I am extremely cranky about feeling sick all the time.  Ugh!  To cope, I constantly tell myself the following paragraph:  “Nugget is a STRONG little baby!  So tiny, yet he/she has thrown off my entire body’s functions!  Every time I feel so crappy, I’m grateful to know that Nugget is still in there, thriving and growing, even if making me sick.  I can’t wait to meet this little person… I am already proud of his/her strong sense of self!  I love having little fighters as kids… Zach and Rissa fought their way through survival in the NICU and are rock solid kids and Nugget is already doing the same!”  It doesn’t always help, but I am grateful to know that this baby is doing great since I can’t feel it moving around inside me yet and would otherwise have no idea if it is okay.  To further cope, I have decided to compare and contrast my pregnancies thus far and share it with all of you.

• Super Smell Abilities: During several early weeks of my pregnancy with Kiwi and Raisin, I had superhero powers to smell and identify things.  My leather couch was NASTY smelling all of a sudden, and a few weeks later it went back to being odorless.  If Matt ate a chocolate chip (chocolate made me nauseous), I could smell that one chip on his breath from across the room and would demand to know whether he ate a chocolate chip.  Opening the fridge was so overwhelming with different smells that I had to stop doing it and lived off of non-perishables for awhile.  This has not been true of my pregnancy with Nugget… I thought it would kick in, but I don’t smell anything more than usual.  I don’t open the fridge now for visual reasons rather than olfactory reasons… just looking at food makes me sick.
• Timeline: I found out about Nugget at 5.5 weeks pregnant.  I didn’t find out about Kiwi and Raisin until I was nearly 8 weeks pregnant.  And of course, I gave birth to them 6 weeks early; resulting in a very compressed pregnancy.  I was only aware that I was pregnant for less than 6 months!  That is insane… I lost a whole trimester.  I have hopes that Nugget will be a full-term baby, which would possibly give me up to 8 more weeks of pregnancy than last time!  I am quite convinced that we NEED those 8 weeks.
• All-Day Sickness: With Nugget, I spent 2 weeks being nauseous ALL the time.  That was intermingled with puking, but the puking didn’t make me feel better.  I went right back to being nauseous again until the next round… lather, rinse, repeat.  These last 2 weeks have been different… I’m nauseous in sudden, unexpected bursts and it always leads to puking.  I need to have access to a trash can/toilet at all times.  However, now once I throw up, I feel better and can function.  Therefore, less nausea + equal puking = improvement, despite the continued puking.  With Raisin and Kiwi, I had the nausea all day thing, but hardly ever actually threw up.  Maybe a handful of times total.  And then it pretty much ended by 11 or 12 weeks, as long as I avoided orange juice.  I’m at 9 weeks with Nugget and the end is not in sight!
• Nesting: I spent my spring and summer sewing and crafting like it was the most important thing EVER with Kiwi and Raisin.  I made their curtains, a quilt, their burp cloths, some crocheted stuffed animals, their sweaters, curtains for the dining room and living room… it just went on and on.  With Nugget, nesting has already arrived!  (I suspect this is because I already have two little ducklings in my nest and plan to add a third).  Instead of sewing, I am in hyper-mode about selling this house, and whenever I am functional enough to stand up and do things, I am packing and cleaning and trying to get us into a home that will fit our family.  Matt is doing the same thing.  I look forward to being done with this part and having time to pull out my sewing machine and start creating fun, tiny items again.  The whirring of a sewing machine is extremely peaceful to a pregnant woman and to the little one(s) inside.  I can’t wait.
• Exhaustion: I feel like this has been about the same.  Usually, when given the option of napping or spending Jaime time, I would pick the Jaime time!  I can sleep later!  But now that I’m pregnant again, I pick sleep every time.  It is becoming an obsession… when can I next sleep?  Can I get a nap today?  I don’t always get naps, but I’m far more willing to take them!  Now that I am working hard to grow a little one, I feel justified in needing more sleep, whereas if it was just me, I would expect myself to suck it up and deal.  Perhaps I am slightly more exhausted during my pregnancy with Nugget since I have nearly 2-year-old twoddlers to chase after all day, but I remember being extremely tired during my pregnancy with Raisin and Kiwi too.  Growing two babies was about all I could do!  So this time seems better.
• Squealing: Last time, we didn’t tell anyone until after the first trimester.  We told our family members about 2 weeks before that.  Miscarriage is the scariest thing I can imagine and has always been my darkest fear… ever since I was a little girl.  People display such strength in light of that kind of pain, and I am not at all strong in that area.  I was afraid to say “we’re pregnant!” and then have to announce that we weren’t anymore.  Now that it isn’t my first time around, I wanted to tell as soon as possible.  I’m still afraid of miscarriage, but I realize that I can’t sit on that sort of pain in secret.  Yeah, it would be hard to say “we aren’t pregnant anymore,” but I’d rather people know and care than have to manage alone by ourselves!  So we squealed the Nugget secret WAY early and I’m happy with that decision.
• Cravings: With Raisin and Kiwi, I wanted sushi.  I like sushi fine, but I don’t typically crave it.  But oh MY, did I want sushi.  And Coke in all its variations.  Well, sushi is a no-no during pregnancy and Coke is a no-no (my personal choice… not an actual rule).  With Nugget, guess what I want?  Sushi and Coke.  Ugh.  It sounds SOOOOO good.  I’m also obsessed with bread, cheese, and milk.  Those are the ONLY things that sound good to me.  I’m looking forward to when my strawberry craving kicks in during the second trimester… that was such a personal joy for me last time!  And this time, the twoddlers are here to eat “sawbabies” with me because they love them too!

There you have it.  Every pregnancy is different!  I’m convinced that the nausea is related to the gender of the baby(ies); my body would handle the introduction of little boy hormones differently than it would handle a surge of extra girl hormones that I already have.  With Raisin and Kiwi, it balanced out a bit because I was dealing with both at the same time.  But this time, with just one set of new hormones, it is very different.  Very different indeed.