I'm (we're) back!

We (is it the two of us, or the three of us?) are back at home in lovely Missoula. It is such a relief to be back.

Good news reports;

1) I am still pregnant! And I don't feel vomity right this second!

2) My friend (that had an early miscarriage a year ago) successfully vaginally delivered her baby boy on Tuesday. Hurraaaay!! Labor was apparently not too long or very very difficult, which is great. I plan to make them some delicious fresh muffins and deliver them to their house as a tasty and healthy gift. She and her husband named the baby Reuben Michael. Last name starts with B but I won't write it for privacy reasons.

3) Another more distant friend (in a distant east coast location, and not that close of a friend) after trying to get pregnant for over a year is now four months pregnant. Hurray for her, too!

On that note, the pregnancy is going extremely well by all indications. I get lightly nauseous at times, and I still am sleepy a lot, but that is about it. I had two attacks of acute, overwhelming nausea in New Zealand that were really unpleasant- run to the bathroom kind of moments- but somehow the deep breathing, yucky belching, and positive thoughts allowed me to avoid actually losing my breakfast. Both incidents were (I think) precipitated by not enough breakfast followed by taking all my vitamins at once. Add 30 minutes of stomach rumblings and you get a distinct, urgent, "I'm gonna hurl" kinda reaction.

Since then, I've tried to divide up my vitamins across the day and I've been more careful to balance my breakfast intake. Just cereal and OJ, with intent to eat more in an hour or two, is no good. I need cereal, fresh fruit, yogurt, one vitamin, and a small glass of OJ. Good thing it is fresh local peach season! Mmmm...

I look really pretty much the same as I did before I left, as far as I can tell. Any changes are extremely minor- very minor boob enlargement since mid-July, very minor weight gain that is almost imperceptible, and minimal increase in zits. Matt agrees that I basically plateaued in late July and for the last three or four weeks I've just been moving forward internally, I suppose.

I was worried about the trip home- flight 1hr, flight 12hrs, flight 3hrs, flight 1hr, sleep at friend's house, drive 8hrs, home sweet home. And you know what? It did suck, but not as badly as I thought. I was alternately restless and then exhausted, my ankles swelled up so badly that they looked bruised, I felt nauseous on all the takeoffs and landings, and it was generally unpleasant. But really, now that it is over and done with, it was not bad at all. Who doesn't feel crappy under those conditions? I hardly think that Matt was all that better off! And now we are back and I think I'm pretty much over the time change issues.

I read on the internet that Ziggy (my joke name for the baby, i.e. Ziggy the Zygote) is now roughly 1 1/2 inches long. Interesting. Tomorrow I get my first ever real prenatal exam and they'll do the heartbeat, and some other stuff. I'm excited and nervous about this.