Observations on a 4th Pregnancy

- When you're sick, nauseous and throwing up with your first pregnancy, it's annoying. When you're sick, nauseous and throwing up with your fourth pregnancy, it's a downright inconvenience and life altering.

- When the circumstances of the first observation apply, you end up spending lots more money eating out than you otherwise would.

- It's not only ok to revise your budget for those 7-8 weeks while the thought of cooking food makes you vomit -it's probably the only way your family will eat.

- It's not so much a question of will I nap, but when.

- First couple pregnancies, you notice pretty immediately that your boobs change - they get sore immediately and triple in size.  However, after nursing 3 kiddos, not only are they so much tinier than you ever imagined they would be (Yeah!!!!), they don't change size as quickly.  Say, around the 12 week mark they start getting bigger, as opposed to the 6-8 week mark.  

- Your uterus knows exactly what to do by this time and your body starts changing much more quickly. 

- The whole first trimester of being sick isn't just about being nauseous. It's about being a slave to whatever your body feels like throwing your way - mind-numbing exhaustion, gas bubbles the size of watermelons that appear out of nowhere and last for 2 days, making you beyond miserable, constipation that pops up randomly and cruelly, the urge to vomit while shopping at Kroger or working out at the gym, grocery shopping with your shirt over your nose to avoid any and all smells (or just not shopping at all anymore), 

your back breaking out, your face breaking out, being so tired you can barely stay awake and then waking up at 3am to pee and being unable to fall back asleep for another hour.

- Blessedly waking up one day at 13 weeks and finding that you're suddenly not overwhelmed with the urge to throw up...in fact, you aren't ruled by the need to eat something every 2 hours...in fact....you feel almost normal again.....

- Knowing that even with all the misery of the last 7 weeks, this pregnancy is such an incredible blessing and I wouldn't change a thing.