Strange New World

My body is rapidly and slowly changing. I feel chubby, clumsy and slow....I do not feel pregnant. I feel like I will never look pregnant. 4 months and counting....I just feel big. I am a big chubby ball of body image insecurity this weekend...my breasts look sorta odd, my ankles are swollen from the heat and I feel like a retired pro wrestler...This is not self pitty as I am knee deep in a goodwill purge and room clean. I am feeling "good" just wondering who's body I woke up in today.

And Then Before You Know It Things Change

I have not kept quiet about the struggles I have had with early pregnancy. I have been downright simpering about it all at times. But sometime in the last 2 weeks things shifted. It wasn't the weather because it is still hot as balls out here. It isn't that I have stopped peeing or thinking I need to pee every 5 seconds because that has not changed. It isn't that work got easier or sleep got better or even that my house got cleaner and I got better at being less of a slob. Nope, nothing external changed at all. So, what, you may ask, has changed? Well, for the past three months I have been supplying the growing briny little ocean I carry inside of me with all the hormones it needed to grow salty and warm (holy shit am I warm!), to establish a good blood supply and to create all the stuff needed for the growth and development of a happy starfish. I am now happy to report that I have done such a good job that the little ocean is now supplying its own hormones courtesy of the infrastructure I so nauseatedly and hotflashingly set up these last 3 months.

You see, when your body is cranking out the hormones like a teenager you FEEL and ACT like a teenager. You cry over things that don't require crying. You stress over nothing and you hate everything and resent almost everyone. You don't even get the benefit of the hormones coming on slowly over say the years 10-13...nope you get slammed starting about week 4-14. I would LOVE to see the graph curve on hormone levels in pregnant chicks. I bet it is crazy steep. So, yeah, I was a wreck. I don't know how some women get through first trimester without all the nasty but I congratulate them from the depths of my soul because I am here to tell you that shit got DARK in here. I was about 3 days from calling my midwives and saying I was scared I was depressed when things finally started to lighten up and I started to get my energy, my appetite and my sense of humor back. It arrived just in time for our dear friend's wedding too. THANK GOD! Whoever said "it is darkest just before dawn" was once pregnant I SWEAR!

So, I am still here, wearing mostly normal clothes, eating the foods I ate before the starfish moved in for the most part. I crave strange things like baked beans and shredded carrots. I am still very averse to tomatoes and chicken. I sometimes look at my belly and wonder when it will look like there is someone living in there. I other times thank my lucky stars that I am still so strong and healthy and able to do my job. I only took one sick day my whole first trimester and that was the day we flew home from Maine. I was a blubbering, white rice eating, zofran popping, depressed ball of nausea and terror for the last 3 months. Sometimes I felt like I was just hanging on by the skin of my teeth, but it passed. I am still afraid of things and more easily overwhelmed than my nonpregnant alter ego. Mostly I am afraid that my two best local girlfriends won't want to be my friends anymore or as much once the baby is born. I am afraid of losing myself to diapers, nap times and breastfeeding. But it is manageable. I have a really wonderful team supporting me from my mother to my adopted mothers across the nation, my midwives, my work partner, my friends and most of all the absolute best man I know. I know lots of women say this but I swear to god I have the best one. He is patient, he is kind, he loves me even though I am burping for two now, sweating like a long-haul trucker and sometimes get the crazy at inappropriate times. He reminds me that this is all for good and that he is beside me no matter what. He takes out the gross smelling things I leave in the fridge and rubs my back when I can't get comfortable and the world is too hot. He is the master chef of white rice cooked in chicken broth as well as medium rare steaks on the grill. He loves my mother, is good to his own and believes in me. What more could a girl want in a best friend and husband.

So, here's to you second trimester. I thought people were just blowing smoke up my ass by saying "It gets better! Just wait till second trimester!" But ya know what? Second trimester is looking up. Energy, optimism, and appetite...I may just survive this pregnancy thing after all.

Sometimes the most important thing to say is "You're not alone"

Anyone who has read the last few posts can probably guess that I have been struggling with emotions/hormones/body changes/fear of the future. I really have been. What has been making it worse is that I have spent literally WEEKS feeling like the only woman to ever feel this way. Part of me suspected that was stupid but I just couldn't be sure and nobody ever talks about this stuff. Its not in any of the books and it is barely mentioned in any of the many (good) blogs I have read. Sure, ladies cop to being moody and exhausted early in 2nd trimester but everyone seems to wave a hand over it like it lasted as long as a lingering fart. Nobody ever admits to feeling days on end or better parts of weeks like a crazy person afraid they are about to jump into a river of fire.

I talked to my good friend Sarah last week. I have known her since I was in the 6th grade. She used to be a midwife with my mother and then she became my high school biology teacher. I went to school with her kids and her husband was one of the most influential teachers of my life. She is a special lady. Her daughter Megan, is a few years younger than me and due almost any day with her first baby. Sarah will be flying out to the west for the birth. She still rocks a very supportive maternal vibe. She has always been a 'with women' sort of lady and that has not changed in her years away from active midwifery. Anyway, I started talking to Sarah early in my pregnancy when I was trying so hard to keep the secret from my mom until I could tell her face to face. I called Sarah when I needed the mom voice and the midwife advice or affirmation that "no, no woman has ever died from nausea. Yes, funky heartbeats can be a very normal part of pregnancy. Chin up, you are doing beautifully". She totally made it possible to surprise my mom at 9+ weeks.

I had some funky heart stuff that was lasting longer than I thought it should and I was becoming afraid that it might mean I couldn't have a home birth. I called my mom and asked her advice. If I ever wondered how much my mom loves me I know now. She sort of freaked out on me. I didn't understand at first and was pretty pissed. She seemed like she didn't want to give me advice and like she thought I was being an overly dramatic teenager about it. She kept saying "You're getting all worried about it..." I didn't think I WAS that worried I just wanted to know if it was normal or not. Anyway, smash cut to G and I hiking in the woods a few days later and the wise soul that he is G said it perfectly. She lives a zillion miles away and is probably worried all the time about something happening that she can't fix. She is probably just saying "stop worrying. I am worried enough for the both of us." And that made so much sense. She has taken care of women for a very long time and seen the power of the mind and the body. She has had to remain an unbiased medical professional for these women. Not to say she didn't care deeply about many of them but she always had to put the personal and the emotional second to the best interest of mom and baby. I am HER baby. She is almost certainly incapable of putting the emotional aside. She just wants to be my mom and let my midwives be my midwives. That is fair. It was not very sensitive of me to try to make her my mom and my encyclopedia of women's health and pregnancy. Once I realized this things got a lot easier.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that I have been sort of a mess. Turns out I had a UTI. Bummer! But the emotional side of it was even worse than the three drops every 5min. I was sad and lonely and frustrated and just feeling so negative. I called Sarah. I was so blue I was afraid to call my mom because I was afraid I was actually depressed...like capital D. I didn't want her to worry about her little girl all the way out here feeling awful so I called Sarah. I was sobbing by the time she answered the phone. We talked a bit and she told me how normal this all is. She told me that lots of women struggle to get the rhythm and that nobody talks about it but many many feel it. I needed to hear that. I got off of the phone feeling buoyed and even laughing a little. I no longer felt like the worst pregnant lady ever. I felt halfway normal even in my crappiness.

The next day I spoke to another dear Sara. This one is due any second with her first baby, a little girl. She will be 40 weeks today I believe. She has been doing a great job, especially these last few weeks when all she wants to do is push this baby out and start the next page of her life. She and I talked about all the crazy mental shit that you go through. She had a much longer "getting pregnant" window than I did but had assumed she would have a struggle but not as much of a struggle as she had. I came at it thinking I would surely have trouble and thus, would have lots of time to settle into the idea of it all and BAM....here I am. So we both had some adjusting to do. Her, to believing she was finally really pregnant and me to believing I was F-ing pregnant already. She told me about some of her mental gymnastics and trips to crazy town and I told her mine. We each agreed that the other's sounded totally crazy but totally legit and I can't speak for her but I felt a ton better after talking to her. I felt like I was not so alone.

So, I have purchased some suuuper cute maternity clothes, this weekend I get to marry two of my favorite people to one another in a community ceremony, and I am actively looking forward to seeing my husband all dressed up for the wedding this weekend and getting to spend a night in a fancy hotel. I think life is going to be good. So, sweet friends, I cannot promise there won't be more posts of the wahhh nature but I think I am turning a corner. I think I am gaining some perspective along with this little bump in my belly. This is real, it is moving faster than the speed of light, but it is magic and that is wonderful.