pregnancy

I've so far tried to stay away from the obvious topic "of the hour" in this particular blog, but it's what's on my mind tonight (as if that's somehow different from any other night), so I thought I might as well address it.

Overall, I have enjoyed being pregnant as I always thought I would; although, it's been quite different from how I had it figured all along. Big surprise. You would think I'd learn to actually NOT trust what I expect or assume since it becomes increasingly more obvious to me that I am, 9 times out of 10, wrong.

One of my assumptions was that being a naturally emotional person, I would be a dynamically more emotional pregnant person. I was wrong. Much to David's joy and amazement, I have only had 2 or 3 major melt downs during pregnancy. That would be a fairly outstanding record for me during a "normal" nine month period. I also figured that I would be considerably weepy and sentimental about the whole idea of impending motherhood, but again I was wrong. Don't misunderstand me... I'm absolutely overjoyed and thrilled about having a child, but I haven't waxed poetic on the topic even once. Again, something pretty new and different for an old poet/beatnik wannabe (don't judge me too harshly; I've had a very lengthy awkward stage and it's possible that I may finally be emerging).

So besides a couple of significant mental/emotional changes, what else has happened to me in the past months?

My interests have changed. I've always liked to go to Barnes & Noble, get a nice tea, and sit down with a magazine. My preference in magazines used to consist of Cosmopolitan, Star, Us Weekly, or something else equally disgusting and brainless. I still like the tea, of course (although not as often because of the caffeine), but my magazine choice has changed considerably. I forget the names of the magazines (another pregnancy side effect), but all the topics of interest are the same. What's swelling, stretching, sagging, leaking, retaining, growing, contracting, tearing, or otherwise protruding this month?

About the absent mindedness. David randomly called me into the kitchen this afternoon to "look at something in the refrigerator." I had explained to him earlier that upon finding that we were out of spaghetti sauce I had concocted my own. What he wanted me to see in the refrigerator was a half-full jar of spaghetti sauce sitting at 12 o'clock in plain sight right in front of the orange juice. I did the same thing earlier this week with a hair clippy, which I found being the only object sitting in the middle of my empty bathroom counter top after proclaiming that it was nowhere to be found.

I've found the later stages of pregnancy to be the most frustrating at least when it comes to clothing choices. After recycling the same 3 dresses for Sundays and Wednesday nights about 6 weeks running, I decided to revert back to some of the nice blouses I'd all but forgotten. No dice. None of them fit anymore! I'm not THAT much bigger am I? I have less than 2 months to go and had to go shopping for more clothes yesterday. I tried on several items only to find that, yes, I do look like a hippopotamus. A hippopotamus who no longer has ankles. A hippopotamus who should maybe just invest in a good muu-muu or a Sir Edmund Hillary tent.

But really, folks...

The maternity clothes are getting to be a nuisance, the swollen ankles are a pain, the absent mindedness is making me feel like a lunatic, and the whole getting up to go pee at least twice a night is just annoying... but the end result is going to be phenomenal. After typing all this (and fully relishing complaining for a bit), I looked just to my right and saw the ultrasonic image of our baby. OUR baby. A child of our very own. And I know that the things I have to put up with now will fade into the distant past when they lay that baby on my chest for the first time. Yes, I know that I still have a lot of hard stuff ahead of me, but God has brought us this far and I'm confident that He'll take us the rest of the way through. And all that will matter when it's all said and done is that my baby and I are healthy and whole and together, face to face, finally.

Meanwhile, you might have wondered why I took the time to type all this anyway and am not in bed like most normal people are at 12:30 at night. Heartburn, naturally.

*Written on 7/18/2007