Still Waiting

I finished a draft of chapter 8 this week—something I’d hoped to accomplish a month ago, but the nausea got in the way. I’m pretty close to having a draft of my whole dissertation stitched together. It’s going to require a lot of cleaning up, but soon I will have something to send to my committee. Chances are they will hate it, and I will practically have to start over, but for the time being it feels like progress.

In the meantime, I am still waiting to get off the boat. This is week 15. I am well into the second trimester and have not experienced any relief. Back at Christmas when I started throwing up, I told myself that all I had to do was hold on until Valentine’s Day, and by then I would feel better. It’s two weeks past Valentine’s Day now, and I am still waiting. I guess the Zofran takes the edge off enough that I am not actually puking anymore, but I am still so nauseated that at times I feel like I am losing my mind. It requires enormous efforts to even get myself to a one-hour meeting at school or to go to the grocery store for whatever it is that I think I might be able to eat. It’s getting kind of hard to keep my spirits up.

I went back to yoga this week even though I felt terrible. The stretching and exercises are really nice, but the best part is at the end, when we do this relaxation technique. The instructor helped us all get ourselves propped up on pillows, and then she gave us each an herbal sachet to put over our eyes. It was very calming. There was no unzipping of the uterus this time, but the instructor did have us put our hands on our stomachs “to warm our babies.” I was like, “Are you kidding lady? It is 50 degrees in this room and my hands are like blocks of ice. If I put my hands on my stomach, Fig will shudder I tell you, shudder." But I guess Fig made it just fine.

After class Rob met me downtown and we ate dinner at Crane Alley. It is still amazing to me how I can eat through such mind-numbing nausea, particularly if someone else prepares the food. I had a portabella mushroom sandwich and French fries. It was the best thing I had ever tasted. I probably haven’t eaten French fries in over 15 years, but at the moment I have absolutely no control over my body. I completely foresee a 50 pound weight gain by the end of this pregnancy.

After the portabella mushroom sandwich and French fries incident, that was all I wanted to eat the next day. I finally went to the store and got some portabella mushroom caps, feta cheese*, and Kaiser rolls to try to recreate at least the sandwich part of the meal. The result was completely underwhelming and in fact, made me feel so sick that I had to curl into a ball and cry for a little while. I should have just had some Ritz crackers.

Today I went to a neighborhood coffee with the women of Vermont Avenue. Every month the ladies on my street get together for “fellowship,” which is something I really like about living here. Back in January, I forcibly drug myself to the meeting in between bouts of vomiting, and I remember distinctly promising myself that by February’s coffee, I would feel fine. Not so. I still felt as bad as I did in January, I just weigh about 10 pounds more and am no longer puking. Today I finally told them all about the upcoming Blessed Event, and the entire roomful of women squealed and clapped. I should point out that I am by far the youngest in attendance at these events: some of the women have children my age, but many of them have grandchildren my age or even older. Mrs. F, who is one of my favorite people ever, told me that she would never have said anything, but when I walked in she thought I looked pregnant and just had this feeling. I do look pregnant actually, but I think it has less to do with Fig (who is tiny) and more to do with the copious amounts Ritz crackers, avocados, and French fries I have eaten lately. Mrs. F also offered to babysit whenever I needed her, which is an offer I was definitely hoping she would make. I suspect we will be taking her up on it before long.

Well it’s been almost a whole hour since I’ve eaten anything, so I guess it is time to put something into my gargantuan stomach to try to keep this nausea at a semi-manageable level. Thanks for reading!

According to the internet, Fig was supposed to be the size of a lemon last week and an apple this week. I have both fruits and the apple was actually smaller, so we're just going to say lemon for now. Also please note that I am not actually as skinny as I look in the picture. It must be the lighting or angle, because I am fast approaching the most I have ever weighed in my entire life. A side view would show that I'm about twice the size that I was before.

* A note to the Baby Police: The feta cheese was pasteurized and posed no risks of listeria to myself or my unborn baby. You can turn off your sirens, put your handcuffs away, and go terrorize some other pregnant woman with ridiculous things to worry about.