A Somewhat Old "Update"

I guess I should post this considering I've been sitting on it for the last million weeks (or so it seems).  I started writing this before I wanted to reveal to the world about our pregnancy.  Even now I wish I could keep it to myself because I get so worried about the health of the baby but sadly, the ever expanding belly is making that impossible.
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 I'm going to start writing this knowing it will be at least another 5 weeks before I actually post it.  At this very moment I'm a tentative 6 weeks and 6 days pregnant.  I say tentative because it's been a very strange past few months and the doctor will set an actual due date in the next few weeks when the baby is a little bigger.

To begin with, ever since I stopped breastfeeding my hormones have been insanely out of whack.  I can't tell you how many times I've taken a pregnancy test in the last few months because I was having 40+ day cycles.  All of them came back negative and life carried on.  That is until New Year's Eve when Marcus encouraged me to take a pregnancy test because he just knew I was pregnant (most of his knowledge simply came from the fact I hadn't started yet...he's not that in tune to my body, at least I don't think he is).  However, this test, unlike the others, came back positive.  I immediately freaked out at the prospect of being pregnant again.  "How could this happen?!" I thought (don't answer that).  Marcus, on the other hand, was elated.  He really wanted a second child and the closer in age to Alex the better.  Also, I think it goes without saying that a pregnancy for him is a lot easier than it is for me.  He's not the one who hasn't lost all of the Alexandra baby weight.  He's also not the one who has to carry a baby for 9 months and then physically bring it into this world through some of the most excruciating pain you could ever imagine.  However, after a few days of internally processing what I was gearing up to go through I accepted it and settled in for the ride.

About four days later I began spotting.  My worst fears seemed to be coming true (for some reason I just knew my second pregnancy would end with a miscarriage despite having absolutely no basis for that fear) as I called the doctor's office who saw me that same day.  At the doctor's office I took another pregnancy test only this one came back negative.  The doctor reassured us that what I had experienced was a prolonged cycle and he sent me off for blood work because 40+ day cycles with positive pregnancy tests aren't exactly normal.  (Side note:  To this day I feel like I may have had a chemical pregnancy which is essentially a very early miscarriage that most women don't even realize is happening because it just seems like a longer cycle than usual.  How could I test positive if the pregnancy hormone, HCG, wasn't in my system?  However, without the doctor's admittance that this is what happened I guess I should just accept that my body and hormones were out of control and I was the 1% of home pregnancy tests that come back with a false-positive.)  Needless to say Marcus and I were relieved that I wasn't miscarrying though sad that I wasn't actually pregnant.  We decided to go the "let's just see what happens" route that we took when trying to get pregnant the first time and, much like the first time, that route was a very good route for us.  Two weeks after the initial pregnancy test on New Year's Eve and we were truly pregnant.

In the end, everything happening the way it did worked out for the best because it prepared me for the now.  I'm completely OK with being pregnant and nothing about this scares me:  Not the changes of my body, not the labor, nothing.  My only concern at the moment is for the health and safety of the baby which, as of today, had a teeny heart fluttering away looking as healthy as can be.

I can't really remember much about how I felt when I was pregnant with Alex but I do feel like this pregnancy is almost identical.  I'm tired but not overly tired.  I'm very weepy and feel like crying at just about anything remotely emotional.  At one point I knew I was pregnant because I wanted to murder everyone around me, and I'm not talking about your typical PMS "I hate everybody" feeling but rather a "I will rip your head off" feeling.  Overall, I feel unwell though it's hard to say exactly in what way.  Nausea isn't really an issue and if I can at least drink some juice in the morning before heading out the door I'm OK until I can get something substantial to eat.  With that being said I hate most food and nothing sounds good to me which is definitely something I remember from my first pregnancy.  When I do eat, it's not very much and I do not want it the next day for leftovers.  Hell, for Alex's 1st birthday I didn't even want to try the birthday cake we had made for her!  In retrospect I'm surprised nobody attending caught on to our secret because something is terribly wrong the day I turn down a homemade chocolate cake.

Finally, and something that has bothered me for almost this whole trimester, why does everything smell like onions?!  It's driving me crazy.  Even my freshly bathed, baby beauty smells like onions to me.  Her breath smells like onions and she doesn't even eat them.  The whole house smells like onions and it drives me crazy.  I hope this goes away soon.  I have a small hoarding problem when it comes to candles and air fresheners so I have plenty of scent to mask the atrocious onion smell but Marcus is only going to let me use all of them at the same time for so long.