By the skin of my teeth

I spent last week in the verdant hills of the Central Valley, approximately 30 miles from Fresno. The last round of botany surveys (on this project) sent us to the east side of the valley, among the mariposa and datura, and the intoxicating perfume of orange and lemon blossoms wafting up on warm breezes from the citrus orchards below. Last week I hiked from the foreground of this photo (actually, about a quarter mile from it) to the bottom of the last big hill in the background. Only a couple miles, as a crow flies, but it felt like forever when climbing a hill with a 45° pitch for a half mile.

You can see by the angle of the tree trunks and fence posts to the hill the steepness of my climb. I had the worst of it, being on the steepest side. I just put my head down and wove back and forth in a tight zigzag pattern to keep from sliding down the dirt cow path (I still ended up sliding, and grabbing the wooden fence post to break my fall yielded a stout splinter in my thumb). If I stopped too long to catch my breath, the mosquitoes would get me, so I really had to keep moving. I cursed under my breath the entire time, but felt like a complete champion at the top. It'dve been a tough stroll for anyone, but pregnancy adds the sweet nuance of being at 5000 feet above sea level - the shortness of breath we experience from the ongoing surge in progesterone makes even normal tasks feel monumental.

I'm still finding myself too nauseous to blog about food, or even look at photos of it (sorry about the slack in my commenting, but I assure you I'm still visiting), and I'm still pretty iffy on eating much but ice cream and fruit (I've moved on to a cantaloupe-with-a-little-salt kick), but I find that what really helps with the puky feelings is staying active and moving around. Not always what I want to do when I'm tired, but even puttering around the garden for a few hours helps.

Dream a Little Dream

I dreamt about the baby last night, that I was nursing it in the backseat of a car. It wasn't the first time I've dreamed that I had a baby, or even that I'd nursed, but it was the first one since I've been carrying a little blob around in me. In my dream, it just latched right on and went for it, and left me feeling like it would be obvious and natural, and I wondered how women could possibly need to be trained in nursing their babies. But this was just a dream, and I suppose I'll have to be taught how to properly insert the nipple and plug it against the alveolar ridge, just like many American women.

The baby in my dream was a generic Everybaby - big, dark eyes; a soft, round face and silky, brownish hair on its head. It was genderless, as are all babies spare the colors in which they're dressed. It was an amalgam of all of the babies you see on tv or in magazines, and I loved it. I keep having the feeling that I'm carrying a girl, maybe even two of them.

This weekend we're going to visit Ecohaus for green flooring options and no-VOC paints. We need to replace all of the flooring in the upstairs (and repaint) thanks to the complex social lives of cats. Unfortunately, this means spending around $4/sq ft instead of $1/sq ft to get something guilt-free that won't offgas our baby into asthma.

We're going for a Totoro theme for the nursery, and I can't wait to start painting snails, ferns and jack-in-the-pulpits in the forest on the walls. Plus this will fold a most beloved franchise perfectly into all of the Fuzzy Town shit that I've been dying to start collecting (seriously, the baby flying squirrel and owlets make me squee). I heard a horrible, terrible rumor that Fuzzy Town had closed its business, but the website being online is giving me hope. Plus the store that told me that said it was a Japanese company, and this appears to be in Washington.

Feeling fine...a little *too* fine

Something a little new this week (sort of starting over the weekend) is that the nausea has really subsided. Like, I feel totally fine (just always peckish). I was talking to Susan about being queasy all the time, and she said that she had been glad for her nausea during her pregnancy with Sage. The first couple of pregnancies she had didn't take, and the abrupt cessation of her pregnancy symptoms was always followed immediately by spotting and miscarriage. So of course now I'm totally paranoid, though that I'm not spotting probably means it's sticking around. Besides, my mom always said that she was never sick, and something like 20-30% of pregnant women aren't sick in their first trimester. Still, the rates of miscarriage are significantly lower in women who are sick, so I'm a little worried.

I'm feeling kind of silly about how pregnant I look, even though I'm only 8 weeks along. I look at least 4 or 5 months pregnant, thanks to bloating and distention (yay, constipation and gas!). At least now people can tell pretty easily that I'm pregnant, and not just fat.

Hey, has anyone ever tried the BabyPlus system? I'm very curious about it - it sounds like drum and bass for fetuses. I know I'm not going to give birth to a baby fluent in Mandarin by putting headphones on my abdomen, but supposedly this "prenatal education" system is linked with higher rates of alertness, calmness and nursing at birth, plus learning first words at around 6 months instead of 9 months. Though if we go with infant sign language (which I always wanted to try, and of which I have witnessed the amazing efficacy in the Hopester), the kid will hopefully be able to communicate plenty. I'm thinking of picking the BabyPlus anyways, though, since I'm completely nuts about the idea of building a wee Zen genius. Plus, I like the idea of being able to play similar music after the baby is born for a calming effect during fussy times.

Okay, starving now. Strawberries and a cheese stick, coming right up.

Something actually worked

I filled up on cereal, brownies and milk right before bed, and no morning ick. Win! Throat still feels cracky-dry/sore in the morning, but I can live with that.

Saw my coworker/new BFF Becca last night with her newborn Jake. It's funny how when you tell a woman (pregnant or mom) that you're With Child you instantly share a new bond, like war buddies. Brought her some rigatoni with homemade Bolognese (canned from homegrown heirloom tomatoes last summer), a baguette, and some of the brownies. She swapped me some pregnancy books (can't remember the titles but one is a general pregnancy/birth book and the other is something like Raising a Green Baby or sommat). I need to remember to take advantage of offers for loaners and swaps, since pregnancy is fleeting and I really don't need to own every pregnancy book on the market.

Scott is reading The Expectant Father (thanks again for the rec, Natasha!) and really stepping up to the plate. He cleans and offers to fix dinner much more often than he used to. I think he's starting to get it.

Letting go of the notion that I can do everything myself (clean house, gourmet meals, homegrown organic veggies, etc.), plus work full time, plus maintain a blog and social life is taking some work, and some priority shuffling.

It Begins

I'm not quite vomiting, and won't bother pulling the trigger since I know it's not coming from my stomach, but I've begun to experience the joys of progesterone blood poisoning. I feel perpetually hung-over with nowt to do about it but eat pomes (apples and/or pears) and try to stay hydrated. Peppermint tea is nice. Moaning and whining helps a little.

The smell of OPF (other people's food) is so not helping.

Sore Tits and Insomnia

Well, it's been a week since I peed on a stick (twice, just in case) and though I haven't really been "feeling" it, my tits are officially sore. They fucking hurt. Every now and then my arm will brush past and it's like they felt when I first grew them.

I also have been experiencing interrupted sleep. I used to sleep like an angel, even with a full bladder I could just roll over and sleep it off. Nothing fazed me. I didn't even know that S has bouts of insomnia, as I always blithely slept through his tossing and turning, his heavy sighs of frustration as I either robbed him of blankets or shoved them all on top of him (whichever is worst, I seem to do, it turns out). Not anymore. Now I wake every night from weird dreams, then realize I need to pee, and when I return to bed S is harumphing to himself and I can't get back to sleep for at least an hour (if I'm lucky enough to wake before 5am).

I guess since my last period was on February 18, I'm technically about three weeks along. Does that mean I'm in my second month? The books are so confusing about when your pregnancy actually started. I picked a couple more today on Natasha's recommendation: The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy (already WAY better than that kumbaya snoozefest What To Expect When You're Expecting, and extremely reminiscent of my bloggy gf Brittany's writing) and The Expectant Father for S, so he can read something besides blurbs on the internet.

I leave on Sunday for the field for 5 days. I'm a little worried about being exhausted and starving the entire time (it'll be ten-hour days in the sun), and about having to explain myself earlier than I want. Luckily, I'm working with all women this time - last year I had to hunker down in an abandoned oil refinery to change a tampon because I was working with all dudes in the middle of a grassland.

JoJo the Embryo

I found out I'm pregnant a week ago. We've nicknamed my uterine parasite "Cletus the Fetus", though it's still an embryo for a couple more months. "JoJo the Embryo" doesn't have the same zing as Cletus the Fetus.

S didn't have the celebratory reaction I was hoping for. It was planned and everything, but he's being guarded in case of bad news (he's seen it before in friends and coworkers). But I'm young and healthy, so I feel kinda like I've been robbed of a perfectly good reason to celebrate.

I listen to a lot of Joni Mitchell, Kenny Loggins and Steely Dan lately - seems gentler on the system (though I do still listen to Talib Kweli and NERD at the gym).