14 Weeks begins and Crystal's hungry

This past Thursday I began my 14th week of pregnancy. It's surreal to be three and a half months pregnant. The whole thing still has a touch of surrealness to it- but day by day the pregnancy becomes increasingly tangible.

I'm still waiting to feel the "quickening" or the baby moving around. Some feel it as early as 10 weeks. I'm obviously one of those who feel it later- still nothing. Someone told me the sensation is akin to swallowing a live fish or having a fish swim around in your belly (interesting!), another person said it's like butterfly wings beating inside your stomach. Once I thought I felt something, but turns out it was a gas bubble.

Oh yeah. People don't tell you how much gas pregnancy gives you. Just ask Kevin. I've turned into a gas machine- If I drank soapy water, I'd be making bubbles all the time.

People often ask how I'm doing and how I'm feeling. Quite honestly I feel pretty lucky to have a relatively easy pregnancy so far. Sure I was falling over tired the first three months and going to bed at 6:30 or 7:30 at night was a pretty typical event. My nausea didn't kick in until week 10 but it was of the come and go variety and could be prevented as long as I ate something every two hours. That's right every two hours. If I woke up in the middle of the night and it had been more than two hours since I'd eaten, I'd have to go get something to eat.

Now that you have the impression I've been eating nonstop let me state that while my desire to eat more often increased, my ability to eat large quantities of food fell off dramatically I can only eat a few bites before becoming "full"- leaving Kevin to finish whatever is on my plate. We quickly learned to cook for one person around here- letting me start and letting Kevin finish the rest.

I definitely have more energy and am less tired now I have entered my second trimester. But Kevin is still finishing my food for me ha. Good thing I'm not craving pickles on my ice cream yet or he might start complaining.

I don't have any particular, repetitive cravings or specific turn-offs- but I always know what I want to eat, and I want it NOW. Not in an hour. Not in ten minutes. Right. This. Second. Now. Then I feel bad because I only eat two or three bites. It doesn't help that it's something random & specific- bruchetta, bahn mi sandwiches, mizithra pasta. Kevin wishes I'd crave PBJ sandwiches because at least guaranteed we have it and it's easy/fast.

I've made progress in that department though. Thursday night I craved Top Ramen. Easy. Fast. Cheap and a quick run to the grocery store away.

But last night I relapsed and decided at 7:30 pm I HAD to have rice krispie treats, rice krispie chicken AND a baked potato. Between the food shopping, the marinating of the chicken in buttermilk and the baking... it took over 2 hours to get the food ready. I ate four bites of course. It was 10 o'clock by then.

Another piece of good news and progress is that I'm back to cooking my own food, praise Garlic. One less thing for Kevin to have to do.

At least one of us is taking the "Eating for Two" more literally. Kevin's eating enough for the both of us. When he talked about eating fudge sundaes at 2 am in his previous blog post, please don't make the mistake of thinking he was teasing or worse, exaggerating. Anyone who knows Kevin, knows what a chocoholic he is, and how much he likes to eat. He's been truly enjoying his "sympathy" symptoms and apparently gets nauseated if he doesn't eat every 2 hours too. Ha.

You know- obviously I'm thinking about food, a lot. And because I can't eat too much food I started a companion blog to this one where I can talk about food to my heart's content. You'll find me posting there often because well, that's what's on my mind of late. www.tacomaeats.blogspot.com