Progress...

[ellenmillion]

I suspect that I would have taken naps the past few days even if I weren't knocked up - we've been working brutally hard, and the work is rewarding.

We installed a new outlet in the basement for my studio-in-exile, and hung tapestries around the space, and moved everything down there that I will need, including all my tables and my hugenormous printers and scanner. We took two pick-up loads of useful 'stuff' to the transfer station, packed more loads into the connex box (also weeded earlier this week), and demolished some of the built-ins, including the very first kitchen counter that we built in this house - a rather ugly construction of 2x4s and plywood that was our first piece of 'furniture,' serving us faithfully as our camp kitchen while we were squatting in the unfinished shell of our house without water (our 'refrigerator' was a bucket on a string that dangled into the basement). For quite some time, it was a major building platform; cabinets and plumbing were constructed on it after it served its life as our kitchen. It was then given new life as a major component of my studio. Hundreds - perhaps thousands - of EMG products were built on that thing. And today, we chainsawed it in half and hauled it out.

Jake: I bet this is the only time you'll let me run the chainsaw in the baby's room.

I'm such a spoil-sport!

It feels very end-of-an-era-y. My studio space in the basement is perfectly serviceable, and I suspect I will do most of my work as I am now, laptop on lap in the cozy living room. (As long as I have a lap, anyway!) Very little of my work requires being tethered to my equipment, anymore. The nursery is echoingly empty, with pale rectangles all over the tongue and groove siding where pictures and cabinets and shelves used to hang.

I am excited, happy, and a little sad, but mostly... exhausted. It is, however, mostly the kind of exhaustion anyone would have after making 800 billion trips up and down two sets of very steep stairs, not what I would necessarily class as a side effect of incubation. I'm a little less bouncy of step and more inclined to take breaks at decent intervals, but more because I'm wanting to take extra good care of myself than because I couldn't keep going. My 'morning sickness' has so far been two mornings where coffee smelled unappealing (so I skipped it), and some very mild on-and-off queasiness that resembles my experiences with low blood sugar - slight dizziness, and lack of appetite. I eat regularly, with smallish meals and snacks, follow my sugars and any fast-burning starches with proteins, and... have been fine. There's some breast tenderness (Jake swears they're already bigger). I am honestly a little scared that it's not going right, because my symptoms are so mild and manageable. I try not to think along those lines, and I've got my first doctor's appointment on Monday!

Today, supposedly, there are 'limb buds' visible, hopefully four of them, to complement the lovely guppy tail it's got at this point. It may even have eyes started, and the beginnings of a heart to keep it's lonely little liver company. (Why the liver first, I have to wonder?) Soon, a skeleton!

I got a start on Muse Fusion, and wrote a short (500 words-ish) story to one of the prompts - please feel free to come and leave more: http://torn-world.livejournal.com/80616.html

I am planning to take several hours off tomorrow to write and draw. Now? TV and bed!

Comments

[jolantru.livejournal.com]

Remember to take plenty of rest and keep your feet up. :)

Ask your doctor for folic acid and iron pills.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

*takes good care of self and takes lots of breaks*

I've been taking folic acid, and some iron in my multi-vitamin, but the doctor yesterday recommended doubling it (which I've obediently done).

[marrael.livejournal.com]

I thought I wasn't reading your post right--this is the first time I'm reading my friendslist in a while and your being knocked up is news to me--congrats! And something like 17% of women get no morning sickness. I was one of them--until my doc got worried I _wasn't_ getting it and gave me pills to GET morning sickness. GAH. Not that it got bad then either. Who on earth WANTS morning sickness?

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

OH LORD, I hope they don't do that to me. I don't want it! DO NOT WANT. I knock on wood every time I think about how lucky I've been.

[ht.livejournal.com]

Mild and manageable symptoms? LOL do you really want the other kind? Having seen my sis-in-law through three very different pregnancies, it's the best kind if it's all mild and manageable. Then your belly button goes full-on outie, then you can't bend down to cut your toenails, then you gotta get comfortable in bed somehow to sleep, then the hormones and weird smells, then the food you wanna eat but can't... etc ;)

Are you getting any pics as time goes on and will you be posting them?

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

LOL, okay, yes, I'm happy with these symptoms. :P Better than the alternative by far.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Oh, and yes, I'll be doing pictures!

[jenny heidewald (from livejournal.com)]

It is official, your baby's gestation name is "Guppy" :) My sister's was "Heffalump" . :) I know my mom had one for each of us kids, but I don't recall the others. I wonder what strange cravings you'll get, or if you'll skip that as well.

I think later on you won't be going up and down those stairs that much, good thing you downsized everything earlier!

And dang, I keep starting coloring book pages for Arabian Nights, but I can't seem to finish the suckers. :\

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Guppy seems appropriate - they will be a Pisces (unless born very off-schedule), and will be a water dragon on the chinese zodiac.

Jake has already offered to get me whatever weird things I crave, darling man.

(Just to taunt you a little, I think the following coloring book will be fairy tales...)

[jenny heidewald (from livejournal.com)]

The Chinese zodiac dragon is a water dragon? That is interesting. :)

My mom craved hamburgers from one specific place, I think it was burger king, the whopper or something.

Ooo, I know I could finish those! Right now I have half finished belly dancers all over the place!!!

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Well, they have elements that rotate every five years, over top of the regular yearly zodiacs: water, fire, earth, air and metal. Jake is a metal dog, I'm a fire dragon, guppy will be a water dragon.

Mmm.... burgers....

[jenny heidewald (from livejournal.com)]

I never knew that before, that is cool! I wonder what element of Rooster I am...*goes to look*

I am a metal rooster! That makes sense, because I have heard that I rock! *hahaahahaaaa* http://www.tuvy.com/entertainment/horoscope/metal_rooster.htm

[jenny heidewald (from livejournal.com)]

Fire dragons like to "bring friends together for elegant evening soirees"

Sketchfest!!! :D

[jenny_evergreen]

I didn't really have symptoms till at least eight weeks, beyond what you describe. As the progesterone level ramps up, so do the symptoms. Not that what I just said will make the anxiousness go away.

Ends are always beginnings.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

LOL! So, I might have that to look forward to! I shall cross fingers that the symptoms continue to be mild.

[edward cammarota (from livejournal.com)]

Congratulations on your 'guppy'....don't worry until your doctor is worried, each person reacts differently
, if they didn't, it would be rules of childbirth, not guidelines.

Wishing you a happy and healthy term.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! :)

[allykat.livejournal.com]

My morning sickness didn't REALLY kick in until my eighth or ninth week. I found out about the pregnancy at five weeks, and I was so alarmed by my lack of symptoms that I ordered twenty thousand pregnancy tests from Amazon (you can get the unadorned pee sticks for a lot less than a pharmacy test). I took one EVERY DAY to check my HCG levels.

But everything was fine. I think it's normal that the symptoms don't really hit that hard just yet. Who knows, maybe you'll be lucky and skip out on most of the wonderful "morning" sickness. I had it bad from 8-12 weeks then it poofed, and I honestly didn't have that many symptoms until just recently in the last stretch. When I did have symptoms, it was always some thing I had no idea had anything to do with pregnancy... like a perma-stuffy nose.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

*laughs!* If I lived closer to a store, I probably would've taken more tests. :P

I'm hopeful that I will continue to dodge the most brutal of the symptoms! Stuffy nose is one I was just reading about - hope I don't get that one, too, it was a surprise to learn about.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh wow. 'Grats! :) *hugs*

Listen to your body and your cravings. And yes getting pre-natal vits are important. :)

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! :) Takin' my pills very dutifully!

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

Jake: I bet this is the only time you'll let me run the chainsaw in the baby's room.

I'm such a spoil-sport!

Oh, come on. You've got to let him give the baby a chainsaw and hockey masked theme party sometime!

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Quit giving him ideas!

[pixiewildflower.livejournal.com]

((HUGS))

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

((HUGS))

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Damn, I missed the breaking news entry on this ... I saw "knocked up" here and thought "Wait, WHAT?" and had to go back to see what I'd missed AND THEN I NEARLY FELL DOWN. Oh, man, congratulations!

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

LOL!! :) :) Thank you!!

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Hee hee. :)

That's so funny! I wonder if I'll get pregnant-radar too! So many weird things that can come with spawning!

Thank you!!