A New Frontier

7-31-09

I am on the cusp of trimester 2. In three short days I will do-si-do into week 14 and the supposedly happiest trimester of all. My energy is returning slowly but surely. Yes, I fell dead asleep at 8:30 last night—and it was a mighty struggle to keep my eyes open that late—but I don’t feel the limb-dragging can’t…go…on weight that has plagued me the last (only!!!!) 2 months. Nausea has become more a habit than anything else. After an extreme gagging episode while following a garbage truck on my bike a few weeks ago (Riding downtown in the early morning PRO: Light traffic. CON: Rotten, stink-spewing garbage trucks are the only traffic.), I now have to choke back gags at the mere sight of garbage trucks. And I think Pizzicato pizza is permanently ruined for me after my daily march down the Gauntlet of Stink. Oh well.

Anxiety is still a sneaky companion. A current of anxiety ebbs and flows. Most of the time I feel like I’m on solid pregnant ground. There are occasional moments when I feel my solid ground start to jerk in the current as if I’m living in some sort of Waterworld. (How could you forget Kevin Costner as the pee-drinking fish-man?) I feel an ache in my abdominal region and wonder if it will turn into full-on cramps. I check my profile in the mirror daily and wonder when I will stop looking like a Beer Belly Champion (thanks, Ruby) and morph into pregnant lady. My lack of a solid bump is my latest raison de stress-out. Has Purvis stopped growing in there? Is all that chub in the gut region a result of my lack of abdominal exercising?

Crazy fears? I got a million of them.

Since the day I saw my positive on that pee stick, I assured myself that I would feel better after the first ultrasound, or after the Nuchal Translucency Test (also an ultrasound), or, wait, wait, for real this time, after I crossed the threshold into trimester #2, which every pregnancy newsletter, book, and website assures me makes my chance of miscarriage plummet to sub percentage levels. I did relax after the first two landmarks…for a weekend or so. So we shall see of trimester 2 becomes a magical wonderland of pregnancy enjoyment.

People tell me that I’ll feel better when I start feeling Purvis kicking around in there. Yeah, I think that’ll be pretty cool, but then I wonder if I’ll fret over the quality and frequency of her kicks like my sis-in-law who made a few trips to the emergency room when she thought in utero Lyla wasn’t moving around enough. We shall see.