A Girl...

Pregnancy Update, Part I

Part I: All the Complaints Fit to Print

Last week we took a belly shot (sadly the photography kind and not the Spring Break tequila kind) and I layered it over a shot from three weeks prior and then animated a little camera one/camera two gif so you could clearly see the staggering growth I've undergone lately. My plan backfired a little, however, since the way my shirt was situated in the first photo made my 20 Week belly look larger than my 23 Week belly, which I can guarantee you is NOT THE CASE, but oh well, I'll just take another shot this week and, by golly, this time I will make damn sure I look as enormous as I feel , even if I have to fudge the perspective or stand next to something miniature, like, say, my bras. My bras, which don't fit. (As opposed to "my bras that don't fit," the former construction specifying that my bras, collectively, all of them, no longer contain what they where designed to contain. Thus endeth the grammar lesson and thus beginneth the too much information.)

But I must say that having boobs is awesome, and now that that prayer has finally been answered after, oh, about seventeen years, I am free to use all those falling-star and water-well wishes on other things. For starters, I wish I were free of the weird acne-like eruptions that are taking place between my new boobs, making it really hard to show them off properly in a low-cut shirt. I don't know whether it's a hormonal thing or a summer-slams-the-Bay-Area thing, but boy oh boy do I sweat a lot these days. I am a fountain of body oil. I am making my own gravy. I am considering naming the baby Sebaceous. After I shower there's a gray slick around the drain. (I tried to blame it on Simon, but the process of elimination quickly fingered the culprit as yours truly.)

And speaking of things you didn't want to know, the second thing I do after I come home from work (after going to the bathroom again, because it's been fifteen whole minutes since last time and that teaspoon of urine is signed, sealed, delivered, and marked URGENT) is *TMI TMI TMI* change my underwear because over the course of the workday I have soaked it through with a combination of sweat and something else that is most definitely hormonal. (Hey, I warned you.) This is where I was going to link to a picture of Fergie (not the royal one but the Spring Break tequila one!) and say that at least I didn't wet myself, but then I remembered (NOT THAT I HAD FORGOTTEN) that this morning I sneezed and a little pee came out. So there's that.

Am gross. Call Hazmat.

The heat is also either causing or at least aggravating the one symptom that's actually popped up during the same week my BabyCenter newsletter said to expect it: swollen feet. I have to admit that I was excited to finally overlap with at least one symptom on one official pregnancy timeline, but then I shifted my gaze southward again, beheld my honest-to-goodness cankles, and felt a surge of fear course through my soul because I simply cannot afford to go up a shoe size. I'll cut the toes out of my current pairs if I have to. On the bright side, at least maybe now my fattened calves will fill out the shafts of my awesome boots and I'll be able to wear them with skirts without the danger of crumbs, stones, and small animals falling into the gaps.

Let's see, what else...If you don't smell me coming, you can usually at least hear me. I grunt, I groan, and the things that come out of my mouth that aren't gutteral muffles fall under the following general categories:

--I am gross.
--I am hungry.
--I have to pee again.
--I have to do this for how many more months?!
--Would you be so kind as to help me attain a standing position?

But oh my god, you guys, I am having the time of my life. I can't wait to tell you all about it tomorrow.

p.s. (Or is this an update to an Update?) I just remembered a few other annoying things:

1. For several months now I have been propelling myself through space like a speed skater. What I mean is that when I walk, I swing one arm behind me for momentum. Not at all silly looking!

2. Although I'm still carrying super low, things are starting to move up and get a little crowded in my thorax (thoraxic?) area. Sometime when I bend forward my stomach sends up a little shotglass of stomach acid. Par-tay!