Today I'm 2 months pregnant. Or if you keep track in weeks, I'm almost 10 weeks pregnant.
The Good:
Feeling pretty good. Some days I can get by with one nap, others I need two or even a third nap. Only had one week where food was the grossest thing on the planet. I usually have a problem with catching colds frequently when I'm pregnant and they linger for quite sometime. I did catch a cold, but I had it for only a couple of days (far shorter than others in my family). I attribute that to my running outside--exercising outside all winter long seems to help with this.
Running is going really well. I never could have anticipated that I'd still feel so good when I run. I can tell when I do run, my pregnancies symptoms seem better, except for hunger. Exercising 45 min or more a day makes me really hungry. Some days I go faster and some days very slow. Yesterday was the first day I felt like walking for a bit.
A few days ago, I was pleasantly surprised to be feeling fetal movement. Some people would dispute feeling movement that early, but I know what a baby moving feels like and this baby seems to be sitting high and up front so I can feel it. It's so strong of a movement, I could question if I'm not further along than I think, but that would be impossible.
The Bad:
I had a goal of gaining 5 lbs or less the first trimester. I still have three weeks and I've already gained 5 lbs (probably more) so not likely to meet that goal. Part of me can blame my overeating (see paragraph below) and be disappointed in myself. But the wiser part of me sees how my body is changing and thinks "this is what we are supposed to do, this is beautiful". I will have to balance not wasting time feeling bad and making sure I'm not eating too much. In the end, when I feel strong enough to run 6 miles at a time, I guess I don't care what a scale says.
The past month has been rough. Looking back, I had no good reason to have been as miserable as I was (things have been going really well for our family). So the only explanation was a short depression. Depression/anxiety runs in my family and I see it in myself a few weeks of the year, usually in the winter. This will be the first time I noticed it associated with pregnancy hormones. I'll have to watch for it after baby comes too. For me, depression looks like 1) being detached -- spending lots of time on the computer, ignoring my family 2) feeling overwhelmed--really, it would take me 30 minutes to clean the kitchen but it just seems too daunting of a task so I'm just not going to do it. 3) not embracing life--I love getting out and going to parks, hikes, doing fun things with my kids. When I'm depressed, doing stuff like that doesn't sound appealing. 4) Eating--eating makes me feel better
I've felt really good the past few days so I'm hoping it was hormonally caused and that it's over now, but I worry it will come back. It feels pretty helpless to not be able to "snap out of it". I'll have to watch for it especially as we go into the gloom of winter.
Is your depression seasonal then? My husband has SAD (seasonal affective disorder). It helps a lot if you get what we dub the "happy lamp." Really all you need to do is look for light bulbs or specific lamps that provide full spectrum light. The lamps can be costly depending on what kind you get. But we have found you can get full spectrum light bulbs from Home Depot or Lowes. The kind we got cost about $35 a bulb but they are supposed to last longer (and when they break you don't need a hasmat team like with the new cfl bulbs). So far we have 4 of the full spectrum light bulbs in the house with plans to purchase more spaced out every few months or so. The full spectrum light mimickes the suns rays, so when it's dark and dreary outside or when you wake before the sun rises and work in a building with not many windows (like my husband does) and then come home when it's dark, your body can still get sunlight. Hope that helps! Good luck with the pregnancy Katrina and the house! - Clarissa
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