Thank you so much for your kind words and congratulations, this is exactly why I love The Internets so.
Now that the cat’s out of the bag so to speak, I can start to update more frequently again. Over the past few months I found that because there was this huge, at-times all-consuming change developing in my life that I just didn’t feel comfortable writing about, it became increasingly difficult to write anything at all. I apologize for the break and hope things can get back to a regular posting schedule.
BUT. Despite my delicate condition, I don’t want you to think I was just sitting around eating bon-bons and rubbing my belly (only half correct- I was also gestating a FETUS, guys).
I took notes during each of the past 10 weeks, (FOR YOU. Well, and for me. And for my sister. By mainly FOR YOU) because I am the very first pregnant person in the entire world and I just know that everyone reading will be fascinated to know that since becoming pregnant I have thrown up! And had a fancy medical procedure called an “ultrasound”! (All groundbreaking stuff, read on for more fascinating details!)
In all seriousness, the following is a sort of stream of consciousness mess of notes I jotted down over the past two months. They evolved from shorter entries earlier on, to longer reflections as I neared 12 weeks and I think this change in writing is due to the incredibly tenuous nature of early pregnancy.
Everything you read warns about getting too attached, the 15-20% risk of miscarriage, all the millions of things that can go wrong. Simultaneously, you assure yourself with nothing more than blind faith that for you, things will be fine. Everything within you hopes desperately that you’ll reach 12 weeks and hear that healthy heartbeat.
I loved those early weeks. I loved the quiet secrecy of our experience, and the changes I felt emerging in my body, our marriage, our lives. But it surprised me how nervous I felt. I hated the way I felt like it could be taken at any moment. I lapsed into superstition, not wanting to tell anyone beyond family or buy anything for the baby lest I “jinx” things.
That said, here we are. I’m 14 weeks and I feel incredibly lucky that we’ve gotten this far, I do know how fortunate we are.
(One more note: I was planning on writing a whole post being all “OMG don’t worry guyz, this isn’t going to turn into a pregnancy blog or a mommyblog!” but in some ways it probably will. I have no idea what will change in regards to content or focus, and I’m not willing to make any promises. I guess we’ll just have to see)
4 Weeks
We find out.
I surprise Adam by waking him up horrendously early on a Sunday morning and telling him the good news. (I’m keeping the exact details private because even over-sharing bloggers like to keep some things for themselves).
He looks at me with a big grin and stunned silence. We spend the day with big idiot grins plastered on our faces.
I feel crampy, my boobs ache, we are elated.
The next day at work, a coworker remarks that I am glowing, and I panic that she knows. I still can’t stop smiling.
5 Weeks
It still feels surreal, we haven’t told anyone yet. We meet with the midwives on Feb 23 and they predict a due date of Oct 23, 2012 and send us for some bloodwork so we can get tested for syphilis, among other things. We are assured that this test is standard procedure, but I see Adam giving me the side-eye anyway.
She tells us we’ll get to hear the baby’s heartbeat at our next appointment in 6 weeks- it seems light years away.
I am still feeling crampy, and now I start to feel slightly queasy. The closest thing I can compare it to is that churning, nauseous feeling you have when you’re hungover, where you spend hours trying to decide whether eating would make things better or worse.
Evidently I decide on “worse”, because by the end of the week I’ve lost 4 pounds and Adam tries force feeding me sticks of butter (“It’s for the baby!”)
My thinking around food during this time can best be summed up as: “I want to eat _________, but I really don’t want to puke up ________.” (Result: I don’t eat ________).
Adam is co opting my symptoms: he feels nauseous, his chest hurts. I draw the line when he asks me “What do cramps feel like?”
6 Weeks
We sit down on Sunday and call our families to tell them the good news. Everyone is elated, my mom does a victory dance in her living room.
Adam has the presence of mind to record me telling my 92 year old Granddaddy that he will soon be a GREAT Grandaddy. His reaction and that of my grandmother squawking with joy will be something I remember forever.
I go to get the blood/urine tests done and when the nurse has finished she looks at me and says “By the way- congratulations!”. I start crying.
Midweek I notice that Adam begins to annoy me, except nothing in his behavior has changed so I can only attribute my increasing rage to what the pregnancy books helpfully call “feeling a bit moody”. I text a friend of mine who recently had a baby and ask if its normal to want to punch the father of my unborn child in the throat for having the audacity to chew in my presence.
She replies “I feel like that every day and I’m not even pregnant anymore, how the fuck do I know what’s normal?”. I begin to sense that I have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into.
7 Weeks
Our baby is the size of a blueberry. This news is blithely reported by my weekly pregnancy newsletter and I re-read the statement several times. It doesn’t have any more meaning the fourth time than it did the first.
At dinner one evening Adam confesses he doesn’t really believe I’m pregnant- it isn’t real yet. After laughing with him, I have to agree. It feels like we are in on some elaborate joke and are waiting for everyone else to get the punch line.
A few days into this week my nausea worsens and this morning finds me standing over the toilet dry heaving. (A process that will become intimately familiar over the next few weeks)
I go grocery shopping, a process which these days entails walking around the store in aimless circles, trying to find things to eat that don’t make my stomach churn at the thought of putting them in my mouth.
So far, this list consists of the following:
(oh and sometimes, SOMETIMES, that olive and chive hummus, but we’re kind of playing Russian roulette with that one. The stakes are high guys, Stakes. Are. High)
ALSO: Note to all women who are considering becoming pregnant, being around 15-20 teenagers every night will make you lose your FUCKING MIND. That is, until they makes you cry instead, from joy or gratitude or even maybe because you are laughing so hard you think you might pee. (In conclusion: Hormones. )
Towards the end of this week, exhaustion hits. I kept thinking I was doing really well, I was tired, but not THAT tired. Now I am that tired. Napping tired, sleeping 10 hours a night tired. Lying down and silently weeping emotionally physically TIRED y’all.
It’s alarming because for me tiredness is usually associated with low electrolyte levels, but right now I can’t distinguish between the two and I’m really too sleepy to care anyway. (OH do I miss my cappuccinos!)
8 Weeks
Early this week while doing an errand at work I have to pull over to the side of the road so my intestines can heave up whatever paltry breakfast I was able to eat, all over the gravel and whoops! my boots too. As I stand there, one hand bracing myself against the hood of the car, contemplating the half-digested contents of my stomach, a car pulls up behind me.
I assume they are going to get out and ask if I am ok and I mentally prepare a witty rejoinder to the effect of “I’m fine- just pregnant! Hahaha!”. But in fact they do not get out of their car, instead they sit there and watch me vomit for a good five more minutes before I collect what’s left of my soggy dignity and head back to work.
This week we get our ultrasound done. I am not even kidding when I say that if we had gone in there and the tech had said “What?! You’re not pregnant, there’s nothing in there!” I would have nodded slowly and though, “Yup. Okay. Sounds about right.”
Seeing that fuzzy little blob changed my life. There is a living thing inside of me.
THERE IS A LIVING THING INSIDE OF ME!
The tech points out a tiny flickering flash of light in the blob’s chest and says, “There’s the heartbeat” and I look at Adam and he looks at me and tears start streaming down my face and finally some of the anxiety lifts and I can breathe and it’s ok. It’s in there and safe and living and my god we’re going to have a baby.
(…Weeks 9-14 to come)
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
No Comments