaster of a year for us. In June, we got married and went on our honeymoon to Virginia and Washington, DC. In July, D started a new job, and I got laid off . In August, we celebrated the wedding of D's sister. My grandmother passed away in September after a battle with ALS. The roller coaster hit rock bottom at that point. In October, hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast, and my stepdad's mom's house was destroyed. She has been living with my parents ever since (there is just now finally some hope of rebuilding). We also started looking for a house to buy at around that time. The next couple of months were all about family. My grandfather, having just lost the love of his life, visited m...

So we bought a condo and moved in a couple of weeks ago. But before we moved in, on the day that we officially closed, we stopped by our new place to take some photos before all of our stuff got piled into every nook and cranny. But let me tell you about the place first. It's a small (826 square feet), 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom condo that is on the first floor of a double-decker. For all of you who don't live in the Boston area, double-decker means there are only two units in this condo association. The house is really old - records say it was built approximately in 1900, which is what usually goes into records when houses are so old that they were built before any record keeping. So it may even be older than that. With age come some issues, but also some really awesome features. We love the fact that our ceilings are 9 feet tall! We also have some really awesome baseboards, chair rail, and trim around the doorways and windows. Without further ado, here is our condo:   Tha...

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...