30 weeks and 2 days; 68 days to go

A couple of nights ago I had a dream that while I was at school one day, babygirl stuck her hand out straight through the left side of my stomach.  It didn’t hurt, it wasn’t bloody — it was like one of those fantasy movie scenes where somone steps through a mirror or wall.  She grabbed onto my finger.  I asked one of my students to take some pictures.  We all thought it was pretty cool.

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And speaking of movies, sometimes when baby girl is kicking, I feel like I’m in a sci-fi flick, and my body has just been taken over by an alien.

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Some people know exactly the right things to say: “From the back, you don’t look any different!”  “You look beautiful.”  Other people, trying to show their enthusiasm, could do better: “Ooohhhh…getting bigger!” (Thanks for pointing that out, as if I don’t feel huge enough already.)

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“How’s the baby?”

I don’t know.  I’ll ask her when I see her and get back to you.

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We’re halfway done painting babygirl’s room.  It’s a little limey.  But I like it.  It feels brighter and cleaner than before. (Postscript: After two coats, the green walls next to the dark wood trim look like a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream…)

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My blood test results last week indicate that I have very low iron (29 when it should be 35, though I don’t know what those numbers mean, exactly).  I’m feeling it, too.  The last week, I’ve had a couple of headaches and a lot of bone weariness.  The worst part has been the breathlessness, though.  Lecturing in class, going up and down stairs, swimming, even just prepping the walls to paint today: I lose my breath and have to stop. I’m taking my iron pills, with vitamin C to help absorption, and I’m trying to eat iron rich foods every day.  I wonder how long it will take to build my levels back up.

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Reading Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth is probably the most empowering thing I’ve done in my pregnancy.  It’s making me feel much more prepared for giving birth.

sleep, sleep

So much for being out of my first trimester! Yesterday morning from 4-7 am I had hot flashes and chills. From 11-12 I had weird stomach pain. At 5pm I ate a WHOLE chimichanga plus the sides of rice and beans (DH was a little bit shocked by that feat, as in the past I’ve had to stop at 2/3). And at 8:30pm, I fell asleep in the middle of a history channel documentary about superheroes, not waking again until 7 am today.

week nine, and telling your boss

Weeks eight and nine have been the weeks of headaches. I still haven’t had any of the traditional upchucking morning sickness, for which I’m grateful. Instead, I seem to go through phases. One week I’ll be especially exhausted, the next week my skins will break out, another week I’ll be unusually hungry or slightly nauseated. This week, it’s been headaches. The headaches started with a monster last Friday that woke me out of a sound sleep at 5 a.m. and never left. I spent the second half of the day in bed because moving made my head pound even more.

I thought that headache was a kind of first phase of the sinus infection that had been going around the house, but over the weekend, I never developed the sore throat or cough that others had, and I never got a fever.

The headaches since that one haven’t been as bad, but they’ve been recurring, often starting when I wake up in the morning. I’m happy to have any symptoms of morning sickness these days, though, as I wade through the first trimester anxiously awaiting 12 weeks and some measure of assurance of a safe and healthy baby.

I had a big (metaphorical) headache at work this week. I was scheduled to meet with the boss to discuss next year’s contract and schedule. DH thought it would be duplicitous of me to meet with him without telling him about the baby, and since my boss is a trustworthy and like minded man, I decided to tell him.

Whoops.

He freaked out, and seemed to be about to rescind the teaching contract he had offered me for next year.

I freaked out. Really. Can’t afford to lose the job right now, and can’t believe this kind man would (illegally) discriminate against me!

A couple of emails and days later, we met again. Turns out he was just surprised and stressed and needed a few days to think it through. I’m hired on, full-time for the fall, and he’ll work with me in the spring. Whew! I guess if I learned one thing to pass on, it’s that you should be very careful about the TIMING of this talk with the boss. Don’t tell him at a time when he’s already stressed, and be ready to fully affirm your commitment to the company or organization as a way to reassure him. Even if you have a great relationship with your boss, even if you trust him (or her; please go back and change all my male pronouns to male/female, I’m too lazy to do it), don’t assume the sharing of this news will go smoothly.