Woes Is Me

I have forgotten more things in the past week than I knew was possible. I have failed to solve easy problems, groped fruitlessly for the right words for a million things, misremembered my social security number, lost my bank card and my knitting, missed a deadline, flaked on my exercise, been unable to follow through on small tasks, and generally fucked everything up. I have never been less prepared for a meeting than I am for the (statewide, 50-person) meeting that I am running tomorrow.

They say in pregnancy your brain actually shrinks 3-5%. A mother told me recently that you never get it back, either, which made me want to smack her - who points out to sick people that they won't get well? Particularly if that's not everyone's experience? But that's probably just my hormones speaking, and she is a very nice person who thought she was being funny and sympathetic. Could I be less charitable? More irritable? And can I even blame this on pregnancy? It feels like a copout.

But my brain. It doesn't work, and I mean this is far beyond my usual disorganization and flail. I feel so stupid. All the time. And bad at my job. And afraid I'll fuck up, and the PTB are not helping, by giving me less than a week (effectively) to really prep for this meeting and asking me to do all their presentations for them (I am not their secretary, goddamnit). Set up for failure in a time when I feel like I'm failing at everything anyway. This is just bad news all around.

I have a parasite

I always sort of wondered about how when you're pregnant they tell you to eat this, and that, and the other thing, "for the baby". The baby is growing healthy bones and internal organs, it needs calcium! It needs iron! It needs spinach so it will be strong like Popeye! Whereas we all know that millions of women don't eat well during pregnancy, and have babies with bones, and internal organs, and normal birth weights nonetheless.

Well, finally one of my books explained it to me. I feel like maybe this is something I should have known all along, but it came as a revelation. Fetuses need calcium and iron and all that other good stuff, but you're not eating it for them. If you don't eat it, they will literally suck it from your own bodily reserves. You could probably get through a pregnancy or two with no calcium at all, but I wouldn't be surprised if you broke a hip soon after. They're little parasites; if you don't supply extra, it will just take yours.

It's a little bit like having a cannibalistic neopet, I imagine. I've never had a neopet, so I can't vouch for this, but I was thinking about it in the shower this morning and that's the analogy that comes to mind. Right now I haven't yet eaten breakfast and it is eleven o'clock. Instead of sending me email to indicate its distress, the fetus is gnawing at my insides. Soon I will feel sick and dizzy if I don't eat. But the cleaners are cleaning the kitchen and I don't want to disturb them. Or maybe it's more like having a tapeworm, which I also wouldn't know about firsthand. (I prefer the neopet idea, all in all. Ew, tapeworm.)

On a tangetial topic, can I say how much I hate the fact that most pregnancy books refer to the little zygote/embryo/fetus as "your baby"? Even the supposedly progressive ones! "This week your baby is about two inches long and has begun to develop its lungs and liver." It is not a baby, goddamnit. Right now it is a fetus with baby potential. Every child born in the United States is potentially a future President, too, but nobody tells you "I have three Presidents, ages four, six, and twelve," or drives around with bumper stickers about how their President is an honor student at Franklin middle school. I will be reviewing all the baby books once I finish them, and you can bet that this kind of unthinking bullshit will get authors docked major points.

Highway 92 and a brief personal update

I love Highway 92. This is a newfound love; I did not love it before, when I took it from Half Moon Bay to 280 and it nearly made me roadsick with its voluptuous curves. I did not love its weekend congestion. And had I taken it during rush hour yesterday, I still might not have discovered my love for it. But Highway 92 from San Mateo to Hayward (or vice versa) is one of the most beautiful drives in the Bay.

I never had occasion to discover this before; living in the South or East Bay means that you need Highway 92 not at all to get to most of your prime destination points around the Bay. But now that I live within five minutes of one of its entry points, it's the best way for me to go East. And let me tell you, it is the best way.

When you come out of San Mateo, the bridge goes up in this graceful curve that looks like it might be a ramp - like you might get up to the top and suddenly sprout wings and fly. You don't, of course, but what happens is pretty breathtaking on its own - the whole bay opens out ahead of you.

You can see to San Jose on one side and San Francisco on the other as you zip along, a mere few yards above the water itself. On a clear day, you can see the entire ring of the bay up to the Bay Bridge - you miss the Vallejo marshes and the Golden Gate, I think, but everything else is visible. It's like being a bird and a fish and a car all at once. And speaking of birds, you can see those too, pelicans and cormorants, perched on the bars of the occasional towers that line the bridge. I've wanted to take pictures each time I've driven over, but I was driving, and so I didn't. Besides, I don't think my camera could capture the sheer sense of space.

Mostly when I'm driving, I'm doing it to get from one place to another. But that stretch of Highway 92 feels more than utilitarian. San Mateo and Hayward, the end points, whatever; but the bridge in between, my God.

I've been out of touch - the move took weeks of time, and then the things I've thought to write about I've then thought better of; I get more cautious each year about what I am willing to put on the Internet. But I'm well, and the new house is well, and Himself is well, and the dogs are well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Also, Amazon.com now sells sex toys. Soon they will start selling foodstuffs and nobody will ever shop anywhere else ever again. Go, Amazon, go!

State of the me.

Today I sort of like being pregnant. I think these days will be in the minority, so I'm cherishing the feeling. My embryo is now a fetus. I have a wee belly (though it's mostly pre-pregnancy pooch getting pushed to the fore). I am still tired, and a little emotional, and my back hurts from not having a proper office chair yet, but I feel pretty good, on the whole.

So, this is an eye of, "hey, neat" in the midst of my usual neurotic storm of freakouts, anxiety, and bitching. Not all days are bad days.

Being pregnant is like going through puberty when you're old enough to be really informed and observant. Every morning I wake up and check what new new weirdness my body will have to offer up. Will my pants fit? Will my bra fit? Will funky stuff come out of various orofices? What will I need to eat? Will I have a big hissy fit? It's fascinating, if sort of freaky. Like puberty, I'd still skip it if there were another, easier way to get to Point B.

Engage!

We have one (1) viable little embryo, complete with heartbeat.

The nurse-midwife was awesome and now I am sad we are moving. I wanted to keep her. I have pictures (she snuck me in for an ultrasound anyway) but they will have to wait until we are Officially Telling and then I bet I can get Himself to scan them in for me. I want a burrito. Maybe I'll make myself walk to La Mission and thereby get both exercise and burrito. < /crafty>

Barbaric yawp

I want to tell everyone. Someone who knew we were thinking about it asked me flat out today if I were pregnant and I stumbled my answer. I'm not about to tell strangers before I tell my family...but I want to. I want to drop it casually into conversation. I want to find excuses to tell waitresses, bank clerks, salespeople. I am so very bad at keeping my own secrets.

Also, things you really can't do anymore, even if you're only 8 weeks pregnant:

1. Suck in your stomach. Do your abs just totally fail? I have gained almost no weight, but it all sits out in front now.
2. Skip meals. Or even stretch them. I've made myself ill and dizzy twice keeping to my usual schedule of "eat when it's convenient." The Embryo Demands, and it is not to be ignored.

Twenty-minute crying jag this morning, upon waking to find that the dogs have eaten the crotch out of two of the last four pairs of pants I had that still fit. I have no sense of proportion these days. I screamed at the guilty mutt that I hated her and sobbed my fool heart out. I've felt drained and miserable all day since. I knew my mood swings would be bad, because I've barely managed my PMS all these years, but I had no idea it would be like this.

Off to the first doctor's appt - no ultrasound, and I don't even know if they can check heartbeat, but whatever. Hopefully they'll be able to confirm that the pregnancy is viable, at least. Think twinny thoughts for me.

Of Bears and Bodaciousness

I thought it would be cool to have bigger tits. And it is, sort of. I mean, I like titties, a lot, though I've never been a size queen. But what isn't cool is the way that they are sore. Pretty much all the time. Kind of ruins the "whee, rack!" aspect of the whole thing. I wear my sports bras to work. I go up and down the stairs cupping them in my hands gently, to avoid bouncing. When I lie on my side, they ache.

So, when I was little, I had this teddy bear, okay? He was a "jelly belly" bear, which meant he had a little rattle in his tum, and he looked sort of sad and grumpy because of the way his mouth was stitched. His name was Pooky (shut up). I also had a blanket, an old soft shredded thing that used to be an Indian woven bedspread. His name was Biggy, because he was big (shut up shut up shut up). And, because I have no shame about loving the people I love, they stayed on my bed. Every night. Until I was twenty-five or so.

When I was twenty-five or so, my dogs (who knew better) got together with my parents' dog (who is an evil peer-pressure beast) and decimated my poor teddy. There was Pooky fluff all over the yard, and an empty sack of Pooky-skin lying limply on the porch. I don't think I ever found his tummy rattle. I gathered up the remains and squirreled them away while I tried to find another bear of this make so that I could send him in for repair. But alas, I had no luck. So what did I do? I made a little pillow. It's just a muslin rectangle, with both bear-remains and well-loved blanket shreds for stuffing. And it stays on my bed. Every night. Shut up.

The point is, this pillow is the perfect size for sleeping with. I cuddle it to my chest and it makes my new titties not feel owwy while I am trying to sleep for chrissakes which is all I ever want to do anymore. But this makes me worry a tetch about my sanity. Am I really soothing my newly pregnant body with my childhood blanky and bear? Is there not some rule about growing up before one has children of one's own?

*eyes bellybutton dubiously*

Man, they just let anyone have these things, don't they? No screening process at all.