Baby story Part the first

HAHA I started this post several months ago, and with baby and all else it didn't get posted.  It's not complete, but if I wait for it to be complete, it will never get posted, so I'll post some today, and try to post more of my pregnancy story and birth story later.
So, yes, it's been almost a year.  I bet you all thought I'd forgotten about this little writing thing I was doing.  Well, I didn't, it's just been a crazy year.  Now I wish I'd been more faithful about writing because I can't remember what made it so busy.  I know that starting in April, I was exhausted almost all the time.  There was a good reason for that.  I know that I was working full time plus.  I know that I worried about saying the wrong thing or causing pain for people that I love.  There is also a good reason for that.  They just happen to be the same reason.  In April, we learned that we, Brandon and I, would be having a baby.  I was over the moon excited!  I've wanted to be a Mommy since. . . well, probably since I was born! But more realistically for as long as i can remember.  However, I guess I'm a pessimist because I found out I was pregnant and my first thought was something like: "I don't want to tell anyone yet because what if I miscarry and then I have to explain THAT to everyone."  So, I kept it to myself, and consequently went off the grid.
I learned that the first trimester is exhausting!!!  So often people have told me that the first trimester is the time for morning sickness.  I'm here to say that every woman is different!  Because I threw up a grand total of three times the entire pregnancy.  The first time I had a migraine and had not eaten for 16 to 18 hours.  Believe me this was a very bad idea.  There's a reason pregnant women should keep crackers by the bed.  Dry heaves is not my idea of fun.  I literally felt like I was simultaneously and involuntarily humping the toilet and burying my face in a shrine to the porcelain diety.  Not eating doesn't make anything better.  Apparently, eating didn't make it better this time either because the second time, was about 30 minutes and one bowl of cereal after the first time.  It included more dry heaves, and this time, as my Father would say: "calling Mama Moose on the great white telephone."  As soon as my husband got home I asked him to clean the toilet.  I managed to keep it mostly clean through the rest of the pregnancy.  There is nothing worse than throwing up in a dirty toilet.  Just sayin'.  The third time I was an innocent victim of a toothbrush.  I quickly learned that the back of my tongue would have to make do with mouthwash unless I wanted to spend the rest of my life with a toothbrush in my mouth and dry heaves.  So, perhaps it was a blessing just for me, but morning sickness wasn't bad at all!  What was bad?  Heartburn and EXHAUSTION!!  On that note, WHY did no one tell me that heartburn is a pregnancy thing??  That totally sideswiped me.
But about the exhaustion: It was almost like I couldn't stand to be conscious for more than an hour before my body began to betray me.   But the complete shut down of my body from seemingly causeless exhaustion caught me completely by surprise as well.
You see, I come from a family of super women!  Literally.  Two of my sisters built their houses while they were pregnant.  I don't mean they hired people and had a house built, I mean one sister, by herself, with her two hands built a house!  She even got up on the roof and was putting on shingles while she was very pregnant!! The other was assisting with laying tile and minor electrical work.  I grew up on stories of my Mother helping haul hay while pregnant!  My baby sister worked 50 + hours weekly while pregnant with her first. My Brothers wife decided to paint her house pregnant!  I could probably go on, but it would be redundant.  The point is that the women I know don't stop going, they don't take naps, and they certainly don't look like they've been hammered and drug through an exhausted mine backwards just because they are growing a baby!  (Some would say that these are stupid dangerous things to be doing while pregnant, and I'll admit that to some extent they are, but that is a moot point because Women in my family don't care!!  If something needs to be done, we are going to do it.)
I on the other hand, wanted nothing more than to lay in my bed and never see the sun again almost as soon as my body registered that my baby was coming.
Somehow I made it through (obviously) and about 16 weeks, I finally was able to handle life again.