On Being Pregnant. . . And Freaked Out.

Part I-B: Committed

So, I was sitting on the toilet lid, the foster parenting paperwork in the magazine stand next to me, holding a p-stick and in a bit of shock.

Me: Well, I suppose I'll file the foster paperwork away for a bit.

Matt: Let's call our parents

Me: Seriously? Shouldn't we wait about 12 weeks to make sure it's all for real?

Matt: If we did that, I think my parents feelings would be hurt.

Me: Well if we tell your family now, and wait until a reasonable date to tell mine, then my parents will get their feelings hurt because we told your family so much sooner.

Apparently in my husband's family, it is traditional to call and make the announcement before the stick is even dry. So as a compromise, I think we waited like 6 hours and called them, asking them to please keep it under wraps for a while.

We also called my parents. Mom was thrilled. Dad, unsure why we called so soon replied: Well, it's going to be a long nine months.

And that was the biggest understatement of the year.

Did I mention I was freaked out? Did I mention I am not a happy pregnant person? I was having a very difficult time wrapping my brain around the whole idea. I didn't want to tell anyone, but at the same time I did. I wanted to tell certain people, and not others. I wanted only certain people to talk to me about being pregnant, I wanted others to just pretend I wasn't. I wasn't sure when I was planning on making it generally known, but I was certain that I wanted to be able to believe it myself, and also be able to tell people without crying, or hyperventilating.

I did end up, for a specific purpose, telling one individual--let's call her Leah, but told her that we were not telling people yet. I of course would have interpreted this to mean keep your yapper shut about it. But something was lost in the translation. The next evening I attended a baby shower for someone from church. I walked in a few minutes late and all the ladies stood up and congratulated me. I was dumbfounded, panicked and hyperventilating. I looked around and found Leah there, grinning at me, like she'd done me some kind of favor. I left the shower early and went home and had a panic attack--you think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. By Sunday I'd almost recovered. I went to church. I was asked to read something in Relief Society (the ladies' meeting) and the president got up and and said Now we'll hear from Jen, who I understand has an announcement to make!

I was MORTIFIED. I stood up, read my part. Said No Announcement. And sat back down. Then I went home and had another panic attack. I do not know why I was so panicked at the idea of making it public. The best I can figure is that I was so afraid of being pregnant and giving birth that I hadn't quite accepted the fact of it yet. Or I was in denial, and the longer I could avoid every one knowing, the longer I could deny it. I was also just a bit (okay, a lot) peeved at the presumtion of someone sharing my news for me--someone I didn't even know that well (obviously). Regardless, now everyone knew and there was no going back.

Except at work. I hadn't told anyone there yet. So I kept going to work every day. But that got harder too. Eight hours of sitting at a desk, trying not to vomit, is torture. Someone else at work was pregnant and they threw a baby shower. I went back to the conference room and tried to join in on the games. You know that baby shower game where they take different candy bars and melt them into diapers and everyone passes them around, scrutinizes and sniffs the diapers and guesses which candy bar was which? Yeah, that one. As the first diaper came my way, so did a tsunami of nausea. I ran for the bathroom, my coworkers wondering just what was wrong with me.

I hate throwing up. Like to a ridiculous point. This may have been God's little protection for me because, as a complete food addict, if I didn't mind throwing up, I would have made a great bulimic. So instead, I have been fat all my life. Like really fat. When I got married, I weighed 255, and I got pregnant, both times at 275. I needed to gain baby weight like a hole in the head. I also had not vomited since I got my tonsils out in the 6th grade. Until I got pregnant.

I get carsick, but until I got pregnant, I never got carsick WHILE I WAS DRIVING. I remember one evening leaving work. Less than a mile from the office, I had to pull over and vomit. I started keeping bags in the car. I was commuting over an hour each way, every day in thick Seattle traffic. Attempting to not crash and/or pull off the freeway in rush hour traffic to puke was not enjoyable.

White foods were okay. I brought little baggies of instant potatoes, instant oatmeal and saltine crackers to work. I would fill up a cup of hot water at the coffee machine, stir in my instant goodies and suck down a little pastiness every couple of hours in a vain attempt to quell the queasiness. Meetings were hard. I would sit there with my little pile of white foods, nibbling the whole meeting while my coworkers looked at me askance. I did eventually tell them.

But I could have held out longer. The beauty and curse of being tall and fat is that baby has a lot of room to hide. I mostly just looked like I was getting fatter. Which I was. When I was pregnant, I didn't get a lot of belly-rubbing, or strangers asking about my pregnancy. People are nervous to ask a fat woman if she's pregnant--what if she's just fat? Fortunately I only gained about 15 pounds in the first 34 weeks of pregnancy--and another 10-15 when the pre-eclampsia hit at the end (I'll get to that).

But obvious or not, I FELT pregnant. Well, without previous experience, I suppose I just felt weird. I felt like something else had taken over my body. Which it had. People looked horrified when I referred to the baby as a parasite. Which, according to the evidence, it was. It had taken up residence inside me and was feasting on the energy and nourishment of it's host organism--me. I tried to explain that I was a willing host to this parasite (most days), but it was behaving like a parasite, so I described our relationship as consensually parasitical. I figured it was my job to say it like it is--to say the things most people think, but won't say. My husband just says my filter is broken.

Like this one. One night, I asked my husband what would happen if we had an ugly baby. What if our baby was so ugly, I couldn't love it. You know you've all thought it--you've seen those ugly babies out there. The mothers have to know their baby is ugly don't they? Maybe not. Maybe that's the beauty of it--the mother has no idea how ugly her baby is. It's like some sort of mental trick like the anorexic who looks in the mirror and sees a fat person, the mother looks at the ugly baby and sees beauty. But, what if I didn't have that magic ability? What if I looked at my baby and saw ugly baby. Could I still love it? Am I really that shallow? (don't answer that). It was a difficult thought for me. But I was pregnant, my hormones were all out of whack, so let's just excuse my insensitivity alright?

Let's talk about those hormones. You know when you hit puberty and suddenly you had no idea who's body you were in? It wasn't until my late twenties that I really started feeling comfortable in my own skin. I really liked who I was, I really didn't care so much what other people thought, I was finally just me. Then, at 29, I got pregnant. It was like puberty all over again. Hormones flying, body changing--oh the emotion! Seriously, puberty. I had to do all that getting comfortable with myself all over again. I was a little bit angry about that.

Did you ever think about plus-sized maternity clothes? No? Well neither did the clothing manufacturers. I avoided wearing maternity clothes for the better part of my pregnancy--again a little bit of denial. Like, once I start wearing maternity clothes it will be obvious that I'm not just fat, but pregnant, which is good on the one hand, but on the other hand, it'll make me look ENORMOUS. But the real problem was finding plus sized maternity clothes at all. I sat and cried in many a dressing room. You can occasionally find plus sizes--they have a couple at JCPenny, a couple of more in the catalog. They have a few items at Motherhood outlets, but not in the normal stores. And forget cute maternity clothes. Plus sized maternity clothes are not cute. Of course, in fairness, a 5 foot 9, 285 pound pregnant woman isn't cute either. So really, why bother? Which they didn't. So I mostly tried to find loose clothing with elastic wastes. And I butchered a couple of my own pair of jeans to sew in a stretchy front panel because nobody makes decent plus sized maternity jeans. Did I mention that I was not a happy pregnant person?

A woman in my ward at the time mentioned how much she just loved being pregnant. I found this very hard to believe, and being me, I called her on it.

Me: Seriously?

Her: Yes! I love thinking about that life I'm nourishing and--

Me: I understand the baby at the end of the tunnel thing, but tell me, if there wasn't a baby at the end, if you just felt pregnant all the time, you would choose that over how you're feeling right now?

Her: Well, no, I suppose not.

Me: I thought not.

One morning Matt found me sitting on the toilet lid, looking at my feet and crying. No, they weren't swollen and ugly (yet), but I was down to being able to comfortably wear to work only a couple of large, loose skirts and pantyhose was out of the question. Yet, I had no knee-highs without holes to wear under that skirt. It was January and all I really wanted was to put on my sandals and go to work. But I felt silly wearing sandals in January. I was torn. I was crying over socks. Matt carefully stifled his laugh and managed a serious, concerned look and suggested I either wear the sandals or stop somewhere on the way to work and buy some socks. I love that man.

It was about this time that I started having nightmares. Although I made it pretty clear to the in-laws that they were not invited into the delivery room, I'm not sure they believed me. My father-in-law kept making comments about my mother-in-law's talent for videoing such occasions from tasteful angles. Um, no thanks. Besides, I don't even want to watch. I don't particularly want to be in the room. Could I wait outside and you'll call me in when it's over?

What they didn't quite understand is that it's not about my modesty--forget who sees my naughty bits, I really don't care. For me, I saw the birth experience as very very intimate, akin to the creation of that child. Not a spectator sport. I felt like attendance should be limited to those who had a necessary role to play--and videographer did not make the short list. Doctor, check, nurse, check, someone to hold each leg, check check. But it's a beautiful thing and you could watch it over and over and show your child his birth some day . . . Um, creating a child is a beautiful thing, but most people don't film that and invite the kid to watch it one day. I'm just saying. I think it's a bit wierd.

Back to my nightmares. I had one where I was in the ladies room doing my bidness when a man walked in yapping away on his cell phone. I exited the stall and laid into him.

EXCUSE ME! What do you think you're doing? This is the LADIES ROOM. It is not the men's room, nor is it a phone booth. Get out! Git! Git! Git!

And I chased him out of the room. I had another one about a video camera in an inappropriate situation--I can't remember the details. But what I do remember is being absolutely sure that I was having these dreams as an outlet for my fear of and disconcert with the idea of spectators and electronic media present at my childbirth.

My 32nd week check-up, things were honky-dory. My health had been fine throughout the pregnancy, no complications, no blood pressure issues, nothing. I was to have my 36 week check up on a Monday morning. That weekend prior I was planning to install the carseat, pack a hospital bag and all that, just in case. Late in the week, I noticed my hands and feet were swelling. I started occasionally losing feeling in my hands at work. It freaked me out a bit, but I looked it up, and figured out that the swelling was probably causing a bit of carpal tunnel. But I also read a few things about pre-eclampsia. No one had said much to me about high blood pressure in pregnancy, probably because my bp had been just fine. But I was was a little spooked as my feet swelled a bit more. Friday on my lunch hour I went to the carwash and vacuumed out my car so I could install the baby seat on Saturday. That afternoon I sat at my desk and was feeling very uneasy. What could possibly be wrong that can't wait until Monday? I asked myself. My doctor and the hospital were only 10 minutes from my office, but an hour from my home. I thought perhaps I'd just call and see if I could swing by after work and check my bp or something. I felt a little silly, but a friend at work convinced me to call anyway (thanks Amy--I owe you).

Me: Hi, I was wondering if maybe I could come have my blood pressure checked this afternoon?

Nurse: Let me check with the doctor real quick . . . she wants you to come in right now.

Me: Okay.

I left my computer on, my current project up, figuring I'd be back within the hour, and drove to the doctor. The nurse brought me in and took my bp.

Nurse: Why don't you lay down, on your left side. Are you feeling alright?

Me: Um, fine. Why, was it high?

Nurse: Yes. I'll be right back.

I noticed she didn't tell me how high. She came right back and carefully moved me to another room with low lights and offered me juice as I lay on my left side. The doctor came in.

Doctor: Your blood pressure was quite high. I'd like to have you taken over to the hospital for observation.

Nurse: Do you want to call your husband?

Me: I'll call him when we get over there. He's probably still teaching.

Nurse: Why don't you call him now?

Me: Um, Okay.

So I called Matt.

Me: Matt, I'm at the doctor, my blood pressure was high, they're taking me to the hospital for observation.

Matt: Are you alright? I can come right over.

Me: I'm fine, I don't know that it's that serious, why don't you hold off and I'll call you when I know more.

Nurse: Tell him to come now.

Me: I guess you should come now.

I was a little freaked out at this point. They took me to the hospital, laid me on my side, hooked me to a bp monitor and a baby monitor. Ethan was happy as a clam, moving around like crazy, oblivious to the chaos around him. I peed in a cup, which, along with my elevated bp, was evidence enough that I was indeed pre-eclamptic. I was told it was very unlikely I would be going home before the baby was born. And if, by some miracle I was released, I would not be going back to work, unless I could lie on a sofa at work, on my left side, and not do any work.

I called work, asked someone to shut down my computer and told them that it appeared I was starting my maternity leave--now. And I spent that first day or two at the hospital wrapping my brain around my new full time job as an incubator.

And this concludes the overly long part 1-B of my birth stories. Again, if you made it this far, not only are you to be congratulated and given a cookie, your endurance is to be commended and you're surely up for part 1-C, the conclusion.

Spoiler alert: There's a baby at the end of it.