It might be more apparent now why I haven't been blogging as much, or why I've been tweaked out. I did make some private posts about the pregnancy, but without them the reason for my recent distraction was not entirely obvious.
We've had a pretty serious string of what I'd call less than ideal life events the last few months, literally starting the day after our honeymoon. I think that's one of the things that has made the miracle of conception seem like non-reality, in that we seem to be getting used to things not going our way. The first month we tried, no pregnancy, which set a weird tone. Throw in the non-employment, the house situation, the awful job market and my relentless self-imposed pressure to make something of my own business and it just seems like we're destined for bad things.
The scare we had last week really was a near-breaking point for me, because I feel as though it's my responsibility to be the strong one while Diana's body does weird things to her body, mind and spirit. As such, I don't allow myself the opportunity to decompress. The scare reminded me of how many friends and family have struggled with pregnancy, and the pain that goes with that. I think a lot of the fear can really be distilled down to that for me, with the added concern about our ages. Diana will be 40 when she delivers, and I'll be 36. A bit of a late start for both of us.
I think as time goes by, we're getting into a better mindset that this is real, and the risk is decreasing. We've been living with a lot of fear. Finally telling people helps with that too, because as you would expect, it brings people a lot of joy. Make no mistake, we've been "kid shopping" since last fall, long before we got married. You know, that's when you're walking around Disney World, and you think, hey, that could be our kid. As you might expect, the redheads in particular tend to bring on that response.
So we're about ten weeks in to this adventure, and from what we (mostly Diana) have read, her side effects have been relatively minor. No barfing, fortunately, but lots of cramping, bloating and gas. And when her belly gets spherical and stiff, that's kind of funny. She's only had one serious craving incident, and it was for KFC (yuck). Oh, and our doctor looks kinda like the actress who plays Chloe on 24, in that sexy-ugly kind of way.
The first book that Diana read said that husbands tend to exhibit a lot of sympathetic physical symptoms. I thought it was bullshit, but perhaps it's not. Between the crazy rash that I broke out in a few weeks ago to the horrible diarrhea-constipation cycle, I think it's 100% true. I've been physically a mess, not sleeping well and can't turn off my brain. I'm already worrying about things that are six months down the road.
I've thought a lot lately about how blessed I feel to have Diana as my partner in this. For all of the various things contributing to our stress, we don't contribute to each others' at all. Our actions simply never cause the other to be stressed. That's not something I take for granted. I don't think any other human being that I've ever interacted with possesses that quality, and this is the one that is my wife and mother to my future child! I can't explain why this is the case. More than two years in now on this relationship and we've never even had an argument. I can't decide if it's unnatural or just completely natural.
Ten and a half weeks down...
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