Attract Mode

What’s that? You want to know details of my experience with the first trimester of pregnancy?

February 19th, 2007

OK.

I eat something. I sit around for a while because usually when I eat I’m sitting down. Then, because I’m a flake, I leap to my feet and rush off to do something more interesting. Over 50% of the time, I then pause and say, “Oooh, I don’t feel so good.” But by then, it’s too late! I make it to the bathroom, or the kitchen sink, or the lawn, or a pile of dirt. I ponder how much nutrition I’ve recieved from my tummy’s rejected contents.

There’s more! In the mornings, after getting up, even if I do it slowly, I cough a lot! All that congestion has settled into my chest and it has to come! up! And my digestive system says hey i can do that. In the first few weeks, I was queasy, which is easier to spell than nauseous, but I withstood. I was a rock. I hate vomiting. These days, less constant queasiness. More upchuck!

I don’t do any of the household maintenance tasks like laundry or vacuuming any more than I did before I was pregnant. I do the grocery shopping less. At this point I spend a lot more time thinking about the Phantom Zone than I do General Zod. I only really think about a baby in the most shallow and practical of ways, like guess we’ll have to put a crib in the spare bedroom and thank God we bought an air conditioner last summer. Oh, and I think about it when the dogs are being particularly toddler-like.

While ‘baby’ is a good shorthand for all the potential growing inside me now, it’s actually hard for me to really internalize it as a BABY, because it’s not. It’s an embryo, or maybe a fetus by now. At some point it will be able to survive outside the womb with extensive medical assistance and then it will be a baby. Though I imagine it might get an early promotion when it gets assigned an official pronoun. Or when it kicks, or any of those miraculous moments.

Mostly right now, I’m sick. And I’m aware that, at some point on the horizon, a new tiny person will join our household, and then there will be lots of sleepless nights and wrasslin’ with strollers and boob pumps and maybe even unpleasant exhausted arguments with Kevin, and eventually smiles and curiosity. And apparently the spare bedroom will transform into this tiny person’s room. And there will be small fuzzy clothes. But the only thing I really daydream about is how Hannah and Dante will react to the small infant squalling thing. Maybe I only daydream about them because they’re the only ones I can’t talk to who will definitely have an opinion?

Categories: Science Experiment | Tags: pregnancy