Author: Melanie

Anxiety’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far.
–from Sing You Home, by Jodi Picoult

I suspect this is relatively normal, but in the past few days, I’ve started to feel overwhelmed by anxiety. Assuming I go full term, which is never a guarantee, I have less than 14 weeks left in my pregnancy. Some of my anxiety is about what’s left to be done – finding daycare is the big one – some of it’s about thinking I should be doing things more/differently/better, some of it’s about labor and delivery, and some of it’s about what comes after. All of it is fucking with my head.

I’ve been having trouble concentrating at work for the past several days. Pre-pregnancy, when my anxiety started affecting me that severely, I’d pop an Ativan to get me through – maybe once a month, if that. Ativan is contraindicated for pregnancy, though, and while a single 10mg pill probably wouldn’t make a difference or cause a problem, I just can’t do it. So I’m stuck trying to use relaxation techniques and whatever the fuck people did before drugs. And I hate it. So now I’m writing about it in the hopes that it will help.

Daycare here is a nightmare. I started looking at 12 weeks – so, in May for care to start late next February – and it was already too late. We want the baby in the city with us during the day for a lot of reasons, but everywhere has waiting lists that are at least 12 or 18 months long. It’s ridiculous and I know we’re going to have to come up with an alternate plan, but that plan doesn’t exist right now. I seem to be sort of counting on the fact that my life has largely been charmed and things just seem to work themselves out. That is a terrible plan.

One of the ways I’ve been dealing with lower levels of anxiety throughout my pregnancy is by buying books. I have What To Expect, The Girlfriends Guide to Pregnancy, two books on natural birth, two books on breastfeeding, and The Birth Partner, which David is reading. I feel like learning all I can is the only way to feel in control. We’re also going to take a birthing class, like Lamaze, and three prenatal classes my insurance company offers – one each on labor/delivery, breastfeeding, and infant care. I’m way more informed about things than a lot of moms-to-be that I encounter online, and yet I often feel like there’s still so much I don’t know. Maybe I just need to accept that I can’t learn it all, I don’t know, but for a booksmart nerd like me, that’s really hard.

One of the biggest things is worrying about all the things that can go wrong. This is everything from the ridiculous – How do I know this parking garage isn’t going to collapse and bury me in the rubble? What if my house is built on a sinkhole? – to the actually possible – What if I fall on my belly? What if I end up with severe postpartum depression, and worse, what if no one notices and I hurt the baby? I double and triple check before crossing the street, I won’t eat cold lunchmeat or soft cheeses, I don’t walk under scaffolding if I can help it. Some of that’s reasonable, sure, but my brain is starting to have trouble distinguishing the things that aren’t. Maybe it’s time to check back in with my counselor.

I don’t have a good ending for this post, no tidy way to sum everything up.  I guess I’m just putting it all out there so that it’s out there, out of my head.  Maybe even just doing that will help.  Thanks for listening.

A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.
–from The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons from the World’s Most Elegant Woman, by Karen Karbo

You guys, it’s a girl.

I will be 100% honest: I had a slight preference for a boy, and I convinced myself this baby was a boy, probably because of that preference.  In fact, in the days leading up to our anatomy scan, I had to remind myself that the baby could just as easily be a girl and to not let myself be disappointed if that turned out to be the case.

The day of the scan, two Fridays ago, as the ultrasound technician was getting ready, she asked, “If I can see the sex, do you want to know?” We said yes, and she put the gel on my belly and started moving the wand around.  The next thing she said was, “So, you’re having a girl.” It took me a minute, because for some reason I wasn’t expecting the sex to be the first thing she looked for,  but as soon as it registered, I burst into tears and looked at David to see his eyes filled with tears, and then I knew: It couldn’t have happened any other way.  She’s meant to be ours.

And all of a sudden, everything is real.  “The baby” is now “she” and “her.”  She has a crib and a car seat.  We painted her room blue, because fuck gender dichotomy.  She kicks me all the time and David can feel her from the outside.  We talk to her every day (to be fair, we’ve done that all along) – I speak for her in a silly voice and she and David go on and on and on.  That’s the best part of my day.

I don’t have any words for how much I love her already, and I’m afraid I’m in deep, deep trouble once she’s actually here.

Let us make pregnancy an occasion when we appreciate our female bodies.
— Merete Leonhardt-Lupa

So I have a blogging problem. When I get an idea for a post, it’s like I can’t post anything else until that post is written and published. Sometimes that’s ok. But the post I’m currently working on is massive – I’m trying to figure out if it’s better as a series of posts – and is taking a long time to write because the subject matter is a bit sensitive. So I haven’t posted anything else in the meantime because, as I said, I have a blogging problem

Screw that.

Pregnancy is weird, you guys. It’s not just that your body changes and you’re tired all the time and you can’t tie your shoes anymore (but seriously, 20 weeks is all I get before I can’t bend at the waist?). For me, it’s also completely changing how I look at my body.

Obviously, I started out heavy. I thought I would worry about gaining too much weight – as big as I was pre-pregnancy, I shouldn’t gain more than 10-15 pounds – but what’s actually happened is (a) I basically eat whatever I want, (b) the things I want generally do not include sweets (for real, I’ve had ice cream in my freezer for a week and eaten exactly 1 level scoop), and (c) I’m down three pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight.

That’s not bragging – in fact, I worry about it, though my doctor says as long as I’m keeping food down and not trying to lose weight, I’m good – it’s disbelief. The weight loss isn’t from morning sickness, either. Although I’ve had nausea and food aversions (mostly to sweets and meat), thankfully I haven’t had to deal with vomiting. The weight loss has come from not eating sweets like it’s my job the way I did before and from not stuffing myself. It’s as if pregnancy flipped the switch in my brain that allows me to eat like a normal person. I’ve left more food on plates in the last 20 weeks than I probably have in the last 20 years. I can’t overeat; it’s like there simply isn’t room. I really hope this sticks around post-pregnancy.

The other thing is, I do not worry about how I look. I mean, I care about looking presentable, but I don’t feel bad about what I see in the mirror before I leave the house anymore. My belly is rounder but probably still not obviously pregnant to most people, and still I don’t worry about wearing a shirt that’s too clingy around my midsection the way I used to. (And I’d like to sing the praises of maternity pants for just a second – so freaking comfortable.) It’s amazing how much easier it is to get dressed in the morning when I’m not worried about whether what I’m wearing makes me look fat (not sure why I wasted so much time on this before since, you know, it’s kind of indisputable that I am, in fact, fat). It’s really, really freeing.

Our anatomy scan is next Friday, finally! I know it’s for the purpose of measuring the baby’s organs and brain and bones and looking for any abnormalities, but I really hope baby gives up the goods on whether it’s a boy or a girl. David and I agreed to wait to discuss names until we know the sex, because we figure that eliminates half the conversation, plus, I’m just so curious! In the end, though, as long as baby’s healthy, we’ll be thrilled.

Hopefully it won’t be five weeks before I post again. No promises, though!

Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch.
— from Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White

I just got mad at the girl working the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru because she was too cheerful. Pregnancy hormones are for real, y’all.

To David: This is the part of the pregnancy where you fend for yourself, and I eat whatever I can keep down.

Pregnancy books are not for the faint of heart. Thanks for scaring the shit out of me, What to Expect.

My first week without a Weight Watchers meeting in literally almost 7 years. I’m free! This is so weird.

At 7 weeks, I’m pretty sure I just got my first offer to take someone’s seat on the Metro. Filing this dress under “Maybe in a few months.” #notshowingjustfat

I’m afraid of everything. Like, I don’t even jaywalk anymore, even when it’s obviously safe to do so. Is that normal?

Baby’s first baseball game. No beer and no hot dog. Sadness baseball. Just kidding. There’s no such thing!

Thing I said to David at 11 weeks: “I love sleep. Why are we having a baby?”

Cheese and carbs are all I want to eat? I *am* this baby’s mother!

Poor David.  Sometimes he’ll be just typing away on his computer and look over and see me crying for absolutely no reason other than that, like, Jim and Pam are going to be ok.

At 14 weeks, already I would kill for just 5 minutes of sleep on my belly.

You are the closest I will ever come to magic.
— from The Zygote Chronicles, by Suzanne Finnamore

No, that’s not how long it’s been since I’ve posted here, but I don’t blame you if that’s the first thing you thought of when you saw the title.

It’s how long this little one’s been making his or her home in my belly!

You guys, we are over the moon.  Terrified, too, but mostly really, really thrilled.  I’m due November 24 – a Thanksgiving baby!  There is SO much to do and learn and figure out that we are, honestly, a bit overwhelmed, but we’re taking it a little at a time, and hopefully it will all get done, learned, and figured out.

This is the most profound – and weirdest – thing that’s ever happened to me. By weird, I just mean mind-boggling, really.  Like, it blows my mind thinking about what’s happening in there, and how in less than six months there’s going to be a new person in the world.  I never use the word miraculous, but when I think about everything that’s happening biologically, I think miracle is exactly the right word. Or, you know, magic.