Common wisdom states that all pregnancies are different, and I knew that going into this one, but it took a while for the reality to set in.

For one thing, the nausea during the first trimester? SO MUCH WORSE this time than it was with Catie. Of course, I didn’t really get sick until my 3rd trimester during my first pregnancy. This one has more of the “traditional pregnancy” (?) feel, since right around the 6 week point, I was absolutely flattened by the nausea. Because of my gastric bypass surgery, I can’t throw up, but so many times, I wished I could. (A nurse at my OB’s office told me to be thankful because most women say they don’t feel any better even after they barf. Uh, good to know?) I spent a lot of time with that horrible metallic “about to barf” taste in my mouth, without actually being able to do anything about it. It was pretty awful.

What’s funny is that I absolutely hated keeping my misery to myself, I wanted to whine about it. And I kept thinking, oh man, just a few more weeks and then I can moan about how miserable I am on my blog. Only now that I’ve ‘fessed up to being pregnant, I’m right around the 13-week point, and most of the horribleness is over. I get an occasional nausea flare-up, but it’s pretty rare. The heartburn is no fun, but, eh, it’s manageable. That’s why God invented Tums, right?

One thing that I didn’t expect? That my cravings this time are totally different than they were with Catie. The main things I remember craving with Catie were peanut butter and tomatoes. (Um, not at the same time. Ew.) But with this kiddo, I suddenly want:
1.) Coffee. Which is weird because I normally hate coffee. I’m not a fan of hot beverages in general, I’m a Diet Coke addict. I’m not sure if it’s the power of suggestion (the office smells like coffee because everyone here drinks it all day), or if I want a hot drink because the office is cold and I’m trying to warm myself up. But my normal “hot beverage of choice” would be green tea, and I don’t want that. I just want COFFEE. Weird.
2.) Citrus fruits. Specifically, mango and pineapple. Which I’ve always liked, but now it’s like, neeeeed. (Maybe my body needs the vitamin C?)
3.) Fried eggs. When I ate eggs while I was pregnant with Catie, they had to be either scrambled or hard-boiled, because if I saw even a hint of a runny yolk, I’d get sick. Now I want my eggs over easy, and the runnier, the better.

There are other occasional food cravings that pop up. Like last week when I decided that I needed a baked potato more than I’ve ever needed anything in my entire life. So I decided to cook steak, just so I’d have a vehicle to serve baked potatoes. And I mean, I went all-out with it: I bought sour cream, chives, and shredded cheese to put on top. The works. And when I finally ate it? I made so many happy noises that Dave was like, “Uh, do you and your potato need some privacy?” It was borderline obscene. And you know… Don’t get me wrong, I like a good starchy carb as much as the next girl, but that was weird. I don’t think I’ve ever had that kind of reaction to a potato in my life.

But to be fair, there’s a pretty long list of things with this pregnancy that are the same as last time:
1.) Exhaustion.
2.) Crazy dreams.
3.) Stretch marks (yes, already).
4.) All the tiny new-growth hairs that are sprouting up all over my head and driving me crazy. (Last time, I decided to tackle that issue by getting bangs. Which I liked at the time, and now I look back and wonder what the hell those hormones did to my brain. The “before” picture is so much better than the “after.” Yeesh. So let’s all say a prayer that I maintain enough of my sanity this time to not do anything too drastic to my hair.)
5.) Acne.
6.) Itchy dry skin.
7.) Complete and total loss of my attention span.

Wait… What was I talking about?

Oh right. I guess that overall, there are probably more similarities between my two pregnancies than there are differences. At least so far. I just have to wait and see if that stays true over the coming months.