Squid update

20 week ultrasound last week, and sure enough, there's the squid, almost sucking his (yes, his) thumb there, curled up comfortably. I can feel him move around now, and the doctor says that all his measurements and his tests have come out "perfect." The only thing they're worried about is my weight, since I haven't gained any; I'm not too worried about it, since I eat well, and I eat whenever I'm hungry, until I am full. But it's just incredibly odd to be an American woman, pregnant or no, and have your doctor tell you you need to gain weight.

Actually, it's pretty odd to be pregnant, too. I mean, I was thinking about this the other day, and as a feminist (of whatever wave), pregnancy just feels...weird. Unfeminist, somehow. I mean, maybe not in terms of how I consciously construct feminism, but at some subconscious level, it seems odd to suddenly give so much of my life and attention over to a biological function. All my life, the message has been that I have choices, I have options, I have abilities because of who I am, not what I am; I can take charge of my sexuality, my career, my fertility (where "taking charge" is generally used to mean "not getting pregnant") - biology is not destiny, & etc. To consciously choose to do something that is so fundamentally gendered and biological is strange and disconcerting, particularly as it means choosing the historical/cultural "default", the very thing liberation gives us an option not to do. Or, yes, to do, but the choices still feel weighted.

I'm also glad to report that I'm feeling much better physically and emotionally. The depression was pretty severe there for a while, but it seems to have cleared up, in large part, and my appetite is back. I'm enjoying the "eye" of the pregnancy now, the time before I get really huge and uncomfortable and after the part where I felt really sick and miserable. May it last a long time. And I'm excited, now, more than I was before - my thrilled-to-terrified ratio seems to have taken a flip-flop now that we are past the halfway point and going strong.

I spent yesterday in San Francisco, visiting friends both with and without small critters of their own, and it was wonderful to reconnect and remember that I exist outside my work and my home and the internet. I'm also feeling the holiday spirit come on early, so there has been much wrapping of presents and suchlike; soon both our families will descend from all over the nation to share a turducken with us (did you know that you can also buy duckens and turchickens?) on Thanksgiving and then after that the playing of carols and baking of cinnamon rolls will commence. I love this time of year.