It’s only the beginning
I’ve grown accustomed to being hunched over. Hunched, as in, knees up, back rounded, almost fetal. This is the way I spend my day, curled on the couch, attached at the hip to my laptop, mostly, between tentative forays into the kitchen, and occasional attempts to be useful in any way. It isn’t pretty. Remember when I used to be a runner?
When I wake up, for a split second as I’m lying there in bed, I think I’ve maybe just been having an unpleasant dream (one that involves lots of dry heaving and vomit.) I lie perfectly still on the apricot colored sheets and feel the wind blow through the open window above the bed, cool on my cheeks, and my body feels simply there. Toes, knees, arms heavy from sleep. Usually, DH has already gone to shower, but Bean, who crawls into our bed at sun up, is snuggled next to me, and I still like the smell of his hair, so I curl towards him and nuzzle in.
Eventually though, I must stand, shower, and begin the ridiculous process of trying to put food in my stomach while my stomach furiously tries to expel it. Banana didn’t go over so well this morning. Peanut butter, which I can barely stand in ‘real life’ is one of the few things that sticks without complete offense. If I eat every two hours, I seem to be able to avoid vomiting. Sort of. According to the doctor, this is all good news. She told me this with a grin, while she measured the blur of black and white with a fluttering heart rate on the ultrasound monitor. Due date, February 24.
Yesterday was miserably hot, which only increased my discomfort. Over night though, the humidity was squandered in big fat raindrops. Now, the grass is dew-dimpled and silvery. Everything is a tangle of green, the meadows are waist high with grass. The goslings have tripled in size. In the garden, the cabbages like fat purple jewels are tucked between pewter leaves. The tomatoes are ramshackle, taking over an entire bed. The radishes have gone wildly to seed, but I leave them in place, their tiny white flowers calling for honey bees.
Last night, in a rare moment of inspiration devoid of nausea, I made peach grunt with a pile of almost spoiled peaches. Easy peasy. Cut up peaches and place them in the bottom of a pie pan with a few dabs of butter and a sprinkle of sugar. Mix 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup sugar, and 1-1 ½ cups whipped cream together until it becomes a sticky dough. Place dough in mounded spoonfuls on top of peaches and bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes until the top is golden brown and the peaches are bubbly.
We ate it with whipped cream. The dough bakes into this lovely scone-like confection. Really quite delicious, even while nauseous.
Now I am hunched on the floor beside Bean who is drawing with scented markers. Of course, he thinks they are the coolest things in the entire world. I think they were invented to torture women afflicted with the all day version of morning sickness.
While I’m genuinely excited about the idea—the idea, mind you and not necessarily the actuality—of two kids, the fact that I now must be pregnant for the next eight months is painful to me. And depressing. I hated being pregnant the first time around, and I hate it no less this time. I also hate all those women who virtually sparkle the entire time they are pregnant. Who act as if it is the best thing in the universe. Halley Berry types who say they wish they could be pregnant forever.
Am I the only person in the world who hates being pregnant?
Doing, The foodie in me..., Mommy?! |17 Responses to “It’s only the beginning”
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nope. i hate being pregnant. and i when i admit that out loud people are always shocked. being pregnant is the easy part they say; babies are hard. but i am on the other side of that coin - babies are definitely the reward for nine long months of torture. no pregnant sparkles here. there is an end though, glorious and worth the bumpy trek. big hugs.
I miss the good food you guys create!!
I *thought* I loved being pregnant but N reminds me constantly that I did not AND I asked to be reminded that I did not love it in moments of wonder at a #2…
It’s been 17 years since I was pregnant. I can barely remember it. I was so young and in wonder with all the changes I was experiencing. I wish I would have been older and wiser and would have enjoyed it a bit more. It came and went all too fast.
Nine weeks since the baby was born, I’m still marvelling (and skipping, and occasionally hopping) over not being pregnant any more. The good news though is that a second pregnancy seems to go so much faster once the first trimester is over with. Even with bed rest etcetera the time went lickety split.
I am so glad to actually read/hear that someone HATES being pregnant. What a relief! Yes, I hated every bloody second (until the end when I could really feel her and I was so scared of labor I sort of wanted to freeze time).
Is it possible that everyone who really loves being pregnant is just lying? I think so… Maybe we are the only truth-tellers?
Suffice it to say that you are not alone and that you have my permission to complain and vent about your condition for as long as you need to. I’m listening and sympathizing. It sucks.
Come on… no one really enjoys being pregnant. Anyone who says they do must be lying or justifying. The only good thing about pregnancy is looking forward to the after birth time (when you realize that it is time for your husband to have a vasectomy) and you get to enjoy your baby.
I loved being pregnant with my first. It was an IVF pregnancy, and just being pregnant at all sent me into shivers of wonder. With my second - also an assissted pregnancy - I was SO over it. Hated it. I have to disagree with Julia. My second pregnancy lasted about 87 weeks, and the baby was three weeks early! Not a minute too soon.
The wonder is that there are so many flavors of love and that both of the boys can be my “one and only” at the same time.
De-lurking here to chime in with an emphatic “NO, you’re not the only one!”. I’m at 12 weeks, and this is my first, and it has been complete misery. I’m sick and tired of being ’sick and tired’! Is it true that somewhere in the 2nd trimester you wake up one day and feel better? When is that magic day?!Best wishes to you and your family.
I hated being pregnant the first two times. Especially the all day vomit or nausea. This was when I was 24 and 25. My last child was conceived when I was 38 and that pregnancy wasn’t as bad. After the morning sickness period, I felt pretty good. Being pregnant is just the beginning. After you haven’t experienced pregnancy for a decade, your mind plays tricks on you. You think you loved it because of the human beings that came of it.
(delurking)
Congratulations on kidlet #2! They usually happen when you’re not looking. I know mine did!
I hate-hate-hated being pregnant! I wasn’t planning on a second child and when I found out I was pregnant I cried a river! Not for the child but the heinous 9 months of being pregnant. I decided that people who say they love being pregnant are liars and are lying to make themselves feel better.
The blog-o-sphere seems full of moms having their second child so you are not alone. Last summer I felt the way you feel now. I could eat white food (toast, eggs, milkshakes). Hang in there!
I didn’t care for it much either. I had low blood pressure, anemia, and hypoglycemia all at the same time so I always felt like I was going to fall down. I am having an equally melancholy relationship with breastfeeding this time, too. I want to eat what I want without worrying how it affects someone else - like collard greens … ah, I do miss those.
Honestly…I felt bad (and still do) for all those women like you who suffer through the pregnancy process. It really makes no sense why some of us are almost nausea free and others have such tribulation! (And my mom was the same way…which makes me think it’s really genetic.) But oh! The tiredness…how I remember. I remember lying on the couch at work when no one was around. I remember leaving my students alone (it’s okay, they were adults!) to lay down in the next room. I craved being horizontal.
I hope I can say this without sounding like a total weirdo, but I pray for you and this baby every night (while I rock my boy to sleep), wrapping you in light and health.
November 22nd was the happiest day of my life … not just because it’s the day my beautiful son came into my life, but because it was the day I STOPPED BEING PREGNANT!!!
I hated it. Don’t even want to do it again. But I really want my son to have a sibling. How do you work that out?
Oh, jeez, Christina.
I feel your pain.
I so hated being pregnant–2 times around. And I so wanted to murder every one of those women who came up to me in the grocery store and put their hands–uninvited–on my belly and commented how ‘beautiful’ I looked. I would have liked nothing better than to vomit on demand. All over them. But that’s the irony, yeah? It never comes when you want it.
I remember how intense every single smell was–like,for nine straight months there wasn’t a single inch in the whole city of Seattle that didn’t smell like fast food. And, Seattle isn’t even really a fast food kind of town. Scented markers might have been the end, for me!
Eating graham crackers, blueberry poptarts and homemade dilly beans every two hours got me through it. But not in any top shape.
Just know that I’ll have some blueberry poptarts on hand in Creede. And that puke doesn’t freak me out.
As a newly dubbed godmama, who held the foot of her best friend as she shoved that little one into the world–oh yes, I look forward to those days you have, and I’m even jealous–but for now, I’m reveling in the time before. Here’s me, thinking I can plan things, thinking I can get pregnant in the last year of my second go-round of graduate school. Bah!
I havent said congrats yet! Hope you get some relief in the 2nd tri. Btw, I made this dessert last night and it was fantastic. Thanks for the recipe!
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Wonderful to be pregnant, but my first time was 41 years ago! I remember eating cracker biscuits and lemonade in the third month and someone gave us a puppy one day so we called it ‘Biscuit’. Good luck with your progress. It is truly a blessed time.
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