26W2D; Wedding Trip to PA

James and I went to visit his family in Enola, Pennsylvania last weekend for the wedding of Katie Dilts and Peter Griffin. It was mostly fun, except when it wasn't (when I was not feeling well).

Thursday

You'll be glad to find out that I didn't throw up again after the first flight, though I did continue to madly collect sick bags everywhere I went. We showed up at the Harrisburg airport later on Thursday afternoon where we were picked up by Dad Dilts. They got lots of pizza when we got there. I successfully ate and retained half a pizza.

I don't remember much else that evening except that I was only semi-conscious and hanging out either on the sofa in the living room (where nieces and nephews were playing) or on a mattress down in the basement. I didn't actually fall asleep though until later when James came to sleep for the night too.

Friday

Friday was the day of the wedding! First things first--we somehow had to translocate twenty-some-odd Diltsen to the Washington D.C. temple/ visitor's center which was inconveniently located two hours away. James and I rode with Ethan, Micah, and little James. Although we left earlier than the rest of the family, we got lost almost immediately due to some misleading directions from Google Maps. (... I thought Google was omniscient! How could the Almighty Google midlead us? It probably didn't help that James, our assigned Reader of the Directions was completely distracted and watching Megamind instead of paying attention to where we were.) We ended up having to follow Clifford the Big Red Van the whole way.

As we approached the temple grounds, Ethan ended up having to cut off some chick in a white car several times in an effort to stay behind the Dilts van. We observed that this chick was attractive, and we felt a little bad for the multiple cut-offs. I'm not sure if it was Ethan's idea or not, but he eventually agreed to apologize and get her number if she just happened to also be going to the temple. This was before she started following us templeward. To Ethan's relief (and to the disappointment of the rest of us) she went off in some other direction just before we got there. Oh well.

After the sealing, we had a little photo shoot outside in the hot, hot sun. I don't actually remember if it was sunny or overcast, but I do remember starting to feel overheated and nauseous before too long. I did not die and I was eventually able to eat a sammich and a yogurt in the shade of the visitor's center. 

(I almost typed "an ogurt". James will affirm that this is how I usually refer to yogurt. Strawberries are stobbies. Bananas are nanners. Strawberry banana yogurt is stobby nanner ogurt, which is what I had. It was tasty. Perhaps I should be mildly concerned about Pterodactyl being completely unintelligible after learning how to speak from me.)

The ride back was also an adventure which started out in roughly the same manner: roughly. We took a few wrong turns and had several "I have no idea which way is home. Let's try going right!" experiences. It's impressive, then, that we eventually got on the right track. We eventually tried to watch "Fiddler on the Roof" since I've never seen it before, but before too long (I think it was after "If I Were a Rich Man") I was too sick to perform the strenuous task of watching a movie in the back of a car. This is about the time where we stopped for Slurpees and to give little James an opportunity to pee in a bathroom instead of in a booster seat.

Besides being tasty, the Slurpee had the magical effect of decreasing my body temperature and therefore relieving me somewhat from the nausea and the potentially disastrous potential vomit. It did have the unintended side effect of causing little James to stare and glare at me as I very rudely did not share the Slurpee with him. Even more rudely, I let big James have a few sips. I'm such a mean Aunt Jenna.

We made it home, where I commandeered Katie's secluded twin bed to sleep in. After all, given her newly married status (as well as her lack of presence in the Dilts home), what need had she of a twin bed? I think I woke up. Eventually. It's all so fuzzy. I don't remember how much time I spent sleeping or when.

There was a sweet, fun little reception. It was perfect. It was also prettier than mine, but I'm pretty sure there was more money spent getting this one into motion than mine. (I reminisced about my own wedding some while I was there.) Where James and I had lots of Little Caesar's pizza, Katie and Peter had croissant sandwiches and spinach/cheese triangles and various other finger foods. They had an actual wedding cake with actual fondant, meaning they actually had a cake to cut, whereas James and I took a ginormicous knife to a poor, helpless cupcake. Katie also had actual flowers. I had fake ones, largely because the stress of needing to get several live organisms looking healthy and amazing on one particular day seemed just a bit too much to ask a bride singlehandedly (besides James) planning a reception whilst simultaneously endeavoring to graduate with a degree in neuroscience.

Anyway, I was able to eat some food, although I unfortunately found a lot of it unpalatable. Thankfully, I was able to down some croissant (but not the cheese or meat) as well as some carrots. James and I even danced a bit. I kept hoping for a foxtrot, but most of Katie's dance music was more cha-cha appropriate and otherwise upbeat. I didn't dance much. My poor ginormicously bloated feet were not agreeable to many fancy moves. 

(May I make an aside here about the amazingness of maternity support tights? I had the foresight to use some on both trips to and from Oregon and my ankles--get this--remained their normal size for the entirety of both journeys. I neglected to wear them for the drives to and from D.C., so I did not enjoy this benefit that day.)

At some point, James and I carted over to the Shurtz home for a comfier queen bed (much comfier for two married creatures than the twin we had slept in on the night previous). We were met with a room a little too warm and stuffy for my needs (which triggered some nausea), so we got out a fan to get the air moving around. It helped.

Saturday

James and I headed back over to the Dilts home base on Saturday. Steffanie had some sort of surprise, but I wasn't doing too well. I went and commandeered Katie's twin bed again. James therefore got to ignore me and spent much of the day playing with his best friend John, so this wasn't altogether a tragedy.

Steffanie's surprise turned out to be Christmas in May. Cool. There were presents and the traditional Dilts-Christmas-kabobs. We even got to play Christmas piano quartets. 'Twas awesome. I ate some of Liliana's tasty green-colored soup which 'twas also awesome. I think I tinkered around on a piano a bit, hung out with actual people a little, and then James and I left for the night again... when we discovered that James was missing his suit coat and tie.

Oh noes! The suit coat and tie were discovered only after we had flown away but I'm grateful they got lost anyway. I'm afraid I may have forgotten my driver's license if people hadn't been looking for the suit coat. I will take a misplaced-item mishap in place of a travel travesty any day.

Sunday
We made it home safely, but only after 19 hours of travel. Yuk.

Monday
Slept lots.

Tuesday

I am at work today, but I'm barely hanging in there. I might go home.

Anyway, ta-ta for now,

Jenna and Pterodactyl

25W4D; 23rd Birthday; Day of Long Travel

Woooo. Travelling is SO much more fun when you're pregnant and super sick, let me tell you. I was optimistic that today actually wouldn't be so bad because I was actually somewhat functional yesterday! Not super duper functional, but functional enough that I was able to go to work for six whole hours(!) and train my replacement instead of abandoning her to try and learn everything on her own. (That has been happening too frequently for my taste.)

Yesterday was also my one-year anniversary working at Women's Care, so they got me a gorgeous orangey-pink rose. I also got a couple thank you cards, which was I was especially grateful for, since my anxiety likes to tell me EVERYBODY THINKS YOU'RE LAME BECAUSE YOU STAY HOME SICK ALL THE TIIIMMMEEE. This is, of course, not true, but it is still nice to have written evidence to the contrary. And I think the truth is, most people underestimate how sick I actually am except for James, other friends and family members, and my coworkers. I get more YEESH SUCK IT UP WIMP vibes from other medical peeps and acquaintances, but I suppose that if they spent more time with me, they'd get it.

I was also super productive and picked up more medicine, snacks, and face wipeys for today's trip. And I got a kennel and name tag for a kitty. And got another apartment key for Becca to have as a new resident. And did laundry and packed. I was going to clean lots, but that was a little too much for me. I was just super proud that by the time we left this morning, there wasn't really much laundry and there weren't dishes or garbage around to stink up my apartment. That's the important stuffs, right?

Man, I'm SO glad I bought a big tub of moist wipes... I think that's my number one recommendation for any sickies travelling around. I had an explosive vomiting incident on the airport shuttle. Vomit all over my face, glasses, hands... and dribbling down my shirt to my toes. I smell great!

Anyway, we are boarding our next flight to Harrisburg, PA.

Ta-ta for now,
Jenna, Pterodactyl, and our turkey-timer belly button.

25W0D

Theoretically, only 3-3.5 months left of pregnancy! Woo! I am not a huge fan of this pregnancy thing.

As far as nausea and vomiting goes, this week wasn't so bad for the most part, but Friday night took a turn for the worst. James had gone to the ward priesthood campout, so it was also a particularly ill-timed bad turn.

I started vomiting everything--if I took a sip of water, I'd throw up that sip and then some. If I ate two Cheerios, I'd throw those up as well as a cup of vile gastric juices. I kept trying to get down some Zofran, but that was an utter failure. I also tried to eat some Benedryl (it can help nausea with the added bonus of making you sleepy), but that also failed.

By the middle of the night, I hadn't slept a wink and I could feel all my muscles seizing up. Charlie horse here, Charlie horse there. Goodie. So then I was in excruciating pain and I'd try to eat a Tylenol or even a Vicodin, but I threw those up too.

I finally built up the courage to call James at 1 am, but as I feared, he had turned off his phone. I was just hoping that for once he wouldn't do the smart thing and save battery life while hanging out in the middle of nowhere...

This continued all night and all morning. I left a message for James around 7:30am to come home soonish. At this point I suspected part of the reason I felt so bad mentally was because I was all by myself. I decided to have a warm shower to see if that helped with the muscle cramps. I think it did help a bit, but it was also a trade-off since the impact from the water droplets hurt my skin so bad.

Eventually James came home. He was going to go volunteer at a math competition, but instead he was nice and went to get me some Zofran oral-dissolving tablets from the pharmacy as well as some Powerade. Those also made me throw up, and because at this point I was running a fever, we went to the hospital.

They gave me some IV fluids and IV Reglan and IV Benedryl... and before long I was no longer in pain or throwing up or anything. I was really thirsty though. I even fell asleep. All my labs looked good, so their best  guess was that I caught a virus of some sort which exacerbated my nausea.

Then James took me home and I went to sleep. Today I am feeling much better. I basically had nothing to eat or drink yesterday, but today I don't feel so bad. I even was able to eat some Cheerios with milk and a small amount of strawberry-mango smoothie that James made for breakfast. I am still a bit crampy and sore, but I've been doing some prenatal yoga with the help of a super-cheesy Internet video, and I am all-in-all feeling much better, although I am still pretty weak.

If I had to guess about where I caught the virus... probably work. My coworkers had been coming down with some sort of short-lived viral illness too. I know some people at church who had gotten sick as well, but that seemed to be a longer-lived virus. We'll see.

This week James and I are flying to Pennsylvania for Katie's (James' sister) wedding! I think it's a little funny that she is marrying a Griffin, so I kind of feel like she and I are trading last names. Because we are. :) I'm excited to go see people, but at the same time I'm a little nervous about getting sick during the trip.

Maybe I should look into getting some sick bags, but they're surprisingly hard to find! I should have raided the hospital when I was there yesterday, but alas, such thoughts did not occur to me. I have grocery bags and brown paper bags, but the plastic bags tear and the paper bags leak. Maybe I can go googly-eyed at the flight attendants and they'll supply me with a nice stash. Eh?

Anyway, I'm going to get back to my cheesy prenatal yoga video. The music is perfect for the cheesiest video ever, and the lady leading the yoga keeps saying things like, "Now, hands over your heart, and send all the love from your heart down to your baby..." Okay, lady, if you say so.

24W1D

Yikes! Last week's post with the belly bump picture was my most popular blog post ever in the history of Jenna blog(s). I'm definitely not creeping up to the ranks of big time bloggers who are so awesome that thousands and thousands of people check my blog every day, but I still thought it was cool that my last post was viewed over 100 times the day after I published it. (This is not counting my own views, of course.) Apparently, posting my beautiful face all over the internet is the way to go... I feel... somewhat loved, or at least paid attention to.

So today is another day where I don't look very "big". I feel kinda big though. Those of you who have carried a pregnancy to term are probably laughing, thinking, "Oh man, Jenna, you ain't seen BIG yet!". But bear with me and my fascination, my body is doing strange things... normal for pregnancy, but still. Straaaange things. It takes some getting used to.

I've been throwing up a lot (still). Right now I am not super nauseated and am taking advantage of this opportunity to work and to eat a sammich. (Food, glorious food!) I am still hungry all the time but also scared to eat all the time. Yesterday, I did not keep down a single meal. ...

Wait. In retrospect, I fell asleep after eating a scoop of ice cream. I think that stuck. (Success!!! Kind of. It would have better if it was ANY of the other healthier foods I ate.) Maybe if I eat more ice cream I'll finally start making those pregnancy fat stores I keep hearing I'm supposed to get. I haven't gained any weight in the last 2-3 weeks, but I haven't lost any either.

I don't feel ginormous in my belly, but I think that's largely because my belly is not my fastest growing body part. (Prim and proper readers, please skip to the next paragraph.) I mentioned before that my boobs are getting bigger and how that is kind of scary, and not super desirable. Well... They continue to grow and they are blocking my own view of the belly. I'm not seeing my belly change shape yet because the ladies are in the way. It's like they don't quite understand that I am more excited about the growing kid than I am excited about them. My belly had better start growing faster than the ladies or else I'm definitely going to need a crane to help me stand up.

Pterodactyl is still growing... She is supposedly one foot long, and shouldn't be that chubby yet, but still. I look down at belly and wonder--so, um, where is that foot-long baby supposed to fit? I do believe she is actually about that size because the range in which I feel her kicking is roughly one cubic foot located right in my middle. I guess instead of growing, I am mostly compactifying "unnecessary" things, like say, my bladder and my stomach and my lungs...

That's probably it. I think my stomach is tiny because I am most successful in keeping food down if I only eat one bite every five minutes or so. Otherwise I explode. Also, when I do explode, I have developed the unfortunate habit of peeing myself, which suggests SOMETHING is sitting on my bladder... as if vomiting wasn't unpleasant enough already! If I get to the bathroom in time, I now have a pre-vomit ritual... Remove glasses, remove pants. This obviously isn't done in public restrooms. Post-vomit ritual... mop up the floor. I feel like I'm trying to toilet train a dog or something, only it's me making the surprise pee puddles. Maybe I should invest in some Depends. Or lay down newspaper in the bathroom.

I can also tell that my uterus is getting ginormouser because I can actually feel it when I poke myself. Sometimes it is squishy, but I think sometimes it is also practicing for labor and doing those Braxton-Hicks contraction thingies. Miss Uterus has supposedly been practicing for months now, but I hadn't noticed until recently. I think this is the closest I've ever been to rock-hard abs...

Anyway, ta-ta for now,
Jenna and Pterodactyl

23W4D

I suppose it's time to admit it. My most successful tactic for cheering myself up is... pretty immature. It goes like this: I'm all alone or with just James. "Bum." And then I giggle uncontrollably. Works every time.

Bum. Heeheheheheee. :) I am definitely a Griffin.

James commented the other day that I should probably stop doing that, because it's likely that Pterodactyl will pick it up, and then do it in sacrament meeting or something. I wouldn't be too embarrassed when she's still smallish (admit it--if a toddler in sacrament meeting said "Bum" and then proceeded to giggle incessantly, it would be hilarious), but there would eventually come a day when it just wouldn't be cool any more.

I'm not sure I care enough to stop doing it myself, though. Where would I be without my instant cheer-me-up? Depressed and bored/boring. Surely nothing is worth that... And it's better than your kid swearing in church, and then explaining they heard those words from you, right?

I am currently faced with the overwhelming task of creating a baby registry. The lists of things-you-supposedly-need-to-have-on-the-registry they provide are way too... extensive for my purposes.

Seriously, I'm fairly confident that maybe 10 (20 if I'm super lucky) people will get anything for me. That, and I'm reasonably certain these 1-20 people aren't going to have $40+ each they're willing to spend on stuffs for me. And it seriously feels wrong to have more expensive items on the registry like a nice quality car seat/stroller combo... do I know anyone who has almost $200 to spare? I don't think I do. I'm not confident anyone will throw me a shower, either.

Maybe I should just put things I REAAALLLY want on the registry, and then search Craigslist and ward members' homes for the rest of things I honestly don't have too many opinions about. I'm hoping to get many, many things secondhand.

In the meantime, I'm having a blast (sarcasm, here) spending bucketloads of time reading millions of reviews on all the bottles, toys, bathing supplies, onesies, and nasal aspirators (so THAT'S what they call those gross nose bulb things...). And discovering things I should probably get my hands on that I hadn't considered needing, like, for instance, baby nail clippers. Adventures.

It also occurs to me that sometime in August (or possibly September) I will be faced with the task of getting Pterodactyl OUT OF MY BODY. That's in like 3-4 months. That will be gone before I know it.

I seem to recall that sometime in 2009 while I was baking cookies, I looked up at the clock, and said with sudden worry, "I am not looking forward to labor."

Yeah, still not looking forward to labor that much. I've discovered I'm not afraid of it (that's a plus), but it still doesn't sound like it will be the most enjoyable time of my entire life. I'm pretty sure joy is supposed to happen after labor is OVER.

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm grateful to be living in Hippietown, USA. There are enough people around here that are skeptical of hospitals that they built this beautiful, super comfy birth center next to the Riverbend hospital as an alternative and just as safe birthing location.

(If anything did go wrong, I could get to the operating room in less than three minutes. And if it was something like a hemorrhage, I'd be doomed even if I was in the hospital. And the doctors would be peeing their pants there, anyway. They were wise in making sure they had the means to deal with things that need absolute immediate attention. They are just as prepared to deal with something actually scary as they are in the maternity ward.)

So assuming I don't develop pre-eclampsia or gestational diabetes or something, I get to have a labor about as comfy as is possible. I'll get to move around as much as I want. (Sweet.) And eat/ drink whatever I want. (Sweet.) Wear whatever or as much (or as little) as I want. (Sweet.) Take as long as I need without feeling like they want to do a C-section because the obstetrician desperately wants to go home. (Sweet.) Take showers, lounge around in the tub, hang out on the cushy bed with the pretty quilt. (Sweet). They even have an iHome at your bedside table. (Sweet.)

This sounds infinitely better than getting fifty bajillion wires strapped all over me (and therefore becoming much less mobile, and possibly stuck in bed where I'll be forced to labor on my back)... and better than not being allowed to eat or drink... and being surrounded by gross hospital smells...

So, yeah. I realized that most of my anxiety about labor was due to things in and about the hospital environment. I'm not crazy enough to voluntarily labor miles and miles away from a hospital, but I have no qualms whatsoever about laboring in a homey birth suite next door. Hospitals are stressful and germy.

Anyway, my dad wanted a belly bump picture. Today I have a bump! ... It's not much of a bump. But there it is...  (Ooh! My closet door is so shiny, it's a little reflective! ... That's weird...)

Ta-ta for now,
Jenna and Pterodactyl

22W6D

It's been a tough week. I feel like I haven't eaten for days and days even though I have, but I just didn't keep it down. It's comforting to know, at least, that I have generally been able to keep things down for a few hours, so I was probably able to absorb something nutrient-like into my bloodstream where it was taken directly to Pterodactyl... unfortunately, I don't think there were any nutrients left over for me, so of course I feel starved.

James is in California for a math conference. Even though I'm in one of my I-feel-awful-and-therefore-wish-to-wallow-in-sorrow-and-solitude moods, I kind of wish he was here, mostly so I could send him on a hunter-gatherer quest for tasty noms such as pizza, English muffins, mint chocolate-chip ice cream, and... juicy hamburgers. Oh, and a large stack of assorted pancakes. Yes.

I would share the tasty loot, so it might be worth his while... right? Ha. To be honest though, I don't want to share the food because then that means that when I throw up my first helping of tasty noms, there might not be any more to try again with. (Whoever thought of "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again" probably didn't imagine failure as large plops of vomit into the toilet which send vile rebound splashes right into your eyes and nose.) I'm pretty sure this MINE mentality is a side effect of starving, no? See the clip below (you can spare three seconds, right?) so you understand what kind of MINE I'm talking about.

Sigh. Maybe I should put on outside clothes and go... I don't know, stare through the window of a pizza shop looking pathetic. Maybe the people on the inside will think, "Aw, poor pregnant woman. It looks like she's too poor to buy scads of pizza. Maybe I should give her five large pizzas with lots of breadsticks. And ice cream."

Anyway, in other news, Pterodactyl sure picks funny sleeping positions. Sometimes I'll look down at my belly and discover it to be... oddly asymmetrical, like something is trying to dig itself out of my right side. I'll gently press on the lump (which feels oddly like a super tiny skull), only to find it retreat in surprise. Then I'm suddenly symmetrical again. This has only happened one or two times, but I think it means Pterodactyl aspires to be a headbutting champion. Or a contortionist? I can't imagine any position which requires mom's belly to jut out on one side to be comfortable. I sure hope she isn't planning an escape like that one alien that claws itself out of people's bellies in the movies. Ew.

Well, ta-ta for now,
Jenna and Pterodactyl