Thanks

Thank you for making me a mommy. Everyone needs something they can count on.

Pregnancy- Week 20.5 ish

Here I am- half-way through my second pregnancy. Looking back, the first part of the pregnancy rolled along quite quickly. I was so busy with tax season, the house hunting, jack, and everything else that I really didn't have time to think "I'm pregnant". I was waiting for the day when things would slow down and I would be truly aware of every passing day.

I have always felt there was a stigma that it was selfish to not like being pregnant. Like there is something wrong with you if you hate trying to heave yourself out of bed every morning, or fanangle and try to contort yourself when you try and get out of a car or chair or even off the freaking toilet (where you spend 89.987% of your day). So sue me if I do not like feeling exhausted everyday of my life. I have read more articles than I can count about how the second trimester is so wonderful and you have so much energy and all you want to do is run around and jump up and down and smile because you are SO awake. I am not awake. I am tired. I hurt, I am uncomfortable, I am moody, I feel handicap because I can't do whatever I want- god forbid I carry my own groceries to my own car because I am pregnant and obviously incapable. And, no I do not like gaining 50 lbs. If I see one more skinny pregnant woman in a magazine I am going to go postal (yes even more so than I am now, if you can believe that) Do not tell me all you crave is carrots and turkey on whole wheat toast. I DONT BELIEVE YOU! Do not take away the one time a woman is allowed to be fat, don't you dare.

Don't get me wrong, the moment that baby comes out and you meet for the first time everything you had to go through was completely worth it. Until then, however, I will moan and groan my way through cursing every step my sore and swollen feet take. I am sure this will not be my last pregnancy, and I will probably B&^%$ and moan the whole way through that one. So why do we put ourselves through it again and again? Because of the wonderful thing I like to call motherhood amnesia. And the instant little Grace is in my arms, the prior 9 months will seem but a dream. Somehow you forget everything you went through and how you felt- and the same goes for those sleepless nights following, because if that didn't happen I think the human race would have died out along time ago.

This little piggy cried "We we we" all the way home

Oh you cute little piglets- how could you cause so much turmoil within my life? What is wrong with you? Were you not aware of my pre-conditioned paranoias or my inability to rationally cope with end of the world prophecies and global epidemics? Have you not seen the movie "Outbreak"? Were you not aware that I saw the movie "Arachniphobia" at the tender age of 8 and could not sleep under my covers for 4 months in fear that if I did absentmindedly stick my feet under the blankets I would succomb to some flesh eating spider that was patiently waiting to eat me?

Sigh- looking back on the Swine Flu hysteria, I admit, perhaps I allowed myself to become obsessed with fear and swept up in the media's ability to scare me. It probably did not help that the day before the whole thing really exploded, my husband was watching a special on 12/21/2012. Deep down, I do not believe the world is really going to end on that day (with my luck it will be 12/22/2012 instead), but my heart can be convinced to beat out of my chest with an hour long session of people telling me how many other people predicted this thousands of years ago.

I suppose I have always had a slight inclination of "worst case scenerio" paranoia. Like, lately my inner ear has been jabbing a little bit- it is probably a brain tumor and not simply my allergy ridden sinuses. Things, however, have increased as since I became a mother and now that I am a mother of one and one on the way. Everything is more precarious and if I could have I would have locked my entire family in a germ free bubble last week to protect them from having contact with anyone anywhere. My husband mentioned going to a Pirate game with his friend and my first reaction was, "but what about the swine flu?". Obsessive- yes, overly paranoid- perhaps, but am I ready - you bet. I may not have 60 gallons of bottled water and 10 years worth of nonperishables in my basement,....or do I?