Home? and half way to Bean

We flew back to St. Louis yesterday after our house-hunting trip to Seattle. So I guess I could say we're home? That's being flexible with the term, because I'm feeling quite displaced and disoriented. The house that I love in St. Louis is devoid of all pictures of my beloved family, staged for a generic buyer; there are no doggy toys scattered around for me to step on, no familiar layer of dust on the furniture. I don't feel comfortable or settled here anymore, our days together are numbered. This is the time when I'm supposed to be "nesting," but instead I'm hiding all the baby stuff for showings and open houses. It's a hard pill to swallow sometimes, and I frequently want to turn to DH and scream, "What the $&@# are we thinking?!" Will I find another OB that I like in Seattle? Will we pick a good hospital? Will we make new friends in time to help us transition into parenthood? Can we afford to purchase a home in one of the most expensive counties in the country? Will DH like his new job? These are on top of all the requisite worries of impending motherhood, including whether the baby will be healthy, well-adjusted, and vote Republican. It's enough to drive an already fragile pregnant woman over the edge. After visiting Seattle, I am hopeful that our little family will fit in there. It's a gorgeous location with friendly residents and plenty of fun activites. I just wonder how long I will have to go without a "home" before I can relax again.

The good news is that we were able to find a place to rent, so as long as all the paperwork goes okay, we won't be in a box under the freeway as I feared. We also found time to enjoy ourselves on the trip, including enjoying seafood at Pike Street Market downtown; touring the breathtaking hills and lakes surrounding the city; avoiding the 923,288 Starbucks we passed at all costs, just for the challenge; and making fun of the math teachers who descended on our hotel for a conference (NW Math Conference 2007: License to Learn). I apologize to all my teacher friends, I do normally have the utmost respect for the noble profession. But based on the difficulty they seemed to have in operating a very simple elevator, I do worry about Bean's education in the Washington state school system.

Pictures: Our new rental home, if all paperwork goes through; view of the city from the Space Needle; a glimpse of Mount Rainier on a cloudy day.

Pregnancy update: Here I am at 20 weeks along, I can't believe it. My little Bean is half-way cooked already! The second trimester is going along well I'd say. From what I hear, this is as good as I'm going to feel while this little person bakes, so I am trying to enjoy it. My energy level is decent, considering I'm stressed to the max with the relocation. My aversion to everything edible has not subsided, unfortunately. I am starving every two hours, but nothing sounds good to my cranky stomach. I keep waiting for the day I can pig out as a proper preggo should, but it aludes me still. Hopefully I won't be robbed of that hard-earned bonus of gestation, I am just dying to wake DH up in the middle of the night and send him to Dairy Queen to get me a flurry with peanuts, gummy bears, coconut, and pickles. Maybe I will anyway!