Another day

Today is a better day. Yesterday was pretty okay, too, actually. I haven't cried since Friday, but I cried way a lot on Friday, so I guess it all evens out. But at least a little bit I think I'm learning how to live at this new pace that is the end of pregnancy. Living slower is making me feel like I'm not doing quite so much impossible waiting. I'm sleeping in and taking leisurely showers and generally not clock-watching and probably moving half as slow as the rest of the world, but I think that's for the best. The only hard part is that no one else is on my new schedule, so it can get kind of lonely. Everyone else also has lives and jobs and things, and I think are reserving their time for later, because it's much more exciting to hang out with a newborn baby than a bitchy term pregnant woman.

However. Kyle and I wandered and ate our way around the Bite of Seattle yesterday, which is pretty much the perfect event for a pregnant woman, and today BFF and I did some mall-walking, Frappuccino -drinking, and nursing-apparel shopping. I am a much happier person if I get out of the house and do something, anything, at least once a day. Tomorrow the only thing I have planned so far is a pedicure, but that is something at least. And beyond that, who knows. I'm having a hard time thinking more than one day ahead at this point. Everything seems far too uncertain.

I am starting to feel like I'm living in some sort of dream world. The longer things go, the less real anything feels. Kind of like the early weeks of my pregnancy where in between bouts of nausea I wouldn't have any symptoms and my body hadn't started changing yet and I would feel like I had imagined it all. Obviously, I am huge and clearly pregnant, but the reality of getting a baby sometime in the next week and a half seems to recede further and further into the distance. A week ago I felt like labor was imminent and I was ready, and now... it all just seems impossible. I feel like I am sitting in a nursery decorated for no one, and that I'm going to turn into a crazy lady pushing around an empty stroller. It is very strange and surreal.

But I guess it will all be over soon. This is the last month I will be pregnant. I will have a baby in the next couple weeks. This will end, and I will have my new reality and it will be good. I just need to remain calm and patient. I'm doing okay at that today.

15/40

Hello, blog! I'm still here. Fifteen weeks and one day pregnant. This experience just gets weirder and weirder I think. I'm pretty sure my body is changing by the day at this point, and it always looks different in the evening than I remember it looking in the morning. Bizarre. My belly is still not cute and round and obviously pregnant looking, but it's changed enough the even Kyle clearly notices the difference, and that's saying a lot, since as far as he is concerned, I've been the same size for the last six years. Definitely not so accurate. But yeah. This is getting real now. No needing to arch the back to emphasize it.

I'm really happy that baby is doing good growing in there, and that I'm finally seeing some obvious changes, but like, fashion-wise, belly is not making me very happy. Yesterday I wore the one stylish maternity shirt that I have out to trivia night with some friends, and instead of looking cute-pregnant, I'm pretty sure I just looked like I was awkward, chubby, and trying to hide it. Blah. And since it's less uterus, and more internal organs pushed out of the way by uterus, it's still kind of squishy and not hard and round and bleh. And the fact that I have approximately four things that I can fit into, most of which are boring as all hell, doesn't really make me feel any better about this.

But otherwise, I'm doing pretty good. I seem to have gotten over the barfing thing (finally!), although I do still sometimes feel queasy, but not in a yakking-is-imminent kind of way. I am still, though, tired all the time. I think maybe more than I had been previously. And my appetite still hasn't 100% returned. I'm trying to make myself eat so that I can gain back the 5.5 pounds I've lost, but eating when you're not hungry or find everything completely unappetizing is not fun, nor does it really promote a healthy attitude towards food. At least now I'm eating a wider variety of things than just bread, but hopefully soon I will like eating again.

I'm also finding that my center of gravity is already shifting, and I'm a bit more tippy than normal. This wouldn't be such a big deal, I don't think, except for that I spend a lot of my time wearing really tall heels or climbing ladders, or both. This morning we were putting up new displays and I almost lost my balance a couple times in the window. I think I'm going to have to start delegating that part of my job. And just being more careful in general, probably. A lot of my work seems to put me in precarious positions, and I really ought to be more mindful of myself.

France Update.

So, my trip! Remember that? Yeah, well, after my last post on the subject, things went a little downhill. I did get in a good shopping trip with my sister, and that was pretty wonderful, although all I ended up buying was a pair of sunglasses, because I wasn't really interested in amassing my maternity wardrobe on the Champs Elysees.  But I did find it a little bit difficult to enjoy my time with her on the whole. I think it was because she's going through such a huge life transition right now, but it was making her quite insufferable most of the time, and that was disappointing.

Sis and I before I got sick.

The last couple days of our trip I fell ill. I actually ended up leaving the restaurant in the middle of lunch with my parents and my sister and taking the Metro back to our apartment alone, without a good idea of where I was going because I just all of the sudden couldn't handle being vertical anymore. Laying down in the dark helped, and I napped for several hours. But later when my dad was cooking dinner, and everyone kept coming in to check on my, the smells from the kitchen wafted in every time the door was opened and I lost my lunch. And by lunch I mean a few bites of salad, because that's all I had eaten. And I spent the next twelve hours alternating between bed and the bathroom floor. I didn't leave the apartment for the remainder of our trip. Slept right through New Years Eve, although I think Kyle woke me up at midnight. I also had about an hour of panicked delirium where I was sure I had contacted Listeriosis from the mass amounts of smoked salmon I had ingested and was going to give birth to a baby with three arms and called a nurse-line with the most unhelpful answers ever, and then gave up and figured I'd see my midwives when we got back to Seattle if I hadn't died yet.

I'm pretty sure I had some sort of virus, and not just pregnancy related nausea, although maybe one just exacerbated the other. I think I had a mild fever for at least part of the time. Anyway, it's not exactly how I had planned to spend my time in Paris. And I was just so very relieved to come home. Especially after lugging my suitcase through the Metro system to the train station and eventually out again to the cab because there was an accident and booking it through the airport so we wouldn't miss our flight only to have it delayed, and feeling like I might be about to faint the entire time. When we got to Seattle we just took a cab home without even really considering trying to use public transportation (which is actually very easy here), because neither of is could fathom not getting home as quickly as humanly possible. And then I went straight to bed even though it was only three in the afternoon.

Now I have a pretty nasty cold that I'm trying to get through, and the coughing and post-nasal drip definitely trigger my nausea, so that's less than fun. But I think we're on the upside of all of this. Fingers crossed.

Crazy Girl

So, scratch what I said about not barfing anymore. Still doing that, apparently.

The last few days have been interesting. My not-feeling-pregnant-anymore and worrying-baby-stuff stress came to the head the other night. I was just talking calmly to Kyle about how I was starting to feel overwhelmed with all of this stuff that I didn't know and how many options there are, etc., and all of the sudden the tears started flowing and I was freaking out. Hormones. Very fun.

Kyle doesn't know quite what to do with me in times like these. When we were first together, years ago (and hadn't really grown up yet), I had a habit of taking everything really personally and flipping out and crying and that didn't get us off to a super great start. I also just tend to be a highly emotional person, and when my emotions run high, often so do my tears. So recently I've had to tell him to ignore the tears and listen to what I'm saying, because otherwise it has a tendency to look to him like I am trying to be manipulative, when really crying is just my physical response to a high stress or high tension conversation. So he's been pretty good about just ignoring the tears and treating the conversation as he would without them.

This thing the other night, though, was different. I didn't start crying because our conversation was making me emotional, I started crying because I am a big crazy hormone filled ball of stress and honestly in this instance I needed him to see that I needed more than for him to just take what I was saying at face value and instead to calm me down and comfort me, but I have trained him too well to ignore my outbursts, so he asked me to turn off the light to he could go to sleep. And I continued sniffling in the dark for a good hour because I'm crazy, and, you know, PREGNANT.

I did manage to get across to him that I really need him to start thinking about things. It's really stressing me out that he's not worried about anything relating to this pregnancy or caring for a baby or witnessing another human being come barreling out of my nether regions. And it's because he doesn't have a freaking clue what he's getting himself into. Unlike, say, me, he hasn't spent a bazillion years reading the books and the blogs. He doesn't have a lot of friends with kids, and the ones that do he doesn't see or talk to very often. He has no idea that there's anything that he ought to worry about. I don't even care that he choose to worry about the same things that are stressing me out. In fact, it would probably be better if he chose his own topics so that he could calm me down about car seats and daycare, and I could help relieve his stress about say, the likelihood of me dying in childbirth .Because that's something I'm pretty not worried about. But at this point he's only really worried about money, but we're both always worried about money, baby or not, so that's not really different than it was before we got this party started.

He has vowed to begin doing some reading. I've given him Henci Goer's The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth, because the über-sciencey nature of it is right up his alley, and because even though he's been supportive of my desires to have a natural and low-intervention birth, I want him to be on the same page with me on the reasons WHY I want that, so he can better support me in getting what I (we) want and not calling for an epidural at the first sign of wife-in-pain, as one of our friends did for his natural birth craving wife. And He also has Penny Simkin's The Birth Partner, because, well, duh. That's all that I'm asking of him at this point. When he gets through those, we'll see if he's interested in anything else. At least we have a couple of 10+ hour plane rides coming up to work on all that reading.

I need a vacation

Okay, I am tired of being pregnant. While I am aware that most women feel this way at some point during pregnancy, I'm pretty sure that usually they last longer than ten weeks. But I'm ahead of the curve. Or something. Really, though, I'm over it. I don't want to like, not be pregnant, either, since I'm rather heavily anticipating the prize at the end, but I wish there was a pause button somewhere, so that I could maybe take a week's vacation from it all and then start back up where I left off. And I could eat raw fishes and soft cheeses and rare steak and have a god-damned cocktail. A girl can dream.

But seriously. I feel like I'm in some sort of pregnancy limbo-land right now. I'm definitely not showing yet, and we're still not sharing the news. The people that do know about it I think have gotten over their initial excitement, and so it's not LETS TALK ABOUT THE BABY!!! time anymore. Our first ultrasound isn't until January. And most of my early-pregnancy symptoms have tapered off. My boobs are still a little sore, but not all-the-time distracting. I'm periodically nauseous, but no longer vomiting. I'm not dead-tired anymore, but I'm still only running at about 80%. I suppose I should be happy about these things, but it just makes me feel like I am in no-man's land. At least I got to be constantly reminded that I'm growing a BAYBEEE! And, you know, I kind of like having something to complain about. Weird, but true. Now it's just whatever.

Lately I have also completely lost my appetite. Food does not interest me. Except for maybe chocolate. But nothing, say, nutritious. Or filling. And as such I forget to eat. And then my stomach starts growling and rumbling and it's uncomfortable and my body is telling me it's hungry, but my head? Still not interested. So then I eat some chocolate ice cream to quiet my stomach so that I can get some sleep. You think I'd be doing everything I could to make healthy choices for my fetus, but um, apparently not. At the end of all of this it's entirely possible that I will give birth to a baguette, since French bread is the only thing that doesn't seem completely unappetizing right now. Great.

Also, I am kind of freaking out. Interestingly enough, I am not really scared of becoming huge and swollen ankles and varicose veins and stretch marks and back aches. I don't fear contractions. I am not afraid of labor, or the "ring of fire," of any of it. I'm pretty sure it will be hard and it will be painful, but I'm completely confident I'll come out on the other side just fine. I think this is the result of spending oh, the last two years reading everything I could get my hands on about pregnancy and birth. Pregnancy and birth are old hat to me. Totally fine.

But everything else? I'm at a loss. I can push a baby out, but what the hell do I do with it afterward? Seriously. I've never babysat, ever. Never changed a diaper. I have given a baby a bottle twice, with supervision, and one of those times I was eight years old and I wouldn't even remember it except for the photographic evidence, so I'm pretty sure it doesn't count. I don't know a thing about car seats or strollers, and I'm pretty sure that babywearing sounds awesome, but as soon as I start thinking about the myriad options for slings and carriers I start panicking.

Lately I've been spending my time reading the archives of Alphamom, because it's so much more interesting than doing the dishes, or like, putting on pants. So last night it occurred to me, all of the sudden that not only am I going to have a baby, but at some point that baby is going to become a school-aged child, and perhaps a  TEENAGER and we'll have to talk about SEX and what the hell have I gotten myself into?

When did I get so crazy? Before getting pregnant I had all sorts of modern, positive ideas about age-approriate lifetime sex education and blah blah blah and this sort of stuff never worried me before and then hormones and you read one silly blog post about teenage boys and internet pornography and your brain explodes.

Did I mention I need a vacation? Welp, we go to Paris in nine days (holy crap!), so there is that. I will probably be pretty lax on the avoidance of fancy cheese and bubbly alcoholic beverages, because really, I need a break, and moderation and all that. Okay.

A little bit of everything.

Oh man, I have been a bad blogger. I am sorry. Unfortunately now that I've let it go so long without posting anything, it's hard to even know where to start. Lots has happened recently, and I think a bog post full of bullet points is the only way to get through it with any sort of coherence.

Please accept this as a substitute for a belly picture.

• I had my first midwife appointment this week on Thursday. It was a little crazy because the birth center had two births that day so I ended up seeing one of the assisting student midwives, and the end of my appointment was very please-let-yourself-out-I-have-to-go-catch-a-baby, but honestly I'm glad that laboring women get priority, because obviously that will be nice when I'm in need of a baby-catcher. We went through my medical history, etc., and the just of the appointment was pretty much, "wow, you are ridiculously healthy and well informed." I knew that already, of course, but it's nice to hear. Basically everything I already knew; I am at an increased risk for post-partum depression, but other than that, everything is groovy. We talked about what they reccomend for that, and she let me know which local doulas and childbirth classes are dreadlocked hairy-armpitted hippies, not because I care, but because I know such things would put Kyle off, and I need him to be comfortable too. And then I peed in a cup and they took some blood and everything is peachy keen, as far as I know. They've referred me to a local hospital's fetal/maternal medicine unit to do my combined screening, and we're hoping that we can get in before we go to France. It will be our first chance to hear the heartbeat, etc., so I am super looking forward to that, and also getting assurances that everything is going well. So far, the only confirmation I have that I am even pregnant, is my home test pee-stick, and while my symptoms regularly remind me that something's in there, it would be nice to be able to see what's going on. Soon.
•  We hit eight weeks on Wednesday! It seems like a lot. I took pictures, of course, but Kyle somehow mangled our camera cord, and my laptop doesn't read HD cards, so they are trapped forever there, or at least until we get a new cable. However, if you want to know what I look like you can look at any of the pictures from the last four weeks, because I look exactly EXACTLY the same. I know this is a blessing, especially since I'm not "out" yet, but honestly, I'm excited for stuff to start moving around. Or at least for bigger boobs. Something, please. Anyway, blog posts are much better with pictures, so instead of my non-belly, there is an adorable kitten for you at the top of this post, care of google image search.
• Speaking, of being "out," or not, as the case may be, I've been thinking more about how and when to tell the general public about all of this. For the most part, I don't really care who knows, I just don't want to actually have to announce it. I'm a fairly introverted girl, and I don't like making myself the center of attention. I had a hard time telling people I was engaged when Kyle and I were getting married, too. It just seems very difficult, to me, to find a way to bring up, completely out of context this random (though, yes, exciting) news, and like, change the subject to being ALL. ABOUT. ME. It makes me feel horrible and awkward, especially because there are quite a few people who would be upset if they were not to get a personal phone call, which makes it all the worse for me. I'd like to tell as many people as possible via mass email or facebook announcement, so that I just don't have to deal with it. And I'm sorry, as much as I like talking about it, I'm afraid that by the ninth set of aunts and uncles (and we'd not even be all the way through Kyle's side yet!) I'll just be so over answering the same questions that I'll be feigning excitement and it just won't be good. Fortunately, though, my mother-in-law decided that an email would be appropriate for most of Kyle's family,  so we'll only have to make a few calls when the time comes.
• I'm especially anxious about everyone at work finding out. For the most part it will be fine, and I know everyone will be happy and excited for me. My friends that I worked with at my old location all know how much I wanted this so they'll think it's awesome, and there are so many mothers working at my new location that they'll be totally cool, too, so that's not the problem. Just there is one guy in particular that I am worried about. He is technically my boss, which makes things more complicated, although boss-lady won't let things get too shitty because she is awesome. He is a pain in the ass to work with as it is for a myriad of reasons (he doesn't really respect women, we have very different ways of looking at things, communication styles, etc., he thinks that to be respected he has to be an asshole), and I know that as soon as he finds out I am pregnant he'll be super nice to me, but in a very paternalistic, no let me lift that for you kind of way and I really don't want that. I know when to ask for help and when I am pushing myself too hard, and I want to be able to make those decisions for myself, so I can't help but worry about that whole dynamic.
• My plan right now for telling people is to announce just before we leave for France, so at least the news will have a week to sink in before I have to deal with everyone. I'm real magnanimous, I know. At least by that point we'll most likely have fetus pictures, that will make the news more fun. However, if anything looks funky in our ultrasound, I'm probably holding off, because we're pretty sure we are terminating if anything is really wrong, and I don't think that would go over well with Kyle's catholic family. Or with anyone, really. So. But we're not really high risk for anything so I'm trying not to worry about it. One of Kyle's cousins does have Downs Syndrome, though. I don't know.
• My regular yoga class is getting super uncomfortable. I really started to feel it this week. Next class is restorative poses, which I definitely don't want to miss, and then the following week is the annual, teacher takes us all out for Indian food not class, which obviously I can handle, but I'm probably not going back after Christmas. Sad. I did drop into a prenatal class this past Monday, though, and I really liked it. It was the only one I could find offered at a reasonable time (i.e. not 1pm on a Tuesday... really?) but actually managed to be pretty awesome. The instructor and owner of the center is one of the local premier prenatal teacher trainers, I guess, so that is pretty good. I was the least pregnant woman there, by at least eight weeks, but it was good and all the women were super nice, which was cool, since I know like 3 people who are or have in the last five years been pregnant in real life, so. So. Glad I found that.

Okay, so that's as much as I am going to cram into this post, because it's clearly way too much information and now my brain feels like mush from trying to sort all that out (or possibly because I am pregnant and my brain feels like mush most of the time), and I need to go to bed, because the more sleep I get the less likely I seem to be to spend my entire morning barfing. So, goodnight.

Cookies, and their tossing.

This growing a person business is starting to get more difficult. The morning sickness thing was okay for a while. The nausea was pretty mild and intermittent and I could handle it. And the barfing was quick and relieved the discomfort. Not so anymore. Yesterday morning I spent so much time puking that I had to leave for work without doing my hair or makeup. And I'm the kind of gal who always does my hair and makeup. Horrible florescent bile. I know this is extreme TMI, but I have to get it out of my system. Ick ick ick. Also, I cry when I vomit. Involuntary reflex. And I get puffy when I cry. And I remain puffy, for oh, twenty four hours or so. All in all, not such a good chain of events.

Anyway, for the first time yesterday, queasy acid-stomach feeling was not relieved by the up-chucking, and I was left with this horrible sour feeling all day. I tried to eat various breadstuffs to soak up the ick, but that didn't work at all. Since it was slow, I left work early, thank goodness, because I felt like I was about to pass out all day.  I felt a little better as I was eating the soup I demanded Kyle prepare for me, but the goodwill ended as soon as the bowl was empty.

I woke up this morning feeling slightly less awful, but definitely not entirely better. I tend not to have puking problems on days I let myself sleep in, but things are still unsettled. Great. I really fear that I won't feel un-pukey again for the next six weeks. A scary thought. The heaviest workload time of year is upon us, and then I'm spending a week in Paris, and I do not want all of this the be overshadowed by barf.

Pregnancy. Fun stuff.