Surprises along the way

A friend asked me a couple weeks ago if there's anything about pregnancy that really surprised me. At the time I said no, I had read about pretty much everything. But thinking about it more, I have decided there are somethings that surprised me, things that have made me scratch my head and wonder why that's part of this process? Other things I read about but was still surprised to have happen.

The thing that has bugged me the most is my clumsiness. I trip over things and drop things. The worst part of this is slopping my meals all over myself. I used to do this when I was a kid - my mom would always say she could tell what I had for lunch on a given day by what was on my shirt when I came home from school. But I'm grown up now! The worst part of this is with my shelf, aka belly, I've had to spend a good amount of time pretreating my shirts before washing them. And there's something about the material maternity shirts are made out of that makes them really like to hold onto those spots.

I was surprised to get a haircut at the end of April and to see my hair barely grow in the next several months. Now at the beginning of October, more than seven months after that haircut, I think my hair has grown a little. I am finally able to get most of it to stay up when I put it in a pony tail. My hair has looked really good lately too. Thats because of the hormones. They're making my hair thicker so I guess I have more of it coming in, instead of having it grow longer.

I had read about nesting and thought it was a silly idea. But nesting has definitely had its place along the way. I kind of willed another round of nesting to start this week because I was convinced I couldn't get everything done without it. So far its helping.

The lack of energy really took me by surprise too. I read about third trimester fatigue, but I thought it would be like how I was during the first trimester, where I just wanted to go to bed early. But this is different. I am napping during the day more. But I can't sleep all the time and when I'm awake its hard to make myself function. Its like I feel Allie sucking all my energy, like she's stealing all my food before it can benefit me. At the same time, I sleep a lot more, but its pretty uneven. Some nights I'll sleep 10 hours and nap an hour or two during the day. But then I'll have a night like tonight where I'm up for a couple hours in the middle.

So I guess there is plenty that has surprised me along the way. I thought I'd enjoy the "shelf," but that hasn't been the case. The only thing I've been able to use it for is a place for my food to fall instead of the floor.

But at least right now, I'm uncomfortable but not miserable. Its hard to move sometimes and I have to pace myself as I go through my day. But I'm doing my best to be patient for the next month until Allie decides she wants to come out and meet her mommy and daddy in person.