No puking here

I'm not going to spend a lot of time regaling everyone with a week-by-week snapshot of my pregnancy, mainly because the pregnancy itself has been pretty uneventful. Aside from discomfort when I try to sleep, I'd almost venture as far to say that it's been downright pleasant.

I know I'm lucky. I know I'm lucky that I did not have to deal with gut-wrenching morning sickness or swelling to the size of a small county. My mom told me that she did not have morning sickness with any of her three pregnancies, so I guess it's just something that I inherited from her. There were three days in a row around the sixth week where I would get nauseous around midday, but since then I haven't had a problem. My only first trimester problems were typical; my already large boobs seemingly doubled in size and became so sore that I had to smack Edgar in the head any time he so much as looked at them. And I spent several weeks having to pee every 10 minutes.

As far as the crazy pregnant lady cravings go, I haven't really had any. I've only found that foods whose smells I found offensive before being pregnant are even more so now that I am pregnant. And things that smelled good prior to being pregnant now smell even better. I don't ever find myself craving anything in particular, however I've found that I'm much more prone to the powers of suggestion. I smelled reheated pizza the other day at work (you know that smell, that steamy fresh crust smell) and couldn't stop thinking about it until I got home and told Edgar "Forget what we were having for dinner, we're having pizza now."

I'm grateful that I have not had a problem with craving foods that are unhealthy for me because my weight gain is something that I do have to keep my eye on. To date (22 weeks) I've only gained 5 pounds. I was overweight when this pregnancy started, so my weight gain target is much lower than any "normal" weight woman would expect. Considering that the baby has most of its growing left to do, I think I'm at a pretty good point.

My only real beef with pregnancy to this point (besides that whole no-alcohol thing) is sleeping. I'm at the point now where I can't sleep on my stomach or my back, and so I'm stuck sleeping on my sides. But I'm a back sleeper. And I wake up a lot finding myself on my back and having to switch over to my side. Or I find myself lying on my side still awake after being in bed two hours because I CANNOT GET COMFORTABLE. I've already built a fort of pillows in the center of the bed in an attempt to keep me from rolling onto my back in the middle of the night. And it makes me feel bad because I somehow still manage to do it and Edgar is over on his side of the bed clinging to the edge trying desperately not to fall off because his space has been reduced to this little sliver of mattress not being taken up by his pregnant wife and her pillow fort. And one day my kid is going to come home with a C on his math test and I'm going to have to be all I'M SORRY, it's because I accidentally slept on my back when I was pregnant with you. Bad Mommy.

And so it begins

The same day I found out that I was pregnant, I called my doctor as soon as the office opened to schedule an appointment. Rookie move, I now know. I scheduled my appointment for the Friday of the following week, meaning that based on the date of my last period I would only be about six weeks along at the time that I went. I know now that it's really unnecessary to go that early...you're basically just wasting your co-payment money. Then again, it is good if it's the beginning of the year and you have a deductible to meet because DEAR LORD are those lab tests expensive. So you can work on getting that out of the way while you're still in that euphoric state where you aren't thinking about how expensive cribs and travel systems and diapers are.

My first appointment was a nightmare. Actually, let me change that. The first few weeks of this pregnancy were a nightmare. While I didn't feel any different physically, mentally I was a mess. I had made this deal with myself when Edgar and I first started trying to get pregnant that I was going to slow down and breathe. I wasn't going to let things get to me. I was going to be calm. I wasn't going to overreact and freak out and dwell on things that I had no control over. I really truly believe that high strung people have high strung babies. This may not be true for everyone, but I've definitely seen it in myself. I know a couple that are very chill, very go-with-the-flow, and guess what? Their son, who was born last year, is the same way. He doesn't cry that much, and when he does it's not that loud, and other than that he's just happy. Content. Loves his life. Then on the other hand I have a cousin who is so high strung you could pluck her and she would snap, and she's got four kids who were absolute TERRORS as children. I think that kids feed off of the cues that we give them, and I didn't want to give my baby those cues. I wanted him/her to be as healthy and as happy as possible. I'm no biologist, but I know that when you are stressed your body creates stress hormones, and since whatever is in my body is going to my baby as well, I didn't want to create that environment for him.

But I couldn't help it. I was scared. As soon as the shock and excitement of seeing that iffy pink line wore off I started filling up with all of these irrational first-time mother fears. My immediate pressing fear was that I was going to miscarry. Since I had been trying to get pregnant, I found out very early on about my pregnancy. Earlier than most women find out, earlier than the ones who aren't trying to get pregnant get over the denial to actually take a test--earlier than that point when your body or nature or whatever is may make that decision that the pregnancy isn't going to stick. Every time I went to the bathroom I steeled myself against it. Every time I felt a slight cramp I expected the worst. I became highly protective of my belly, afraid that if I even slightly bumped into a counter that I could hurt it.

Then came the appointment. I don't think, even if you aren't full of irrational fears, that the first appointment of a pregnancy can ever be very enjoyable. Because what they fail to show you on TV whenever some perky actress is pregnant is that they do not take the first ultrasound to date your pregnancy by a trans-abdominal ultrasound. Nope. Because new babies are teeny-tiny little things and are way to small to be picked up through the layers of your abdomen. Your first ultrasound is done trans-vaginally. Which means that you're naked from the waist down with an ultrasound wand stuck up your vajayjay that the doctor is turning every which way to get a good view of what's going on in your uterus. And you know how on TV the doctor always says "Ok, this might be a little bit cold" when they squeeze the ultrasound goop onto the perky actress's taut stomach? It's a hell of a lot colder when it's up inside your hoohah. So let's recap. Naked from the waist down. Ultrasound wand. Cold goop in the hoohah. UNPLEASANT.

The news from the ultrasound was terrifying as well for someone with the jitters. My doctor "would not commit" to saying that I was pregnant. She could see something on the ultrasound; something that showed that a pregnancy had started. She could see a sac. But she couldn't see anything in it. Rationally, it was just that it could have been way to early in the pregnancy to see anything. In my mind, I immediately jumped to the worst conclusion. She scheduled me for a follow-up appointment a week later.

When I got home I told Edgar what the doctor said. He of course, and thank God, told me that we had nothing to worry about, that it was just too early. He was a champ during that week, talking me up whenever he could tell that I was brooding over what had happened at the last appointment and what would happen at the next one. I know that my own attitude must have been scaring him (he's self proclaimed as knowing "absolutely nothing" about babies) but he knew I needed support and he was there for me and can I just say that I am so lucky to be going through this with him?

Edgar took the afternoon off of work to come to my appointment the next week and to hold my hand through the whole thing. I can't describe the wave of relief that swept over me as soon as the doctor turned the monitor towards us. The difference that one week made was unbelievable. Where there had been nothing the week before, there was this little itty bitty blob with a pulsating heartbeat in the center. That was our baby.

She dated the pregnancy at 6 weeks 5 days and gave a due date of October 11th. We're kind of hoping for one day early. How cool would it be to have a birthday of 10/10/10?

The Thin Pink Line

Edgar and I found out on the morning of Wednesday, February 3rd that we were going to have a baby. And for a couple that had vigorously been trying get pregnant for the last three months, it was somewhat unexpected. I didn't think I was pregnant; a few days before I had peed on a stick on what would have been the first day of my period and it had come back negative.

At least, I thought it had come back negative. And then Edgar, after examining far more closely than I would something that had recently been doused in urine, said "Wait, is this a line? It kind of looks like a line." I grabbed the test from him and after inspecting it under a brighter light saw the faintest of all faint pink lines, a veritable mirage of a pink line that didn't even extend the entire width of the indicator window as one would expect. I immediately dismissed it as a malfunctioning test.

Because, you see, really, there is no such thing as a little bit pregnant, and this test WAS SHRUGGING ITS SHOULDERS AT ME. Am I pregnant? Eh, could be. Try again later.

THIS IS NOT WHAT PREGNANCY TESTS ARE SUPPOSED TO DO. They are designed specifically to test for a pregnancy hormone in your pee. Either you have it, and the test is positive, or you don't, and the test is negative, or you do, but in such a small amount that it cannot be sensed by the test, in which case the test is supposed to read negative. This test was saying 'maybe'. IT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO TELL YOU MAYBE. THERE IS NOT A 'MAYBE' READING IN THE INSTRUCTIONS. There is a regular pink line that matches the control pink line, and then there is no pink line. There is not an iffy pink line.

But after not starting my period that day, or the day after, I found my always-regular self getting all excited and confused and scared and crazy and could not wait one more day when the alarm went off for Edgar to get ready for work on February 3rd. I rubbed the crust out of my fuzzy eyes and opened up the last pregnancy test that we had and crossed my fingers. Then waited. Three whole minutes. Because I follow the directions, unlike some pregnancy test that's too totally fucking lazy to do its job. And then......

Is that a pink line? It kind of looks like a pink line.

AGAIN.

Once again, we were faced with the control pink line and a maybe-pink line. This maybe-pink line was definitely darker and thicker than the maybe-pink line before, but it wasn't what we were expecting. We called it a win anyways.

And then Edgar had to go to work and I had to go to work, and I was all WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DO THIS IN THE MORNING BEFORE WORK, REYNAGA? Because walking around the office going "Holy crap, I'm pregnant" in my head and smiling like an idiot and running to the bathroom every 15 minutes to make sure that I really didn't start my period was not a good look for me. All I wanted was to be at home with Edgar celebrating our victory and naming our baby and dreaming about that baby smell--you know, that smell, when they're all warm and snuggly and you're holding them while you give them a bottle and they're making that cute little gurgling noise and you're patting their butts and watching them jerk their arms around like they're conducting an imaginary symphony and OH MY GOD I'M HAVING A BABY.

Bombshells

It's been almost one entire month since I've written a post on this blog. Life has been kind of overwhelming over the last few months and after severely trailing off in my posting habits and fretting to myself about it I decided to give it up for a little bit just to get my head back together guilt-free. So now I'm going to try to pick up where I left off.

Reasons why my head was not together:

1. My father was diagnosed with cancer.

2. I'm pregnant with my first child.

My friend Jessica just read #2 and slammed her forehead into her monitor in disbelief.

The pregnancy is not new news to me anymore. We've known since the beginning of February that I was pregnant. I'll be writing posts specifically dedicated to this pregnancy and catching up on what has happened so far, but this is the quick version. Our plans were to keep the pregnancy a quiet secret to all but close family until my first trimester was up. Just as that milestone was reached, the diagnosis came down about my father, who had been ill for quite some time. There will be more blog posts dedicated specifically to this battle and what he's gone through so far as well. In the mix of all of that, calling up friends to share the good news and writing blog posts about it in light of the bad news just didn't feel right. And all of a sudden here I am over five months into this pregnancy and the only people I've told are my parents (who I relied on to spread the news through the family) and my co-workers in light of the fact that my belly was about to pop and make the news very obvious on its own.

I have a lot of work to do.

Lolz

My brother-in-law is going to the taping of American Idol today. I wish I could say I was joking.

Needing to move

In "this is another reason I need to get the fuck out of California" news:

A man was shot in the back of the head on the street corner opposite my apartment building on Thursday night.

I heard the shot. I thought it was a car backfiring.

On being wrong

We rented Avatar this weekend. I actually kind of liked it. And saying "I actually kind of liked it" is my way of admitting, and the closest I will ever come to saying, I was totally wrong when I adamantly insisted for a very long time that it looked stupid and why would I want to see a movie full of fake looking blue people?

Being wrong sucks.