Sleep: it's like eating, but better.

Two weeks from now, or so, I'll hit the second trimester of this pregnancy. I can't tell you how happy that makes me. If history repeats itself (and that's rumored to happen), I will feel much, much better in half a month.

I'm not sure I've ever been so tired in my life. One day this week I woke up from a nap that lasted an hour and a half. And you know how I felt? Tired. Not sleepy anymore, but still tired.

And then there's the food thing. Being hungry and then getting to eat something is GREAT. Food always tastes better when you're hungry. But there's a vicious cycle aspect that's added when you're pregnant. You feel hungry and you feel nauseous, but you know that you'll feel better if you eat something. But when you run through a list of food in your mind (cereal? ick. eggs? gross. peanut butter sandwich? oh just stop talking about food!), everything makes you feel more nauseous. But you know it'll just get worse if you don't eat something . . . and it's at this point, when everything sounds horrible, that a good thing happens. I realize that if nothing sounds good, I can't make my choice of food that way, and I might as well just eat whatever is most nutritious. So, despite the circumstances, I find that my eating habits right now are remarkable healthy.

Except for one thing: there ARE two foods that always sound good. Well, one of them always sounds good, and it depends on whether I want salt or sweets. But, if you offer me either rocky road ice cream or Thai Kitchen garlic and vegetable rice noodle soup, I will always say yes. So I mostly try to keep the rocky road out of the house. The rice noodles, being healthier, I stock up on. :)

But the worse thing about this pregnancy, by far, are the emotional side effects. I've found that those strange, vivid pregnancy dreams are giving me all sorts of insights into my psychological state, and last night they were about being held in a prison camp and then being left behind by my family on a hike. "So, you feel trapped and alone," Adam said when I told him. "Yep," I replied.

I know part of it is hormones - I can recognize the similarities to PMS, thank you - but some of it is different than that. I feel strangely divorced from my experience of the world. Like I'm an observer now, and not a participant. Mom says it's called "maternal preoccupation", and that's a good description of it. It's like my whole self is so busy gestating that it can't spare any extra parts to relate to the rest of my life. I find myself doing all the things I ought to do because I know I ought to do them, but I have trouble getting excited about any of it. I still get caught up in the moment, but not as much as I used to, and once the moment is over, I'm back to this dull, off existance.

It's just very strange.

Especially since I'm glad to be pregnant. I'm looking forward to meeting this one, and I'm excited and blissful whenever I feel those teeny, tiny wiggly movements inside me (yep, it's true, you feel the baby move MUCH sooner the second time around). So it's strange to have such a wonderful thing be so unpleasant. Except I suppose it makes sense. Having a child, bringing another soul into the world, IS momentous. It makes sense, I guess, to have to pay a high price for something so very, very dear. And when I think about what we're getting out of it, well, the price isn't that high after all. Whenever I get discouraged, I look at Brigid and think how very, very worth it all she is. And I know this one will be too.

-Jess