Nine things about yourself:

1. I'm pregnant. It's all I think about and I'm a little shocked when I forget for a few minutes. It still blows my mind that it actually worked.
2. I love, love, love my husband. I also look up to him and admire him. (Did I TELL you he just got 100% on an exam???) He wasn't the easy choice, but he was the right choice. And my favorite choice I've ever made. I can't imagine myself being any happier if I had waited for what I thought I wanted.
3. I used to think I needed "Girl Time." But I don't. I often enjoy it, but usually still wish Jeremy was there. I also used to think I was a feminist. But I'm not. I'm more of a humanist. I want to be respected as a strong, smart, capable woman, but I also think it's okay to be a damsel in distress sometimes.
4. I question everything. EVERYTHING. Usually on a daily basis. I'm constantly debating my goals, my desires, my moral code, my beliefs. The only think I'm sure of is that I need my husband in my life. I'm terrified of him dying anytime within the next 80 years.
5. I hope that when we get to heaven, we can choose what we want to remember and what we don't want to remember. I have a few months/moments I'd like to have erased. And I'd like to have a say about what Jeremy gets to remember. Haha. He can erase my first kiss if I can have my own eraser for him. Our first kiss was infinitely better anyway.
6. I probably get on people's nerves for talking about my husband so much. Actually, I know I do. I'm really sorry, I really am. I just can't help it. Sometimes I feel like he's all I have. Which isn't true. I have a great family. I blame the pregnancy hormones. They make me so dang mushy. (But two days ago I vowed to be angry at him for at least a year. Moodswings.)
7. I only wish I could walk so that I could dance with Jeremy and sneak up on him. I'd have to teach to dance him first. But if I'd never had my accident, I probably never would have ended up marrying him. No, I'm sure I wouldn't have. So I'm grateful. We'll dance in the next life. I'd also like to be able to look good in a dress and heels for once. I've never worn heels in my 23 years.
8. Even if I were to someday decide or find out that my faith and religion is completely untrue, I'd still be immensely grateful to have grown up and navigated my adolescence with those values and standards. It gave me so much confidence and helped me avoid so much heartache. I'd have a hard time leaving.
9. I have an intense phobia that very few people know about. I'm too scared they'll use it against me.

Eight ways to win your heart:

1. Humor. I love to laugh.
2. Ice Cream
3. Doing good impressions of people. Not necessarily famous people though. Just people.
4. Romance in general. Flowers, mood music, candles, little surprises, hidden notes.
5. Deep, intellectual conversations that make me think about what I really think.
6. Little gestures and acts of kindness. Knowing someone is/was thinking about me.
7. Surprises in general
8. Hugs and unexpected kisses

Seven things that cross your mind a lot:

1. Jeremy/my marriage
2. My baby
3. Food
4. Career vs. Stay at Home Mom debate
5. My family back home (and here)
6. School work
7. Homosexuality. I know that sounds weird but it just perplexes me. I want to understand it.

Six things you wish you never did:

1. I never should have tried to wait for Jeremy to tell me he loved me first. I should have just told him but I had this thing that guys had to say it first. Maybe I could have spared myself some pain. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered. I don't know.
2. Wasted so many semesters on majors I didn't love.
3. This is the hardest category so far. I hate it when people claim to live with no regrets, because you SHOULD regret stupid decisions, but I guess I don't have many regrets.
4. I wish I hadn't tried to please everyone else at my wedding.
5. I wish I hadn't been such a complete dork in elementary, middle, and high school. I had no reason to be so insecure and goofy. I was really smart.
6. I wish I'd made my move on Jeremy at Close-Up and got an extra year together. High school would have been SO much better.

Five turn offs in a guy:

1. Lying/any dishonesty at all
2. Cheating--whether emotionally or physically
3. Cockiness/Egotism: thinking being a "man" means you have to be an insensitive jerk.
4. Facial Hair OF ANY KIND. Eww.
5. Emotional distance

Four turn-ons in a guy:

1. Humor
2. Dark features
3. Kindness
4. Confidence, especially when meeting new people

Three careers you would consider:

1. Just about anything at Disney
2. High School Honors Literature/History teacher
3. Stay-at-Home-Mom

Two things you want before you die:

1. To see all my kids grow into happy, healthy, smart, and kind adults with good marriages of their own. If that's what they want.
2. Travel all over the world with Jeremy.

One confession:

1. I'm relieved to be having a girl. I know that's terrible. I still want a boy someday, but boys seem so much scarier. I don't wanna debate with Jeremy about circumcision, worry about higher autism rates, try to keep them morally clean from pornography and girls, cringe while they play football, and all the other things that terrify me about boys.

Well, there's definitely a baby in there. I've been able to feel her kick almost everyday this week! Mostly right after dinner or a sweet snack. It's like she gets this jolt of energy and between that and my full stomach, I get to feel all kinds of little pops, wiggles, kicks, rolls, and punches. A few nights ago Jeremy and I were able to SEE her punching through my stomach. I think they were punches, not kicks, because of where my stomach was moving. When we had the ultrasound, she was laying with her head in my lower left abdomen and her feet up to the right. And when I looked down to see my stomach pop, it was jumping just below and to the left of my belly button. So if she's still in that position, I think she was definitely hitting me. Jeremy was able to see and feel her kick/punch for the first time, so that was just amazing. It really shocked me. I didn't think you could see movement from the outside until much later. But that just goes to show how little I know about pregnancy.

She's moving around a lot right now, maybe because I had a little chocolate ice cream just a little while ago?

So I've finally gained some weight. Jeremy and I managed to get me down onto the floor onto the scale and I'm moving up again! At some point I think I'm supposed to be gaining a pound a week but I don't think I'm there yet. At least I hope not because that means I'm supposed to gain 18 pounds from this point. Which wouldn't be terrible I guess, but I don't really want to. It's already getting so hard to get around. Jeremy is going to be taking our bed off the frame and onto the ground soon so that it will be at the same level as my wheelchair. It's just too hard to transfer up into my tall bed. It's hard to do much of anything.

It's getting impossible to go to classes. Especially on days when Jeremy's working and he can't take me. I'm spending a lot of time in bed to rest my back. I can't wait to get my power chair going so that I can recline during class sometimes. I considered withdrawing, but I can't imagine giving up on all the work I've already done. All those exams! All that stress! I can't bear to let it all go. It's getting hard to gather the motivation to keep going though. I feel kind of lost.

My back is hurting pretty bad now, despite all the pillows I have stuffed back there. I'm gonna get in bed!

I'm either the luckiest or craziest pregnant woman alive.

Many pregnant women crave Big Macs or Whoppers. They gorge themselves on ice cream or chocolate.

But not me.

I crave apples and bananas. I can't even stand to smell fast food. Every once in a while I'll have half a taco from Taco Bell, but even that is tough. It's like all the oil and grease just forms a great big wall between me and the french fries. My sister made cupcakes at my house a couple days ago, and I knew I wouldn't want many so I made her take them all but a few home with her. This morning after my breakfast (whole-wheat waffle with peanut butter) I tried to eat one of the cupcakes. I made it through about two bites. And then I THREW IT AWAY. Anyone who knows me knows that I do not take cupcakes lightly. I love to buy cute cake mixes, I love to bake them, I love to ice them in cute ways, I make my own home-made icing, and I LOVE to eat them. But while trying to eat that cupcake, I just didn't like anything about it--the taste, the texture, nothing. And the whole time the thought is going through my head, "What is this doing for the baby? Should I keep eating this? How is this going to help her? This has no nutritional value, it will just make me fat." And I quickly talked myself out of eating it at all. That happens every time I try to eat junk.

So I threw it away and I don't regret it. To get my sweet snack, I'm going to have an apple.

Here's another example. Jeremy brought some Cold Stone ice cream home for me. I haven't had Cold Stone in forever, we are usually strictly Maestro's Gelato people. But while at University mall, he got me my favorite Cold Stone. It's the All Lovin' No Oven: Cake Batter Ice Cream, Cookie Dough, Whipped Cream, and replacing the Fudge with Oreos. YUM.

So I started eating it, and made it through about five bites before I had talked myself out of it. And it was the largest, Gotta-Have-It size. So now it's sitting in my freezer. And it will probably last weeks. It's been in there two days and I haven't even pulled it out to have a few bites. Normally, it would be gone by now.

Halloween is my favorite time of year for candy. I watch the grocery stores carefully for the first signs of candy corn in September. This year, Jeremy went to the store for the sole reason of finding me a bag of candy corn. Normally a bag would last a week, two at most. It lasted A MONTH. Those sugary little bites were still pretty tasty, but I felt guilty eating more than a few at a time. When the candy corn was all gone, I got a bag of Candy (Mellocreme) Pumpkins. I've had this bag about three weeks. Guess how many I've eaten?

THREE.

Three!? It's just absurd. I don't even like the way they taste enough to finish the bag. I'm throwing it away after I finish this post. During an average Halloween season, I buy about 6 bags of the orange, yellow, and white goodness and cute little pumpkin pieces. But this year, I'll be spending my money on fresh produce. I've gone through a huge Sam's bag of apples in a little over a week, and several sets of bananas. Usually apples get stale and mushy in my fridge after being ignored for months. Now I can't keep it stocked!

So maybe this is why I'm still steadily LOSING weight while pregnant? I suppose a drastic change in eating habits will do that. My baby is growing just as she should, and weighs almost a pound, but I've lost weight the whole time. Normally I'd be working on stretch marks by now, I've started getting the babycenter emails about them, but I think because I'm losing weight as fast as my belly is growing, the skin hasn't had time to get stressed. And I'm not complaining about that either.

I'm feeling pretty blessed, actually. I think I'll have my apple now.

Today I'm officially halfway through my pregnancy. It's that old cliche: in a way, it feels like it has flown by, in other ways, I feel like I've been pregnant forever! It's like this little girl has just always been a part of our lives and consciousness. She's been waiting in the wings up in heaven all this time and now she's finally center stage! Everything is different now.

My good friend Ariel came for a visit with her three kids this past weekend. She brought me a HUGE diaper cake full of little goodies! Mittens, outfits, shoes, baby shampoo and lotion, burp cloths, handmade hats, headbands with bows, a bib, etc. Just all kinds of cuteness, along with a few adorable outfits that her daughter had worn. After I was able to stop drooling at its beauty, I finally took it apart on Sunday. As I was unrolling diapers and stacking them on the changing table, it just kind of hit me. I don't know what it was, maybe the smell or texture of Pampers Swaddlers, but it suddenly felt real. Like a real baby was going to be living here. I love that she has her own space. She doesn't have a nursery of her own, but that changing table shelf is just full of baby things that make me so happy.

She now has her own space in the closet as well. Right under daddy's clothes. The juxtaposition is just darling. There's all these tiny little feminine clothes in soft colors and fabrics hanging right under all these huge manly clothes. I love it. She has some clothes now because my friend Adrienne and I went shopping in Park City on Saturday. I did have a lot of back pain, but all the moving around and breaks in the car seemed to help. Definitely a lot better than trying to sit still through a class for an hour.

Baby clothes are more expensive than I'd realized. You'd think their small size would come with a small price tag, but no. I really had to do some bargain hunting. And I did well! Everything I bought was a real necessity, and was at least 50% off (with the exception of one pack of socks that was only 25% off.) I didn't buy hardly anything in newborn size, as I assume that's what a lot of people will give me at my baby showers. And also, because if she's big, she won't wear newborn size very long at all. There were SO many cute things that I really wanted, but I just couldn't bring myself to pay $40 for a baby dress. Once she's here and I know for sure what size to buy, I might splurge on a few, but as much as I wish I could really spoil this kid, I just can't. She'll be spoiled with love though, and that's what kids really want and need anyway. We went by the Baby Expo in Sandy on the way home and that was really fun. I had to cut it short though because my back was KILLING ME. Ugh, it hurt so bad. I have a feeling I'm going to be spending most of my last trimester in bed.

After I bought some baby hangers and got all her new clothes up in the closet, Jeremy comes waltzing into the room and jumps on to the bed on his belly with his chin in his hands and said, "Fashion Show!" It was pretty hilarious. He'd been watching football the whole time I was unpacking the baby clothes so I didn't think he was interested. However, he made me show him every new baby item I'd bought. He seemed to like the things I picked out. After I'd shown him everything he said, "Isn't it so hard to wait for her to get here and be wearing those?" Cute.

Yesterday was really fun. Jeremy had a rough morning and missed work, and I wasn't able to get out of bed to do a full day of classes due to excruciating back pain. So we had a fun afternoon to make up for it. We went to several grocery stores looking for Kraft Dips! brand french onion dip. The Walmart out here used to carry it but not anymore. It's my favorite and the only kind of dip I really like. We went all over looking for it. Well, Jeremy did, and I stayed in the car reclined in the passenger seat. Haha, I'm kind of pathetic. After a fruitless effort to find dip, we went to Babies R' Us. I only wanted to run in long enough to try a few drop side cribs, but we ended up staying for hours. The dropside cribs were nice, and I was able to use them easily by using my wheelchair (instead of my knee) to push the bottom of the rail in. They seemed to work smoothly and easily. They were ugly though. Haha, I'm hoping to find a better one online because the ones at the store were plasticy feeling and not cute. But as Jeremy loves to say, "functionality trumps design." So if I have to get an ugly crib that is easier to use, so be it.

After trying all the cribs, my back was hurting pretty bad so we were just going to take a quick look at strollers. However, we ended up trying every single stroller brand they had. I honestly don't know how I sat there so long. I think the excitement of trying all the strollers, and all the moving around I was doing made a difference. Jeremy was having a great time, folding and unfolding every stroller multiple times, trying every feature, etc. His enthusiasm was obvious. I think it's because this is something he can contribute to. I asked him once if he felt like an outsider since all this baby growing is happening in my body and not his. He said that yes, it was hard to feel involved, but that he felt involved when doing other things for the baby like putting together the changing table and stuff. I think that makes sense.

I originally had my heart set on the Bertini travel system, but it was just too big for our car, and had a couple design flaws that were pretty annoying. So we ended up choosing a Chicco. It was lighter, fits in the car better, brilliantly designed, folded smoothly and easily, and had lots of nice extra features. Most importantly, it has the best safety standards on the car seat. American brands only have to pass safety tests at 45mph I think, while the Chicco is European, and is tested at 75mph. That made a big difference to me. I specifically want the KeyFit 30 so that it will last longer (30 lbs of baby vs. 22 lbs.) They didn't have any KeyFit 30s at the store so I'm going to get it from Amazon instead. It's on my registry on there, and it's cheaper than the KeyFit 22s at Babies R' Us. I want it in the bluish-greenish color they have, called Adventure. I'm pretty excited about it. Actually, the color I liked the best was pink, but Jeremy said I could only have that one if we knew the next baby was going to be a girl. And since we don't know that, no cute pink stroller and car seat for me.

Well, I'm off to lay down for a while (dang anterior placenta!) and try to do some studying without falling asleep. I'll try to give another update after our big ultrasound this Friday. So excited to see Baby Girl Swafford again! (And hoping she's still a girl and the original ultrasound wasn't wrong because it would really be a pain to return all the girl stuff I bought...haha.) I have been feeling little nudges and bumps that I think are the baby moving. I'm hoping at the ultrasound I'll be able to tell for sure that it's her!

Man am I a slacker! School started and xanga died. I do miss blogging, but right now my writing capabilities have been thrust towards academic papers. Boring, huh? But it seems to be working. I just got my first grade back for one of my first papers and I got an A minus! So I'm happy with that. Someday I'll actually write more than one draft and REVISE and maybe I can pull off a high A. But that would require spending more than an hour or two towards said paper and I just don't know if I have that much of a desire.

So...pregnancy update. Another part of the reason there has been less blogging is that I've been feeling much better in most respects. During most of the first trimester, I would lay in bed all day because of nausea and exhaustion, leaving me plenty of time to blog. Now, however, I'm in class most days and spend most of my "free" time doing class readings or dreaded math homework. While the misery of morning sickness is pretty much completely gone, my ever expanding uterus is already putting a strain on my back. I feel absolutely dead after a day on campus. I have to come home and just lay in bed for a while. Sometimes even while on campus I try to find a couch to recline on to give my aching back a break. Sometimes a whole day on campus, especially when it's rainy outside, is pretty much impossible.

I was completely amazed at how quickly the first trimester bothers faded away. One day in my 15th or 16th week I thought I would have no appetite and feel queasy for the rest of my life. Two days later I had a raging appetite and felt totally normal. Energetic even! I felt like a whole new person. Except that I had to eat every three hours to quiet the monster in my belly. I had a couple weeks where all I wanted was carby Italian food. I actually craved Olive Garden! And I've NEVER liked Olive Garden. But now I like it just fine! My mom said she never liked Mexican food until she was pregnant with me. Weird, huh?

Jeremy has upgraded the baby from "parasite" to "pot roast." He didn't actually call her a pot roast, but he called ME a Crock-Pot. I thought he was saying I was large and round, but then he said, "Cause you're a slow cooker! Get it? Get it?!" He is still very cute and supportive. He talks to my belly a little bit each night. Now that the baby can hear us, I try to talk to her or sing while I'm home alone, and have him talk to her a bit each night. You should see him talking into my belly button. Hilarious. It usually starts with, "Hello Baby! This is your daddy speaking!" and usually ends with, "Be nice to your mother!"

I can't say I have definitively felt her move yet. Last night Mr. Potter was laying on my belly, and while he was putting that pressure on my abdomen, I felt like I could feel something pushing back against him. It lasted a little while but I couldn't tell if it was the baby, Mr. Potter's belly moving, or my belly moving food/gas down the pipes. I pushed him off of me and waited around to feel something, but never felt anything. I take a few minutes most nights before bed to see if I can feel her squirming around, but it's too hard to tell. Because of the position of the placenta (between her and my belly button) the doctor said it may take a few more weeks for me to feel her. And because it's my first pregnancy, it's a little harder to differentiate between her and normal belly rumblings.

So I just realized this whole post feels a little formal, but oh well. I'm in academic writing mode!

My belly is weird. When I'm sitting up or on my side it just feels kinda fat. But if I lay on my back, or even recline just a little bit while sitting, it is perfectly rounded and hard. The firmness is from my belly button down, and feels really crazy.

In about a week and a half, we have the big ultrasound at the doctor's office. I'm SO excited to see her moving around again, but also worried to death that they will find something wrong. I will feel much better when it's over. Hopefully it will be good news because it's the day before Jeremy's birthday and it will be his little birthday present!

I still want to write a nice, long letter to the baby about the first time I saw her--on the ultrasound--but I haven't gotten to it yet. Hopefully that will be next!