19 weeks pregnant

At 19 weeks, I finally had someone take the very first photo of my bump.  Why wait so long?  Until now, I just wasn't up to it!  At 19 weeks, I am considered half way there since full term with twins is 38 weeks.  When I went to the doctor this week, my belly measured 25 weeks.  I can't wait to see how big it gets at the end!

If I had to choose one word to sum up how I'm feeling these days, the word I would pick would be exhausted.  I wake up without an alarm each day at 6:00 AM and feel fine for a few hours, just long enough to straighten up the house, get Elizabeth off to school, run teenagers from the church to the high school after seminary and get home from that in time to get Miriam and William ready and off to school.  Then, I start dragging.  I take an hour nap after lunch.  It doesn't give me more energy but without the nap, my nausea returns.  I feel more and more exhausted as the day goes on until I fall into bed at 8:00 PM.  Then, I wake up each and every night around 2:00 am and lay there, wide awake, for two hours.  It's been happening for so long (two months) that I despair of ever sleeping through the night again.  Nighttime wakefulness has become a very bad habit.

I've gained 10 pounds so far.  From what I've found online, 20 pounds by 20 weeks is the goal to prevent pre-term labor, one of my concerns.  I've been gaining a steady one pound per week since I've gone on the medication for nausea.  My doctor told me to not worry about not gaining much and I'm trying to follow her advise.  My belly isn't the only thing that has grown, my bra size has gone from a AA to a C!

The babies are big enough for me to feel every day.  I wish I could feel them both at the same time but so far I feel one moving around and a while later I feel the other.  The best time to feel them move is right when I go to bed at night.  I don't know if that's because they they move more then or it's because I'm not distracted by other things.

One good thing of feeling better is that Dode is back to sleeping with me.  When I was at my sickest, he chose to sleep downstairs since I was going to bed before him and he'd wake me up when he came to bed, only to leave me miserable and sick again.  He's also a restless sleeper and I'm a light sleeper.  He was waking me up several times a night and with the insomnia in the middle of everything, getting quality sleep was very elusive.  I don't know if a month on the couch taught him to be a better sleeper, but so far he hasn't been waking me up more than once a night, and some nights not at all.  Bedtime is the only time Dode and I have to talk without children interrupting so the last month has felt very lonely and isolated for me.