I am now 17 weeks pregnant. I think that this past weekend, I started to feel the baby moving. But, I still don't feel connected much to the baby, and it really doesn't seem too real yet. I haven't been thinking about names, haven't started wearing maternity clothes, and am not really "excited" yet. (It seems like when people hear you're pregnant, they're excited for you and expect you to say that you're excited. I'm not sure how to describe what I'm feeling. Just fine about it, I guess.) I haven't told a lot of people in my ward yet, just because I feel kind of awkward about it. "Ahem. Attention everyone. I have an announcement to make." If the discussion comes around to babies, I mention it. But, I feel like there are a few more people that I need to tell before it's totally obvious just by looking at me. I think that when we find out what the baby's sex is and when the baby starts moving around more that I will start to get more into it.
There is a woman in my ward who is only a few weeks ahead of me. She is really petite, so it is obvious that she is pregnant. But, her pregnancy behaviors are surprising to me. Her hand always on the belly. Using her belly as a little shelf. The pregnancy walk. I doubt these things are conscious, but it seems too early for her to be doing all those things since I can't imagine myself doing those things in a few weeks. I'm sure it speaks to differences in our dispositions, and possibly even differences in our feelings about motherhood.
Then there's the "high-risk" thing. Ever time I've gone to the dr, it's come up. My age. And how my chances for x,y, and z are higher because my age puts me in the high risk category. At times, I was convinced that our baby would have Down's. I was relieved when the results from the maternal serum test came back normal. I have to get the super duper extra long ultrasound to check for a lot of extra stuff. I hope they stop mentioning it once that is done.
This summer was quite a low point for me. I think a few things contributed. MJ was not in school at all--the kids were always driving each other crazy and driving me crazy. The bickering seemed incessant and I felt like I couldn't go through a day without at least a minor breakdown. T stopped napping as soon as we got back from vacation. This was just the time when I started needing a nap every day. The first trimester exhaustion felt debilitating and I could hardly handle routine housework. The kids were just plain overwhelming. (A nice way to start a pregnancy. I can't even deal with the kids I have now. What'll it be like with a newborn?)
And I had so much rage. I don't know if it was hormonal or if it represented an emotional blowout of all my motherhood issues. I felt perpetually angry. It was a physical feeling in my chest and throat and I could scarcely contain myself. (I often did not.)
This is something I wrote in the middle of this summer about my anger:
I feel so angry lately. Is it because I am pregnant? Other women get emotional when they watch cheesy commercials, but I am angry. I have no patience with the kids. The smallest thing sets me off. I am going to ask the nurse this week if this could possibly be related to being prg. When I was p with T I was also angry during the first trimester, but I thought it was because I had been reading the Price of Motherhood. And because of all the crazy things that happened to me that first little while with the temple and how I felt like he was a girl, but then found out he was really a boy. I felt angry. I had to leave General Conference when I heard a woman equating motherhood with sacrifice. I just was angry.
Now, seeing how I am feeling right now, without all those external stresses that I had before (right now, I haven’t thought about the baby’s sex, things have been pretty calm, except for the transition to summer time and no nap for T) but I am angry. Maybe I will google it later and see if other pregnant women feel anger too. Could it be hormones? I would like to attribute it to that, but don’t know if I can. At least not completely. My kids are driving my crazy and I feel mad about having to stay home with them. I have no energy to do anything and my house is a mess right now. I am angry. How do I deal with this situation? I am not sure.
Structure. Maybe I just need more structure in our lives. I don’t like unpredictability and it seems like there is just so much open time in the days where I feel like I can hardly move. Should I let Toby stop napping? Would that make it easier to deal with my days? Or harder?
When I read Terry Tempest Williams' quotation about the moon and our energy, it resonated with me and I had hope that I would not always be in the crescent (or even new) moon stage. And sure enough, with the passing of summer, MJ staring 1st grade, and the end of the 1st trimester, I have felt a lot better. I don't remember the last time I needed a nap, and my moods are so much more even.
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