...or for Worse

Today is revenge of the First Trimester.

I haven't felt this close to bonding with the porcelain throne due to pregnancy in 15 weeks. Every time I move, blink, swallow, I am consumed with a feeling of "grab your toothbrush and run - NOW!"

I sat through a morning meeting trying hard not to look at anyone, because any movement, any change in focus, any change in my carefully regulated breathing (a trick I learned as a kid plagued with horrible motion sickness) threatened to send me fleeing out of the room, as if pursued by invisible swarms of killer bees.

The problem is ... during my First Trimester a) I had a boss who couldn't handle having you at work if you even appeared that you might be sick, guaranteeing that my green pallor would earn me a one-way trip back home and b) I couldn't feel Baby Girl rolling around inside, which today is only adding to the misery (it's been a common issue - certain movements by Baby Girl bring on the motion sickness). I had also slept a little the night before, rather than tossing and turning because of a lack of comfortable positions and an onset of mild contractions.

I'm loathe to play the "I'm sick because I'm pregnant" card at work, since I've been here all of 5 weeks, and I don't want them thinking hiring a pregnant woman was a really bad idea.

In a perfect world, I want to curl up somewhere comfy (ha ha, is there such a thing at this point?) with a fruit smoothie (the only thing that I could sip/eat when having First Trimester misery), and lie perfectly still.

In reality, I still have a pile o' work on the "to do" list, that has to be done by tomorrow. And Wednesday is a holiday, making bailing out today even less appealing from a professionalism standpoint.

What I really want to know is how I managed to learn about the swelling, the swollen belly, the sciatic pain that plagues the third trimster, while missing the discourse on resurgance of hormonal insanity, "morning" sickness and general exhaustion reminiscient of the first trimester.

A friend e-mailed last week, "I would be pregnant more often if it didn't result in newborns." I would have to counter,, "I would probably end up with more newborns if it didn't involve being pregnant."

Baby Girl will be worth every minute, but at the moment, I can't think of things like that - it breaks my hard-fought concentration on keeping breakfast where it belongs.