PREGNANCY: 25 WEEKS IN

EVERYTHING YOU NEVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT MY PREGNANCY:

25 WEEK EDITION

- I think I finally look officially pregnant.  I have had a few strangers comment on my pregnancy in the past few weeks which to me means that it is now safe to assume I am in fact pregnant and not just downing extra cupcakes.  I've popped.

-I am stilling sleeping through the night without having to get up to pee.  Success!

- Things are starting to get slightly uncomfortable in my stomach.  I can't really describe it- it doesn't feel like cramps or a stomach ache or even like gas exactly- but it feels a little bit like all of those things combined.  Like sometimes it's just really crowded and achy in there.  I feel like things are stretching and moving (You think?) and it's just kind of uncomfortable.  It's especially uncomfortable when I sit down for a long time- like everything is just pressing down on my stomach.

-I continue to try to exercise every day.  Mostly it's a 45 minute walk with Maverick, but sometimes it means tennis or a mile run.  My best friend and tennis partner is moving out of state at the end of the month so I am in the market for a new partner.  If you are in the area and like to play tennis please say you'll fill her role.  I'm not joking. I need to play at least once a week.

- Luckily I haven't had any cravings for greasy or fattening food- mostly anything that is even a little heavy sounds awful to me.  I mostly eat sandwiches and smoothies and protein shakes and I'm down to one diet coke a day.  This is honestly probably the most healthy I've ever eaten in my life. (With the exception of weekly pizza- my definite pregnancy craving!)

- I've been reading Bringing up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman.  I really like it!  Basically it's about an American woman living in France who observes the much more laid back and chill way of French parenting.  She says that French children seem to be much more patient, better eaters, better sleepers, and just generally calmer children.  The idea is that you give your children very strict parameters and boundaries but that within that, the kids have a lot of freedom.  She talks a lot about treating children as reasonable, logical people- basically that children are just mini adults.  It is very interesting.  I know a lot of people have a lot of ideas about parenting and I have never had a children so I know nothing, but the idea of calm and obedient children is certainly alluring.

- The day after my last day of school, Greg and I are flying to Germany to visit my sister.  My doc and the airline both say I can fly up until 36 weeks, but I have already had many people express their disapproval at this decision.  It is weird to be pregnant and have so many people suddenly telling you what you should or shouldn't do. My mom says I function on pure adrenaline so I should be fine.  I hope she's right.  The idea is that the backaches and extra weight and all other discomforts will be assuaged by the excitement of touring Europe.

- We are going to spend a few days in Amsterdam while in Europe.  Ever since I read The Fault in our Stars I've really wanted to see the city.  I am determined to go on a bike tour while there.  Greg says I'm delusional and that at 7 1/2 months pregnant there ain't no way I'm going to be able to hop on a bike and cruise around. Whaddya think?  (Also if any of you have been to Amsterdam or Bruges send suggestions!)

-It's gotten a little bit uncomfortable to sleep.  My sides and stomach just start to ache after a couple of hours.  Someone told me to sleep with a pillow between my legs, and that is helping a bit.  Any suggestions to make my lower back not hurt so much?  For some reason it aches the most when I'm sleeping.  I'm making Greg do daily massages, but it is still so achy!

-I've had some bad allergies the bast few weeks but haven't dared take anything.  What is safe to take while pregnant?

- I figured I'm just about at the point where I need to start thinking about stretch marks.  Is there anything you can do to avoid getting them?  Any lotions you tried that you really liked?

- Greg and I are an absolute mess when it comes to names.  How do some people know so soon what they are going to name their child?  It feels like such a huge decision, and we can't agree on anything.  We want a name that is a known name and easy to spell and pronounce.  But at the same time, we want to steer away from common or trendy names. If it's on the top 100 baby names for the year it's definitely out.  With a last name like Larsen I feel like we have to give her a name that it is a bit unique to make her stand out just a little bit.

There are a few things that have made the name picking process difficult.  To start with, I teach school for a living, so that means that for every name out there I know at least three students who have forever tarnished the name in my mind.  Another thing that has made it difficult is other people.  Well- wishers always want to know what names we are thinking of and when we throw a few out we invariably get a, "Do NOT name your child that.  I hate that name," "My ex girlfriend has that name," or "That's a total slut name."  I don't know why people do this with baby names.  I never tell people my name is Bonnie and have them respond, "Ugh.  I hate that name!" but they do it all the time when I tell them what names we are considering for our child.  As if they might have some say in it.

Greg's top pick is Ellie, but it's too popular for me so I told him it's out.  I absolutely love Nora, but that's the name of a main character in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House and Greg says he absolutely refuses to be a theater guy and have his child named that. (Whatever that's supposed to mean.)  My good friend who is having a baby in August told me last week that she is planning to name her little girl the one name that Greg and I kind of seemed to agree on.  Now he says the name is out because it's obviously too common. (Someone else at our church named their baby that too.)  So we're back to the drawing board.

You guys got some suggestions?  I love the old classics- anything that is sophisticated and feminine. Eleanore is a total favorite of mine as well as Pearl and Grace.  Greg says Eleanore is too old fashioned, Pearl is ugly, and Grace is too common.  I did like Stella a lot until my brother named his dog that.

We're a wreck.  Please send help.

A pregnancy post! Of sorts!

This weekend we went to prom.

Greg works with people with special needs and every year they get to go to the prom.  These poor folks don't get to escape the agonies of prom after only three or four years, they are forced to do it year after year after year.  Luckily, they love it.  All of Greg's clients have been stoked about prom for weeks.  They all found themselves some hot dates and got all jazzed up and my, were they looking nice. It was one of the most adorable things to see them all parade in with their flowers and dresses and suits. Greg asked me if I would be his date, and I replied yes of course because I always wondered what it would be like to be knocked up at prom.  Now I know!

I wore my high school prom dress.  I haven't worn this bad boy for ten years.  I wore it to a girl ask boy dance with a boy who I had a big fat crush when I was 17 years old.  I thought he was the moon and the stars, and I liked him so much that I hardly dared to talk to him through out the entire date (I was so socially awkward in high school.  I still am, but I seem to have grown in to my awkwardness.  At 17, I didn't know what in the world to do with it.)  I remember hoping so bad at the end of the night that he would kiss me.  He didn't.  Now, I think of all those boys I used to love in high school and all the boys I dated in college, and all I know is I married the best crush I ever had and that's a fact.

18 weeks.

Also I kind of feel like I am lying when I post pictures like the above one with my belly sticking out to the side.  It makes it look a lot bigger than it really is- to be honest and fair, my belly rarely looks that pronounced.  It mostly just looks like extra cushion all around my sides.  At night or after meals the bump is more pronounced and it actually kind of looks like I'm pregnant, but most of the time it just looks like I've eaten one too many cupcakes.  Also the other day when I was leaving the ice cream place a teenage boy hollered at me, "Hey girl!" and I felt like saying back "Well, sheesh, kid you kind of just made my day! Now sit down and let me teach you how to write a thesis statement."

Being pregnant is kind of crazy.  Half of the time I forget I'm growing a body and the other half of the time it's all I can think about.  These past few weeks I have felt more out of control with my emotions than I ever have.  I read online that your emotions are supposed to be all wonky the first trimester and then in the second trimester everything normalizes until you go crazy again in the third trimester.  Well, if these are supposed to be "normal" emotions then I am royally screwed.  Third trimester is going to be a triiiiiip.

(Tangent:  I only believe half- if even that much- of anything I read on the internet about pregnancy.  I'm convinced these pregnancy sites are run by a gaggle of fifteen year old boys who entertain themselves by coming up with their idea of hilarious things to say to freak out pregnant women.)

"You will be constipated!"  Evil laugh!

"You will have to go to the dentist twice as often!"  Evil laugh! 

"You will have to pee all day every day!" Evil laugh!

"You will want more sex!" Evil laugh!

"You will cry all the time like a little baby sissy pants!" Evil laugh! 

"You will fart more!"  Evil evil EVIL LAUGH!  

I rest my case- pregnancy sites are written by teenage boys.)

Moving on, the past few weeks have been rough emotionally, and the worst part is that I don't even realize it until it's past the point of no return.  All of a sudden I am crying my eyes out because of:  a nice thing said by a student/ an episode of Wife Swap/ a cute puppy dog/ not being able to play tennis/ burning dinner/ getting cut off in traffic/ airplane ticket prices going up/ the fact that Greg surprised me by cleaning the whole apartment/ not getting to watch the olympics/ watching too much olympics/ INSERT ANY OTHER THING IN THE WORLD HERE AND I PROMISE I HAVE CRIED OVER IT.

For the most part, I feel like I can keep it together.  Until I get home.  As soon as I walk in the door I'm like a ticking bomb just waiting for Greg to say something so I can explode my pregnancy hormone tears all over him.  Then when he says I am exhausted and need to go to sleep because I'm acting crazy I retort, "And don't call me crazy!" and then collapse on the bed for the next eight hours.  It all makes perfect logical sense, I promise.  The poor dude gets all the vulnerability/ excitement/ fears/ anticipation/ exhaustion/ crazy train at once without any of the normalcy.  My students get the normalcy, and they're not even grateful!  Brats! 

I can't be sure, but I don't think it's easy to be married to a pregnant woman.  Maybe I should ask those 15 year olds who run the pregnancy sites...  they'd probably know.

Other stuff you might want to know about my pregnancy but probably couldn't care less about:

Cravings:  Cake batter frozen yogurt errry day, yo.  Seriously.  I've stopped the past four days in a row and I am so pleased with my life.  I'm also craving diet coke again which is SO welcome since I couldn't stand it my first trimester.  A lot of people said when I didn't drink dc for two months, "Oh now is the perfect itme for you to go off of it," and I thought, "Are you crazy people, why would I ever want to go off of diet coke?  That stuff is nectar from the gods!"  And lucky for me, my body is once again welcoming it.  Thanks, body!

Aversions: Hamburgers, KFC, basically any fast food or anything fried.

Looking forward to:  Ultrasound appointment on March 17 to find out gender.  Also, feeling the baby kick.  I've heard the baby first kicks sometime around now, and I am seriously stoked.  Oh!  And I have Friday off of work.  That has nothing to do with having a baby, but boo yah for me!

Weight gain:  None so far.  I lost 4-5 pounds the first trimester because I was able to eat so little, and I am now back to my pre pregnancy weight.

Baby purchases:  Ummm... no.  I'm much too much of a procrastinator for that.  It doesn't mean I'm not excited, just haven't gotten into purchasing mode yet.  I hate spending money. And there's no room in our apartment to put stuff.

Baby size:  The size of a green pepper.  And in related news, the internet told me my uterus is now the size of a cantaloupe.  If that's not terrifying, I don't know what is.  Curse those 15 year old boys who run those sites!

Maternity clothes:  No.  I did look and so far I can say with surety that the maternity sections in both H&M and Gap totally suck.  (Sorry, Kristen, I know those were your suggestions.  I still love you.)  Any other suggestions?  Help me people!

Pregnancy goals:  Exercise/ do something active for at least 30 minutes a day.  This is mostly a life goal as I get depressed and crazy if I don't get out and be active.  Greg and I enjoyed our first tennis session of the year today (almost 60 degrees in Utah in February, Let's get a woot woot for global warming!) and it felt great!  I'm hoping to still be able to run and play for much of my pregnancy.  And when I say run I don't mean real run.  I mean like little kid run.  If you catch my drift.

Boarded the train there's no getting off

(This isn't a very lovey dovey Valentine's Day post, 

but I wrote mine yesterday on why our relationship works.  

Link up if you haven't already and make sure to visit others' blogs who linked up.  

There are so many great posts.  I am overwhelmed!)

I used to totally hate poetry.  I didn't always get it, and I felt like because I couldn't see all the hidden meanings and the nuances that I was stupid.  Most people don't like things that make them feel stupid.  So I declared that I didn't like poetry and I officially quit on it forever.

Then I was asked to teach AP Literature.  The AP Lit curriculum has a huge focus on poetry so I had to kind of dive in head first with it this year, whether or not I liked it.

And guess what?
I liked it!

There's probably a lot of poems that still go over my head or that I don't pull all the intended meaning from.  But I've learned to be okay with that and I've learned that I can just take from the poem what I want to take from it and not worry about the rest.  John Green says "The book belongs to the reader," and I believe that with poems, too.  The poem belongs to the reader.

It doesn't hurt that poets are generally a straight up crazy group of people.  They're fun to study.  It's easy to get sucked into their lives and their poems because most of the time it's all totally whack.

Take Sylvia Plath, for example.  Her dad died when she was young, and she missed having a male influence in her life.  She met Ted Hughes in college and was absolutely infatuated with him.  They married and had two kids and when she found out he was cheating on her, she couldn't handle the grief and practically went mad. (Very interesting poem analyzing the similarities in her love for her dad and her husband is Daddy.)  She already had a history of mental illness, (once tried to kill herself by crawling under the house for several days) and Hughes' infidelity drove her over the edge.  She stayed up all night long writing poems while her two children slept, and at the age of 30 she killed herself by sealing all the doors in the kitchen, turning the gas on and sticking her head in the oven. She died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Now.  Tell me that's not an interesting story.  Even the seventeen year olds listen up with open ears on that one.

I enjoy a lot of Plath's poetry, and I also really liked her book The Bell Jar.  It's about her descent into madness, but she writes the story as if it were happening to someone else.  It's pretty short if you are looking for a short, crazy book to read for the weekend.

All that background just to introduce you to this poem by Plath.  I always give this poem to my students when I am introducing figurative language and metaphors, and see if they can figure out what event she is describing.  I usually have one in a class of forty who can crack the riddle.

METAPHORS
I'm a riddle in nine syllables,
Al elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils,
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new minted in this fat purse.
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.

I'll give you a hint if you are struggling.  It has nine lines and each line has nine syllables...

Figured it out yet?

She's pregnant!

I really like this poem, and I strangely identify with Plath.  My students always think it's weird and not very nice of her that she's not more stoked about having a baby- that she seems so hesitant.  I always defend her- it's a fear of the unknown, and I relate to it.

Last night when I was walking the dog, the last line of the poem kept repeating itself through my head,
"Boarded the train there's no getting off.  Boarded the train there's no getting off."

For me, there is no getting off.  The thing that is growing inside of me will continue to grow until it is forced to leave my body via a very painful and scary process, a process that will also likely leave my body in shreds.  I will then be responsible for the care and health of this living thing until it is 18 years old.  I will then remain emotionally tied, connected and involved with this thing for the rest of my life.

So yes.  I've boarded a train.  There's no getting off.

It's not that I'm not completely stoked to be on the train.  I like the train! It's fun! I think!  It's a train that I always wanted to someday board.  But the thing is I've never been to the place this train is going.  The place is very unknown to me.  There's a lot of stuff I can't have in this new place that I used to enjoy in my old place- like weekends sleeping in until noon and spur of the moment trips to Las Vegas.  Once I get to where the train is going, I can never go back to the old place.  People who have been to the place before say that I will LOVE where this train is going.  But they also say this place is a lot of work and you don't sleep much for the first little while you are there, and that sometimes this place makes you want to tear your hair out.  But the place is so totally worth it, they say.

Most of the time I am incredibly excited to get to this place, and I wish the train would go faster.  I want to arrive at the destination now and discover the new place right away.  But then sometimes I am so scared of the train, and it seems to already be moving so terribly fast and gosh the train is too fast, why can't we just slow it down!?!  What if I made the wrong decision and I will hate it?  What if I will like the new place but the timing is all wrong and I really shouldn't be at this new place for another couple of years?  What if the new place is so terribly expensive and I can't afford it and I have to stop teaching and and and and and and...

Not to mention that who in the world am I to even get on this train? How do I have the nerve to think I deserve to go there or that I will be good at living in this new place?  (Just last night I received a comment on this post implying I shouldn't be a mother.  Most of the time I can brush mean blog comments off, but as I'm struggling a bit with my new role, I have to admit that this one stung.)

These are the thoughts that swirl around in my head when I'm walking my dog and watching my tummy grow.  I don't hear a lot of pregnant women say they are scared of the train, and sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one on board who feels doubt or fear.  I guess that's why I like Sylvia Plath.  I have no intention of sticking my head in an oven door, but that woman just gets me.

At the end of the day, I have to remember all the other times I felt fear or doubt and how it turned out.  I have to remember how scared I was to marry, how scared I was to teach high school for the first time, how scared I was to go to Argentina for 18 months, how scared I was to go to college and move away from home.  All of these things were scary at the moment, but have made my life whole and happy and beautiful.

I am who I am because of all those trains I boarded with no way of getting off.