Sunday
Five days. How do five days pass without me writing a thing? It passes with foggy confusion, long bouts of nausea, loud and smelly gas, ripping belches and extreme indigestion. And this is me feeling better. It’s the stuff they don’t warn you about or a woman may never choose to purposely procreate. Hang in there, say my Mamma friends. It’s worth it.
I do notice myself looking at babies and children in a way that I never have before. The newborn in the grocery store, with the perfect curve of its little nose, sleeping as if still in utero. My own has started to swell a bit, a hard bump that makes wearing most of my pants uncomfortable. I vainly pray my belly will be my only body part that grows. Just you wait, says another Mamma “friend,” ‘til you hit six months and start eating cookies and donuts and ice cream and gain sixty pounds. Gee, thanks, I say. I know I’m still shy of the four-month mark, but at least my ass still fits in my favorite pair of jeans, even if I have to do the hair elastic trick with the button to keep them closed without suffocating me.
Too bad I can’t say the same about most of my shirts. I’ve jumped from a B to a D cup, and officially have the sort of breasts some women pay big dollars for. I have no idea why they do this, as every shirt I try on makes me look like I belong at the Red Garter unless it’s a size large enough where I look like I’m wearing a tent.
Food has been a funny thing. I’ve always had a bit of a problem keeping up with eating well-balanced meals, if I even ate at all. My idea of food would be carrot sticks while sitting at my computer or brunch at Camille’s that would hold me over all day. Thankfully Rob has jumped in on that end, feeding both me and baby-to-be no matter how odd my requests. The first few weeks were easy for him in that sense, as I couldn’t eat a darn thing without wanting to toss it back up. I was one of those who actually lost weight in the first three months. Now I’m on the pendulum to the other side, craving things like raw potatoes and popsicles. Not at the same time, though I’ll admit I just polished off a small package of bread stick crackers, a peach and am ready to dig into a baked potato with sour cream. We lunched at the Hogfish Bar & Grill and ate the quintessential basket lunch: fish, shrimp and chips, all deep friend complete with tartar sauce. But at least I didn’t fill the cart up with pop tarts and frozen pizza when Rob stocked me up for groceries before he heads back home.
Home. His is Mystic, where he caretakes a property for a wealthy couple rarely there. He does his job well, both on that estate and elsewhere, drove to the end of the road here in Key West as soon as he heard I wasn’t well, arrived quietly in the night and snuggled up with me in my sick-bed. He watched me through my nausea, and then he nurtured me through pneumonia. He drove me to my performances at the Red Barn each night, varnished and glued my materials for my exhibit since I no longer safely could and rubbed my back endlessly when I woke coughing blood and green gunk in the night. These are just a few of the many ways he showed his love and support during his five week stay. The word gratitude falls short of just how exactly I feel about this.
So far what I think this pregnancy has done best is to lead me to a deep sense of humility. I feel powerless to the physiological changes that are occurring inside of me, not to mention the emotional onslaught the hormones are incurring. With humility comes a letting go. I may not have the perfect plan or ideal scenario in which to bring this child into the world, but I have faith and my daily meditations, which lately I only have the energy to do while still laying in bed. And I have a partner I respect and admire, who I sense I can trust despite the fact that there is still so much about him I’ve yet to know. These things, coupled with love and a good attitude, ought to be more than enough. Yes, a blessing indeed, however ill or nervous I may tend to feel each day.
Still, this is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I hope I’ll start feeling well enough to think straight again, to go back to yoga, to enter that poetry place where all things feel divinely holy. For now, it’s all I can do to get through the day, to fall asleep and dream deeply, without waking six times to pee.
