Lost my muse!

Have you seen her? She done gone.

I keep trying to write about being pregnant but I can't.

I'm blocked.

I've thought about starting a list of thoughts, that might be easier. So let's start now.

1. It's funny - I know, logically, how you get pregnant, but when I found out I was, I immediately went "wait, how did this happen?" I can't imagine how I would have felt if I wasn't licensed, didn't have a good job, didn't have some financial security. It's totally scary having those things, let alone not!

2. Not everyone is that oh-so-delighted to be pregnant. Before my current position at work, I sat next to a girl who, upon telling me she was pregnant, said it very matter-of-fact and not at all the typical giddy way you usually think. At the time, I thought to myself it was weird that she wasn't excited, didn't seem that happy. Then I got pregnant, and I totally "got" how she felt. It's been great to have someone like her to bond with over this - and to have someone who's not all mother-earth and is real to talk about it with.

3. The way I found out I was pregnant was, well, I'd gone home early from work on a Friday, thinking I had some sort of stomach flu. I spent the whole weekend on the couch, not getting better or worse, and when I went to work on Monday, I started having a niggling thought in the back of my mind that I should take a test. When I took the test Tuesday morning, it immediately went positive. And I thought I was going to die.

4. It's important not to judge yourself on how you feel/react to a situation, but just to let yourself feel it. Very hard, when the whole world seems to think you should be ecstatic but you're just not quite there yet.

5. Right away, my boobs exploded and were incredibly painful. I immediately couldn't sleep on my stomach anymore and had to buy bigger bras. I'm already on my second set of bras because my boos just won't stop. They've finally slowed down, but now I can't sleep on my stomach because it's too big.

6. I spent about 4 1/2-5 months being sick. Calling it "morning sickness" is a complete joke; for me it was all day sick, and it got worse in the evenings. When I say "sick", I don't just mean nauseated; I mean sick to the point where I was fully expecting people at work to pull me aside and ask if I had an eating disorder. After I announced it to everyone at work, one girl said she wondered.

7. Everything you think you can expect, don't - well, maybe to say expect the unexpected. I already have a fairly limited diet, seeing as how I'm mostly vegan and have food allergies and a "delicate" palate. Well, it turns out I couldn't really eat anything, but had to eat something. I'd get sick if I ate, sick if I didn't eat. I've never eaten so much ginger or peppermint; in fact, I think I've used up my lifetime allotment of those two items. No, unfortunately, peppermint mochas just don't do it anymore.

8. Because I was so sick, I didn't exercise at all. I probably should have, no, definitely should have, but it was just difficult to get through every day. I've started exercising now, and it's HARD WORK - I never realized that just walking up a hill or a flight of stairs would leave me winded. And they tell me it only gets better.

9. I still can't eat salads or red sauces (*sniff*), and soups and hot drinks are mostly no-go. Once I stopped being sick, I started getting heartburn. And you can't have rolaids when you're pregnant, just tums. However, the last time I went to eat two tums I ended up bent over the toilet, so those are out. I can take Pepcid, which I do, but try not to so much.

10. Chocoate, pastries, and sweets in general were totally out while I was getting sick. I can eat them now, but if I eat too much I get heartburn.

11. Getting sick while pregnant TOTALLY BLOWS, and you get sick way too often. Apparently, when you are pregnant, your immune system is wacky and decides to catch any germ that comes along. It's pretty awesome.

12. There are lots of things you can and can't do when you're pregnant, which I of course can't remember because my memory is shot (more on that in a minute). One thing is that you're supposed to floss every day, because when pregnant you're much more likely to get gingivitis.

13. Okay, the memory thing. It's totally true. I can't remember anything to save my damn life. It totally sucks. The only thing that saves me, work-wise, is having a crackberry to keep my schedule, otherwise I'd be totally fucked.

14. Everything is harder when you're pregnant. People tell me I have "the glow", but I pretty much just feel like a water buffalo. You know how when you feel bloated and/or fat how you feel like your stomach just sticks out so far? Well, times that by like a million and you get the idea of what being pregnant is like. I never realized how eminently frustrating it would be to try to find clothes. Up until about 5 1/2 months, I wasn't really showing. Except I was bloated so I couldn't wear my regular clothes, yet maternity clothes looked ridiculous on me. And nobody sells clothes for that in-between stage. It totally sucks.

15. Although I haven't had any medical complications, I've had lots of physical issues and non-serious but TOTALLY irritating and miserable physical symptoms. Sleeping is a bitch and a half. I have 2 body pillows (which I call my bodyguards) and 2 head pillows and I'm still massively uncomfortable in any position. Oh, you can't lay flat on your back after about week 20, which really sucks. I've had ridiculously bad musculo-skeletal pain, which is worse when I lay on my right side. And my hips makes sleeping on either side for too long at once really painful. I had to go buy an egg-crate mattress for my side of the bed which has helped a LOT, but it's still not ideal.

16. For me, all the movement has felt like really exaggerated gas. People describe it as feeling like flutters or popcorn, but for me it's mostly just felt like gas. While I'm still not all mother-earth and talking to my belly or anything like that, it's totally weird and fascinating to see and feel the movement. In fact, I've gotten to the point where I can poke my belly and I get a response back. It's totally weird.

17. I'm currently sick with a really awful head cold and the only things I could possibly take are: tylenol, sudafed, or suck on zinc lozenges (but not cold-ease, or however it's spelled). And of course we don't have any tylenol in the house, and for me, once I've started suffering, why break the martyr streak, you know?

18. I'm finding it hard to get myself motivated to deal with stuff like...oh, childcare, a birthing plan (other than knowing I want drugs - hello, epidural!), selecting a pediatrician, that sort of thing.

There's lots more to say, but OH I can't remember. Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, I'm due on tax day, of all days.