Category — Occupation (Pregnancy)

YaYa and Kid A have some rules in the car. Their rules, not mine.

All the cars driving beside us are our “friends”. The ones not beside us (I’m assuming on the other side of the road, but it might include the ones behind us, since we always seem to be fleeing- “Go faster Mama! Watch out, Mama!”) are “bad guys.”

Also, lately, when we’ve been grocery shopping they pretend they’re grownups! Getting their groceries! “Let’s get some fruit!” Kid A says.

“I think I’m all done with my list!” YaYa chirps. “We love and love all this food, don’t we! Because we’re grownups!”

Meanwhile, I shuffle along beside them, barely lifting my feet, wearily checking another item off of my list. My uterus is weighing on my pelvic bones with a pressure that makes me sure that in a minute I will have to pick it up off the floor.

Maybe I should pretend to be a kid pretending to be a grownup.

jumping boy, originally uploaded by chinua000.

One time, (I hope I’m not repeating myself here) I asked my Superstar Husband if he thought Kid A was… okay.

“Why?” he wanted to know.

“Well, he’s always doing something with his hands. Fiddling. He flicks his fingers against his jaw, or he does that funny little scratching motion on his forehead, and he’s constantly kicking. Do you think that’s normal?”

“He’s fine.”

“I’m just, you know, worried that he’s anxious or something,” I said. And then I laughed, because it was such a ridiculous, “Me” thing to say.

“Rae, he’s just like me. Think about it. Do you notice a similarity?”

And suddenly the light switched on. Chinua’s leg jiggling, the pacing, the rubbing together of the socks, the drumming tabla beats on the table when we’re waiting for our food to come at a restaurant, the poking at my face and collarbone and elbows when he’s noticing me… Kid A is exactly like his father.

I remember once, at the beach on the Gulf of Mexico. Kid A was only 1. I was sitting in the sand and looked up to see little Kid A holding a handful of sand, completely lost in the act of letting it slowly trickle down in a stream to the sand below. Directly behind him, with the exact same expression on his face, was his dad, holding a hand full of sand, watching it trickle, lost in it.

They have minds that are constantly working. And with their constantly working minds are bodies that are always moving.

I stopped worrying, after that conversation.

But today, while I didn’t start worrying again, I realized that I may be in for many long years of annoying actions while thinking. Because today was the introduction of the tuneless whistle.

The tuneless whistle is Kid A’s new skill. The tuneless whistle has only one note. The tuneless whistle stops for no one, for nothing, and since I recognize the tuneless whistle as a developing skill, and don’t want to squash it, I allowed it to go on for perhaps 32 hours today, with one exception. No tuneless whistling when we are sitting at the table eating together. Make that two exceptions. No tuneless whistling in MY EAR. All right.

***

Tonight I am missing out on a very special party, a medieval dinner that we were all invited to. Not only am I missing out on the eats, I am missing out on my husband as the jester, in full jester costume. Juggling, doing card tricks, whatever whatever, I’m used to the Super Talents around here, but the costume!

However, what I need more than seeing my husband in a Jester costume (I know, what could I need more than that?) is rest. I’ve been feeling like something the rats dragged out of their little holes. Something rotten that used to be shaped like an apple. Something. Just not like me. And we pregnant moms of three take our rest where we can.

By the way, from the last post, I don’t want you to get the idea that I had no first trimester symptoms. There were those lovely days of running back and forth from the toilet eighteen times in an hour. And the sea sick symptoms when I was no where near the ocean, moaning about my messy house while feeling unable to leave the couch. Eating veerrrry slowly. A Christmas spent trying not to smell anything. Or see anything.

I just didn’t know we were so close to the end of it. Hooray! Here’s to feeling BETTER!

(By the way, in case you didn’t get it from the flickr account owner info, I totally would never want to take credit for this shot- it’s my Superstar Husband’s.)

How did I find myself sitting on a table wearing “clothing” made of paper yesterday?

You may have guessed it- my first prenatal visit.  I really don’t have any intention of giving birth in this hospital, but prenatal care is prenatal care, and prenatal care is good.  Especially when you can’t remember when your last period was.

So, when the nurse practitioner did the ultrasound, and we saw the wittle baby, (just one) and she pronounced him/her to be 12 weeks 1 day old, well gosh.  I was flabbergasted.

I’m heading into my second trimester.  WAIT!  DIDN’T I JUST FIND OUT I WAS PREGNANT?  I’m heading into my second trimester?  Time for a new chapter in my Pilates for Pregnancy book?

This means, I realize, that I was fully seven and a half weeks pregnant by the time I thought to run out to the neighborhood Safeway and pick up a pregnancy test.  I just honestly don’t know what happened.  Why didn’t I know that I had skipped a period?  Why did it take me so long to figure it out?

All I can think is that I kept attributing all of my symptoms to something else.  Nausea?  Well, I got pretty sick in Burkina Faso.  Exhaustion? Must be jet lag.  Stormy weepiness?  Jet lag? Trauma? Culture shock?  My general emotional instability? I think I just sort of hurled all my symptoms into a plethora of categories and was content to leave it at that.

Anyways.  Now we know.  And wow, I’m already a third of the way through.  And the wittle baby sure is cute.

Those are some big trees. And there are more and more beyond them.

I find myself wanting to know which trees fell, and how they fell, and what it all looks like. I wonder if it was that group of three that the kids used to call the castle. Flowers grew out of the base, in the spring. Wild orchids and some kind of blue flower that I never really identified.
It really is true, that you can’t look back. And my pining for my little house in the woods is useless. Especially now. But there is a crazy lesson in here somewhere, about the finality of change, and the strength in looking forward and going on.

The most crushing accusation that can be made against me is that I wasn’t listening. Listening to that small voice of God’s- the one that I have been trying to follow for most of my life. It has been one step after the other, leaning in His direction. To be accused of disobedience is a weight on my shoulders that I almost haven’t been able to bear. And it has happened, recently, these accusations. Many more people have been supportive than accusatory, let me say. But still, I feel as though I have been under a dark cloud. It has been heavy on me. I wish I had a thicker skin.

It is maybe just coincidence that immediately after I made that decision, to turn away from the hurt and into the new day, I got the news that there isn’t even any reason to be looking backward. Because there is God! And he is saying that he really did put things into place the way they needed to be! And if it had happened any other way, ANY OTHER WAY, this could have been horribly tragic.

And I feel different. Something, some dark shameful thing, has slipped off of me. My world, the one where you pray, and believe, and then joyfully make your choices without fear, that world is falling back into place around me. I wish I was more certain, all the time, of what I know to be true. I wish I didn’t need a reassurance of this magnitude. And I didn’t really ask for it, but then it was there. I don’t think it gets much more clear than that. Maybe one day I will be like the oak tree, here outside our house in Sacramento. The one that didn’t fall.

And yes, we say thank you again and again and again and again. I should say, too, that I don’t mean to say that we are invincible, or that suffering will not enter our lives. Everyone dies. But the timing is God’s. I hope that if suffering comes to my life I can accept it, also.

*

On another note, last week this showed up on my porch.

A grey velor maternity hoodie from Carrien. Nothing could be cozier. I’ve worn it every day since I opened the box. I particularly like to wear it with my brown velor pants, and then when I’m tired I just roll up into a little ball and snuggle.

Well, no, not really. But don’t you wish sometimes that you could just say, “See ya,” and then find yourself a nice cozy world where it is not storming and there are no assassinations and nobody is asking you for anything?

I think it’s the kind of day I’m having. It’s a day when every movement makes me even more nauseous. It’s a day when suddenly being pregnant and expecting my fourth child, who will be born before my oldest turns six, seems overwhelming. When nine months seems vast. When I can’t get comfortable. Already.

A day to be a whiny child. Along with my whiny, not-quite-feeling-well children.

Today is a day when my to-do list is slapping me in the face like a wet fish, when I am ignoring it and procrastinating, lying on the floor trying to feel better. (Have I ever mentioned just how much I love lying on the floor? Sometimes I wonder if I’ll still be lying on the floor when I’m sixty-five. Probably.)

Today is the kind of day that reminds me of days in the past when I used to hole up in my room with a book and a large bag of chips. Or maybe a cake. I would love to do that now, minus the food. But now I am a mom, and I’d better get used to it. And now I have work to do.

I’m trying to lay down some of my working roles, and in doing so, I seem to accumulate even more work- things that need to be done before I can fully lay them aside. It’s killing me. I feel like my life is one big deadline. For example, right now I somehow need to magically open up a high-interest bank account. I have no idea how to do this. I need to get tax receipts out. I need to get my computer fixed. I need to send out some communications. I need to work on updating a website.

I feel like I’m having a panic attack.

Maybe what I really need is to pray.

Breathe into me. I’m lost and lonely. I’m growing to hate numbers. I want nothing to do with this.

It’s you that I serve. This is not for nothing. You are not harsh. You bend me but don’t break me. You made life and we are glad. We are safe. The storm hasn’t killed us. We have so much.

I’m tired. Please make me free again.

(Here’s a photo of me in my sister-in-law’s room, wondering why my belly looks like I’m three months pregnant. Photo credit for both photos belongs to Chinua the great, otherwise known as the beautiful man with the great-smelling face who brought home steak tacos tonight.)

One thing that I’m loving about being pregnant this time is Kid A’s special attention to it. He’s always been encouraging, about having more babies, that one. Kid A is possibly the most socially oriented kid that I’ve met. He just wants to hang out with people, all the time. And since YaYa was born when he was nineteen months old, he doesn’t remember not being a brother.

So, all the time, the child is asking me whether we can have ten kids. Sometimes he asks me if we can have 3211 kids, a show off number. To which I reply, “NO, no no.” Obviously.

But I was happy to be able to tell him that we really are going to have another baby. To say that he is excited would be like saying that he likes mangoes. He adores mangoes, and he is coming out of his skin about the baby.

Every day, he asks, “Do you need to rest, for your baby?” or “Do you need some food, for your baby?” All this chivalry is making me swoon.

Yesterday he asked, “Are you going to have milk in your num-nums again, for your baby?” (So, we’ve always called breastmilk “num-nums”, and I have no idea where in the world the kids got the idea that the vehicle(s) for milk were the num-nums, not the milk itself. YaYa will hold up one of my bras and say, “Is this for your num-nums?” and I just say yes. I guess it could be embarrassing later on, if they continue to believe that breasts are called num-nums, but for now, it’s just really cute.)

But then, yesterday, I also realized that we should probably talk a little bit more about the technicalities of it all. We’ve talked about how the baby is swimming like a little fish, and how he doesn’t breathe, because he has an umbilical cord (not sure if he has that yet, actually, but you know.) and how when he comes out, he’ll take his first breaths, and the kids stare at me with big eyes.

But yesterday, Kid A thought about it for a while, and then asked, “So… are you going to, like, poop the baby out?”

In answer to your questions… I have no flipping clue.  How far along I am, that is.  Which is a result of my poor memory and lack of cycle recording skills.  I found myself looking through my planner, thinking, Thanksgiving… someone had cramps on Thanksgiving… nope, that wasn’t me… I think it was before then…

If I had to guess, I’d say that I’m probably six weeks along.  But it could be five.  Oh, I really have no idea.

As for my expanding belly, let’s just say that with Kid-A, it took four months before you could even tell that I was pregnant.  But with YaYa?  I was hounding the doctor at six weeks because I was SURE.  I was SURE that I was having twins.  But no.  There was just one little baby acting as a placeholder in my belly.  And then with Leafy the same thing happened.  Also I gain more weight every pregnancy.  Also I weigh more pre-pregnancy this time than after I had Leafy.  I attribute some of it to my hair.  But let’s not focus too much on weight gain, shall we?  I may start crying.

I like the way I always tell you things last minute, like the fact that we are flying to Detroit tomorrow to spend Christmas with Chinua’s family.  (Which promises to be a rocking, rollicking, late-night good time.  I never understood my husband’s leaning toward the very late night until I started hanging out with his family, and noted people casually hanging out at two in the morning like it was the middle of the afternoon.)

We are pretty excited, since we don’t get out there nearly as often as we would like to.  (They require an arm and a leg and your lips and a few eyelashes if you want to purchase a ticket.  I did find an incredible deal if only we would fly on Christmas Eve, to which I replied, sign me UP.)  And I’ve already been told to bring an extra suitcase. For gifts.  I don’t think I need to worry about the kids this year.

So, it may be a while before I get to see anybody about this pregnancy.  This would not have gone over well in the past, but I’ve learned a little about babies in the womb.  They usually do pretty okay if you just forget about them and eat really well and sleep when you need to and read to your kids.

(Rebeca thoughtfully asked about how I’m doing, considering my loss in the spring.  Because it was an ectopic pregnancy, by the time I found out I was pregnant I had already been bleeding for a week and a half.  This time I feel perfectly, normally, fine.  I’m exhausted, slightly nauseous all the time (which previously I had attributed to getting sick in Burkina Faso.  DENIAL.) a little cranky, overwhelmed by the Christmas stuff I have to do today, and not bleeding.  Right as rain! The baby I lost is never out of my mind.  But I feel calm and peaceful about this pregnancy.)

Does anybody else ever feel tempted to go and buy more pregnancy tests, after you discover you are pregnant, just to have the thrill of seeing that little line magically show up? Or is that just me?
***

Things I still have:

Pregnancy vitamins

About four pounds of pregnancy tea, made of Alfalfa, Oatstraw, Nettles, and Raspberry Leaf.  I can’t extoll the benefits of this tea enough, however, it takes like food for horses.

Things I don’t have anymore:

Maternity clothes

***

I am so big already. None of my pants fit.  I can’t believe that I went from wondering vaguely if there was something weird going on, a few days ago, to undoing the button on my pants repeatedly, only to do it back up when they fall down when I stand up, now.  I look pregnant.  There’s no other word for it.  I think I may have been in a strong form of denial, assuming there were other reasons for every symptom I had.

***

This seems like perfect timing.  I think that if I had discovered that I was pregnant a few months ago, I would have stomped around whining, “It’s my body!  I’m not ready to share it again!”  But now it’s like my organs are telling me, “We were getting a little lonely in here anyways…”