Things no one told me...

I will be 27 when our little Penelope is born, and while I don't consider that to be a young mom, I am the first out of my close friends to get pregnant. Its like I'm blazing the trail or paving the path. I am really excited about this opportunity, however, I do wish I had someone who could tell me all the things about pregnancy that no one seems to talk about, or least I never knew. Since I'm blazing the prego trail I thought I would share a few things that no one told me about and I wish someone had:

• Fuzzy Wuzzy Belly- Yup, that's right, I said it. My growing belly has fuzz all over it, while Aaron thinks its adorable I think its animal-like (once we hit swimsuit weather I'm getting that shit waxed!).
• Side Sleeping- After reading What to Expect when your Expecting, the pregnancy Bible, I found out that after a certain period of time I am supposed to sleep on my sides. Say wha? I have slept on my back for years! Upon reading this I ordered a Pregnancy Pillow (click on the link for a visual). When it came I was so excited because I could not keep myself from rolling on my back in the middle of the night. I was pretty disappointed at first, it took up 3/4 of our queen sized bed (but poor Aaron is used to only having his "sliver" of the bed, a girl needs her space) and some nights it made me so claustrophobic I screamed. "Get this *explicative* thing off me! Now! Take it away!" But as time progressed Ive gotten used to this enormous pillow and it makes side-sleeping a lot more comfortable. I think Tilly (one of our cats) likes it more than I do.
• "I'm SO uncomfortable!"- I cant tell you how many times I have said this exact thing during the past 3+ months.  Around 12-14 weeks, when the belly first made its tiny appearance, I could not for the life of me get comfortable, not sitting, not lying, not anything. I was not used to having a belly, and it changed everything, from how I maneuvered my way out of bed to my frustrations getting dressed every morning. Since then Ive gotten more comfortable about being uncomfortable, if that makes any sense.
• No Focus- This one applies to Aaron as well as myself, finally he has to deal with some of this! Since we are both in school and working we have very limited time to get homework and studying done. That little amount of time is now spent researching baby products, reading about the Montessori education, and daydreaming about holding our little monster.  Focusing on school is next to impossible when your life is changing forever, in a good way.
• Cravings- While I haven't been dunking pickles in vanilla ice cream, yet, I craved something I hadn't had in 4 years...meat. At first I wanted to maintain my vegetarian diet while pregnant and carry that through for our child. But soon the meat cravings set in. That coupled with results from my midwife saying I need more protein and calories in general, my old vegetarian ways were gone that same day.

So far pregnancy has been everything I had expected and everything I hadn't.