Great Expectations: Pamela @ 15 Weeks

Physically, I am feeling only okay.  I was hoping by 16 weeks I'd be past my afternoon nausea but no such luck.  Either it's crankiness from not eating enough or heart burn from eating too much, sometimes I feel like I can't win.  A friend reminded me that with my other pregnancies I didn't feel well until past 16 weeks if not more, so its helpful to know that I willfeel better.  I find that if I wear my two and a half year old son on my back for a prolonged about of time, my right hip hurts for hours afterwards, and I am having a hard time drinking enough water to deal with the 100+ degree heat.  That's the bad news.  Good news is my belly is rounding even more and I think I have felt the baby move.  It felt like a random popcorn pop in my belly.'  Most importantly, though, I find that each day I grow more and more positive about this pregnancy and birth.

We are lucky to live at a time when we (women) have the support we do.  If you are reading this post either you know me personally and are interested in what I have to say, or you are poking around this great site to get information on your own upcoming birth.  Either way, this community, either physically or virtual, is priceless as we prepare for, or cope with, becoming mothers.

In my own community in these past two weeks we have had some big announcements.  Within my weekly playgroup, which began in January 2008 as a Bradley birth class, almost all of us are pregnant again with our third or fourth children.  We were due relatively close to each other with the birth of our second/third children in 2010 and here we are with the next round, together again, in 2012 into 2013.  I am so grateful for this group of women who have been with me through my mommy evolution with me and I honestly don't know where I would be today if it wasn't for their weekly sanity checks and coffee breaks.

If you have a group like this, then you are very lucky.  If you don't, then let this community be yours and share your stories with me as I am sharing this journey with you. I have received a lot of personal reactions to my first posting two weeks ago and I am so grateful to hear that I am not alone in my emotions with this pregnancy.  Please, share your experiences here because the more we communicate, the more we can learn from each other and maybe learn that we are not alone.  No, we are not alone with our growing bellies and swollen ankles.  No, we are not alone with our weepy moments and expanding hearts.  This community is ours and we are profoundly lucky to have it.