Friday, January 4, 2013

True feelings about Pregnancy...


Thursday, January 3rd, 2013

Today was an exciting but exhausting day. So I dropped Ben off at school and then rushed to eat breakfast. That is the one thing about this pregnancy that I REALLY don’t like. It’s that my life completely revolves around FOOD. It goes like this, “Oh my gosh I need to eat or I’m going to puke.” So I grab something to eat and it makes me think this, “I’m so not hungry but I must eat or else I feel like I’m going to die!!!” Then I eat and struggle to gulp bits of food down. Ever tried to eat cereal when extremely nauseated?! It is terrible. Then, suddenly…its like the sun appears and I feel AMAZING! The dizzy is gone, the nausea abated, and I feel like I can continue with a normal life.

15 minutes later the glorious food I struggled so hard down my throat is in the toilet. As I flush I grimace as I realize how similar it looks in that porcelain white toilet bowl as it did in its original porcelain white cereal bowl. I must’nt have digested at all! There the food is, in all its glory, a little soggy, but still food. It is so GROSS I vow I can never eat that food again. (By the way this occurs so often my list has become invariably long: panda express, nachos, caesar salad, chicken salad, bannanas, my favorite Thai restaurant, barbeque chicken, ham sandwiches, chili, costa vida, and etc. –all these foods forever banned, at least until scarred brain undo the gluing of these food images to the smell of vomit, and I feel those images are permanently there).

But hey, surprisingly, after I throw up whatever I so painfully ate, I kinda feel like eating again. That feeling of really shaky, dizzy, and I just might pass out comes again and I’m like, “Food! Now!” so some dutiful friend (most usually this falls on my Ben or mom) searches through the fridge like it’s the depths of despair trying agonizingly to find something that I’ll eat.

And then, like magic, I eat their precious gift and all pain goes away. This miracle food has stopped me from dying! Praise it! Save it! No one is allowed to eat it but me! And I will eat this food breakfast, lunch, and dinner until I throw it up and a new golden goose must be found. My longest streak? A baked potato for lunch and dinner for four consecutive days. Glorious. Until, you know, the inevitable happened. I haven’t found my winning ticket like that potato since then. Ah.

But life is great, you know? Honestly, I have never had better incentive to exercise. I go on long walks outside and the cold air literally freezes the nausea. I imagine a cartoon of a big, handsome Knight riding upon billowing clouds and wind, coming towards me. He has his sword pointed at a Green Monster that has me chained by the neck, dragging me along as his slave. ‘I’m warning you, Nausea” says my Knight in shining armor, ‘you are not welcome on these wintry walks” And amazingly, out of desperate fear I’m sure, my nausea slave master, who is green and slimy and drags me all day, is now small. So small I have to pick up the poor guy and tuck him in my pocket and now carry him along…so light and small its like he is napping quietly in the back of my mind (or tummy).  For those few moments when its is SO cold no sane Houston is out and about, I, the true Utahn, strap on my shoes, wear a light jacket and T-shirt and walk out to freedom. It is pure bliss.

Speaking of long walks in the cold, today I actually was able to jog a little. And though I’m only 13 weeks pregnant I swear this tyke likes to play trampoline on my bladder whenever I jog. You see, I have this intense urge to pee as my feet hit the pavement in a steady beat. It is so intense, I have to stop and walk a little, and then…no urge to pee. So I start jogging again and then I have to pee so bad!! Eventually I let go of all decency and decide to just let it go, just pee while running (the best runners do it, I’ve read in Runner’s World magazine, ok?) So just in the moment when I expect all relief to come flooding in, I realize I really don’t have to pee. So I just press on. The discomfort in all reality is worth it for my escape from my Green Nausea Monster--I think I just saw my Cloud Knight wink at me…he’s definitely keeping him in check.

Pregnant and Crazy:

So today on my running adventure, I experienced quite a few things. First , when I put on one of my favorite shirts to go out in, I suddenly felt like a giant cotton creature had swarmed its massive arms around my neck, choking the life out of me. Needless to say, I had a crazy moment and cut that shirt in half. NOW, you pesky creature, you don’t have a T-shirt collar (or really sleeves, for that matter) to choke me with!! But, honestly, most comfortable shirt ever. I love it, really. All you pregnant people out there, if you ever get attacked by the Cotton Choking Creature, just smite off its head!! (Acutally, by removing that scrunchy neck part of a T-shirt, you can make the shirt have a more feminine shape and it looks pretty cute!)

Well, then, after I had conquered that Creature, I set off to put my nausea at bay. On my run I witnessed some extraordinary things. First, the cutest Asian couple, walking quickly with matching Barney purple sweatsuits caught my eye! They waved to me and pumped their fists in the air. “Yeah!” I thought, “Go me! I’m pregnant but I can do this!” Then I turned the corner and ran through this amazing trail that is lined with Trees that are so feral and winding that they seem to reach for each other across the path. It is beautiful. In my mind I actually thought for the very first time, how much I love Houston and how LUCKY I am to live in a place with all these beautiful parks and paths to run along. And the ducks! There are ducks everywhere and squirrels and you can run almost right through the zoo on the path. I love it. There are ponds and trees everywhere. Every once in a while the little kids’ train toots its horn as it winds on by. I really am so in love with this run. I reached the part of the park where there are huge monuments to Sam Houston and a large fountain that sends a refreshing splash into the air. Just then, while all these positive thoughts fill my mind, I see ahead of me a black gangster-dressed man pull down his pants. Ugh. I turn my head just before seeing too much, and he pees in the fountain!!

Well, it’s not Provo, and its definitely not like running around BYU campus, but hey, its home for now.


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