Eight weeks and one day

The fourth meal of the day is on the stove boiling and I'm listening to the sound of my lunatic dogs running in the yard. After a conversation with my mother and my sister, where I unleashed all the *crazy* thoughts I have been having about my experience of pregnancy I decided it was time to write them down. First of all, I don't want to hear another person tell me that I ONLY have to wait another seven months to feel better and that I should keep my eyes on the PRIZE -- the baby -- because trust me, this does NOT help. Imagine being told that you are only going to have that cold for, say, at a minimum four to six more weeks and at a maximum, seven more months. Would you find this comforting? [This is a question for all those not yet pregnant and the men out there who never will be].  I have the particular problem of being nauseated ninety percent of the time (I've only thrown up three times, in a row since the first day of my nausea -- about twenty days ago). Since then I've just felt low grade nausea as a constant, with indigestion and constipation. And I'm talking, burping and farting regularly for relief. My poor dear husband, he doesn't know what has happened to his normally more presentable wife! As for fatigue, this I have heard others talk a lot about -- for a none, napping person though, three hour naps in the afternoon are really a shock. Pleasant at first, they have since become rather scary. Am I going to sleep away my productivity over the next nine months? Will I accomplish anything? Are all my career plans shot to hell? Will we be able to pay the bills? How obese am I going to get if all I want to do is sleep? Suddenly the baby seems like more of a problem--a crisis--then a pleasure or, just that, a baby. Just a baby. A sweet little innocent baby. This is not of course the best time to be reading about the fatigue one will surely feel in the early months after the baby emerges, it only makes the current experience feel more overwhelming, but of course I learned this the hard way, picturing myself with post-partum depression, healing from a forced c-section and episiotomy while holding a colicky, screaming baby.  Yeah, not a good series of thoughts to help me get through the day in front of me. Let's get onto the next topic. Dreaming. I've also discovered that every night I dream vividly. So vividly, that I wish I would not wake up (to experience nausea and having to eat saltine crackers on the side of the bed first thing) and could continue on in the dream world, visiting friends new and old. Experiencing things not as a pregnant woman. 

Husbands--mine is fantabuloso except for the part where he is NOT pregnant and as such can only comfort me by proxy and it is EMBARRASSING complaining, burping and farting all day long. And sleeping. Especially for someone who is a major go getter who hates resting. This is to say, I honestly hate naps. I'd rather just sleep at night. Suddenly I'm a whole new person. He finds me more attractive at the same moment that I am finding myself the least attractive, trying to hide in my over-sized overalls. This is when I want to hide away from the world and come out some other day. And smells, his are the most pressing as he is the nearest to me. I have found that I cannot stand intense smells in general (they were not kidding about this issue) but his are especially bothering. Or maybe I am most irritated with his smells because I normally like them so much and I can't imagine why they are turning my stomach. It all started when he opened a tin of peanuts in bed one evening for a snack. As soon as his teeth cut through several of the peanuts, the smell became so strong I actually had to comment and ask him to hurry up and finish because the smell was making me feel like throwing up. But the worst is that I can't bear to kiss him right now. Any smell on his breath puts me over the edge! This from a man whose breath normally drives me up the wall because it is so sweet. The irritation is not only around smells but it is also around touch. I am finding touch to be really irritating. Touch creates the kind of frustration in me that I get when someone is scratching an itchy spot too lightly. I know anyone not pregnant out there is probably thinking -- that poor husband. But I swear, for once I am not looking for things to be irritated about (that's my usual modus operandi). I really don't have the energy to do that. These are just spontaneous, visceral responses ... anyway, this is all for now. Now that I have somewhere to share these thoughts and fears, I'll be doing it a lot more often.