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I’m in this really weird place in my pregnancy where it still isn’t all that real yet. It wasn’t until Monday evening that the vast majority of my pants stopped fitting and I had to ease into my rather limited maternity wardrobe. I still don’t look pregnant most days, depending on what I’m wearing and what I’ve eaten. It wasn’t until Wednesday’s yoga class that I realized upward facing dog was a position I’d have to give up for a few months. Even still, all of these little changes don’t quite make it all click. As I’m laying on the exam table at the OB yesterday for my monthly check up, the nurse practitioner pulled out the little handheld doppler device and squirted the cold gel on my abdomen, moving the wand around in those familiar circles to find the heartbeat…and there it was, that whoosh, whoosh lub-dub sound indicative of a very tiny, very fast heartbeat pumping blood through a very quickly expanding body. And still…I feel like none of this is real. I’m not quite sure what it’s going to take to get to that point, whether it’s a rather large, round belly or the first stirrings of movement I expect to come any day now…It’s all a very surreal state. Perhaps I should chalk it up to 3+ months of sobriety, no red wine haze clouding my brain. I know I certainly never had any visions of what this portion of my life would be like…how I expected to feel, to react. I’m just kind of taking it all in stride, one day at a time…altering my life as little as possible in the process before the really large adjustment to my life arrives sometime in early November. I think in terms of weeks, not months. I realize at this time next year I’ll have a 6 month old baby. I think about how far away that seems and how close that seems all at the same time.
Life is a funny thing, really. It throws you in so many directions and expects you to respond. I guess I’m just waiting for my brain to respond that yes, Beth, all of this is really happening to you…so you’d better embrace and enjoy the journey because you only get one shot at it.
Food, both eating it and cooking it, has long been a passion of mine. Heck, talking about it and reading about it are favorite pasttimes of mine as well…but here lately, someone else has been in charge of the menu. The whole experience has been oddly unsettling a well as somewhat liberating. For the past few years I’ve very carefully watched what I ate, didn’t snack too much, didn’t indulge too much (at least food-wise). I enjoyed a balanced and varied diet…like I said, I love all things food… Suddenly, things just aren’t as appealing. I’ve been extremely blessed not to have suffered any morning sickness through the first three months of my pregnancy, not that I didn’t have occasional nausea, I just never lost my cookies. But in general, things that I love to eat, namely salads and anything remotely healthy, just don’t fit the bill. There was about a 3 week period where nothing but fast food and mexican food would satisfy me. Astonishingly, I’m still wearing my normal clothes…things are beginning to get a little snug, but I was hoping eventually I’d start to look pregnant. I suppose going to the gym 5 days a week, keeping up with that healthy aspect of my life may have a little to do with the fact that my pants still fit…I’m sure I’ll rue actually mentioning that I haven’t had to squeeze into preggo clothes at 14 weeks, 5 days.
I figured sooner or later I’d have to end radio silence…to get back on the horse and learn how to blog again. I had really gotten to a point where life was just so rote…so indiscribably routine. Nothing seemed worth writing about, honestly.
And then, one day I woke up and took a little test and everything changed. It didn’t come as a complete surprise, that little pink plus sign, but it did kind of shake things up a bit.
So, for the time being, I’m blogging for two…and sometimes eating for two…and sometimes, well, most times, sleeping for two…
I’ve got quite a bit to say on what this whole experience has been like, three months in, but I don’t want to dump it all out at once. Gotta sprinkle a few words here and there, just kind of thought it would be good to get the word out, to break the silence, to come out of left field and start writing again…especially since my definition of life just changed, again.
