xxx
***
(Don't send me your answers. This is just a little way to expand your horizons. Honest.)
I am not doing so well right now.
It's 1:30 in the morning. I am tired and I am up because I cannot fall asleep. I don't know whether this is because I had a Coke earlier today -- I've had very little caffeine for months and any amount will probably have an effect -- or because my body hurts. It just hurts.
Sitting up is unpleasant, lying down is not much better. Lying down is probably worse because I have to get up so often to go to the bathroom. Only it's not so easy to get up to go to the bathroom. I have to get my legs out of bed and then use momentum to get the rest of me to follow. That's if I'm facing the side of the bed. If I'm facing the middle of the bed I have to twist my legs around, then bring my stomach around to follow, then get my legs out of bed, then get the rest of me.
I'm an ox.
My abdomen hurts most of the time now. I guess that's the Braxton-Hicks contractions, although I've felt very few things that actually feel like contractions. I just hurt. Walking around makes it better, which is a sign that I'm not in labor -- when I'm in labor walking around will make things worse. Boy, I can't wait for that.
The best part of going to the bathroom these days is that evidently I'm not wiping myself correctly. Every second or third time I stand up and feel a telltale trickle run down my leg. Oh great. I can't reach down there very well. My arm isn't long enough, I guess. I don't know how women who get really big do it. Maybe they spend more time and are more careful cleaning themselves. Maybe they wipe off their legs when this happens.
I'm not even going to get into the hilarities of the constant constipation, followed by the fun of literally ripping a new one when my body decides to clear itself out.
Maybe the problem is I keep thinking I'm still in my old body. And I'm not. I'm in this big, stupid, ungainly body. I'm not fat, I'm pregnant. I'm not an ox, I'm pregnant. I'm not a big, stupid, unlovable lump, I'm just pregnant. And what do I get out of being awkward and uncomfortable and insomniac and feeling as though there is no way I can sleep through the night because my body hurts, no matter which way I put it and last but not least going through a procedure that is really going to do a number on my anatomy?
A baby.
A completely unknown human being is going to come live in my house. A complete stranger who's going to holler for the first several months at everything I do and everything I don't do. Who's going to cry and scream, two activities I don't do well with when I can actually talk to the person, let alone when that's her only form of communication.
The advice I keep getting is, "Stock up on your sleep now." Like you can stock up on sleep. Like a pregnant woman who has to pee three or four times a night is getting a good night's sleep anyhow.
I don't know anything about this total stranger except that she likes to move a lot, and all I get when I tell people about that is, "Uh oh..." Uh oh. You know what that means. No, goddammit, I don't know what it means, but now I'm terrified: she's going to be a handful, she's going to be manic, she's going to have ADD, she's going to be spastic? I'm not going to sleep peacefully ever again, whether or not she sleeps through the night, and how do people rest my mind? Uh oh.
She's all I can think about. I lose track of conversations, I can't concentrate for more than ten minutes, I'm bursting into tears for no reason at all (thereby becoming one of those women I've always despised and felt superior to). I have to make lists of the little things I want to do during the day because I can't remember otherwise. I go into a fugue state: did I do that or just think about doing that? Did I ever respond to that e-mail? I've really got to do such-and-so before the baby gets here, because I won't get it done afterward. That's what everyone says: Get it done now, you won't get it done later.
I'm not getting it done now. So I burst into tears even harder.
This stupid hyperactive baby sure picked the wrong mommy, don't you think? Stupid woman can't get anything done -- the house is a mess, the baby's room isn't done, and I'm not going to get anything accomplished after she gets here.
There's a little tiny part of my brain telling me, "Things aren't that bad, you're just tired and overwrought because of your hormones." But it doesn't matter if my upset and my anger and my terror is the result of my hormones or not -- and what a fucking sexist copout that one is, it has always bothered me -- because they sure as hell feel pretty damn real to me right now.
The answer to yesterday's question: ***
 |
 |
 |
 |
Copyright 2000 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com