14 week-a-roos!

Today reminds me of that quote by Winston Churchill that is probably written several times over in your high school yearbook: “Now is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
There is some debate over when exactly the first trimester ends and the second one begins. Some say at 12 weeks, other say at 14, and the rest choose somewhere in the middle. I say it’s over when you feel like it’s over. And for me that is today. Today is the end of the beginning!
For me, at exactly 14 weeks, there are several reasons why I believe I have arrived at the glorious second trimester. First, this is the second morning in a row that I haven’t thrown up! Second, I stayed up past 10pm this week. Granted, Jane Austen was on Masterpiece Theater, but the fact that I was able to do that speaks volumes. Third, I made dinner, a real dinner … more than once. My husband is especially grateful for that. Fourth, I ate a salad. It was a little difficult at first, but after 2 months of salad aversion this is a huge step in the right direction. And finally, I find myself waking up each morning with even more excitement and a little less anxiety than the day before.
Here is a picture of me at fourteen weeks (it is also a picture of me with straight hair, compliments of Misty). There was a complaint made by an unnamed friend that my last post didn’t include a picture of me, but rather “some hippie girl.” I never thought of Amy Grant as a “hippie,” but she is maternal. And as I’m sure we have all heard, Amy claims the “Baby, baby” song was really written for her 6 month old daughter, and is not about a guy despite what the music video would suggest ... yeah right. I digress.
This weekend also marks the end of the spring semester. I get a short break to cram in every pregnancy book I’ve wanted to read before I hit the ground running for my final and very full semester this summer. Studying is certainly not the way I envisioned spending the last summer of “just the two of us.” But I know that come August I am going to be very grateful that I forced myself to get grad school done and out of the way while I could. In some ways, it will be nice to be busy and active this summer, but I don’t want the time to fly by too fast! Even so, I’m looking forward to two full months of “nesting” after school ends and before baby arrives.
So we’ve reached the end of the beginning, over a third of the way through. Time really flies when you’re making babies!!