I'm what?! ....With a what?!

A baby. I am pregnant with a baby. A new human is currently residing in my uterus, growing limbs and organs and fingernails, becoming a person. I've heard its heartbeat. I've felt the heartburn.

 
When I told my dad his response was priceless. ' A human baby?! That's outrageous! This is awesome!'

Yes, a real human baby. And it IS outrageous. This whole process, it's amazing and bizarre and outrageous and miraculous.

My husband, who shall heretofore be referred to as The Captain, and I were planning on setting forth on this grand adventure right about now instead of three months ago but apparently I needed to have a Leo instead of a Virgo or (heaven forfend!) another Scorpio like me.

To begin at the beginning.

I belong to a site called PMSBuddy.com. This site allows you to input your 'cycle' information and the email addresses of family and friends that should be warned of the impending crisis and every month issues a warning email a few days in advance. I had programmed one of the warnings to come to me so I would also be reminded that I would soon start acting like a loon and why.

The reminder came and went and a couple of days later it occurred to me suddenly that NOTHING had happened.  I searched frantically through my past emails to confirm the date of the most recent one from PMSBuddy.com... Uh oh. 

Right when I got home I took a pregnancy test, one lone test left in the box from a previous suspicion a few months earlier. A faaaaint pink line materialized almost immediately, so faint... so faint. I showed The Captain and we both said 

'Nah. can't be. that line is baaarely there'.

That night, I fell asleep fairly early, but my eyes popped open around midnight and a sudden inescapable logic was waiting for me, perched at the foot of my bed, watching me sleep peacefully and smirking. (I imagine Logic looking like a wizened Hogwarts house elf....)

"That test is designed to detect levels of pregnancy hormone.” it said. “If there is no kid, there should be no hormone and no line. There cannot 'partially' be a kid. The test does not determine whether there is a faint possibility there is a baby on the way. It just detects the presence of that hormone. As the saying goes, you cannot be ‘a little pregnant’. If that line is remotely visible, that hormone is there.” As I lay there staring up through the dark, pulling a pillow over my face to avoid the eyes of the unassailable Logic, I had the first inkling that maybe…

The next day after work I bought another package of tests....and took all three... Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant. Not ‘kind of' pregnant, not faintly pregnant, but 'glaringly bright fuschia line with arrows pointing at it' Pregnant.

This time when I showed The Captain we both just laughed, somewhat hysterically, but ultimately happily, and then sat together quietly in a daze, contemplating the future...

That was in November.

I’ve had a relatively easy first trimester. After hearing many horror stories of incapacitating ‘morning sickness’ accompanied by serious and myriad physical discomforts, I realize how fortunate I have been. Although I will tell you, ‘Morning Sickness’ is a bullshit term anyway and I want to know who the hell came up with it. Try ‘All Damn Day Long’ sickness. Brutal waves of nausea that crash over you at any time of the day (see: during client meetings , driving home from work, in the middle of dinner) nausea so bad you wish you could puke but all you can do is sit there sweating and wait for it to pass munching dejectedly on saltines, hoping you don't retch in public. I’ve only thrown up a couple of times. But I’ve run to the nearest loo and prayed to throw up too many times to count. Merely retching just isn’t as satisfying.  

All-Day-Long-Sickness Pro Tip:  Jolly Ranchers were recommended by a friend of a friend. They worked. Seriously.

The nausea was actually not nearly as bad as the exhaustion. I was really. freaking. tired. I would fall asleep sometime between 8:30 and 9:00pm every night. And when I say 'fell asleep' I mean 'passed the fark out'. I would doze off if I sat still for too long in any one place. I pulled this particular number at Christmas Eve Dinner at my mom’s house and made the mistake of sitting down on her uber comfy fluff of a couch when I arrived. That was it. Two hours later they woke me to eat….

I'm also suffering from Baby Brain or Momnesia (it’s Science). I’ve left ball point pens in the freezer, called people and instantly forgotten why, walked into a room and out of it three times before I recalled what the purpose of going in there was in the first place. I've also, true story, gotten into a shower with underpants on.

Speaking of clothes, my pants and tops aren’t fitting. This started fairly early on top and has recently caught up on the bottom. Right before the holiday I was standing in a hallway of our office talking to one of our clients, when suddenly I felt a draft. The top button of my blouse, no longer able to take the strain, had given up and popped open. Awesome.

Another pregnancy Pro Tip: The interwebs are a dangerous place to entangle yourself when you’re pregnant. There is too much information out there and once you have it, it cannot be un-had. Be careful how deeply you delve and on which resources you rely. If I could have stopped myself from researching every damn thing floating around the web I would have, but now I’ve read about all manner of dreadful (if not actually dangerous or realistic ) things to be afraid of. It can be a little overwhelming. The Captain has to talk me down regularly.....

So, this particular post was longer than I anticipate future posts being. But I’ve had to catch you up.

And there you are… all caught up. As an aside, if you must know, I miss the Dirty Martinis most of all. That beautiful cold v-shaped glass, the beads of condensation gathering on its sides, those round, plump green olives... I will have sushi and a dirty martini in a corner of the birthing room as my focal points... that'll work. Right?