The 8th Nerve

Apparently it will be far more expensive for Steve to get a handful of cavities filled than it will be for me to have at least a dozen pre-natal appointments and deliver a baby at a hospital.  Go figure.

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Feb 24th 2009pregnancy

I don’t know about you, but there’s something totally cool, but somewhat creepy, about the thought of a 3 1/2 inch human that can grimace and yawn and make faces. That’s going on in me, right now?? Now that the tiredness is past, I feel totally normal, which seems to make the reality of the pregnancy recede a little. (Besides sometimes having to use a rubber band looped through the button hole to keep my pants together.) No baby dreams these days, just detailed dreams about the past and present.

A pregnancy plateau. I know as time goes on and I get bigger and start feeling the kicks, the reality of it will revisit. This really is a long process! Whenever my friends got pregnant it seemed like they have their kid before I know it. “She had the kid already?”

A nice long break coming up! I need to figure out what to do with myself.

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Feb 19th 2009pregnancy

Apparently the fetus is the size of a medium shrimp.  That comparison does nothing for me.  Medium shrimp?  What?  However, I would eat some in celebration because I am now in the second trimester!  The baby is fully formed and looks human, just in miniature. It has fingerprints. I can’t button a number of my pants anymore.

We got a pocket doppler and can listen to the heartbeat!  It is so amazing to listen to it and the thumping sound is clear as a bell (at the doctor’s it was all staticky sounding).   I hope Steve will write on his blog about his experience hearing the heartbeat.

 I had a vivid dream that I was being carried on a river winding through a reddish canyon landscape.  The river frequently branched off and we thought we knew where we were going but it kept branching and we didn’t know anymore.  Ancient, prehistoric statues of humans periodically dotted the shores, their colors fading and parts of them crumbling.  At times I was physically carried in the river, the clear, rapid current hurtling me past underwater boulders.

Dreams that have no resemblance or fragment of everyday life are fascinating to me. They seem to come from a place that is deeper and laden with symbolic meaning.

Steve is setting up to record the baby’s heartbeat!  Will try to post a recording soon!

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Feb 12th 2009pregnancy

Week 12!  Almost into the second trimester!   It’s funny how whenever I hear someone is pregnant, I automatically assume there is a 100% chance there will be a healthy cute baby at the end.  When I’M pregnant, on the other hand, the chance of that happening feels more like 50/50.  So I am relieved to have passed through the more risky weeks.

The tiredness has lifted and I love food.  That about sums up where I’m at right now.  Now I get to enter the stage where people wonder if I’ve either put on a lot of weight or I’m pregnant, but they don’t dare ask.  Funny how that doesn’t bother me at all.   I get a kick out of my growing belly.

Baby is just over two inches and the reflexes are active.  It is moving a lot, even if I don’t feel it yet.  Oh, and it can pee now.

It is incredibly cool to see the effect this has had on Steve.  In the past he used to regard babies as strange aliens that made him extremely uncomfortable.  Now he eagerly reaches out to hold them and tells me how he can’t wait to hold ours.  When he said that my eyes stung as a teary film immediately enveloped both eyes.  Ahh, those preggers hormones.

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Feb 6th 2009pregnancy

We heard the baby’s heart beat today at the doctor’s!  150 beats per minute.  It took her a little while to find it and I was definitely nervous that she wouldn’t find it.

I can feel it collecting together and gathering strength like a dark, massive storm cloud:  the urge to clean and organize the house from top to bottom!   Most likely, this is how I will be spending my spring break.

I have the travel bug too.  I keep thinking of how intoxicating it felt when we left three months of winter behind and went to San Diego last year.  Walking around in sandals, the sun on my face, large exotic flowers blooming, ocean waves crashing… it was heaven.  However, not a good idea to deal with the expense and hassle of travel right now.  It is interesting to have both the nesting and the travel urges.

I think the urge to shop is also part of the nesting instinct.  Lately I feel drawn to going and getting stuff, when usually I only feel it about every 8 months or so, typically in the springtime.  However, shopping just for the sake of shopping, especially when you are being influenced by hormones, is dangerous territory!

So I need a purpose for shopping and when I think about it, I have no reason to shop right now.  There is nothing I need.  I’m only going to get bigger so I shouldn’t get anything in my current size.  It’s too early to get anything baby related, besides Steve and I are determined to pretty much get it all off Craig’s List and yard sales.  It doesn’t make sense to pay full price for kid’s clothes, toys and books when people often give them away by the truckload.  The kid won’t care.  The kid would be happy naked in a cardboard box with a string of Christmas lights.    As long as you are not a brainwashed consumer, having a kid really doesn’t have to cost you the earth.

So, shopping urge is thoroughly squelched before it can take root in this mind.  In fact, I want to throw stuff away.  Clean, organize, pare down.

Baby and your heart, keep on beating!

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Feb 2nd 2009Everyday life & pregnancy