Reflections on the First Trimester

So I've been pretty quiet about this pregnancy so far.  But now that I'm through the first trimester, I'm ready to reflect. 

Recall from your past the worst case of food poisoning or flu you've ever experienced.  Now imagine the moment during that experience when you felt the most desperate and horrible.  Then, in that moment, imagine that someone tried to make you feel better by telling you that your symptoms would only last for another 8 to 9 weeks. 

Not reassuring.

And you know that gag reflex that is triggered when you shove a finger down your throat?  You might not vomit, but you sure feel like you will?  Yeah, you know the one.  Well, imagine that your WHOLE body triggers a gag reflex when touched.  Personal contact is off limits.  That's hard to negotiate in a country where people like to touch you all the time: to greet you, to say goodbye to you, to be nice.  There were times when I nearly killed Ernesto for lightly brushing my ankle in his sleep.

My lesson from 9 weeks of hell?  Don't try to make a woman feel better about her 24/7 nausea, food aversions, ability to smell every nasty ass odor on earth (including your feet), overwhelming fatigue, and unending discomfort by telling her it's temporary.  Because if "temporary" is more than a few days or a week, it's not reassuring.  It's just infuriating and depressing.

I'm just saying, sometimes "temporary misery" is not consoling.   

Based on the symptoms I just described, I give the first trimester an "F".  Don't misunderstand me.  Am I glad we're having a baby?  Absolutely! But am I like the women on the front cover of all those parenting magazines, all fresh-faced, big-boobed, radiant, and smiling?  Not really.  And I'm certainly not like those women who say their whole pregnancy was heavenly.  I'm happy for those women, who either have amazingly cooperative hormones or an exceptional ability to delude themselves.  But they also make me feel bad about myself.  They make me feel selfish and crappy about feeling so damn miserable for so damn long.  And the truth is, it's hard to be all sunshine and love towards an embryo that's causing you to feel so terrible.  And knowing that you're resenting your embryo just makes you feel bad about yourself.  Not a good way to feel about your prospective career as "mother" when you're thinking nasty thoughts about the organism that you'll eventually call your child.

Obviously, I'm not going to win the "Happy Pregnant Lady of the Year" award, though I'm much better now.  I no longer resent my fetus.  I'm actually pretty happy with it.  It has stopped trying to kill me, (at least for six months, when it will try again), and that makes me happy.  I think I've started to feel it flutter, and that makes me happy too.  I have energy and can eat and exercise.  Consuming and burning calories makes me a nicer, kinder person.  

Let's be clear though: I'm not feeling fantastic.  I'm just feeling a lot better than before.  I've decided that most women who promise you'll feel "AMAZING!" during the second trimester don't really feel amazing.  They just don't feel like they have food poisoning, and in comparison, I guess the absence of food poisoning is amazing. 

So today I went maternity clothes shopping (and on my 1.5 hour excursion had to pee four times, which is one more reason the word "amazing" seems to be a bit of an exaggeration).  I don't need maternity clothes yet, but figured I better buy some stuff while I'm in the States.  It was on this excursion that I discovered something that truly is amazing and that has the potential to make me a very happy pregnant lady (read mega-points in "happy pregnant lady of the 2nd trimester" race): maternity pants. 

I'm not sure why all women aren't wearing these miracles.  They are fabulous.  For starters, you can adjust the height of the elastic band to suck in whatever kind of muffin-top catastrophe is threatening to ruin your self-esteem.  Another pro?  You can go ahead and overeat without feeling the need to unbutton your pants.  What could be better?  No more need to stare at those unsightly button mark indentations that temporarily scar your skin upon removing your pants (and that make you feel like an exploding whale).  No need to button or zip anything at all!  These little beauties give you an extra ten to twenty seconds to get to the bathroom without peeing yourself.  Do you know how many times I've almost peed myself because I can't unbutton my damn pants or unzip my damn zipper?  A lot.  So the idea that I can just pull down my pants . . . amazing.

I really can't believe I didn't know about these things before.  I can think of no downside, except that a red-carpet rule is that you never wear elastic waistbands -- but even the fashionistas say that if you must wear an elastic band, simply ensure your shirt is long enough to hide it.  Done and done!!!! 

I might not need pregnancy pants/shorts yet, but I'm sporting them right now looking AMAZING.  Okay, I probably don't look amazing.  And I certainly am not smelling too hot right now either.  But the important thing?  For the first time in 14 weeks -- okay, wait, that's a lie -- there was one night I ate a whole pizza and a few other times I enjoyed gelato when I felt pretty damn great.  Anyway, this is one of the few times in the past 14 weeks when I've actually FELT amazing.  And it's in this moment, wearing my jean shorts with a 12" foldable elastic band, that I think those women proclaiming second trimester bliss might be on to something.  Maybe the second trimester is awesome.  Not because you feel so damn great, but because it's during this period that you discover the joys of maternity pants and have the social permission to sport those elastic waistbands with glee.