Fourth month

OK, the belly is really starting to show! Everyone keeps asking for a photo so here you go—Mark took this at 17 weeks. Compared with the first trimester ups and downs, the fourth month went more smoothly (except of course for the accident). My fatigue isn’t as bad, I stopped throwing up somewhere around week 16, and my nausea has improved every day since then. I am beginning to be able to eat more like a normal person with a normal appetite. For a while there I was really not wanting to eat at all anymore; nothing sounded appetizing and I just picked at my food. But now slowly more and more foods are starting to sound OK, like salads for example. I could not touch a salad while I was feeling sick; wilted lettuce made me gag. But now I can eat them again! I’m slowly trying to add more and more nutritious veggies. When I was sick I could eat fruit but not vegetables. Fruit really saved me. But I had to give up being a vegetarian; it was too hard to find things that I could eat and I worried about getting enough nutrients. I’ll keep eating meat for the time being but I plan to return to vegetarianism after the birth.

Mark has still been on tour most of the time. During the fourth month he was traveling around the US and was only home for the last few days of the month. We celebrated his 33rd birthday and then he was off again to Japan. Also around the end of the fourth month I left my job at G&S after nine years. I’m starting my own publishing services company so that I can work from home and have a more flexible schedule. I’m very relieved to have a bit of a break from working and will probably just have a light project load for the rest of the year while we get ready for the baby.