Changes

I'm definately not so tired as I was the last couple months, but I still feel slightly withdrawn. I am less inclined to go out in the evenings, having a harder time getting motivated at work. I know that many women change in some way when they become mothers, and I've been wondering a lot lately, how will I change? Will I lose the drive and ambition that has always been such a strong part of who I am? Will I gain a new calmness? Will I become a homebody, a nester? I don't know. That change is as hidden from me as the child who will bring it on. I can see the shadow of outlines, but no distinct shape or direction. I can only speculate on what these short glimpses could turn into. And wait.

13 weeks down, 27 to go...

Baby keeps getting bigger and bigger, but I'm still not showing... We went in for a fancy-schmancy high resolution ultrasound last week to screen for Down Syndrome. Everything looks good, and Baby has a big brain and little pug nose. Also, Baby isn't eager to perform tricks for us. The sonographer had real trouble getting s/he to roll over - Baby prefers to chill out and take it easy.
The fancy machine also did 3-D projections, which were more scary than anything. In this picture, you can kind of make out the side of an upside-down face and a scrawny little arm, which confirmed Zach's suspicion that I am giving birth to an alien.
I've been feeling so much better lately, physically speaking, but I'm still battling mood-swings. It seems that everything makes me want to cry these days. Not even bad crying, usually, more it's-just-all-so...so...beautiful-crying. Movies, music, my cats...the tears are a-flowin'.

A Womb With a View

We just had our 12-week doctors appointment. Everyone is healthy and happy and looking good. I successfully managed not to gain too much weight in my first trimester. Baby's heartbeat is strong, but the little one really likes to lounge around - we could hardly get him/her to move, but s/he was waving their little arms around. Still too soon to tell if its a boy or a girl, but we think it might be part mermaid...
The head is on the left - you can see the profile of the face. Head to rump is 2.5 inches, which doesn't sound that big until you look at a ruler and then imagine something that size in your belly, which isn't getting any bigger at all.

Things I Did While Pregnant With You (Part I)

Your father and grandfather and I hiked along a ridge on Mt. Baker on a beautiful day in September. We had just found out about you and I was a little dizzy, but it was worth it.

Struggles or...?

I did not see this coming. I knew a lot about what pregnancy and childbirth would mean for my body, but I did not fully appreciate just how hard the first part would be. I haven't started showing yet - no one would know I am pregnant if I didn't tell them - and yet every day my body is slammed with the impact of this change like a load of bricks. I have been tired and queasy everyday for almost two months - I never get enough sleep - I never feel like I'm eating the right food or enough of it -I can't concentrate on anything - I cry at the slightest things - my brain and my body are in a permanent haze.

I keep telling myself that I only have a few more weeks to go before I am out of this particular patch. All the people who write helpful pregnancy books and websites assure me that I'll adjust to these new hormones and start to feel normal again when I get past the third month, but this raises a really critical question of what "normal" means, exactly, when you have something growing inside of you that doubles in size every other week. I might get past most of the fatigue and nausea, but I'll just be moving on to new complaints of cramps, shortness of breath, a changing figure. I don't think that there will every be such thing as "normal" again. Even after the baby arrives, everything will change again - in a big way - and not just for my body, but for my whole life.

I need to find a center in which to place these changes. I need to find a way to own them and embrace them and not be dragged down. I've never been the martyr-type. I have never believed that a woman should guard her trials like a secret and bear her struggles with silence. I want to be honest about what I'm going through and demystify - even deromanticize - this great feminine experience. But I have noticed that the more I talk about what I'm going through and share my struggles, the more negative my perspective becomes. I don't want to have a negative pregnancy. I want to be happy and filled with that warm, romanticized glow that pregnant women always have. Maybe that will come in the next trimester as I begin to see and feel the baby inside me. But I need to find a way to guard against stopping complaining about this phase only to begin complaining about the next phase. I need to get my brain on board with all these changes and deal with them with a little more grace than I have been.

How do I find a center when everything is shifting? How do I prepare myself for the surprise of these struggles?

You, my friends! Help me keep a positive perspective and don't let me become too dragged down. For my part, I'll try to get more sleep and keep myself healthy. I am amazed, beyond belief, that millions of women do this every year and somehow manage to keep working and loving and being their wonderful selves though it. It gives me hope that I'll be able to get through this without completely self-destructing as well.

New Name

My brother has started referring to me as "Jost Host." That makes me laugh.

Coming Soon: June 3, 2009

I think you call all agree that this is the cutest picture ever taken.

When we were talking about getting pregnant, ZPJ would ask, "What if we need to move? What about your job? Will you be able to do everything that needs to be done?" And I would tell him, "Women have been having babies for millions of years. Women have had babies while working in the fields. Women had babies on the Oregon Trail. It will be fine."

Now that I'm so tired and sickly that even sitting at my desk for a day is a small, no HUGE, triumph, I'm even more in awe of the women who came before me and daunted by the task ahead of me.

But I am excited to report that I just travelled down my own personal Oregon Trail this week in the form of the annual conference that I coordinate. There are 100 presenters and over 500 attendees and dozens of volunteers and a mountain of LCD projectors, and I made it all happen! This is a trial every year, but this year I am even more proud of myself than usual because I did it all with extreme fatigue and morning sickness. Yay me!

Now I'm tucking myself in bed, because I have to get up at 7:00am. Nothing in this world could induce me to get up that early after such a long week other than one thing - our first sonogram! I am half-terrified, half-thrilled - I have been feeling for a long time like this whole experiment won't really be real until I see that little heart beating on the monitor and know that everything is going exactly how it should be. Wish me luck. I'll post pictures when I have them.

8 Weeks

This picture has been kind of blowing my mind this week. There are FINGERS. Last week there were fins. This week there are FINGERS.

Whole

With each passing week I feel more and more confident about the surety of this new journey I'm on. In the beginning I felt like I was holding on by a thin string that could snap at any moment, but now the rope is thickening and I am really grasping on tightly.

The days are passing deadly slow. I'm impatient to reach the milestones ahead and I'm struggling to appreciate the moments I'm in. I'm sure I'll look back fondly on these last weeks before my body balloons and clothes stop fitting, but right now I am desperate to fast forward into the months ahead.

Pacing

The nausea hit last week and I have been doing very little other than staring at the computer screen and wishing I were in bed. I can't think very well, and I don't move very fast, and even on the days that the nausea subsides, the fatigue kicks back in.

I keep catching myself saying, "I don't have time to be sick. I'm a busy woman. I have a lot of commitments. I need my body to keep up with my life."

But it hit me this week that its not just my body that's changing. My life is going to have to change, too. I'm not ever going to be able to work as hard as I have been the last several years. Well, I'll be working, for sure, and working hard. But it won't just be my job. I'm going to have to get ready to be working around the clock, and this month is just the first step of that.

I still have another 7 months of working on my own schedule, and I can't afford to pull back on things I've already committed to, but pretty soon I'm going to start having to say 'no'. That isn't something I've ever been very good at. Wish me luck.

The only words I ever use to describe myself these days are "hungry" and "tired". It is getting monotonous.

Hard Work

My breasts are swelling.

My heart is pumping faster.

My blood is flowing.

The small button of life inside me has tripled in size in the last week.

I'm exhausted.

YES+

An unexpected word.

This month I tried so hard not to over-analyze my bodysigns. I was too successful, perhaps, because I did not anticipate the change that was occurring within me.

And now I hardly trust the news, quick to grab each pinch and pull as a sign that my body isn't up to this new job it has been given.

Can this be real? I hesitate to let years of expectation find release. Surely it is too soon to know for sure. Surely it is too soon to be real.

But the word on the stick belies the signs from my body.

Purpose

As a young woman, I looked at my body and found lots to criticize. Hips too full, a belly too round, breasts too big.

I looked at my body and told myself "this is a body built for babies" but I didn't want babies. I wanted a body built for seduction and coolness and life. My heart didn't match my body.

But now my heart is ready. I assumed that my body had just been waiting for the "go", for the window of opportunity, to do what it was built to do. But now, again, my body and my mind are at odds.

How long before they align?

My Ears

...were peirced when I was seven, the magic number that meant that I was old enough to have my godmother take me out to the mall for that rite of passage. But I took the earrings out that night anyway and had to submit to my dad forcefully repierceing them in the spare room at my grandma's.



...had the dreams of my mother whispered into them when I was a baby and couldn't understand her words.



...had the admonitions and disappointment of my mother shouted into them when I was a teenager and couldn't understand her any better.

I can usually read my body like a book, but I don't recognize the signs right now.

Signs

I've been analyzing every signal my body gives me, waiting for a clue or sign that will tell me which road I have been walking down for the past two weeks. Every twinge and cramp warrants inspection and classification.

Do my breasts feel larger?

Is that more saliva than normal?

Am I nauseated, or just anxious?

I feel tired for no reason. I feel worn thin. I feel unable to face day-to-day challenges. If these are signs of the normal changes my body makes, rather than a new one, it is unfair that at such an unbalanced time I will need to balance my emotions.

I was trying not to get my heart set on something I couldn't control, but the moment of truth is getting closer and I am questioning if I am strong enough to deal with disappointment. Patience has never been my virtue, and it feels especially far away from me now.

A New Idea

I'm dipping my foot in the water, testing out a new idea. I'm trying it on for size. Reading some books, changing some habits. I'm trying to decide if I'm ready for this, but in truth my body has already decided for me. My body knows if change is coming or if we'll continue on in the same old way. My body knows, but it's not ready to fill me in yet. I have just a little more time to keep pretending and experimenting with an idea before that idea becomes a very real, very present part of my life.

My Back

...wants to bend downward
...doesn't want to hold up my front
...is stronger that it seems
...should be tickled gently every night before I go to bed
...rolls
...hurts
...crunches
...keeps my secrets

Beginning

We experience our world through our bodies. This project is a way to look at experience through parts of our bodies, through details and texture and movement.

Please contribute.