Week 4(ish) Thoughts- 4/21

I’m pregnant. I’m only a few weeks along, so it’s still a ‘secret’ or something. I’m recording these thoughts so that I can remember them clearly and share them with you later.

I took a pregnancy test on Tuesday evening and got a positive result. Like any sane, reasoned, person, I grabbed my urine-soaked pregnancy test, put on my flip flops, and staggered out onto my soaking wet lawn to find my husband, who was trying to finish mowing the part we call “the back 40” with the last 20 minutes of daylight. Roughly 65 yards of uphill nonsense later, I flagged down my husband while screaming, “Stop! Come here!” I may have also been hyperventilating. He gave me that look he always gives me, that “what fresh hell is this?” look, and I waggled the pregnancy test in front of his face. I’m sure I probably got urine on him too. He was pretty happy, once he steadied my hand so he could get a good look at the urine-soaked harbinger. We had a very sweet kiss, and roughly 95 seconds of happiness before he went insane.

Anyway, after he stopped feeling faint, hubs told me that I needed to go to a doctor to get “an official record.” He started making all these strange throat-clearing noises, and urging me not to “jump to conclusions” and whatnot. Then he said, “just call the office and schedule a test, we may not know for weeks.”

I think hubs thought that pregnancy tests still involved rabbits. I had a “definitive” answer by Thursday, and then I had a proper basketcase on my hands. He wakes up in the middle of the night in a sweaty panic, mumbling about fencing lessons and the Ivy League. In the past few days, he’s attempted to restrict me from electronics, standing, and direct light. He also jumps several feet in the air anytime I
• Swear
• Stub my toe
• Crinkle bits of paper

I think he’s probably a little stressed out.

I’m OK, for the most part. I feel like I have two large bags of sharp rocks strapped to my chest. I wince in pain when I take off my shirt. I wake up at 3 or 3:30am every morning, and stay up until about 4. I’m calling it the nightly ‘read-and-pee.’ It’s helping me get through all manner of stuff on my Kindle, and that’s nice, because I can’t really focus on reading during my typical waking hours, because my brain has turned into foam.

Cigarettes are disgusting, and they make me want to puke. I still crave them, however, so I’m in this hellish limbo where I want something that simultaneously makes me nauseous. That part is super fun!

I’m trying to make sure that I’m eating right. For me, that means googling “pregnancy foods” and eating whatever the Internet tells me to eat. This is probably why I have the worst gas of my life. I’m a well-educated person, and I realize that this is a particularly stupid way to live, but I think it’s easy to be vulnerable and stupid because of the secrecy. (A friend of mine offers a thoughtful takedown of the ‘secret’ here) Thankfully, my bestie has been patiently easing me off the fiber, as the new fiber-rich diet was turning me into the smelliest thing in my fair city, and that's a major feat.

I know that I’m still in the ‘danger zone.’ I know that 5 or 10 percent of ‘diagnosed’ pregnancies don’t make it past the first trimester. (Side note: I’m reading a book that gives both figures as correct, and I’ve stepped away from the Internet on this one. Also, the phrase ‘diagnosed pregnancy’ is one of those phrases that make me hate everything about science and medicine.) I also know that I need my tribe of moms to tell me that my chest will stop hurting eventually, and that I should give the hubs a little break on his craziness, and tell me that it makes sense that I can’t sleep. I’ve reached out to a lot of people this week, and I’m already grateful for the help and support. (I also like that so many people are happy for me and full of hugs.) I’ll take my chances, I guess.

Things I need to learn before the baby comes:

1. How to make an omelet. How do you make it flip over and stuff?
2. Knitting
3. Crocheting (I can do basic stuff, but I need to get better)
4. Sewing (I can do an ugly theatre stitch, but I can't really sew)
5. Jump rope songs
6. Jacob’s Ladder
7. The words to go-to-sleep lullabies

So much to think about.