We now have less than a week to go before our first ultrasound. Scott and I would be big liars if we told you that we weren't counting the hours. I'm looking forward to it for so many reasons, most of all because I feel like seeing the little blurb (or blurbs) and hearing the sound of a heart (or hearts) beating will finally make this whole thing feel real. It blows my mind that the reality of being pregnant still hasn't really sunk in to my thick head. I guess it's just hard to have faith and accept something so wonderful after such a long period of disappointment.
What is real, and hard to ignore, is my ever-changing body. Sickness and nausea continue to come and go, interspersed with periods of intense hunger. My thirst seems to finally be evening out a bit, and I've gotten into a good rhythm for drinking water that keeps my hydrated pretty well. I feel like my body has begun retaining a lot of water, because I feel bigger all over, even though I've been careful not to overeat, or eat badly. The occasional frozen yogurt indiscretion aside, I've been keeping things pretty healthy, though a little more protein-rich than usual.
My emotions are a little twitchy, and I am expending a good deal of energy trying to keep myself from stressing or worrying over things that I can't control. The fear of losing the pregnancy somehow keeps creeping in, through dreams mostly, but also on regular days, while I'm doing regular things. The last thing I want to do is feed the fear, so I brush it aside, and force myself to assume all is well, and all will continue to be well. Welcome to the rest of my life, right?
Last night I had my first real meltdown over that fear. I was cooking dinner, and about to leave home to go and moderate a panel at Book People downtown, when I burnt the inside of my hand on a hot dish. I'd left it next to the flame on the stovetop, and carelessly grabbed it by the corner with the entire palm of my left hand. I didn't even notice that it was hot until it was burning me. I've been burnt countless times, but this time I flipped out.
The flip out was slow and unexpected. I stuck my hand in a bowl of ice water and proceeded to finish dinner, assuming that the burn would mellow out after a few minutes, and that I would be able to power through and go ahead with my plans for the evening. But every time I took my hand out of the water, for even just a moment, the pain came, sharp and alarming. I'm usually prettty good with pain, but not last night. Like I said, I've been burnt too many times to count. It shouldn't have hurt that much, or at least I should have been able to deal with it. Instead, I panicked.
I tried to breath through it, worrying immediately that this stress and alarm could affect my pregnancy. I tried willing myself to ignore the pain, but I just couldn't. I wanted to cry, but I was too scared. I started barking orders at Scott. "Do the dishes!" "Go to CVS and get me a burn bandage!" "Find me some Tylenol!" The poor guy was getting put through the ringer, and he couldn't see what was really happening, that I was scared of getting hurt because I was scared it would hurt the baby (or babies).
So, he reacted by getting snippy and sarcastic. (Not such a good idea.) First their was fighting, then there was crying, and then more crying. I even cried when he apologized and finally realized that I was losing it. Needless to say I had to cancel my plans for the night, which I still feel guilty about, and caused, you guessed it, more crying.
Today I feel pretty normal, so I guess the little sweetpeas survived my little freakout. In hindsight, I suppose that your body must be built to accomodate emotional breakdowns. With hormones coming out of your nose you can't really be expected to hold it together 100% of the time. If your body spontaneously miscarried every time a pregnant woman broke into tears noone would ever be born, right?
Anyway, my first taste of hormonally charged negative emotions was a little scary. I'm thinking that I'm going to need to pair down my schedule a bit more if I want to make it through the next nine months with my sanity intact. Phew.