Last week was a lot. We both worked a ton and then worked on house stuff until late. I primed and painted the guest room, which has the thirstiest walls ever. It needed three coats of paint in places, even with primer. Jack refinished the baseboards in the guest room and got started on the ones in the nursery, put together all our baby stuff from the shower last week, and mowed the yard.
And then we were looking forward to a little downtime during the weekend, but Ben got sick. I was wrapping up painting on Saturday and he started whining. We assumed he just wanted to go outside, but then a few hours later he started whining again, clearly in pain.
We kept thinking it was getting better, but around 9pm decided to take him to the emergency vet because the episodes started getting closer together. They were super busy, so we left him there and they called us around midnight saying they gave him pain medication to make him more comfortable and, based on an X-ray, they thought there might be an obstruction where his stomach and intestine meet. They wanted to give him IV fluids overnight and re-check in the morning.
Mid-afternoon on Sunday, they told us there was no obstruction, he seemed totally fine, and they thought he probably had a stomachache. A $1,000 stomachache. Better than a $5000 surgery. 
We’ve agreed to take this week a little easier since we’ve both been super stressed lately.
Previous Updates
I’m Pregnant! + The First Trimester
At 28 weeks pregnant, baby girl is supposedly the size of a coconut.
Symptoms
My hunger has felt pretty normal and maybe even a little reduced this week. I’ve also been intermittently nauseated and headachy, which is unpleasant, but I’ve been stressed.
If I take aloe water, senna, and a stupid amount of magnesium, the constipation is manageable.
My sciatica is back with a vengeance. Sometimes I take a step and instantly regret it because of the pain, and I usually go to bed and wake up with it flaring.
I have to pee a whole lot and I’m crazy thirsty.
I slept pretty terribly for most of the week, but it’s started to improve the last few nights. Probably correlated with the active effort to chill out a bit and not cram so much into our days.
My belly button has always been mostly flat, a slight innie, but now it’s definitely starting to pop out
Baby girl is so active! And two of her favorite spots cause me a good bit of discomfort: there’s the Sciatica Spot and the Nausea Spot. She likes to be on my right side the most, and Jack and I spend a good amount of time trying to massage her into different places.
Food
My diet is still pretty much my normal, plus extra snacks. I made chili and a double batch of cornbread early last week, and that, breakfast food, and takeout got us through the weekend. This week, we made burrito bowls with this Sheet Pan Nacho Chicken, cilantro lime rice, guacamole, tomatoes, and cheese, as well as this Butternut White Chicken Chili.
Aside from that, I’ve had a lot of apples, grapes, peanut butter, skyr, cottage cheese, and dates. I’ve also been making my way through a pint of Graeter’s Dark Chocolate Brownie, and I made our favorite banana cake for the first time in ages. It’s so freaking good.
Exercise
I’m still following the Expecting and Empowered pregnancy guide, so that covered three of my workouts, and I combined some of the flexibility and pelvic floor stuff into its own session.
I only walked the boys a couple times in the last week, but with all the housework, I’ve been staying active and my body feels tired at the end of most days.
Stories
Ben stretched out on my stomach for a nap the morning after he came back from the vet and it was my favorite thing.
Baby girl was kicking at him pretty much the whole time, but he didn’t care.
