Falling in Love

Today is the first day of my second trimester! I can’t believe I’ve made it this far. Well, to be honest, I’ll believe I made it this far after my next OB/GYN appointment where I believe we will be listening to the heartbeat. If there is still a heartbeat I will let myself relax a little bit. I imagine that things are still fine though, only because I still feel wonderfully sick. I used to be sick nearly 24 hours a day, completely unable to keep anything down, but my body has given me a bit of a break. I’m now sick from around 7:30 pm to 11:30 am. I’ve lost more weight being pregnant than I did on Weight Watchers. I weighed myself yesterday morning because I swore that I had finally gained some weight but instead I found that I had lost 8 lbs. in the past two weeks! I haven’t seen a number that low on the scale in two years. Now it pops up, now that I want to gain weight. Of course I panicked, because I was already worried about the other 7 lbs. I had lost since the beginning of the second month, but 8 lbs. in two weeks? That can’t be good. I’ve been eating, I eat as often and as much as I can, it’s just that I can’t eat too much. It’s like my stomach has shrunk, I get full so fast. I’ve tried to eat little snacks in between my breakfast at home, my second breakfast at work, lunch, my first dinner and then my second dinner right before bed. I eat even when I feel sick. I only eat a little bit at a time, but still, I guess I’m not eating enough. I called my mother and she told me that it’s ok, that a lot of women will lose weight in the first trimester. She reminded me that she only gained 4 lbs. when she was pregnant with me. That’s when I reminded her that she actually didn’t gain any weight because I was 6 lbs. 6 oz. and her doctor was awful because made her go to Overeaters Anonymous and told her that she was unbelievably fat at every appointment even though she really wasn’t. She still insisted that I was perfectly normal and not to worry. I’ll talk to my doctor about it at my next appointment to be sure.

Yesterday was the first day that I let myself imagine what my baby will be like. A few days before that I had just realized that this baby might be a real thing. It was a big “HOLY CRAP! I have a real baby in there… I think… and it’s a part of me and a part of Howie! OMG!!! Howie and I made a baby, a little person with a heartbeat and a head and arms and legs! It’s a person and it’s actually still growing inside of me… I think.” Up until this point I think I’ve been sort of disconnected. Of course it’s amazing to see the baby on the screen, to see and hear its heart beating, and yes, I fell in love with it the moment I saw it as a little blastocyst. It’s just that I haven’t really accepted that I’m in fact pregnant, that there might actually be a chance that Howie and I will come home with a little baby in 6 more months! It might actually, MAYBE, be ok for me to think of it as a real person, because it might actually become one! So, yesterday, for the first time I was imagining what our baby would be like, what it would look like, what mannerisms it would have that would remind us of each other. I fell in love with it all over again, no matter what it turns out like, I’m going to love it and I can’t wait to meet it. Then a few hours later the negative side of me started up. How could I let myself day dream like that? What if I go in for my appointment next week and there isn’t a heartbeat? What if I lose the baby? After getting a grip I realized that if I don’t relax I’m going to miss out on everything. What if the baby makes it and I never enjoyed this time? I’ve been waiting so long for this and I’m not even allowing myself to connect with my baby. I’m cheating myself out of the whole experience because I’m afraid of losing something I’m afraid to fall in love with, but really, I fell in love with this baby a long time ago. So I have to stop this.
So, part of my bonding is talking to the baby, because I read somewhere that the baby might be able to hear me now. It’s not like I have Howie around to talk to, so talk to the baby. I tell it about its daddy, that he misses it now that he’s away. We also talk about what we’re going to eat for dinner, what’s on TV, how I’m too tired to take a shower or brush my hair now that it’s drained all of the energy out of me. Before bed I blow it kisses and say goodnight. So far I think that my child thinks I’m boring and that I watch way too much trash TV. This isn’t a complaint, just a fact, I am so insanely tired lately. By the time I get home I barely have enough energy to make something to eat and shower before I crash. I don’t even want to comb my hair or put on my pajamas when I get out of the shower. I just flop down on my bed until I become so cold from the air conditioning that I force myself up to get dressed and blow dry my hair. I can’t wait to find a home so that Howie can take care of the cooking and cleaning and I can do my best to take care of my personal hygiene. I just wanted you all to know that I’ve been reading your blogs and sometimes I comment if I have the energy to form a sentence, but if I haven’t commented I’m still reading and thinking of you. I would be better about commenting on the weekends if I weren’t reuniting with my husband, cleaning and house hunting. As soon as we settle on a house I will have more time to relax and recharge on the weekend, and I promise as soon as that happens I will be commenting again.