--E. B. White, Charlotte's Web
I went to my first prenatal yoga class with my friend Wren last Friday night, taking over her title as the "least pregnant person in the room." At nearly 8:30, after the hour and a half was almost up, we were doing our final pose of the evening, the "legs-up-the-wall" pose, which is just what it sounds like: lying back, with your butt against the wall and your legs up it.
After a couple of minutes in the pose, I whispered to Wren beside me, "I'm HUNGRY."
She whispered back, "Me too!" and suddenly, a chorus ensued...
"Me three!"
"Oh god, me too!"
"Join the club!"
I've got it.
The Ayn Rand Baby Name Generator!
Davington Stark
Armande diDiablo (thanks, Em!)
Antonia Markson
I'm fairly certain someone smarter than I could come up with a linguistic formula for this. Cunning linguists (really!), call me!
I haven't written in a bit, but I just decided that the last fifteen minutes pretty much sum up the last week:
I puked, and now I really want a hot dog.
I am a reasonably intelligent person, most would say above average. I smith words for a living, and any cleverness I do possess tends to be of the verbal variety. For these reasons, the following exchange with HJ this afternoon was particularly alarming.
Scene: Amusing mock wrestling match with HJ. I'm trying to persuade him (physically) to take a nap with me instead of leaving for work. I attempt to push him back onto the futon.
HJ: Wow, you're weak as a kitten!
Jen: [shoving harder] Oh, weak as a kitten, ARE I?
We collapse into fits of giggles while I attempt not to urinate on myself.
The pregnancy brain is not a myth, I'm afraid.
Last night I had a bachleorette evening at home while HJ went to the Louise Bourgeois opening at the Guggenheim. I planned to make butterscotch pudding then watch the rest of Knocked Up, which I'd started the night before (and loved!).
My delicious and incredibly decadent butterscotch pudding recipe calls for four egg yolks. When I cracked my fourth egg, I was annoyed to see I'd somehow already broken the yolk. Upon closer inspection, however, I realized there were TWO YOLKS in the fourth egg. Now, I'm not a particularly superstitious person, but I will say I've never cracked open one of these before. Supposedly double-yolkers are 1 in 1000, so this may be the only one I ever see in my lifetime (unless I suddenly start eating a lot more eggs).
Oh my God, could I be carrying twins? When I told my mom both HJ and I were feeling we might have a boy, she said, "I think it's a boy... AND a girl!"
What a great story that would be.
I know this may sound strange, but my first real pregnancy craving was for butterscotch pudding. (I say "real" only because HJ informed me early on that things one normally wants at regular intervals, such as coffee, cannot really be considered cravings.) In particular, I craved the cooked kind of boxed pudding, not that nasty instant crap. I am just that sophisticated.
What's even odder about this is that when I told my also-pregnant friend, Wren, I was craving butterscotch pudding, she said "OH MY GOD! I'm craving PISTACHIO pudding!" While I don't really consider pistachio pudding food, let alone something craveable, I find this coincidence notable, especially since my mom later told me she also craved pudding during pregnancy. Calcium deficit? Longing for childhood comfort foods?
Who knows, but I wanted it. HJ and I went to about five grocery stores on the Upper West Side one Saturday looking for it. Several Gristedes: only the Instant kind. Gourmet Garage? Too fancy for such plebeian dessertstuffs. Food Emporium? Ah, the choir sings at the sight of My-T-Fine.
While the My-T-Fine really did hit the spot, I've since been on a quest for a good homemade butterscotch pudding recipe. I'm trying this one this weekend. Stay tuned for reviews and further bizarre cravings.
Eatthepuddingeatthepuddingeatthepudding.
So, this is it: the obligatory pregnancy blog. I haven’t visited this little corner of the web in a long time, so when HJ suggested I resurrect the Dome for this purpose, I thought long and hard. Part of me feels extremely superstitious about blogging this early since so much could go wrong, but I also have a million things I want to record about this time in my life, so, as usual, my lack of filter wins out.
I’ll be 7 weeks on Sunday, and already the changes in my body and mind have been wide-ranging and intense: from exhaustion to occasional queasiness (no actual sickness yet, though, knock on wood!) to really sore breasts, to extreme moodiness, to having to pee every half-hour. The tiredness surprises me the most—I’ve never felt this consistently bone-weary for such a long period of time before.
I originally found out like this: Since I stopped taking the pill back in January, after the first month, my period was like clockwork. A couple days after my period was supposed to start this month, I began to get a little anxious. On a whim, I stopped into the pharmacy on my way to work to buy a two-pack of tests just to make sure. (Note: for those who aren’t aware, aka men, it’s almost always the same price to buy two tests as it is one.)
I took the test in one of the single-seater restrooms on my floor, careful to stuff the packaging way down into the trash can. The test was a fancy-schmancy digital one that says “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant” after an excruciating three minutes.
Not Pregnant, it displayed in its businesslike digital font.
Several days passed. Still no period. I told my friend Em, who found web info saying a 37-day period is just outside the realm of normal. I decided not to take the second test unless I had any pregnancy symptoms. I took the extra test home, crammed it in my dresser drawer, and promptly forgot all about it.
The following Tuesday I came back to my desk after lunch and immediately started feeling notably strange: queasy, exhausted, bloated—overall just very odd. Suddenly I remembered what I’d said about pregnancy symptoms. I summoned my courage and nearly ran to a [different] drugstore to get another two-pack, carefully selecting a different brand this time, just in case the first one had been a bust. The woman behind the counter wished me luck, which perplexed me a bit, wondering which outcome she thought *I* would consider “lucky.”
Back to the trusty one-seater. This time the test was an “analog” one, showing one line for not pregnant, two lines for pregnant. When the first—slightly faint—line appeared, I thought, “Ah, just the control line…” but glanced back at the picture on the insert to be sure.
“Wait a minute. That’s not where the control line is. OK, maybe the illustration’s a little off… my god, why is there another line forming next to it? HOLY SHIT… does this mean what I think it means?”
My heart racing, I ripped open the other package, peed on the stick, and set it back on the sink to compare. This time the “pregnant” line was even a bit darker.
I stuffed both tests back into the box and the pharmacy bag and hurried back to my desk. Since it was still lunchtime, nobody was around, so I quickly used my cell phone to snap a picture of one of the tests to send to HJ, then tucked the whole box in my bag.
I typed “pregnancy test faint line” into my browser, and all the sites said the same thing. A faint line is a positive result.
I gchatted Harry, “Did you get a message from me yet? No? We need to talk RIGHT AWAY.” Thankfully, he was around and called me so I could share the news immediately (quietly, surreptitiously, in the hallway!).
It was one of the longest work days ever.
When I got home, I was still in a certain amount of shock. Suddenly I remembered the test in my dresser drawer with its unambiguous “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant.” I took that one, too.
Pregnant, it said, with a cheery + sign.
(Aside: I wish I could say this was all the confirmation I needed, but alas, a few days later I brought a bag to HJ in the morning and solemly handed it over, saying “I cannot be trusted with this.” It held the remaining test from yet another two-pack I bought on a whim when I wasn’t “feeling especially pregnant.” Yes, I am aware I am crazy.)
We spent the rest of the evening in a joyful fog, calling our parents and siblings. We originally decided only to tell family and our closest friends right away, but since then the web of the informed has erratically crept outward—“we have to tell him because she’ll tell him”… or “she’ll feel left out if she realizes he knew before she did.” Or “well, since we’ve run into her, we may as well tell…”
And now it’s on my blog.
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