5 Weeks, 5 Days

Well, I would have written sooner but between you sucking the life right out of me and your older brother's birthday bash, I've had a hard time of it.

The fact that you can flatten me so terrifically really strikes home how hard my body is working for us.  I can go about my days relatively normally until I just can't anymore.  My eyes start closing without permission or apology.  I have taken to napping nearly every day as it's necessary for me at this point in time.  I rather like it and am at a point where I can afford the luxury of spoiling myself.  Creux is a great napper, down for three hour stretches, and I've even been able to convince Greer to join me most days.  The boys are far enough ahead in their schoolwork that I can take the afternoons off so long as I crack the whip when I wake.

And I do :) 

What's new with us?

Well, my body is shot and how I will hide this pregnancy another week is beyond my comprehension.  I went shopping with your Daddy on Thursday and bought some hip maternity jeans over at Gap.  If there IS such a thing as hip maternity jeans, I mean.  But let me tell you, I also picked up some clearanced spring/summer things and we are going to be ADORABLE come April!  I will be big and round, cutely so, not totally waddling yet, and definitely not wailing about my condition.  That all comes in June.  By the first week of July, I will be in tatters, emotionally and physically.  So, grow fast, my love.  Any day sooner than the 9th will endear you to me forever and anything past...well, let's just say you don't want to be "The One" who does that to me.  I will remind you until I lay upon my death bed, how you took your sweet, sweet time arriving, forcing me to drive everyone around me crazy.  Me, I went crazy long ago. 

I started slipping into that paranoia thing again on Sunday night. 
Were my boobs still sore?  More or less than the day before?  Was the soreness diminishing?
Why was I still awake at 1:00am?  Shouldn't I be so tired I feel drugged?  What if something is going wrong?

I awoke on Monday and immediately began following Daddy around the house, lamenting over this non-knowledge of mine. 
I listened as he reassured me that everything was fine. 
But I also listened to myself.
Do you know what I say when something is very, very wrong with one of my children?
The words that come to me are these: "Something's not right."
I said that when I lost my baby-before-Greer, and I said those exact words when your sister became extremely sick last winter. 
I was dead-on right both times.

I wasn't saying those words, what I was saying were just...worries. 
There wasn't any certainty in my statements--my gut says you're fine, you're growing strong, but my mind wants confirmation.
(So much so that I've decided to call the midwife tomorrow and find out if I will be hearing a heartbeat on my first appointment.  You can bet your tiny little tail that I will be requesting one--and my first ultrasound, too.  The ultasound will probably have to be scheduled but the heartbeat should be no problem.  I need to hear you.)

Anyway, I went through this whole big waa-waa, "what-if" thing...and then I promptly vomited into the toilet.
My triggers are sink food (the yuck you dump down the drain) and ESPECIALLY a dirty dishwasher.  When it's partially filled with dishes but is just waiting for a few more for a full run and I yank open the door...the smell turns my stomach inside out.

I knew I was going to vomit so, after spitting in the toilet three times, I decided to clean it with the brush really quickly before leaning back over and emptying the contents of my tummy.
I am COMPLETELY weird about sticking my darling face into the nasty, recently-used, potty for morning sickness purposes.
Your father has been put on notice that the downstairs bathroom must be PRISTINE at all times because gross toilet stuff makes me wretch harder in there.

Today I debated the merit of puking outside instead.
Might it be better than the toilet?
I think I'd like it more--the fresh air, the lack of urine smell.
But then I wonder what the neighbors might think if they catch me in the corner of my backyard, heaving my breakfast into the grass.
It's something worth considering.
Throwing up is a wicked part of pregnancy and is something that I will have to deal with for a good month and a half.
Every. Single. Day.
So maybe I should heave where I want to heave, right?
If I try it, I'll let you know.

Speaking of that, I almost gave us away at dinner tonight.
Imagine my sensitive-tummy horror when Daddy places on the dinner table...chicken legs.
We do not eat chicken legs and wings, we are a breast-only family.
We are chicken snobs, not scavengers for crying out loud!
But he'd picked up a rotisserie chicken and tossed most of it into a salad but the boys just tore into those legs and....wow. 
I didn't think I was going to make it.
Watching them pull slimy bits out of their shiny-with-grease mouths started me gagging right there and then.
Shortly after, I bit into a really flavorful piece of spinach and ended up bent over with a napkin covering my face.  I was gagging AGAIN! 
Eating will become harder for me as this sickness progresses.
I'm not entirely upset about that because I am currently consuming everything that isn't nailed down.
What do you DO with all of that food, anyway?  You're like the size of a dot!

We're almost six weeks! 
Your heart should be beating by now and I wonder...what was I doing then, at the moment that it first pulsed?  When you snapped that last little piece in place and got it up and running.  Was I sleeping?  Sitting at co-op, laughing with my friends?  Driving one of the many carpools? 
All of these things, so ordinary, and I'll never know at what moment your heart began beating but whatever I was doing, I was oblivious to the most amazing of things.

You are a miracle.
It's true.

Loving you already,
Mama