My very last jet plane. This year, anyway.

This afternoon I'm flying to DC for a 12-day trip. I won't actually be in DC the whole time--tomorrow morning I'm driving down to North Carolina with my sister and her family to visit my parents--but I will be gone for a full 12 days. Torsten is not coming with me.

Maybe it's just the pregnancy hormones, but I am super sad about this. It just so many days far away from him. And I am very much looking forward to visiting my family in NC--I haven't been there since last Thanksgiving--but I wish Torsten were coming too.

I'll be in DC for a week after we leave North Carolina, for work, and I'm trying to pack my social calendar full, and I'm doing a pretty good job. Unfortunately the majority of my DC friends have moved away, so there's only a few of them left, but I have dinners and lunches planned with several of them, and of course my sister lives there and I'll be staying with her on the weekend so that will be excellent too.

But I'm just remembering my last trip, when I was gone for 10 days, and only five of those were without Torsten, and yet by the end I was done and really really REALLY wanted to go home, and I'm a little worried that the same thing will happen this time, except that I'm more emotionally fragile this time around, plus the trip is longer, plus Torsten won't be there for any of it.

Seriously, the emotions? They are a mess. I thought this was supposed to be more of a first trimester thing? But a couple nights ago Torsten and I were chatting and he made a joke, a JOKE, a joke that I normally would have LAUGHED at because it was FUNNY, and instead... well, instead I cried, and felt very upset, and then Torsten felt guilty. And I knew, I knew as it was happening that it was not normally something that would have made me upset, and that it was just the hormones getting to me, but, well, that did not stop the weeping.

WEEPING. At a JOKE.

So yes, I am definitely emotionally fragile these days, and also? I think I might have the beginnings of a linea nigra. I noticed it this morning when I was getting dressed. It's very, very faint, and nobody glancing at my belly would ever notice it, but if you look closely you can see the faintest dark line that starts just below my belly button, just slightly left of center, and runs all the way down my abdomen.

But! On the plus side, I get to visit my family, and see my friends, and 12 days isn't THAT long, and also this is the last trip I have planned for a long time, definitely until after I give birth (because Thanksgiving and Christmas are too close to my due date for me to feel comfortable flying, so we will be sticking around Denver for the holidays), and then I will get all the Husband Time I need, so really, this is just one last trip and it should be fun which is why I planned it in the first place. So really I'm just being a baby about the whole thing, and I'm sure it'll turn out great and fly by.

Also, I won't really be alone. At least Piglet will be with me. That's definitely something, right?