I’ve been gone for ages, I know. Thank you everyone who dropped by to wish us well. I see I have a lot of comments to read through. I didn’t think I’d be gone for so long but feeling like crap wasn’t conducive to doing much. You haven’t missed anything though. Nothing exciting has been going on here. I’ve been pretty much planted on the couch, barely touching my camera. I’ve barely left the house. The time just dragged by, a seemingly never ending amount of days of feeling so awful that I could just cry. In fact I probably did and most likely during one of those times when I was puking my guts out.

I know when I was pregnant with Isabelle I was still able to blog, even with the nausea and puking of guts. But this time it was different. Not the nausea. That unfortunately was just as bad as before, lasting all day and night, even when I was sleeping. But the biggest difference is my sleeping.

I’m usually a great sleeper. But this time around I’ve been having the hardest time with sleeping. I don’t know if I didn’t have this problem the last time or if I just don’t remember. So I’m in bed for extra hours trying to get a good night sleep. 8 hours isn’t cutting it anymore. And even when I’m dead tired and I try to take a nap it doesn’t work. I just toss and turn.

I guess maybe that’s why I haven’t been on the computer. I just wasn’t up to it. And as Alan said, “what would you blog about? Every post would be about how crappy you’re feeling.” Alan’s right. I would have bored everyone to tears about my crappy days.

Well my slow tortuous days have just flown by for Alan. He’s been so wonderful. He has taken over everything: the cooking, the cleaning, the shopping, and Isabelle. He’s been so busy he can’t believe we’re halfway through with this pregnancy.

Alan would occasionally remind me that I’ve said before that I enjoyed being pregnant. When the hell was that?!? Well the answer would be: this far along, I guess, because I AM feeling better.

Now the nausea is manageable with food. Before, it wouldn’t go away no matter how often I ate. And my butt is actually not melded to the couch anymore, lately I’ve been up to leaving the house. Also sitting at the computer isn’t so vomit inducing anymore.

So I thought I’d pop in to say, hi, and let everyone know we’re doing fine. I tried to do that yesterday but was too bothered by seeing my winter banner. It’s warm now and we have the AC on and ack a snowy Christmas tree for a banner. NOOOO! I desperately wanted to draw something new but wasn’t up to it. Instead I copped out and used the ultrasound I’ve been meaning to blog about since February. FEBRUARY! I made a new banner. Yay! After doing that and trying to catch up with emails I was too pooped to blog.

Today I still need to catch up on my emails but the task is so daunting I thought I’d blog first. I mean it has been ages since I’ve been on. And I’m sure you all want to know that we’re o.k. more than I need to catch up on my emails at this point since they are sooooo very embarrassingly old.

O.k. I’ve had enough of all this typing and sitting here. The baby is kicking and I need to feed the nausea away again. Catching up on emails will have to wait for later and hopefully my next post won’t take so long this time.

I realized the other day that I have forgotten to share some news. First, our due date is pushed back. It’s no longer on Isabelle’s birthday, September 12th. After our first ultrasound and they measured the baby, the date was pushed back to the 24th of September.

And other news. Our AFP test came back negative so no amnio this time around. Yay!

Oh and the biggest news. We’re having a baby boy! That’s a picture from our last ultrasound that Isabelle is holding in her hand. It’s upside down if you’re trying to look for the baby.

And I guess that’s all I have to say today. I’m having a hard time getting my rhythm back with computer time. I haven’t scanned the latest ultrasound pictures in yet. I’m not reading my blogs like regular and I’m just a little off. I did, however, manage to update my banner with an actual illustration. So little by little I guess.

I know I’ve been feeling better but I still haven’t really wanted to go out much. We’ve been generally staying close to home. Last weekend Alan wanted to bring me out somewhere for Mother’s Day. But I didn’t really want to go anywhere. This past weekend though, I knew Alan really wanted to go somewhere. Maybe he’s sick of staying at home doing nothing with the pregnant wife.

So on Friday night, after Isabelle fell asleep, we texted each other back and forth trying to decide where to go. I shot down everything. Zoo? Nope, not up for walking all over the place, it hurts my back, plus the odor of zoo animals. Beach? Nope again, what if it’s crowded because of the heat we’ve been getting, what if it’s tooo hot? The Academy of Sciences? Nope, it might still be super crowded. Alan gave up in disgust. So, I said, the beach.

When Isabelle woke up we asked her if she wanted to go to the beach. The first thing she replied with was, “Helena?” She’s remembering our last trip to the beach. I can’t believe she still remembers it.

So we got dressed and headed out to San Francisco. Alan suggested we swing by the Academy of Sciences first to see if it was crowded. And wouldn’t you know it? It wasn’t. Of course they were closing in about an hour and a half so that might have explained it.

We got to visit the rainforest dome. Last time we went, it was so crowded that the wait to get in was over an hour and a half. We skipped it then. This time we got in quick as can be. Isabelle was scared as we were walking up the ramps. She was holding onto Alan for dear life. I guess it reminded her of those jumpy bridges that they have at the playground that she DOES NOT like. But once we were away from the bridge like ramps she was fine looking at everything and ooohing at the butterflies.

The butterflies were flying around everywhere. It was very cool in a creepy ahhh a bug might land on me sort of way. Alan thinks it’s hilarious that I’m afraid of butterflies. They are cool BUT they are bugs, bugs with creepy little legs and bug bodies. I would shudder whenever one flew too close. Then I’d smile in amazement when they would land on OTHER people.

After the Academy we met up with my sister, Helen, and her kids then headed off to the beach. Alan bought some burritos for us and brought along some cherries and strawberries that he had gotten from the farmer’s market while we were still asleep. It was a little picnic at the beach though everyone was too busy playing to eat much.

We stayed until it got too cold then we headed home. It was a nice, relaxing day with me actually taking pictures once more, it’s been too long. We need to do it again, no more couch hugging for me.

I sat down to download some new pictures off the camera when I noticed I still had old pictures sitting on my computer. These were some of the pictures:

Pictures of our grand experiment taken back at the end of January. Everything was growing and Isabelle and I were watering them regularly. Even the bulbs were coming in.

Well then the nausea hit. So no more watering. No more grand experiment. When I finally went back out to check the plants this is what was left.

The sugar snap peas grew big and tall and even had pods on them before the sun withered them right up.

And the bulbs sprouted and flowered. I think these were tulips.

And I missed it all.

I’ve finally gotten around to getting our ultrasound pictures up. They were taken when I was 18 weeks and 6 days. There’s even one showing his little boy bits. Now if Isabelle manages to mangle the ultrasound pictures, then at least we have them safe somewhere. And mangle them she would. The very nice nurse printed a big one especially for Isabelle and handed it to her.

Then she printed out the rest, regular size, for the family. But since Isabelle got her own, in her mind that must have meant they were all free game, all for her to squish and crinkle. Because all that day and the next few after she kept asking to see all the pictures, not just the one that was handed to her. And, well, if Isabelle doesn’t mess them up maybe we will since we haven’t put them safely away yet. Instead they are just laying around. Maybe I should remedy that RIGHT NOW.

And yes I know the nurse spelled Isabelle’s name wrong. She was ultrasounding (not a real word but you know what I mean) us (well not us but ME but I digress) for so long I didn’t have the heart to correct her. We were in there for a while, longer then our ultrasound when I was carrying Isabelle. That’s because this little guy is quite active.

He’s a real mover. I never felt Isabelle move this much. At night I just lay there smiling as I feel him kicking me and punching me and goodness knows what else he’s doing in there. Barrel rolls? And what am I talking about? At night? I mean all the freaking time. He’s kicking me right now. Does this mean he’s going to be a handful when he gets here?