Pregnancy: What Happened During the Second Trimester (Because We're Already Done With That)

So the last post overlaps with this one, but they seemed separate enough in my mind to make this one its own feature presentation. This is about what I did during my second trimester. There were some ups and downs, and this is a very brief overview of it all.

1. I waged a fierce war against those creatures who came in swarms during the Year of the Ant. The year that we moved into our apartment, it was the Year of the Cricket. I panicked a lot that year, though Andrew just kept repeating "DON'T PANIC" to me, as if that would help. During the last several months of 2013, we had different waves of invasions from about a plethora of ants. Maybe a myriad, I'm not sure. But they were all over in our closet (THEY GOT INTO MY LINEN CHEST!), and the kitchen was almost drowning in ants. Drowning! In a non-liquid substance!

This is a picture of me trying to clean out the pantry. Many of the cabinets are taller than I, which made it difficult to reach the whole depth of the cabinet without momentarily floating midair. More like kicking frantically while trying to keep my footing on the chair that I was standing on. Real safe, real attractive. I took everything out of all the cabinets and wiped them down. We got little ant food poison traps and placed them all over. Andrew had to keep me from going all Rambo on the ants with Raid, since he was concerned about the logistics of a pregnant lady inhaling a whole can of the stuff. He had a good point.

2. I continued seeing my chiropractor, because he helps make things better. Especially since my lower back felt the need to throw itself out of place all the stinking time.

That's not actually a dinosaur trying to form on my back. That's just a representation of my lower back hurting, and what it's like. It makes me feel like an old lady sometimes, because I can't stand up straight or walk elegantly at all. But the chiropractor is wonderful, and he snaps that back in place, and I'm good again for a while.

3. We found out we're having a boy. If you missed that post, well then, here. Read it. At about 18 weeks along, we found out that Baby Heim is a wee lad. Here's a picture celebrating that. Little Boy Blue, fondly called Little Britches due to his love of Andrew's singing "The Bare Necessities of Life," already has his blog color picked out for him. That's him there, on my tummy. He's not in all of the pictures, since you can't really see him in real life yet. We're still waiting for that.

4. We traveled a lot. Basically, from the second half of November to the beginning of 2014, we were busy being little travel bugs. Andrew hadn't used hardly any of his vacation days last year, so we had a sizable chunk come holiday season.

For Thanksgiving, we went out to visit my family in Tennessee for a whole week, and I reveled in being surrounded by the people that I love most in the world. Megan and Ray were able to be there too, so the only people missing were the boys serving missions, and they were where they should have been: out serving the Lord by sharing the gospel. Aunt Debbie was visiting there as well, and it was great to see her again. During our time there, we ate quite a bit of food, I helped make one of the two turkeys (the menfolk barbecued and deep fried parts of the other turkey), I went shopping for maternity clothes with Mama, Bugheera, Aunt Debbie, and Andrew, we all made lots of music together, and Andrew finally got to hear some of Daddy's best stories. Whenever I reference one of Daddy's stories, Andrew looks at me all confused like. That confused look gets even more baffled when I try to tell the story myself. So it was good that Daddy could tell him the stories while we were there. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve sitting around and listening to Daddy tell his stories.

Christmas was a two week extravaganza over with Andrew's family in California. The weather was balmy just about the whole time, but I wore my snowman Christmas sweater vest anyway. Again, there was much food, family, and happiness. We were able to see brother Jacob and Shauna and their new (and adorable) baby girl Alana. We hadn't seen Jacob and Shauna since our wedding before that. There were holiday parties for both sides of the family, many gifts exchanged, some exciting moments with model rocket launches, and glorious memories made. And one awful gingerbread house that didn't really work out. But we're not going to talk about that right now, Jenna. Or about how smoky a thoroughly baked gingerbread can make a room. We'll not talk about that either, Jenna.

But you should ask Andrew what I got him for Christmas, because it puts me on top of the Year's Best Wife list. True story.

4.5.I got harassed. This is a half point, since I don't know where to put it. It started during vacations, and now I've become very paranoid. I don't know why people think that it's alright to touch a pregnant lady's belly without her consent, but some people think it is. Maybe it is for some women. I am NOT one of those women. During our vacations, some people felt it necessary to come over and touch my belly as confidently as if it were their own. I was not amused. I forgave them, since they were family, but I also started retreating further into my clothes, the couch, Andrew's shadow, or anything else that might afford me some protection and/or diplomatic immunity. It basically got to the point where I was prepared to stockpile a supply of necessary defense mechanisms and go into the Tashya-Rambo mode I managed to avoid in the Ant Situation (see #1).

There is a saying: "It takes a village to raise a child." Whether or not that saying is true, it does NOT take a village to make a child. Whether or not that saying is true, it does NOT make a child in utero the public property of all persons passing by. If you feel the need to rub something round, and your stomach isn't large enough to fit the bill, blow up a balloon or something. Leave the woman alone unless she gives you the indication that she'd welcome otherwise. You don't touch my tummy when I'm thin and normal, you don't touch my tummy when it's fat with child. We'll just be happy in mutual non-tummy touching. Rant over.

5. I got maternity clothes, and rejoiced in the stretchy pants.

6. I still opted for Andrew's clothes a majority of my lounge time (and still do). His wardrobe options became smaller as certain of his items were annexed for my own personal use. But some of the items, like his sweater, were better after he'd worn them once so that they would smell like him. He couldn't seem to find them where he'd left them, though.

7. I started cleaning things up and trying to make room for baby. I went through closets, cabinets, and corners. I was cheerful like a princess. After I failed at the Snow White song since I am completely and totally incapable of whistling, I decided to move on to Cinderella. I always fancied the idea of singing in harmony with myself via the power of bubbles. And yes. I do have a pink broom.

8. I kept cleaning and organizing and rearranging. I had to move furniture around to make things fit better. Don't let anyone tell you that I lost the muscle I gained moving dry wall for Daddy all those years ago. I can still pick up and move a good bit of weight. But I had a hard time when I realized that we would have to get rid of one of our couches to make room for a rocking chair. But it was the first piece of furniture we got as a married couple! I was very attached to it, much to Andrew's bemusement. I didn't let it go very easily. I really clung onto it.

9. I broke down and cried because of all the cleaning and organizing. I went through boxes that hadn't been organized since we'd been married. That got to be overwhelming. Piles grew everywhere. Everywhere. No room was clean for two days in a row, because space cleared was then used to clean another space out. That had the tendency to make me frustrated, tired, and ready to be done. This didn't help with the next item, either.

10. I dealt with severe emotional instability that baffled and irritated me more than even Andrew. And that was not a happy thing. As a girl who's never had much issue with mood swings, this got rather old quickly. I annoyed myself with my hormones. But you know. I guess that's just part of pregnancy. Being irrational about being irrational hardly makes anything better. I started focusing on how I could improve my attitude about what I couldn't always control, and learn not to get mad at myself for bizarre reasons. And with those efforts, I became much happier.

And that's a bit of a synopsis of what happened during the second trimester.