Different

Today marks the beginning of my 15th week. I felt ill at work. And tired. So, I came home. The smart thing to do would be to take a nap, so as to avoid a sick stomach or a throbbing head. But my brain's racing, so here I am blogging and listening to "Love Song" by 311.

I've been doing more chores since M started work 4 days ago. I got really spoiled with him being off for 5 months and doing the brunt of, well, everything. (except picking up the clutter. it's a little overwhelming at this point.)

Today has been a day of nagging thoughts. The surreality of pregnancy continues, with the added pleasure of "what on earth have I gotten myself into" intrusions. Panicky thoughts. And then the other voice in my head says "remember you wanted this so badly? remember how defiant you were? remember how you willed your body to do what it rightfully should?"

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I blame the panic on low defenses. I'm tired. My waistline is starting on its path to burgeoning bulge, despite my only having gained 6.5 pounds so far (right on track). I'm hot. I'm hormonal.

About a month ago, we were watching Whale Rider and I cried at all my usual parts. No biggie, I thought. I always cry when she dedicates her speech to her grandfather. Whatever.

But then I cried while watching some sports or action movie. And today I cried on the way home. Mostly from the exhaustion, the headache, and the heat. But also because my brother spent portions of the last three days fixing his almost-4-months-now pregnant sister's air conditioner for the cost of parts. And I'm so grateful, I cried.

Every now and again I have a strange sense of longing. . . for my period. Strange that I miss its cyclical regularity ticking off the passing months, but there it is.

I also miss running. I've just passed prime running time (spring in Arizona) and am feeling a loss. I spend a lot of my time trying to either convince myself to do something else ("any activity is better than none") or convince myself that I'll be able to lose the weight by running post-baby ("the weather will be perfect!"). It's exhausting, really.

I see pictures of babies in some of these parenting/new parent/baby magazines and it's about the only time I kind of go "awwww". The rest of the time, I'm just trying to keep up.

I don't know what I thought pregnancy would be like, but I'm sure I thought it would be different than this. Not that it's bad. It's just different. Then again, maybe I didn't really picture pregnancy at all. I think I really only pictured having kids, and pregnancy was the means to that end, so my thoughts were bent on getting pregnant and staying pregnant, not on what pregnancy would be like. Yeah, that sounds about right.

No wonder I've been taken by surprise! Only time will tell if I'll become one of those women who really love being pregnant or one of those who really don't care for it at all. I've known both and found both to be pretty amusing, truthfully. I'm not so amused now that it's me. . .

Also, is it weird that all the reading I've done (other than the occasional reference to What to Expect) was before I was pregnant, and abruptly stopped once I was actually knocked up?

Thought so.

~Nichole