Week 11
There is a pulsing in my uterus.
I noticed it a couple of weeks ago, mostly when I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep for the night. I would arrange the pillows, pull the covers up, snuggle in and then it would start. It was like a little engine turning on. Then for awhile, it stopped, and I started to worry. But last night, it started again.
I asked my mother if she remembered feeling anything like this but she said she cannot remember what happened to her 28 years ago, so I am assuming this is normal. She does not seem to think that I should be feeling anything but I swear I can feel something going on in there. All the books say that yes, the baby is moving at this point but no, you cannot feel it. I know this is not what I am feeling. I think I am just feeling “activity”. Stuff growing, moving around. I never felt any of this the last pregnancy. In fact, I felt nothing the last pregnancy. I had no nausea, and hardly any breast pain. This time is totally different and I hope to jeebus it’s a good sign.
I’m also moody.
Case in point: When I got home last night I started opening the Christmas cards that we have been receiving over the last two days. One of the cards is from a guy from my husband’s crew. Actually, the card is from his wife really. My husband is pretty close with this guy, and he and his wife just moved around the corner from us. Nice people. Anyway. I have met her once and him twice, so I don’t really know them all that well. I open the card from them and a letter and a picture of their 9 month old baby fall out. Huh.
Before I go on I must preface this by giving a small background. This coworker and friend of my husband’s and his wife are both each others second marriage. She is around 36 and I think he is 40 or so. So anyways, they get married and start trying to have a baby. It’s a long and complicated process but finally she gets pregnant. This is all my husband’s coworker/friend talks about at work. Right down to her boobs during the pregnancy. As my hubby and I were then thinking about trying at the whole baby thing, he would come home and regale me with tales of her boobs and whatever else was going on with her pregnant body. Slightly inappropriate I thought, but whatever. My husband thought this would be helpful information for me to have.
Anyway, she has the kid. Then all I hear about (again through my husband) is about her nipples, breastfeeding and how depressed she is that she still has five extra pounds of baby weight that she cannot lose (yeah, I wanted to strangle her too). At this point, I am pregnant and I begin to feel the shine is being taken away from me because all my husband does is come home and tell me about some other woman’s baby. Then I have a miscarriage. My husband is then banned from talking about the other couple and their perfect little baby. Actually, I believe it was in the midst of a breakdown that I said “I am sick of hearing about their perfect little fucking life. Do they think that everyone in the world is as interested in their baby as they are?”
I recover.
Back to the letter. I open the letter. It is one of those letters that people send out to their families every year that gives an update on what happened to their unit over the last year. Reading this letter is difficult not only because of the bad font she used, but because my eyes are now fighting me to roll back into my head while I am trying to read this thing.
To summarize it: we’re so happy, baby is so perfect, we couldn’t be happier, we just moved in to a giant new house and all of our family lives in the neighbourhood too and isn’t that just so perfect because we are all together and everything is so wonderful, oh I better run I have to redecorate our entire giant new house and then I am going to the gym to work out for 2 hours and I am so perfect this is making you sick.
I realize this is going to make me sound a tad negative but WHAT THE FUCK AM I GOING TO DO WITH A PICTURE OF YOUR FUCKING BABY? I have met you once. Why are you sending me the letter that should only be sent to family members and close friends who give a shit what you are doing? My husband thinks I am being bitchy. Fine. He did however agree with me that the letter was pretty gay.
I know what it is that’s bothering me. Since my hubby has become close with this guy all I hear about is how much money they make, what a high up position she holds in the company she works at, how she is obsessed with going to the gym, how they are both perfectionists, every sordid detail of her pregnancy and birth…I could go on. These are people that think everyone wants to hear about everything they do. As a private person, this sickens me. As a not so perfect, realistic, somewhat misanthropic, brooding type, it makes me want to scream.
I find myself wondering sometimes if my husband would prefer me to be more like those women. The ones who scrapbook everything; who know how to bake and to sew. Who look even better after they give birth; who don’t know what cellulite looks like; who never have a negative comment about anything ever.
I know he knows who he married. But sometimes I worry. My mood is up and down at the best of times. I’m not a sad person, but I am not in a perpetual state of happiness either. When I tell him things about my mood and how I sometimes feel like I am going downhill a bit, he just tells me to lighten up a little and try to be happy. Maybe it’s just the pregnancy that is making me feel this way. I am finding that I am extra sensitive to things. Perhaps this is just a funk that I will get over. No other pregnant woman I talk to seems to remember feeling this way.
I am ever the black sheep.
I noticed it a couple of weeks ago, mostly when I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep for the night. I would arrange the pillows, pull the covers up, snuggle in and then it would start. It was like a little engine turning on. Then for awhile, it stopped, and I started to worry. But last night, it started again.
I asked my mother if she remembered feeling anything like this but she said she cannot remember what happened to her 28 years ago, so I am assuming this is normal. She does not seem to think that I should be feeling anything but I swear I can feel something going on in there. All the books say that yes, the baby is moving at this point but no, you cannot feel it. I know this is not what I am feeling. I think I am just feeling “activity”. Stuff growing, moving around. I never felt any of this the last pregnancy. In fact, I felt nothing the last pregnancy. I had no nausea, and hardly any breast pain. This time is totally different and I hope to jeebus it’s a good sign.
I’m also moody.
Case in point: When I got home last night I started opening the Christmas cards that we have been receiving over the last two days. One of the cards is from a guy from my husband’s crew. Actually, the card is from his wife really. My husband is pretty close with this guy, and he and his wife just moved around the corner from us. Nice people. Anyway. I have met her once and him twice, so I don’t really know them all that well. I open the card from them and a letter and a picture of their 9 month old baby fall out. Huh.
Before I go on I must preface this by giving a small background. This coworker and friend of my husband’s and his wife are both each others second marriage. She is around 36 and I think he is 40 or so. So anyways, they get married and start trying to have a baby. It’s a long and complicated process but finally she gets pregnant. This is all my husband’s coworker/friend talks about at work. Right down to her boobs during the pregnancy. As my hubby and I were then thinking about trying at the whole baby thing, he would come home and regale me with tales of her boobs and whatever else was going on with her pregnant body. Slightly inappropriate I thought, but whatever. My husband thought this would be helpful information for me to have.
Anyway, she has the kid. Then all I hear about (again through my husband) is about her nipples, breastfeeding and how depressed she is that she still has five extra pounds of baby weight that she cannot lose (yeah, I wanted to strangle her too). At this point, I am pregnant and I begin to feel the shine is being taken away from me because all my husband does is come home and tell me about some other woman’s baby. Then I have a miscarriage. My husband is then banned from talking about the other couple and their perfect little baby. Actually, I believe it was in the midst of a breakdown that I said “I am sick of hearing about their perfect little fucking life. Do they think that everyone in the world is as interested in their baby as they are?”
I recover.
Back to the letter. I open the letter. It is one of those letters that people send out to their families every year that gives an update on what happened to their unit over the last year. Reading this letter is difficult not only because of the bad font she used, but because my eyes are now fighting me to roll back into my head while I am trying to read this thing.
To summarize it: we’re so happy, baby is so perfect, we couldn’t be happier, we just moved in to a giant new house and all of our family lives in the neighbourhood too and isn’t that just so perfect because we are all together and everything is so wonderful, oh I better run I have to redecorate our entire giant new house and then I am going to the gym to work out for 2 hours and I am so perfect this is making you sick.
I realize this is going to make me sound a tad negative but WHAT THE FUCK AM I GOING TO DO WITH A PICTURE OF YOUR FUCKING BABY? I have met you once. Why are you sending me the letter that should only be sent to family members and close friends who give a shit what you are doing? My husband thinks I am being bitchy. Fine. He did however agree with me that the letter was pretty gay.
I know what it is that’s bothering me. Since my hubby has become close with this guy all I hear about is how much money they make, what a high up position she holds in the company she works at, how she is obsessed with going to the gym, how they are both perfectionists, every sordid detail of her pregnancy and birth…I could go on. These are people that think everyone wants to hear about everything they do. As a private person, this sickens me. As a not so perfect, realistic, somewhat misanthropic, brooding type, it makes me want to scream.
I find myself wondering sometimes if my husband would prefer me to be more like those women. The ones who scrapbook everything; who know how to bake and to sew. Who look even better after they give birth; who don’t know what cellulite looks like; who never have a negative comment about anything ever.
I know he knows who he married. But sometimes I worry. My mood is up and down at the best of times. I’m not a sad person, but I am not in a perpetual state of happiness either. When I tell him things about my mood and how I sometimes feel like I am going downhill a bit, he just tells me to lighten up a little and try to be happy. Maybe it’s just the pregnancy that is making me feel this way. I am finding that I am extra sensitive to things. Perhaps this is just a funk that I will get over. No other pregnant woman I talk to seems to remember feeling this way.
I am ever the black sheep.
posted by vegan mum at 10:02 AM
1 Comments:
You havent talked to the right pregnant people... or they were pregnant too long ago to remember what they were feeling during their first trimester or whatever. I remember being sick. I remember being moody... all throughout my pregnancy and it got worse towards the end to the point that I was a giant ball of tears and getting me to cry is normally pretty hard. My mom would say things that would set me off. I would see some skinny celebrity who just had a baby on tv and get pissed off and throw the remote across the room because she looked better AFTER having her baby than she did before. I understand and REMEMBER what you were going through and it's seriously comforting (in a way, morbidly I guess) to know that I wasnt the only one and now you're going through the same thing. Andrew would say the slightest thing and it would set me off... or he'd tell me about Susan's daughter's pregnancy and how well she's doing and how well she's looking. WTF. I DONT CARE. This is MY pregnancy and I'm the only one in the world you should be talking about or looking at. At one point I remember asking him if he talked about me as much as he told me about Susan's daughter. He made the mistake of admitting that no he didnt, which set me off again. It's a vicious cycle that should end about 10 days after having your baby, I swear! It'll end with you looking at your sleeping baby in the crib, or sitting in the blessed silence that you'll learn to cherish while your kidlet is sleeping and then all of a sudden you'll burst into tears for no reason in particular and there's nothing your hubby can do that will be able to console you. He just has to let you sit there for 5-10 minutes while your tear ducts reset and your body does a manual reboot and then those often spoken of but nobody (excep for me) admits to having Baby(and pre-baby) Blues will be gone. I do recommend taking a few weeks worth of an evening prenatal class through your local college or health office. It not only prepares you but it enlightens him as to what you're going through and will go through!
I hate christmas letters too... especially from people you hardly know or never talk to except for getting a christmas card from them around the holidays. I hate them so much I refuse to send them out. And nobody gets my baby pictures unless I know you're gonna put them up on your mantle or on your fridge and then when the next batch of baby pictures come out, you put them in a box that you keep everyone elses baby pictures in and keep them forever.
Take it easy, Jenn-eh, and remember that you're not alone, just nobody remembers or wants to admit to remembering. I wish I lived closer so I could bring you a big box of chocolates and sit on your couch and swap stories, but I dont, so the blogging will hafta to.
Katie
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