My Co-opted Body is Turning Against Me!

My new top favorite super fun pregnancy symptoms of the week (excluding the 45 minutes spent violently sobbing in a grocery store parking lot Tuesday night, because while the moodiness is a barrel of laughs and all, its not really new) include:

*My nose is now slowly but surely emitting any and all pieces of its bloody self every time I blow it, which is frequently because pregnancy swells your mucous membranes to epic proportions thus giving supreme dictatorial power to your sinuses to reign unchallenged over your entire being. Its like having the bloody snotty nose of a cokehead, but without all the extra energy (which I could sure use) and teeth grinding.

*Braxton Hicks contractions, which I've actually been having for several weeks now and thought it was quite possibly a re-enactment of the scene in Aliens where the alien pushes out through someone's stomach, until I checked with my midwife at the last appointment and she assured me that no, it is indeed the BH contractions. Not that I'm disappointment, mind you, but that really is kind of what it feels like. I keep wanting to shout, "No! Wrong way! That's not the way out! Head South and bear left at the cervix!" Its not painful at all, its just super uncomfortable and pretty damn creepy. And I get them multiple times a day every single day. Whew, jealous yet?

*My tailbone has started to hurt. Not my ass, but my tailbone. Its the oddest sensatuion and incredibly uncomfortable (read painful, I just don't want to admit it). I can't find a comfortable way to sit at all. Or stand. Or lie down. Or breathe and exist. Other than that, I feel great.

*The famed lower back pain of pregnancy has begun. Thank god for yoga, that's all I have to say.

New Year's Dinner

Me and My Two Honies

I Adore Him...(most of the time)

Maman Kissing the LFM

We had a wonderful belated New Year's celebration last night at Mim's, and it was a perfect gathering of family (both real and adopted). The LFM was particularly into the yummy radish spread, Mama Synge was particularly relishing the glass of wine it took her 12 hours to finish.

Goddess of the Hippos

2 days ago (before the nice New Year's haircut I got last night, which makes me feel much more attractive)

a few weeks ago, wearing the shirt WB's parents sent me for his birthday

Bless your sweet 'ole heart kind old woman at the health food store! Bless you for being shocked when I said I was 5 months pregnant, and bless your heart even more for saying I was tiny. You are my new best friend. In fact, I'm moving in to the Honey Shop, just so you can tell me every day how small I am. I like you more than my father, who loudly proclaimed the other night, to the detriment of my fragile ego, "Wow, you sure are getting fat there aren't you?". I like you much better than the playwright who came into work the other day and said "You're what, 8 months?" to which I of course assumed he must be joking, so I replied "Yup, 8 months...that's me..." and then upon realizing that he was indeed not at all joking I amended, "No, not at all. but thanks a lot for making me feel great." His way of rectifying the situation was to say "Well [female director] is about your build and she wouldn't have looked like that until 13 months!". Wow, glad you added that qualifying statement in there, makes me feel even better to be compared to a 5'10" super thin woman when pregnant. Let me go drown my sorrows by eating 10 tubs of straight lard, because you know, that's how I got to be this gargantuan...my top secret diet of straight lard and sugar.

Even strangers at random campgrounds have told me, "Wow, you are carrying quite large!" and these are mothers, people! These are women who have been through the oh-so-fragile process of pregnancy and who have presumably known how awkward it feels to be waddling around like a gigantic hippo! How could they ever think that would be a good thing to say to someone who might not be feeling their most attractive ever? The only proper response, even if I call myself ginormous, is to say how lovely I look. And small. Even if you think I need to have a permanent tattoo reading "WIDE LOAD" drawn across my ass and can qualify as a high occupancy vehicle all on my own, the only proper comment is a flattering one. Really. Because let me tell, I do not feel like the gorgeous fertile goddess that I want to feel like. And maybe, just maybe, if people stopped being thoughtless in how they speak about my new changing body, I could enjoy it a little more, and love my new hippo shape.

So thank you, awesome lady in the Honey Shop, (who has birthed 5 children and ushered 10 more grandchildren into this world so probably knows a lot about pregnancy) for giving a pregnant goddess exactly what she needs. I walked back to work with my head high, feeling wonderful about my big 'ol belly and ass the size of Canada.

Happy New Year to all the Jewish monkeys out there - may you have a sweet and joyous new year! WB and I are going to Synagogue tonight, where I'm sure everyone will have some sort of opinion about my belly, and since many have known me since age 3, will feel quite at liberty to express said opinions. However, this is the most exciting Rosh Hashanah for me ever, with many exciting new beginnings happening this year.

The Kitchen Sink and Beyond

Its 3:30 in the a.m. and I can't sleep at all. I can hear WB snoring very clearly from the other side of our very large apartment (that is after all how he got named the Wild Boar), I've already eaten the requisite midnight ice cream, and still I don't anticipate sleep arriving at any point soon. Don't get me wrong, I'm exhausted. I just can't sleep.

The Little Funky Monkey is awake too.

Then again, the LFM is awake much of the time these days, and is quite the active baby. I've been feeling movement for about 4 weeks now. It began at a little over 16 weeks when I felt what can only be described as someone tickling me from the inside, but very briefly. Just like this little tickle tickle and that was it. That progressed into what I call the "bloop" phase, because I decided that if the kicking had a sound effect, it wold undoubtedly be a "bloop!". Now it feels much more like a kick a lot of the time and its kind of also this weird dropping feeling at the same time, like when you're in an elevator and your stomach drops, only this is much more localized in the body. Its such a weird wonderful crazy feeling...it happens all the time but still kind of takes me aback every single time. Its kind of like this weird thing that's taken over your body - mysterious and wonderful and truly bizarre all at once. It also feels like this wonderful secret between the baby and I - its just us communicating solely with each other during this time, and it feels so special and sacred, this dance that's occurred between mother and child in utero throughout the ages. It makes me feel humbled, even when its slightly annoying or quite strong and distracting.

We have our first midwife appointment here in River City (not its real name) on Thursday. I'm anxious to meet the woman who will be guiding us through this process and even more anxious to schedule our 20 week ultrasound (we turned 20 weeks on Saturday) and find out whether its a boy or a girl. I'm so impatient I can't wait for the ultrasound - I don't know how I'd ever wait through the whole pregnancy! Not to mention the fact that every single person I know as well as every stranger in the grocery line keeps asking me when I'm going to know the sex. Its driving me crazy! If one more person asks me (especially my dear mother who asks me every single time I talk to her, which is often) I'm going to lose my shit on them. Seriously. I'm just as eager to know as you people are - more so, because dammit its my kid - and getting asked every 6.3 seconds only makes it worse!

And that's it for my middle of the night posting - I have much more to update considering I've been a blogging slacker, but I really should try and get some sleep. Also I just don't feel like writing - that seems to be a rather constant symptom throughout this pregnancy, at least since the big move. Then again, I've certainly been more than a little down in the dumps and having a very hard time with the whole transition, so I guess its no surprise I don't feel like writing. Its not exactly fun to write about feeling depressed, and its certainly no fun to read about it. I try and save my pity parties for truly special occasions, like this evening, wherein I laid in bed paralyzed and staring aimlessly into the middle distance while convincing myself that nothing will ever be okay. See? I told you it was really not that fun. Ah, these are the joys of pregnancy that you're not supposed to write about or talk about..doesn't really fit in with the whole glowing thing. I could write post after post about the hormonally inspired mood swings (I'm sure WB could write an entire novel)..but its late and I don't want to scare you off from ever reading this blog again.

Really I'm usually much more entertaining than this. I promise.

18 (and a half) Weeks

Here it is...the long overdue enormous hippo belly - though its so big I'm sure its probably reached out from your computer screen and whacked you upside the head...that's how ginormous this belly is. This is at the end of the day, mind you, after eating copious amounts of food...which actually does make a difference in belly size, and Muffinface has the photo evidence to prove it. Please ignore the droopy boobs and backfat...humor the pregnant lady, and just pretend that these things don't exist.

(I Move Several States Away) With a Little Help From My Friends

(photos taken by Mica, who was smart enough to know we'd probably want the whole thing documented)

sad me with our life in a truck

WB and I on our old stoop, for the last time...

the microwave goes in the kitchen?? what?? shocking!

So we're here, safe and sound, and actually have been for a whopping three weeks (what??), all three of whom have disappeared into the nebulous cosmos somewhere because I certainly don't remember them. They were most likely a whirlwind of crying, unpacking, the search for the perfect shower curtain, more crying, and then maybe some crying. After that, I believe I cried.

But we're here, and the apartment is wonderful and WB and I have each other, which is the most important part of all. We also have the most amazing friends - on both sides of the mason dixon line - without whom we never ever could have done this. We had friends helping us through every stage of the process, from packing, to kidnapping me while packing and spiriting me away on an adventure involving lunch and the central park zoo, to the actual moving day (in which I would have lost my shit completely were it not for said friends who lovingly took over the entire process and forced me to sit and watch the truck as they hauled our life down 5 flights of stairs) to the unloading here in River City, Dixieland, as well as the unpacking, and the providing of watermelon and hugs to the freaked out pregnant lady. Our friends realy must love us or be very well paid by my parents, because they carried us so beautifully through the whole process from start to finish, all the while indulging me in my hormone induced fits of crying. That's friendship for you.

Moving day itself began on a rather ominous tone, as we were rear ended en route to pick up our moving van way the hell out in the Bronx. It was really such a minimal impact that the most damage it did was to my anxiety level, because of course I was terrified that the seat belt tightening below my womb would cause a miscarriage. Luckily I was wearing the seatbelt correctly, but of course it still scared the pants off of me. And that was just the begining. We had yet to even arrive at the U-Haul from hell.

Let me tell you that the customer service at the Riverdale U-Haul is, oh, less than stellar. Sp much less than stellar that the woman behind the counter could only have been ruder had she spit on us, which she was probably about to do had we stayed there 5 seconds more. The wait in line from the time of arrival onward was an hour...an hour people! there is no need for that! The U-Haul people are not building the trucks, they're just filling out the damn paperwork to rent them out! The worst blow, however, came when WB went to hand in his driver's license to complete the process. WB is from Puerto Rico, and he has a Puerto Rican driver's license. WHICH IS TOTALLY VALID IN THE UNITED STATES! Puerto Rico is a territory of the US! My father was able to out him on the driver's insurance of his car with a Puerto Rican license! Everyone knows this, clearly, except for U-Haul, who would not rent the moving van to WB.

I was less than thrilled about the prospect of driving a 10 foot truck for 7 hours, especially considering I had only slept for 2 hours the night before, so needless to say I asked to speak to the manager. The girl told me "He's outside". I has been waiting outside during the hour long wait in line (to refrain from screaming like a madwoman), and has seen the manager outside. With a bluetooth thingie stuck in his ear, talking on the phone. So I replied "Yes, I saw him outside, and I know he has a phone. So I'd like you to please call him on that phone and ask him to come in here to discuss this with me." She refused, claiming she didn't know the number, and besides, her "supervisor" had said it wasn't doable. That's when I started writing down names, or at least attempting to...our lovely lady behind the counter also refused to give me the name of her "supervisor", saying "She's right there, ask her yourself." Finally WB and Shaby-baby had to calm me down, before we were given the worst truck in the lot.

I did have one little lovely moment of revenge, however, when the rude rep told us that our 10 inch truck was ready. WB and I started laughing out loud, and he asked "Our 10 inch truck?" and she said, with quite the attitude,"Yeah, that's the size you ordered". I said "I don't think that's the size we ordered, at all. " and she said "Yeah, it is! It says right here, a 10 inch truck. That's what you ordered." and WB asked again, "Are you sure its a 10 inch trcuk?", as we continued to laugh the entire time. Rude Rep was more than a little peeved and said "Yeah, I don't know why that's so funny, cuz that's what you ordered!". I finally stopped laughing enough to say "No, I really don't think that's what we ordered. A 10 inch truck would only be about this big [showing the size with my hands]. I think we ordered a 10 foot truck." Rude Rep got all huffy and puffy and thoroughly embarassed and could only reply "Whatever." Revenge is sweet indeed.

A million thank yous to everyone who helped, even when they had shows to run to afterwards, and jobs waiting for them, and law papers to write. You are all wonderful people.

And now I must post this or it will never get done, its overdue enough as is.

In the Thick of It

I'm in the thick of it...surrounded by boxes and mess (and stress!) everywhere I look. So far my brain hasn't exploded, but I know its only a question of time really. I just wanted to take advantage of a quick moment in which I am neither packing or sobbing (a rare moment to find, really) to let you know that I am still breathing. That seems like a feat in and of itself right now. Lets hope it continues.