You know you're pregnant when...

1. You have to go to the bathroom five zillion times a day (and this includes many times all throughout the night).

2. Climbing a flight of stairs is enough to get you out of breath (especially when carrying stuff). Thankfully a nursing prof helped me out on Friday night as I was struggling to carrying a heavy box of promotion documents up a couple of flights of steps.

3. It seems perfectly reasonable to go to bed at 7:50pm. Yes, that's when I went to bed last night. I was in bed for about 11 hours (not counting all the trips to the bathroom). I had been out every night Tuesday-Friday (three of those at work and the other at church), I didn't sleep well on Friday night due to stewing over some things that happened at the promotion committee meeting, and then I had gone back on campus yesterday to speak at an Open House for 90 minutes. I was completely drained of all energy and needed a long night's sleep to bounce back. When I'm not pregnant, I can never be in bed that many hours in a row unless I'm sick.

4. You are sick to your stomach most of the time. I'm still praying for this "morning" sickness to go away in the near future as I'll be in the 2nd trimester later this week!

5. You eat a lot more frequently throughout the day and yet don't gain weight. Well as of Friday I have gained 1 pound thus far.

6. You eat foods that normally don't appeal to you and stay far away from the foods you normally love. I can't remember the last time I had any chocolate, and I'm normally someone who LOVES chocolate (as in chocolate chip cookies, brownies, etc.). Actually I'm eagerly anticipating the day I can eat the cereals I love again such as Raisin Bran, Honey Nut Cheerios, Frosted Mini Wheats, etc. I'm really tired of Total and plain Cheerios! I can also honestly say I've never eaten so many eggs in my life. It's a good thing I have very low cholesterol!

7. You have really strong cravings for foods that you usually rarely eat. I made lemon bars a few days ago for the first time in my life because I couldn't get them off my mind. Thankfully Nadia also likes them. The other thing I've been dying to have lately (but haven't had yet) is a slice of pecan pie (of course it would remain to be seen if that actually would sit well in my stomach as I had been craving ham and that turned out to be a bad idea).

8. You can cry ever so easily. A case in point would be that I actually had tears coming down my cheek several weeks ago during the song "Be our Guest" when Nadia and I went to see Beauty and the Beast. I felt ridiculous! Why in the world did I get emotional?!?!? I chalked it up to the crazy hormones.

9. You don't mind that your belly is growing bigger. Unfortunately today I discovered that I couldn't find ANY of my maternity clothes. I remember selling some about a year ago, but I know I hadn't sold all of them as I remember washing them multiple times in the spring and summer due to our basement flooding. I had totally forgotten that the last time this happened I had Paul take a bunch of stuff to the thrift store because at that point I didn't think we'd ever be trying again (it was before Paul had changed his mind), and I was tired of washing and drying maternity clothes I'd never wear again due to our basement flooding. Thankfully I still have quite a bit of baby clothing (although not all of it - I wish I hadn't sold/given away any of their clothing). So I need to start buying myself some maternity clothing. I will definitely hang on to the stuff this time around in case the FET proves to be a success. On Friday morning I'm planning on going to a consignment sale that's just for baby, children, and maternity clothing. Hopefully I'll find some nice things there at a reasonable price, and I'll be checking eBay as that's where I got most of my maternity clothes for the last two pregnancies.

10. Just about any food on the planet can give you heartburn. I added a few raisins to my Total the other day, and I got heartburn from the raisins! Oi vey!

This baby is soooooooooooo worth any discomfort I am experiencing right now!!!! It's less than 8 weeks until we find out if baby is a girl or a boy. I'm dying to know!