Category: Postcards from my uterus

Since I peed on the stick last week, I have only thought about being pregnant 682,465 times. This, I’m sure you will agree, is a remarkable improvement in restraint and shows definite progress in my attempts to curb the more obsessive side of my personality. This new zen attitude thing is really working out for me!

Not only do I continue to become more pregnant each day, but I am becoming less superstitious about talking about it. I like Fridays, because that’s the day I make the leap from the barely pregnant 5w6d to a very far-along and respectable 6w.

I am constantly reassured of my pregnant state in part because every morning I look at the peed-on stick in its place of honour on the lip of the bathroom counter (sidebar: when you are a sentimental and vaguely superstitious pack rat, at what point exactly is it okay to throw away the peed-on stick?) but mostly because the symptoms that have been the hallmarks of my previous pregnancies make themselves more apparent each day. I’m a little more peckish than usual, and my stomach rolls unpleasantly as soon as it detects anything close to hunger. My attention span, not good on the best of days, is practically non-existent.

*looks around*
*blinks*
*notices you waiting*

Oh, sorry about that. What was I saying? Right, pregnancy symptoms. I’m crushed under the weight of a fatigue so big that even Rip Van Winkel’s 20-year nap wouldn’t take the edge off of it, which is nicely complemented by the fact that where I usually sleep like a happy log, my sleep all week has been fitful and punctuated by stretches of insomnia.

The crankiness? Oh, no, that’s not a pregnancy symptom. That’s just me.

Hard though it is to believe, my abdomen is already swelling, too. I suppose being on my fifth (!!)pregnancy and having borne children that were larger than some charted asteroids has weakened my abdominal wall beyond repair. I had barely finished peeing on the stick when my stomach pooched out. All I can say is thank god for drawstring summer pants.

Speaking of size, I guess this pretty much halts the progress of my steady but incremental weight loss. I weigh just a little bit less than I did last summer, and have lost a total of nine pounds since February. I think I’ve gained three since last Wednesday. I think I just gained another one there while I was thinking about it. I’m sure this has nothing to do with the fact that the baby made me eat poutine for lunch yesterday and spicy sausages and perogies for dinner. Willfull little creature, it is. It’s been demanding butter tarts for three days, and only the fact that Farm Boy was sold out of them has prevented me from acquiesing – which, of course, has only intensified the craving. Oops, I think I just added another pound just thinking about it.

I work on the edge of the Byward Market, fer crissake, home of some of the best restaurants, cafés and shops in the city of Ottawa. Surely to god I can find a decent butter tart out there somewhere, right? Oh, and for my American friends: a butter tart is like a personal-sized pecan pie, with or without the pecans, occasionally with raisins or walnuts, but gooey-er and altogether more decadent.

Uh, excuse me. I have a – um, a thing to do. Yes, an important butter tart work-related thing. To get. I mean, to do. Quick, point me in the direction of the nearest bakery, it’s an emergency!

Edited to add: I love my peeps. Kerry and Trixie came back from a coffee break with not one but TWO butter tarts for me. And Beloved called to say he found a box of my favourite pecan butter tarts at the grocery store this morning. Oh, heavenly tarty goodness…

As I mentioned, yesterday was my Dad’s birthday. I was thinking about his birthday on the weekend, and remembered that it was four years ago on his birthday that we told my parents that I was pregnant with Simon.

I had found out that day or the day before, and had had a hard time keeping the secret even that long. I remember practically dancing from foot to foot in their sunny living room, telling him that he was going to get a present for his birthday but that it would take nine months to be delivered. Dad regarded me for a long moment with a confused look on his face, obviously aware of some hidden message but not quite able to piece it together. My mother, on the other hand, squealed in a lovely supersonic yelp that might have been, ‘REALLY?’ before we both burst into tears and fell into a hug. Looking back, it’s sweetly ironic now that Simon and Papa Lou have a special bond that defies description. It hasn’t occured to me for years that we announced his pending arrival as a birthday gift to my Dad.

I have to admit, I’ve been thinking a lot about that May, back in 2003, as this month unfolded. Of course, I started the month with babies on my brain as my lost due date came and went just before our cottage weekend. And here we find ourselves deep in the thick of a hockey playoff season, just like we were in 2003. For those of you who haven’t read it, the story of how I found out I was pregnant with Simon has always been one of my very favourite stories, and I’ll wait if you want to go read it and see what I mean.

*waits*

*checks watch*

*waits*

See? I mean, of course I’m biased, but I’ve always loved that story. And each year, I can’t help but smile nostagically as I hop back on to the hockey bandwagon, because exciting playoff hockey games and happy news are now inextricably linked in the mythology of my family.

I’ve been conscious, as the month of May passed this year with its many highs and lows, of that blissful May four years ago. So much so that when I found myself a few days late again this month, I couldn’t help but smile. I am, after all, only a couple of days late. I really do know better than to get excited over a mere couple of days.

But I kept thinking about buying that test and bringing it home, and it was a Wednesday four years ago, too. And I kept remembering that hockey game back in 2003, and how exciting it was having the game and the big maybe all tied up in my brain, and I couldn’t help but think about tonight’s game, Game Two. And when I found myself wide awake at 2:30 in the morning for the second night running, I puzzled over my insomnia for a while before realizing that the only other times I have suffered insomnia have been while I was pregnant.

So I went out at lunchtime today, and I bought a test. A two-pack, of course.

And then when I got back to the office, I just couldn’t stand having the damn thing there and not doing anything about it, so I decided what the hell. I’ll take the test. So on my lunch break, with far from my first morning urine in a stall in the office bathroom, I took the test.

And it was positive! A big, dark, immediate and unmistakable plus sign. I’m pregnant!

So I’ve been walking around my office all afternoon with a positive pregnancy test tucked safely in my pocket, and Fates be Damned, I’ve been having a lot of fun flashing it to a select group of my absolutely lovely, sweet and supportive colleagues, none of whom flinched at me waving a peed-on stick around in front of them and several of whom cried or squealed in delight or did both.

Oh, and speaking of colleagues? Shhhhh! What we say in the blogosphere stays in the blogosphere, at least for now, okay?

Four weeks down, 36 to go…