Exit 1st trimester, enter cold virus

Just as the energy started to return and the nausea to abate, I got a virus. It wasn't terrible, but it kept me on the couch with a drippy nose and a headache. I did a lot of sleeping and a good bit of reading, so it wasn't all bad. I started with a comfort novel or two--you can't go wrong with Austen, but when I finished Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility, I moved on to The Firm. WHY did I waste my time with Grisham? And worse, WHY did I continue to waste my time after I figured out reading the book would be a waste of time? Apparently, it is okay to cheat on one's wife, as long as it was someone else's fault (??), and she never finds out about it.

This is just the sort of reading a girl like me needs to avoid, in my weakened and unattractive state. Back to Austen, where men like that get all the punishment they richly deserve, and men like my husband get the girl . . . and happily ever after.

Where exactly does a baby fit into this lifestyle?

Yesterday was a blur; today will be more of the same. After grabbing the small people from elementary school, I rushed home to make an early dinner (not to be eaten just yet, keep your hands out of it!) Then I threw everyone in the van to watch Seth's football game. He played! He tackled, he long-snapped, the family was happy. We left in time to go home and eat the waiting dinner, then back in the van again for Noah's pack meeting. A rollicking good time, complete with bucket pyramid relays and elaborate web-making, and an Arrow of Light.

Then home to clean up that dinner (partially done), read to the two smallest people (done), and fall asleep long before Matt got home from a church visit (some people need their beauty rest).

Today we drive fourteen varsity water polo boys to a tournament, pick up Seth from football while simultaneously dropping of Eli for a Scout campout, catch one or two polo games, and attend the temple in between since we'll be so close.

And baby? I guess this time next year, baby will spend much of his life in the car. Poor fellow.

Technology opens an early window

Even in the last five years, technology has improved. At my first prenatal visit, nine weeks along and the baby just a couple of inches in length, I got to see his tiny fists moving around, and hear a heartbeat! I was feeling pretty crummy, and that little window into the miracle of new life made all the inconvenience and ickiness fade in importance. What's a few more varicose veins, anyway?

It is incomprehensible that the tiny little creature can already be so complete--organs, moving limbs, and that beautiful heartbeat that takes your breath away.

All that magic and wonder zipped me up on all the griping and moaning. For an hour or so, anyway.

Another blow to the vanity

Last pregnancy, or maybe it was the one before, the varicose vein situation got out of hand. Blue and purple veins exploded all over my left leg, almost overnight, as if the blood got over the dam somehow and overwhelmed the veins all at one time. It made my legs look horribly bruised, at first glance. I was relaxing on the beach with some of my husband's family during that pregnancy, when my mother-in-law suddenly gasped, "Good heavens!! What happened to your legs!?"

I am twelve weeks along, and the baby is roughly the size of a plum. So small, and yet those veins are starting to bulge again. I'm watching the other leg. With any luck, I'll have a matching set after this baby is born.

Yes, I would like some cheese with my whine

Six children is already a great many children. We're spinning plates like mad, making sure homework is done, extra-curricular activities are attended punctually, no one is dabbling in the occult. The plate representing a clean and orderly home fell off its stick long ago, and crunches sadly under our feet as we dash about, keeping the others from falling. Not unlike the sound our feet make in the actual kitchen. I'm going to have to blame that on the pregnancy, and I don't care if it's even the real reason for the mess.

Sleep has taken a serious hit around here, as well. I fall in bed no later than 8:30, but children and pets conspire against me to be sure I don't get too much of that precious commodity. A typical night, I wake up again around 11:30 or 12, when our oldest is just climbing into bed after having completed several hours of homework. "I have practice early tomorrow," he says, when I go to check on him. I sigh, and set my alarm back fifteen minutes, to 4:45. Sometime in the wee hours, the dog decides we need protection from the local wildlife. Feeling some responsibility to the sleep of the neighbors, Matt and I throw on clothes and go try to shut her up. If all goes well, I'll sleep what's left of the night 'til the 4:45 am alarm, unless the 5-year-old has a bad dream.

At least I'll be prepared for the new critter, who is unlikely to sleep any more than that.

La Mujer Propone, Dios Dispone

All I could think about at first was my nicely planned life, all upside down. I had long been congratulating myself, whenever I heard of someone else's happy news, that I would not have to lie around nauseous for that interminable first trimester, ever again. A woman with her belly out to here always made me grateful that labor would never more loom large in my future. I was happy for the new moms, of course, but I was plenty smug that I'd closed that chapter in my life.

Soon all I could think about was nausea and fatigue. And that it is WAY worse at 40 than it was at 35, when I had my last one. I'm not that old, for crying out loud, snide "advanced maternal age" labels on my medical chart notwithstanding. My body sure feels older this time, though. I crawl in bed at 8:30 p.m. and don't move until I absolutely have to get up. That is, after my husband has singlehandedly gotten all 6 kids out the door to their various schools. And when I know I'll throw up if I don't get food, now. If it weren't for the nausea, I might not get up at all. Pregnancy in one's twenties is a breeze, in comparison.

These were my thoughts as I crawled up the stairs with one small stack of laundry, stopping to rest with my head pressed against the soft carpet, waiting for the roiling nausea to pass.

Three days late are three days too many

All the baby toys and clothes had been given away years ago, as if that was a reliable form of birth control. Yet despite those careful efforts, I was still sitting on my bed with my calendar, counting and recounting days since my last period.

The next morning, I looked with a growing feeling of panic at the early pregnancy test. "Inconclusive," my husband said over my shoulder, after studying the two vertical lines that should have shown a plus and a vertical line in case of pregnancy. "I'm pregnant," I replied. He was skeptical, given the sketchy test, but I knew. With or without the pale pink plus-sign, there was a new little person already growing inside of me.

After twenty years of marriage and six children, we had our first unplanned pregnancy.