This week I can feel my uterus rising like the moon above my pubic bone. It’s remarkable, and each day, it seems higher. I will be eight weeks on Thursday, which means just four more weeks of this crazy first-trimester, or what I am calling the longest TWW in the world (it is no surprise to me that others have referred to this time similarly). It will be four weeks tomorrow that I have known that I am pregnant. Looking back, it doesn’t seem so long. I hope the next four speed by just as quickly.
I cannot claim that I have been the best of partners lately. When J read the section in my post yesterday about retreats to napland, she told me, “Napland I can handle. It’s these frequent trips to crazyland that I could do without.” She’s not exaggerating, nor is she being mean. I’m insane. I can be going along having a perfectly fine morning or afternoon, and something will set me off, and I turn into crazy pregnant lady. It’s more than a little unsettling, and I feel horrible that my wife has to deal with this. Me + hoards of pregnancy hormones = scary lunatic.
I’m told it gets better. I imagine once I’m not indulging in so much anxiety, that will help. It helps when I make sure I eat something substantial regularly throughout the day (including as soon as I wake up). And it also helps when I just shut my mouth from time to time. I am less likely to get myself worked into a frenzy if I stay silent and just move my body. J is learning this and as a result has begun walking me much more regularly. Then there are days like today when I seem to need both the frenzy and the movement. After a bit of a tantrum this morning, J and I went for a good long walk in the oak trees during which I was determined to be angry, and after which I was a pleasant human being again.
We’re talking about a trip to Humboldt soon where we can be amongst the big trees again and get filled up by old friends. So much of the pain we are both feeling lately stems from missing our people–our old mentors, our very best couple friends, our poker ladies. We still haven’t found community here; we’ve been bad about meeting people and have been discouraged the few times we have attempted to do so. Not having those people whom I used to cook for on a nearly weekly basis–who used to fill our home with their lovely energy and laughter–is heartbreaking right now, so we shall seek them out and hope for some healing within the coming month. Sometimes I wish we had never left.
I suppose I am thinking about all of this because we are coming up on one year here. It has been a year of struggles and adventures too, but it is nothing like we thought it would be. Whereas we used to have people over fairly regulalry for meals, I have not cooked for anyone but J in months. There were friends we used to meet at the local brewery to complain about students and laugh and laugh and laugh; now we inevitably go out alone. And yet, we are making a home here in wine country, and we will eventually find our people. I am looking forward to the prenatal and parenting classes we’ll soon be able to take, which will hopefully acquaint us with other parents-to-be. That, to me, sounds just great. I think we simply need life to feel a little warmer now. We need to feel a little less alone.
But I started this post talking about a newfound joy of pregnancy, so I don’t want to end on a sad note. I promised J today that I would try to be more positive, that I would try to enjoy this a little more. Maybe it will feel more enjoyable once we can share it more openly, once it all feels a little more real. For now, when I want to know it’s real, I feel that hard little crescent in my abdomen that wasn’t there even a couple of weeks ago. I try to bask in a little moonlight.
