wishes

Pregnancy is mostly about not knowing what will happen to you or the baby and not being able to do a whole lot to get the particular future you want.  Sometimes that’s frustrating.  

Actually that kind of sounds like a pretty good description of life in general, but it’s fair to say I’ve been noticing it a whole lot lately.  Taking vitamins, eating fruits and vegetables, and getting regular exercise does not seem like enough when you are hoping to orchestrate the successful development of an entire new person.

I’ve been congratulating the baby on all the milestones he or she has already passed.  Implantation in the right place in the uterus, the diciest challenge of them all - check!  Developing a beating heart - good job, baby!  Not dying in the first few weeks - whew!  Growing limbs, beginning to swim around, having a brain, having a face - you’ve done it all!  Now the baby has passed its first trimester screen with flying colors.  The risk of any trisomy is below 1:5,000, the lowest category.  Hooray!  At this point in the pregnancy, miscarriage due to chromosomal abnormality (the major cause of first trimester miscarriage) is unlikely, and miscarriage due to chronic conditions (none of which I have, to my knowledge) is also very unlikely.  The odds are at least 99:1 that we’re going to make it, and that the baby will be healthy.

So does this mean I can let my guard down for a few minutes, pretend everything will be perfect, and dream about all the things I can’t wait to show my baby?  Yes, my baby.  This life is not mine to own, but it is mine to love.

Yes?

How about books? There are thousands of books I love, and the baby hasn’t read ANY of them.  Not a single one!  

Cherries.  Fancy macaroni and cheese.  Spinach soup.  Pineapple.  Mango.  Blueberries right off the bush.  French fries.  Roasted sweet potatoes.  Imagine how exciting it must be to taste all those things for the very first time…

I’m already sentimental about Christmas.  This year I will have the best present of all, a newborn, to be passed between all the family members and adored by everyone.

I hope the baby loves Brightwater as much as I do.  The craggy coast, the salty smell, the moss, the tangled evergreens, the scrubby grass by the roadside, the clink of the halyard against the mast, the distant sound of lobster boats in the morning, the rain on the cabin roof, the cold water…

Apple picking on the first cool day in fall, and finding a perfect apple right off the tree to eat then and there.

Late spring, the first day it is warm enough to simply lie outside in the sun without getting cold.

Singing songs and dancing around in the house while we clean up.  With three of us it’ll be a real party.

Swimming in a cool lake on a summer day.

The first snow of the year.

Hearing a full orchestra at top volume, live, and being lost in the sound.

The first time you dance to rock music.

The first time you have a chance encounter with a wild animal, up close.

Your first thunderstorm, when you are old enough not to be afraid.

If none of these dreams come true, I will remember to enjoy them myself all the more.

convictions

When you imagine a woman pregnant for the first time, what comes to mind?  Probably some morning sickness, tears and food cravings, then a cute belly and a patient knowing smile, then painting a nursery and washing pink or blue baby socks, then shifting that big, uncomfortable belly around trying to get comfortable, and then…

I had no expectations about my pregnancy.  Well, that’s not quite true.  I did expect it to be terribly hard, and I find that I’m still bracing myself for a struggle that hasn’t materialized.  But I didn’t imagine how I’d feel.  I never daydreamed about my wedding as a girl, and I never daydreamed about pregnancy.  I have never dreamed about baby clothes or nurseries or having a big belly.

In stark contrast, I have daydreamed about being a parent for at least 5 years.  When I was about 22 I suddenly knew, almost overnight, that I would want to have a child.  I’ve always loved interacting with children and babies, my whole life, but when I knew that I would want my own child, my planner’s mind was set into motion.  I have at least a dozen “.txt” files full of notes and thoughts on parenting techniques, child development theories and dreams for my future baby that I wrote just as I was graduating college, and over the next few years.  As time went on I started growing passions like a stump growing moss.  It’s not that I didn’t have passions before, but over the last several years they have all become lenses through which I imagine my life as a parent, and through which they are intensified.  

Now that I am actually pregnant, and the baby - thank all the gods there are - has survived long enough to look like a human being and swim - I feel like a forest in rapid growth.  Everything I ever cared about, I care about more.  I feel absurdly determined to live by those values.

Part of that is because I don’t know anything about my baby.  The baby - he, she, or something in between (you never know) - might have a serious disability.  This baby might not experience the world the way I do at all, and in the face of that terrifying uncertainty, I have to find the bedrock of what I truly know and understand about this world to stand on.  When I imagine giving my baby a good life, it’s impossible not to imagine the things that have given me a good life - a house full of music and laughter, wandering the coast of Maine in the summer, walking through winter woods, home-made food… But what if my baby is deaf?  Or cannot walk?  Or hates the outdoors?  Or hates all my favorite foods?  Everything I have ever loved has to be seen through to its root, because my nostalgic favorites may not apply to this new life.  Getting to the bottom of things is hard work.  And right now, I don’t feel peaceful.  I feel fiercely determined.

I find that the most frustrating parenting “advice” I get is the reminder that I really don’t know what’s coming, how I can plan but that I should remember that nothing will go according to plan, how motherhood will erase everything about me that I think I know, etc…  I can’t quite put my finger on why it ruffles my feathers so much, but it does. 

I’m perfectly aware that I can’t control this process.  I *knew* pregnancy might make me feel very sick, and it still may.  I know I could get all kinds of serious injuries in labor. Unlikely as it is, I know the baby may still die before birth, or right after.  I know the baby might be terribly sick or disabled.  I know the child might be a psychopath, or autistic, or get cancer at age 2 - each a radically different challenge.  I know I could turn out to be terrible with toddlers or teenagers or newborns.  On the other hand, maybe the baby will sleep through the night starting at 3 months, be cheerful all the time, like all the same things as me, and read by age 3.  I know I can’t predict or control any of that.  I also know that I can’t be sure how either Brian or I will deal with the practical demands of day-to-day parenting, sleep-deprivation, or thousands of little decisions about sleep schedules or introducing solid food or whatever else.  I get it:  there are unknowns.

Whatever plans I make, they will be at least partly “foiled” by reality.  This is obvious enough, in some sense; surely any specific plan will surely fail.  But I do resent the implication (probably not intended) that somehow, the skills I’ve worked so hard to acquire, the values I’ve carefully examined will mean nothing in the face of the unknown.  If I held dogmatic beliefs about how the future will be, then yes, I’m sure that I would find myself chafing against reality very soon.  In fact, experience leads me to believe that I probably do hold dogmatic beliefs about how the future will be, unconsciously, and they will become apparent as soon as I feel the friction of reality not matching up with my expectations.

As Jon Stewart says, “If you don’t stick to your values when they’re being tested, they’re not values, they’re hobbies.”

These long paragraphs are, I suppose, intended to prove that I have done my homework.  I know I signed up for a path with big risks.  I am already humbled by what I don’t know. I truly don’t think I have it all figured out.

But there are a few things I do know - about myself and Brian.  I know we’re going to work very hard not to perpetuate gendered parenting.  I know a thing or two about my own personality (and Brian’s), and how I respond to new challenges - obviously this one is very new, but it’s not as though I’ve never been challenged before.  I know what my priorities are (they aren’t accidental), and I know enough to be pretty sure that they aren’t silly ideals that will be washed away by the reality of life with a newborn.  And, I know I’m walking in to this with my eyes open.  None of that buys me any security, but BOY does it make me bristle at the implication that I will very shortly find myself acting like every other mother in history (AS IF they were all the same), doing all the work yet bonding sweetly with the baby while the father sits around dopily, scared to change a diaper and cracking nervous jokes. AS IF all of the poor dears were duped in to thinking they could be their own kind of person, only to find themselves gratefully crawling in to a comfortable archetype as sleep-deprivation sets in…

Sigh.  Can you tell I’ve over-thought this?

If I don’t know what I’m talking about, and I do indeed find myself making choices or following patterns that I deeply intended not to follow, letme be humbled by that when it happens.  If I find that my convictions are weaker than I think they are (or simply incorrect), let me accept that when it happens.  If I give up ideals because they are too impractical to be achieved, let me admit it when it happens.  But right now, I don’t want to hear that my passions are meaningless.  I understand the difference between useless plans for particular perfection and real conviction, and time will show me which I’ve got.

12 week nuchal translucency scan

enjoying food

One of the things I’m sure I’ll want to remember about this pregnancy is how much I’ve been enjoying food.  I feel so grateful - not only to have access to so much delicious healthy food, but also to be able to enjoy it so well.  I absolutely expected to feel sick and miserable for months, and instead, I find myself looking forward to my meals every single day.  Every day I’m thankful that this aspect of giving the baby a healthy start is so much fun.

My favorite part of every morning is preparing a highly nutritious breakfast that I will enjoy eating and that (at least to the best of my knowledge) will support the baby’s healthy development.  Luckily, I’ve been feeling pretty unstressed about my diet - I’m confident that I know how to make healthy choices, and I’m not obsessed about getting it perfect every day.

So, here is a catalog of the foods I’ve been enjoying.  Although I have been very tired, and sometimes overwhelmed, my first trimester (only 4 more days left!) has been remarkably easy.  This might be boring for others to read, but I want to remember.

Breakfast foods:  Whole Foods (which, remember, is half a block from our apartment, thus making it by far the most accessible grocery store) sells a house-brand cereal that is sort of unappetizingly called “Honey Almond Flax Protein and Fiber Crunch”.  It SOUNDS like it’s cardboard with some honey on it, but it actually tastes great.  Whole grain, low fat, high fiber, plenty of protein, and not too sweet.  It’s delicious with a sliced banana.  I’ve also been really fond of slightly sweet multi-grain chex-type cereal, again with banana.

Another favorite of mine is a pair of Finn Crisps or Ryvita crackers.  One gets 1/2 of an avocado, sliced, with fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper.  The other gets chevre.  Mmmm.  This is also great on heavily toasted 100% whole wheat bread, but Finn Crisps are a miracle food:  they are super thin, tasty rye crackers that always arrive in one piece, do not crack when you put spreads on them (yet are not hard to bite), taste good with everything, and only have 20 calories a piece.  For dessert, Finn Crisps are excellent with peanut butter and raisins or apple slices.  

Every morning I eat fruit, too, and if there’s anything I could be said to be craving, it is definitely fruit.  (Having had true ice cravings when I was anemic, I don’t feel as though I’ve had any true cravings during my pregnancy so far, but… sometimes it’s sort of close.)  Since getting pregnant, we’ve been splurging on pre-cut fruit even though it costs $15 per week for me to have a large serving every morning.  Because I have been so tired, I have really appreciated the convenience - many days, there’s no question that I would have chosen 4 more minutes of sleep over cutting and peeling fruit.  And actually, there’s another perk.  The fruit salads are made in the store, and whomever is making them seems to have a well-trained eye for ripe fruit, because the fruit is always PERFECT.  I never manage to make such good choices myself even when I ask the fruit stocking staff for advice.  I think I have enjoyed pineapple more than anything else, with cantaloupe and watermelon as close seconds.  (There are always a few berries on the top of the fruit salad, and I LOVE raspberries, but even pregnancy doesn’t seem like a good enough justification for a tiny $5 box of out-of-season berries!)

I have been enjoying one fruit juice in particular along with my breakfasts: tart cherry!  My obsession with tart cherries started some time last year, and I can’t get enough of them.  Dried, and sweetened with apple juice they are the perfect snack, and they make a great juice, too.  One company makes apple-tart cherry juice which is great “straight up”, and I also enjoy mixing pure tart cherry juice with seltzer water.  The latter is especially great because it’s too tart for Brian and I get it all to myself ;)

Lastly, in the breakfast category, I have enjoyed fruit-flavored kefir.  At 6 weeks, I was diagnosed with asymptomatic bacteriuria (essentially a UTI with no symptoms - they screen for this in pregnancy so you don’t develop a kidney infection later on), and I had to take amoxicillin for a week.  Although I never experienced any side effects of the medication, I drank a mix of 1/2 raspberry kefir, 1/2 pure cranberry juice as a precaution… well, maybe it was mostly because it tasted great!

Lunch foods:  There is a Spanish restaurant on the same block as my lab (as I mentioned earlier), and I have really enjoyed exploring Spanish food.  The place is a hidden gem and I can’t believe how great the food is.  My absolute favorite item to order is their vegetarian tapas sampler.  It comes with a few (4?) breaded, deep-fried strips of eggplant, about 5 whole fried padrón peppers, nearly half a cup of marinated mixed olives, a little slice of tortilla espanola, a few thin slices of manchego cheese, and a little bit of bread to eat with the cheese.  The restaurant also sells sandwiches, many of which are excellent (especially the eggplant and tortilla española sandwiches).  A few weeks ago, I ordered one of their salads:  arugula, fresh goat cheese, pickled beets, and balsamic reduction.  The salad was so delicious that I made it at home.  Pickled beets only take 30 minutes from start to finish and balsamic reduction is dead easy.  The salad works beautifully with spinach, too.  Brian said it was the best salad he had ever had.

I have often chosen to eat a simple lunch of soup and bread at the medical school cafe.  Although the cafe’s grill isn’t anything special (and has almost no vegetarian food besides plasticky grilled cheese), the cooks actually make really great fresh soup, and there is always a vegetarian option.  Their best soups are spinach white bean, split pea, and gigante bean, so when those soups are available I often choose to eat there.  The soups only cost $3 and come with a free piece of pita bread.

I never buy any drinks other than sparkling water.  I am a sparkling water fiend.

Snacks:  I love snack.  Since I seem to be hungry all the time these days, I love snack even more than usual.  Apple slices or ginger snaps with peanut butter.  Carrots with olive or lemon-flavored hummus.  Finn Crisps with cheese and dried cranberries or jam.  Watermelon!  Dried tart cherries.  Salty edamame.  

Dinner:  Dinners have been very simple, for the most part, reflecting how tired I am at the end of the day.  Sweet potato: roasted, fried, steamed or baked, there’s no version of sweet potato I don’t love.  That special pickled beet salad.  Baked or mashed potatoes with Greek yogurt or sour cream.  (Last week, when we took the cardinal nestlings to the rehab center, I missed dinner because we were frantically taking care of the birds.  About halfway home from the rehab center I realized I needed to eat IMMEDIATELY.  We went to a Wendy’s drive-in at 10 PM.  It was the only place open and we were 40 miles from home.  Brian had never been to a drive-in in his whole life and he drove in the wrong way twice.  I ordered a baked potato with plasticky orange cheese.  It helped.)  Plain spinach with just a little bit of butter and lemon juice - I’ve eaten a LOT of spinach.  Welsh Rarebit - a dish I used to love as a little child (whole wheat toast with home-made cheddar bechamel).  A sandwich of spinach, hummus and cherry tomatoes.  We had “fancy nachos” a few times: tortilla chips with black beans, pepper jack, avocado, pineapple salsa, lettuce, cherry tomatoes.  (Unfortunately, given the combination of hunger and exhaustion, I can’t really keep any junk food in the house, even tortilla chips, because I eat that stuff before anything else… so nachos have been discontinued.)  Whole wheat pasta with Brian’s mom’s home-made pesto and mixed vegetables on the side.  During Brian’s vacation week, he made me dinner every night - actual cooked dishes - including my favorite coconut and cumin lentil dish, and vegetarian BLTs.

And THEN there are the exciting times (every 2 weeks?) when we get to eat out.  At least half the time, I get pho with extra Thai basil. I never, ever get tired of pho.  Or panang curry.  Or spicy Ethiopian vegetables with sour injera.  I love spicy ramen and French crepes, tempura vegetables, tandoori vegetables.  The Thai dish pad see ew, with extra Chinese broccoli.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmm….

Dessert:  The only dessert I have made for myself since becoming pregnant is chocolate pudding with strawberries, once.  (Twice, I have made chocolate cupcakes, but both times they were for somebody else.  I did eat one cupcake each time)  Brian loves ice cream and we usually have it in the house, but I haven’t wanted any.  (This isn’t all that unusual; I’m not a big ice cream fan.  And he buys cookies ‘n’ cream flavor.  I prefer fruit or coffee ice cream.)  Occasionally I eat a fruit popsicle.  I haven’t craved cookies or cakes, and when I got a free oatmeal raisin cookie (my favorite kind) at an academic event I didn’t even finish it.  My favorite sweet treat is peanut butter with raisins on crisp bread.  I have also been VERY fond of agave margarita mix with lime sparkling water.  

Last week, I did buy a pack of Starbursts candy - the first time I’ve actually bought a “candy bar” type thing in probably 5 years.  They tasted insanely good for about 20 minutes and then it got old.

Lastly, for the record, unappealing things.  Eggs still seem gross, and I think I’ve only eaten 1 in the last 2 months (aside from fractional eggs in the occasional pancake - we just finished the carton we bought 9 weeks ago), and I regretted it.  I find that the smell of leftover cruciferous vegetables had become intolerable (kale, cabbage or broccoli) even though I am still enjoying the vegetables themselves.  Bland foods like plain oatmeal, mild cheese, plain pasta, and plain tofu are not looking good.  Now, I never did like plain oatmeal or plain tofu very much, but I *do* like nice cinnamon-y oatmeal and flavored tofu and neither of those are too appealing right now.  I do generally like, or at least tolerate, plain (well, buttered) pasta and mild cheese, so that’s a change.  Mashed potatoes are by no means part of this list.  Mashed potatoes taste GREAT.

One really fun aspect of all this is knowing that at some point (perhaps as early as now, perhaps not until nearly 30 weeks - sources do not agree!) the baby will be able to taste what I eat, and what’s more, he or she will learn about those foods and become comfortable with whatever I eat most often.  This is a fun motivation to eat a varied and healthy diet (especially vegetables that small children often dislike, since I have the luxury of not feeling sick and eating what I please), and to enjoy exotic flavors.  Who knows what this baby will be like, but I sure enjoy foods from all over the world, and maybe the baby will too. 

on telling the world

So, my advisor is a saint.

I told her that I’m pregnant yesterday.  She was very happy!  She said that she’s not worried about me at all.  She told me to take the time away that I need to take, spend as much time as I can with the baby, and do good work.  She doesn’t want to know the details of my schedule.  She said she trusts me, knows I’m organized, and knows I’ll do just fine.  She said this is a normal part of life, and that nobody should make a huge deal of it, as if I’m some kind of freak - I’m 27 and married, and this is a perfect time to have a baby.  I don’t need to tell my committee or the head of my program unless I feel like it or they ask, since they are not controlling my stipend and I don’t need to formally request time off.  I don’t need to feel like a liability or “special case”, and there doesn’t need to be any drama.

She also gave me a little bit of parenting advice (“don’t overprotect”, “you should have 2 babies”, “make punishment the last resort in teaching your child”), and talked a bit about her experience having her baby while she was a 21-year-old medical student.  She gave me some success stories of other students in the department who have had children and done fabulously well, including stories of our lab’s most recent graduate, who put a crib in a corner of the lab and watched her baby on a monitor while he slept through her experiments as an infant.  

I cannot possibly overstate how grateful I am.  Isn’t this amazing?  Aren’t I lucky?  I almost can’t believe it.  I went in to the meeting feeling like my job was to convince her that I’m ready to take on the hardest challenge of my life, that I promise I’ll work hard, and that I won’t give up.  I didn’t have to convince her of anything, and instead, she made me feel much more confident.  

Yesterday evening, my meditation group had a meeting, and I spoke briefly with my teacher (“teacher” really doesn’t convey who she is - she’s more of a beloved mentor and friend - she’s also the person who performed my mariage), who is one of the very few people who has known about the baby from the beginning. A little while ago I sent her a little video clip of the ultrasound.  She was so happy to get it.  She said she had chills!  She told me she just HAD to be involved in the baby’s life somehow, which is pretty much like somebody saying the just HAVE to give you a fabulous gift. 

So, for now, all of us - me, Brian, the baby - are incredibly lucky.  None of this guarantees that everything will be fine, but I feel like a team of beautiful people is starting to gather to help this baby have a beautiful life.  I bet it’s going to be really fun to tell everyone else next week!

9 weeks, 2 days

I’ve been putting off writing.

What can I say?  I’m holding my breath.  Stay alive, little spark.  Stay alive.  Please stay alive.  

We had an ultrasound.  The baby was alive at nearly 9 weeks.  He or she had a heartbeat.  He or she was the size of a grape.  He or she had 2 legs and 2 arms.  It was over far, far too quickly.  Before even looking for the baby the ultrasound tech had to examine my kidneys, and even after she confirmed that the baby was alive, most of the exam was spent measuring my uterus and ovaries.  I just wanted to see the baby.

Many studies have shown that if the baby has a heartbeat at 8 weeks, and the mother has no symptoms of miscarriage (bleeding, painful cramping) the chance of miscarriage drops to below 2%.  We should be in the clear. The odds are very good.

Before the ultrasound, I had convinced myself that I would feel much, much better once I had confirmation that there was an actual baby.  I had been so worried that I’d had a blighted ovum or an extremely early pregnancy loss… I just wanted to know that all the heart-wrenching care and concern was flowing towards a real, flickering little heartbeat.  I couldn’t bear to think that there was nothing on the receiving end.

The truth is, none of my “holding back” has done any good; I was hopelessly invested right away.  There is no chance that I will save myself from feeling a loss by telling myself not to get attached.  None.

I did feel better after the ultrasound.  I’ve probably watched the tiny little video Brian recorded from the screen 100 times already.  Aside from the moment when the ultrasound tech FINALLY got around to finding the baby (after checking my kidneys for unknown reasons), the best part was Brian’s reaction when he saw the heartbeat for himself… He wasn’t allowed in the room during the scan, so he saw it after I did.  Since the moment I told him that I’m pregnant, his concern has been for me - my feelings, my symptoms (which continue to be blessedly mild and manageable), my concerns.  However abstract the pregnancy has seemed to me, it was much more abstract for him.  I wondered how he’d feel when we finally got some indication of how things were going.  I didn’t necessarily expect him to be happy, or excited - maybe just shocked.  The whole thing can be pretty shocking.  But he WAS happy and excited.  

The reassurance of the ultrasound faded a bit when I found out the next day that the attending who reviewed my ultrasound noted a “pregnancy at 8 weeks 1 day gestational age”, in contrast to the ultrasound tech, who said that I was 8 weeks 6 days.  I know for certain the 4-day window during which conception could have occurred, and the baby is not 8 weeks 1 day, unless it is growing too slowly.  Why the discrepancy?  Well, it seems the attending based her estimate of gestational age on the CRL (crown to rump length) only, which would indicate 8 weeks 1 day.  However, the ultrasound tech mentioned, during the exam, that the baby was lying at a bit of an awkward angle, and that the CRL she measured was probably too small.  She wasn’t bothered, because the gestational age is calculated from several measurements, and I guess she was confident of the others.

I waffled.  On the one hand, the baby was bigger than 8 weeks by ANY account and had a heartbeat, which ought to put us in the clear.  On the other hand, what if the baby was growing too slowly?  I wanted to gracefully accept the uncertainty and wait until my next appointment in 2 weeks, but then an hour later I wanted to be a great self-advocate and confidently call up the midwife and try to clear things up.  I ended up calling the hospital the next day.  They let me speak to a nurse.  She assumed I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, and that I was probably confused about the difference between gestational age and time since conception.  Believe you me, I am not confused about that.  She reminded me that I should be taking prenatal vitamins.  I felt hurt.  Nobody needs to remind me to take my vitamins. It was incredibly frustrating.

I felt guilty for being anxious.  How am I letting my fears run away with me like this?  I felt guilty for feeling guilty, adding undue emotional stress to the fragile little baby.  What a mess.  You don’t want to know how many times I’ve cried this week.  The most since I was a toddler, I’m sure.  Apparently this week is the peak of hormonal turbulence in pregnancy.  I’ve never had PMS, and birth control didn’t seem to effect my emotions, but this week is knocking me off my feet.  

I am back to waiting.  The next appointment is in 10 days.  We will be able to make sure the baby is alive, again.  At 10-11 weeks, the baby will be a fetus, not an embryo, and the risk of loss will be almost gone.

If that little spark is still alive.

Please, please, please stay alive.  We are doing everything we can for you.

9 weeks

How Far Along: 9 weeks

Weight Gain: 2.6 pounds

Days until next doc appointment?: 10

Innie or Outtie: innie

Maternity Clothes: nope

Sleep: I get a lot of it.  There has only been one day in the last 15 or so that I didn’t take a nap, and I was so exhausted I went to be at 8 PM.

Stretch marks: no

Embarrassing Pregnant Moment: calling the obstetrics office out of anxiety and getting scolded by the nurses instead of reassured.  The midwife I saw for my first appointment, and the ultrasound technician, and everybody else I’ve met in person has been amazing and supportive.  But the nurses on the phone assumed I was clueless about my own pregnancy and my own body.  It was humiliating.

I was 100% not embarrassed at my transvaginal ultrasound.  I was WAY too psyched about seeing the baby to be the slightest bit embarrassed.  

Sex: I am very careful to call the baby “he or she”, and actually we’ve taken to “little spark”.  We don’t want to find out before the baby is born.  

Food Cravings: I wouldn’t say I have cravings - nothing very intense - but I do tend to feel more certain about what I want at any given time.  I’ve been VERY keen on goat cheese, spinach, pickled beets, granola, watermelon, kefir, sweet potato, and crackers with peanut butter and raisins.  Limeade tastes AMAZING.  A few days ago I decided on a whim I really, really wanted pizza, so I went out and bought some - first time in my life I have ever bought a frozen pizza.

Food Aversions: I don’t have food aversions either, but certain things just don’t sound that great.  Eggs, for example.  Bland cheeses (like those little Babybel ones) seem pretty gross.  A few days ago I was kind of overwhelmed by the thousands of smells in the grocery store and it made my stomach turn, which has never happened to me.  Despite having an unusually sensitive sense of smell my whole life, smells have never made me feel sick before.  Oh well, it only happened once.

How are you feeling?: I’m still pretty tired.  I’ve had some very minor pelvic girdle pain when I stand up after bending over or when I sit cross-legged on the wrong surface.  Physically, it’s been blessedly easy.  I expected the fatigue and it’s not unmanageable by any means.  I feel extremely lucky.  Emotionally, I’m a wreck.  I worry constantly about whether the baby is OK and everything seems to make me cry, even songs I sing to myself.  Isn’t that insane?  I am usually very even tempered and this is taking some getting used to.

Almost every night I have a nightmare about miscarrying the baby.  Unlike most of my nightmares, these are highly realistic and often take place about 8 hours in the future, during the next day.

What I am looking forward to: the next appointment, when I meet my midwife and check on the baby.  ”Looking forward to it” doesn’t really cover it.  I actually Googled ultrasound places this afternoon, thinking that I would pay just about any amount to make sure the baby is OK without having to wait 10 more days, but of course nobody takes pregnant ladies at 9 weeks.  I even thought of calling the school clinic and asking if they have an ultrasound machine, but I did eventually snap out of it.

My Baby in Veggie/Fruit/Food Terms: olive

Due Date: 12/6/13

Miss Anything? Sushi.  I can eat sushi we make at home, but store-bought vegetarian sushi was probably prepared with fishy utensils, so…  Feta cheese, probably more than any other food.  I miss being able to run easily; I feel SO slow.  But that’s all minor stuff; I haven’t made any real sacrifices, honestly.  I guess I miss being able to be honest with my friends.  

Have You Started to Show Yet? No, but photo evidence shows I am clearly rounder about the midsection than I was a month ago!

Happy or Moody Most of The Time? I haven’t been angry or irritable, just worried.  I would say I feel worried and happy at the same time.

Nobody asked, but Brian has been incredibly supportive.  Of course, I expected him to be - that’s the kind of guy he is.  But I’m still impressed.  He’s much less anxious about the baby than I am, wisely trusting the fact that there’s less than a 2% chance that something will go wrong at this point.  (I mean, also, he doesn’t have the baby INSIDE HIM so it’s easier not to think about it all the time… I digress…) He’s given me many, many reassuring hugs and snuggles and has put up with all the tears without making me feel like I’m crazy or “simply hormonal”.  The day we got the ultrasound, I had to rush off to orchestra rehearsal afterward, and when I came home, he had set up the video, some candles, and some sparkling limeade so we could have a little celebration before bed.

I told Brian that I expected him to read up on pregnancy, so that I wouldn’t be explaining everything to him as we went along.  I think he would have anyway, but I didn’t want to leave any room for resentment, so I made it clear a long time ago that I wanted us to both be equally informed about the process.  He has indeed kept his word.