just being me We went to Reuben & Josie's this weekend for a family "Lord of the Rings" party (costumes and all!). Our almost-five-year-old nephew Noah was indignant when I got to sneak some food before dinner and he didn't, so Josie explained to him that I am growing a baby and have to eat when the baby's hungry. Noah looked at me quizzically and then disappointedly. I don't remember his exact words, but they were to the effect of "Why? Why are you having a baby? Then you will be a be a mommy. I don't want you to be a mommy. I want you to just keep being you." Then he turned his sad little face away and laid his head on the counter next to me while I tried to explain why we are having a baby. I told him how he would have a new baby to play with, to which he replied that they already have a baby... in a tone of voice which told me that babies really aren't all they're cracked up to be, at least not as playmates, so I'd better not try to trick him with that nonsense. So I told him that his mommy and daddy are fortunate because they have him around all the time, and we want to have children around all the time, too. He didn't really seem satisfied with my response, and I can't say that I blame him! What a smart kid! I was sort of at a loss for words. From his perspective, this really is a bit of a disaster! Right now he has no cousins, which may be a bummer in some ways but it does mean that every one of his uncles and aunts love to dote on him and his little brother and sister. Us having a baby means that Noah will rarely, if ever, have Uncle Keith & Aunt Jamie's undivided attention again, poor kid! Of course, it may mean some cash for him down the road when he is old enough to babysit for us, but that's not likely something he will appreciate for quite a long time yet. I love Noah... and it blessed me that he shared his sincere disappointment and concern with me. I want to keep being me too, kid! Believe me, that's something I am working through as well!
2008-05-19 (9 weeks)
fickle food preferences Last night I was craving lasagna, but didn't have the ingredients to make one, so I baked a pizza instead... forgetting that I vomited pizza several times on Friday. So of course the smell of it made me feel miserable. I handed it over to my loving husband and booked it to Costco to buy the lasagna of my dreams. But Costco was closed. Fortunately, I had spotted a large poster for a fish taco from Del Taco while en route to Costco, and I had already had a difficult time resisting it. So I called Keith and told him that I was sorry but I was going to have to feed our baby a fish taco, despite it's unhealthy nature. En route to Del Taco, though, I was distracted by Panda Express... so I came home with a bag full of Chinese food... and ate all of it by myself. Much to Keith's surprise. :)
Unbelievable! This fickle stomach thing has got to end soon! I never buy food from fast food restaurants... and yet if I had any less willpower right now (not saying that I have a lot, just saying I have a teensy bit still), I would just leave the house every time I'm hungry and drive around until some fast food or another looked good. I am positive that would work. I sorta think my craving for junk food may have to do with the fact that it dulls my senses (at least pre-pregnancy), and so I am trying to find something that will let me relax and not think about how I feel anymore.
2008-05-18 (9 weeks)
chemical reactions We went down to Lewiston on Friday for Morgan's graduation. I did really well all day until after the ceremony when a group of people started smoking very close to where we were all standing. I hate cigarette smoke anyway, and my sense of smell is extremely heightened right now, so I just went around the side of the building and sat down. When I came back, the smoke was still very thick and I found that I could hardly breathe. I was super dizzy and almost fell over. I sat down a ways off but was really close to hyperventilating. My head was pounding, I could hardly breathe, I couldn't stand up, and my uterus and/or ab muscles had tightened harshly. I was so freaked out but was trying so hard not to draw attention to myself. I just kept thinking that if I wasn't getting any oxygen, was the baby getting any oxygen?? and hoping that it was taking all of mine. I felt so miserable and when a few family members came over to check on me, I just started bawling. I felt like such a baby and I felt so awful for crying at Morgan's graduation! Worry and hormones on top of feeling wretched... what a great combo! And of course I still had that pounding headache and proceeded to throw up repeatedly for the rest of the evening. Definitely my least favorite pregnancy experience so far.
Then yesterday I spent the morning reading about chemicals and birth defects... great reading material, I know, but it is really interesting... and how babies born to people living in big farming areas tend to have more birth defects, especially babies conceived in spring (since more chemicals are used during the time of their early development). We were at Morgan & Dan's house, and wouldn't you know it, somebody was spraying the fields by their house with fertilizer or pesticides or something. It was close to time to leave anyway, so we just booked it out of there and kept our air flow on recirculation all the way home through all those farming fields. I felt rather silly, but hello, this baby is developing some serious organs right now, and I don't want them to be influenced by chemicals! Fortunately Morgan was very understanding - she's a nurse now, after all, and knows a lot more about birth defects than I do - so I didn't feel too embarrassed about that one.
2008-05-15 (8 weeks)
"Having Faith" I'm reading a lovely book called "Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood." I have a feeling that it will get a lot more intense when she begins discussing the effects of chemicals, etc on developing babies, but right now I am particularly appreciating her writings regarding the second month of pregnancy. She shares incredible details about organogenesis (the formation of body parts) as well as some neat research from other studies. An expert in prolonged vomiting reports that nausea for pregnant women is found in every culture, and solutions are highly individual, but I find it fascinating that she notes, "relief is often found in novel, highly flavored foods, rather than in retreat to familiar, bland ones." Absolutely!! I find myself eating things like wasabi and salsa by the spoonful... yesterday I gobbled most of a new jar of medium salsa. I feel like flooding my senses with something deeply spicy is so soothing somehow. This researcher also says that "if there is any single food strongly favored by sick pregnant women, it is tomatoes." Yep!! I can't get enough tomatoes. I noticed that when I was pregnant before, too. Yesterday I intended to buy just a few tomatoes at the grocery store and ended up with about ten. A few weeks ago, I just couldn't stop eating canfuls of Amy's Tomato Bisque.
So check out this paragraph from page 23, because I think she says it very well: "Morning sickness is not like having stomach flu or a hangover. It is connected to a deep kind of hunger. Not eating at all, or nibbling on sick-person food, intensifies the misery. A kind of civil war rages: the thought of food is revolting, but only food - and lots of it - has the power to quell the revulsion." She goes on to say, "And what I want is not my usual whole grain vegetarian fare but pork chops and cole slaw, two things that have not graced my plate for twenty years or more. This is not to say I crave these dishes; they are simply among the few things I can imagine being able to chew and swallow. I throw up a bowl of cream-of-wheat and then wolf down a plateful of raw cabbage with mayonnaise and feel better."
That is so how I feel! Today I am frustrated because I am ravenous as usual, but nothing grainy appeals to me. Normally I adore pasta and bread, but now the very thought of them makes my stomach turn. My cupboards are loaded with things like rice, tortillas, pasta, almonds, etc, and I hate them all! :) And I loved meat last week, but this week my throat kind of clenches and lurches if I even consider it. I am really enjoying dairy right now, but already today I've had two servings of milk and a large bowl of yogurt, and even though my body is responding better to lactose than normal, I really just can't handle all that much of it. (Just a month ago I wasn't eating dairy at all!) And I currently despise lactose-free milk, soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, and the like. Cereal is still yummy, but again, I can't handle much milk. So that leaves fruits and vegetables, right? I have loads of both, but... this afternoon I drank a whole lot of wonderful blended fruit juice and ate a banana, and my stomach recoiled at the sweetness of it. So what does that leave but vegetables! Normally I adore vegetables, but now I can't stomach mixing them together... so I end up eating just simple avocado and tomato slices. Why oh why can't I just enjoy a nice salad or sandwich like usual? It's just ridiculous! I think I could gladly enjoy a nice stir-fry, but the process of making it doesn't appeal to me at all. I hate opening the fridge - somehow the sight of so many foods together just grosses me out. Have I mentioned that my sense of smell seems to be super acute? Ah well... I will live, and this will seem funny to me later. I can see why so many pregnant women are drawn to junk food; I would love to just drink root beer and eat about a pound of Kit-Kats right now. Junk food somehow seems so much more appealing than anything healthy! But I discovered this afternoon that a nice buttery baked potato does really hit the spot, so... since it's now been almost two hours since I ate something, and I am ravenous again, I think I'll go have another one.
