Question Air Returns

I am blogging again, for now at least...

I am pregnant (!) (see cute little pregnancy countdown ticker to the right), and I always thought that when I was pregnant I would want a baby blog like my friends Liz and Debra. I tried starting two new baby blogs, but I didn't like them, and finally I thought, I'll just use my old blog. I've made one big change: I'm no longer posting anonymously, as part of the point of the blog now is to keep my friends and family updated on my growing family (which, despite what you may think by the end of this post, I AM very excited about).

I am also excited to blog again, and am trying to have realistic expectations. It'd be nice if I could post every week, and that's my goal, but we'll see what happens. I am currently finishing my MFA thesis--it's due, in stages, beginning in less than two weeks-- and teaching, and spending a lot of time dealing with morning sickness, which in my case comes and goes all day in the form of extreme hunger combined with random gagging and an aversion to thinking about food.

I've found a way to deal with it in the mornings, which are in fact the worst times. I eat about a third of a rice cake in bed, get up and use a nasal rinse for the constant runny nose I am dealing with, go downstairs, make tea, and sit on the couch sipping tea and eating water crackers until I get so hungry I have to eat again. I usually eat grits. I have been craving heavy foods related to my childhood, such as gravy and biscuits and sausage biscuits with grape jelly. I have the feeling if I was just able to go back in time and sit down at my grandmother's house for Sunday dinner, I would feel better.

After I get enough food in me, I am okay for most of the rest of the day as long as I eat a lot of small meals. It's just tiring to be so obsessed with eating when, more often than not, considering the options of food choices makes me gag.

By the way, the fact that I am so hungry makes me terrified I am having twins.

Dean was asking if there is any evolutionary purpose to all this nausea. Aside from maybe being your body's way of making sure you don't eat anything poisonous, I don't know. I am starting to think, though, that it's nature's way of showing you from the pregnancy's beginning that really, you're just not totally in charge of your life anymore.

I was reading up on morning sickness, also called NVP ("Nausea and Vomiting in Pregnancy), and something stood out in one article about lack of treatment: "Women feel isolated, lonely, and depressed." I have found this to be true, not so much when I'm at home, where Dean is being very kind and helpful, but when I'm out in the world. I haven't told anyone at school about the pregnancy yet, so no one understands why I look terrible and am constantly leaving a trail of Saltine crumbs in my wake. Also, in my visions of being pregnant out in the world, I had a cute belly and a rosy glow and everyone smiled at me and asked kind questions. In the reality of almost-nine-weeks, I'm alternately gagging and sneaking illegal apple slices on the Metro. No one but me knows yet that my jeans are too tight around my waist. Anyone who does notice anything going on with me is more likely to switch to a seat farther away than to smile and ask, "How far along are you?"

I assume this is only the first of many hard truths I will discover, which has been making me suspect that we didn't quite think this through?--

but this has gone on quite a while, so I think I'll stop now and save the rest for a new post.