The Blog, The Bar & The Belly

So obviously, this blog has been abandoned for a while. It's the 2nd or 3rd time in Jenuinely Inspired's short lifespan that I have gone MIA for a week or more. I wish I had more time and mental energy to post regularly, but studying for the bar has hit me like a ton of bricks and between that and the baby, I barely have any brain cells left over to focus my attention on anything else. I lost track of the last time that my Google Reader had less than a thousand unread items on it, and today, after skimming a few of my favorites, I just clicked "mark all as read" and essentially deleted 1000+ new posts from my subscribed blogs. That's how busy I've been. I am beyond determined to take this bar exam ONCE and pass it the first time. I'm pretty confident that I can do it, but I will never forgive myself if I choke. So for the next 45 days, I'll be completely consumed with making myself as prepared as possible. This past week we were lucky enough to go on a cruise with my parents, brother, and brother's girlfriend. We had a great time, and it was amazing to spend 24/7 with Gaby with no distractions or responsibilities, but coming back home and facing how far behind I fell on my study schedule is beyond overwhelming and anxiety-inducing. It's going to be a scary week of playing catch-up.

Thinking and daydreaming about the baby is the most welcomed distraction from the bar, and it's enough to cheer me up when I'm feeling especially hopeless. I try to not let myself indulge too much, because I know myself, and I can get very easily caught up in planning. If I'm not careful, I could easily spend 2-3 hours a day browsing the Internet for baby-related things, and I just don't have time for that right now. So I just keep reminding myself that in 45 days, I'll be DONE, and I can spend all the time in the world thinking about and planning for the baby. It's going to be tough to stay focused, especially after July 7th, when we know whether it's a he or a she. But this baby deserves a mom who can focus on him or her 100% and not be worried about the next opportunity to retake and pass a stupid test. And now I'm having a major case of blogging deja vu (sp?)...I feel like I've talked about this before, and if I have, I apologize for being so boring and repetitive!

Anyway, I can't promise regular blogging until after the last week of July. I hope to find time once in a while to keep in touch, but I really don't know if I'll have the mental energy to post anything more than once every few weeks. Also - I really don't want this blog to become purely baby-related, but let's be real: that's the biggest thing going on in my life right now, and will especially be so after the exam. So while I'll try to keep posting about other fun topics, I also can't promise that 90% of the content won't be baby-related in some way.

As for the belly...it's growing! My uterus is about the size of a grapfruit now and the baby is about the size of a lemon, which is impossibly hard to believe because I really don't FEEL anything. There's a bump on my belly...but it's not the baby. The baby is still down by my underwear line. So I figure the bump I have is a combination of bloat, weight gain, and all my internal organs being slowly pushed upwards to make room for my grapefruit-sized uterus. I'm up 4 lbs. from pre-pregnancy weight the last time I checked, and I'm terrified to weigh myself after a week of eating like a mad woman on the cruise. Now that the 1st trimester nausea is gone and I can whatever I want and as much as I want, I have to be soooooo careful with my eating habits. I'm definitely back on Operation Eat Healthy starting tomorrow. I'm determined not to let my weight get out of control with this pregnancy, and unfortunately, knowing my appetite and my body structure, it's something I know could easily happen if I don't take care of myself properly.

Here are pictures from the last few weeks (note...all these pics are taken in the afternoon...in the mornings, my belly still looks relatively flat and un-pregnant, and then it grows throughout the day to look more or less like this):

11 weeks pregnant

12 weeks pregnant

13 weeks pregnant - this day, both my mom and my trainer exclaimed "Hey, you look pregnant!" when they saw me

14 weeks pregnant (in Labadee, Haitie - Royal Caribbean's private island)

I can't believe I'm already 3 1/2 months - 2nd trimester! What a great feeling. Every week that goes by is one week closer to the assurance of a healthy baby. It's a weird time because ALL of my 1st trimester symptoms are gone (except for the excessive peeing, which is ridiculously annoying), but I'm still not showing enough to really FEEL pregnant, and I'm still several weeks away from feeling any movement from the little lemon. So basically right now I feel exactly like I did before I got pregnant, which is a little unnerving. I have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday and I'm looking forward to hearing the baby's heartbeat on the doppler. That's seriously gotta be the best sound to a pregnant woman's ears!