kumquat January 27, 2007

Thursday was 10 weeks, and hence, the critter is about the size of a kumquat, according to Babycenter.com. How often do kumquats come up in regular conversation? I actually bought some a couple of years ago, and wasn’t very happy with them. I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to eat the whole thing, including the peel, or just the inside. Anyway…

My lovely friend Jennifer has written several posts on her blog that have been extremely supportive and informative, and I just wanted to say thank you. I can’t thank her on her blog yet, because I’m not quite ready to announce the pregnancy to the world. But we’re getting close. I’m having some friends over next Sunday for a non-Superbowl knitting party, and I’ll probably tell people that come. I’ll be just a few days shy of 12 weeks, so that seems pretty safe.

I had a couple of days this week that were just awful, morning-sickness-wise. Wednesday and Thursday, specifically, I just really wanted to spend all day in bed. Alas, it’s a really busy time at work, so there’s no possible downtime, though my boss is really supportive (thank goodness!). I’ve barely run at all this week, choosing sleep rather than freezing outside. I did do a really nice 4.5 miles this morning, and it was just lovely. And don’t worry – the running is with my doctor’s blessing!

Prompt for upcoming posts: how we told our families, and the cast of characters.

Lifted from an email to a friend January 20, 2007

I’m still much more focused on being pregnant as opposed to “about to become a new mom.” I know that I’ll need to get MUCH more focused on the latter at some point in the not-too-distant future, but for now, I’m still trying to figure out how not to feel sick all the time. I bought some of the seasickness bands and have been wearing them for the past two days. So far, so good. Hard for my scientist brain to accept that they’re doing anything without a double-blind study, but still, I’m not taking them off if I’m feeling ok, you know?

A close friend passed along about four books when we told them on Sunday, including Baby Bargains. I’m VERY happy about that one. (Also, Baby Operating Instructions, which is just clever and funny.) My high school friend tells me that she’s got a black belt in shopping at garage sales and thrift stores – that’s something I plan to work on QUITE a lot.

I did wake up in the middle of the night with my first miscarrage nightmare. Not very nice. To make it worse, my mom was in the dream, telling me that “maybe I just wasn’t ready yet.” Sheesh. Thankfully, CritterPa woke up and let me snuggle in close and told me that everything was fine. I still had to go to the bathroom to make sure everything was ok (it was).

I’m 9 weeks, 2 days now. The Critter is about the size of a grape or an olive and moving around. Not that I can feel it yet, of course. My youngest sister is about 25 weeks now, and she says that it just keeps getting weirder. I believe her!

Big day, hoss. Time to stop typing and get out there for a run!

Hi, I’m CritterMama and I’m pregnant. January 16, 2007

What’s funny about being pregnant – about me being pregnant – is that I’m having trouble reconciling the way that I always self-identify – as being more concerned about ideas and issues and work and decidedly not so much about what cute thing the child did recently – with this whole “I’m a vessel for creating a life” thing. It’s weird. I don’t want it to dominate my life – at least, I don’t want it to be the only part of my life.

I had lunch with some friends that I don’t see nearly often enough today, and at varying times, found myself either hogging the spotlight with baby talk, and pushing the spotlight onto the others to make sure that we heard enough about their exciting and important lives. I hope I can figure out how to navigate this whole thing so that I don’t act like I’m the first woman ever to get pregnant, ever, and isn’t it just amazing!?!

It is amazing, and I’m astounded at how the whole process unfolds, and how much it affects my daily life, even as early on as I am. I’ve felt queasy and icky, but haven’t actually tossed my cookies – until today. It wasn’t fun. At least I had enough warning to prepare myself for the event itself. The rest of the day was alright – I had a nice lunch with friends, and ate a full meal. I haven’t really wanted much food the rest of the day, but I did manage to have a wheat bagel this evening with some peanut butter. And some dried mango. I finally just went ahead and bought two packages at Trader Joe’s, since I want the yummy treat so often. Simple starches and sugars – that’s what I want. And I’ve been so tired. I’m told that I’ll get my energy back in the second trimester, and I’m very much hoping that’s true.

Growing a critter (as I think of it) is much more than providing a warm, happy place for a little baby. The lil’ bugger actually burrows into your endometrium and feeds off of you. It’s a parasite! I’ve thought that for years, and I still think that. I’ve been told by LOTS of moms that I’ll have to get over that feeling to actually have one, but I’m not so sure. It turns out that if you don’t get enough calcium for the baby, it will take it from you – actually leach calcium from your bones and teeth. Yowza. These are the things I think about – not very blissful impending motherhood, huh?

C’est la vie. I’m going to tell my boss this week, but won’t tell the world until early February. It’s been a lot of fun to tell the people that we’ve told thus far, but I’m not ready to think about names or long-term planning until we’re past the 12-week mark.

What’s terrific is to have my youngest sister as my lead in this. She’s about 3 and a half months ahead of me, and it’s so much fun not to go first! She’s wonderful about it and is giving great advice without being, well, me about it (that is, a bossy know-it-all). Genius. She’s already done the hard work of looking into cloth diapering options and I’m so grateful that I don’t have to be the freakazoid to broach the subject and get all the dirty looks from people who think it would be impossible.

Ok, that’s it for now. Guess I’d better find a place to post this!