Day ~49.

I spent much of the weekend feeling almost normal, planning a dinner party, enjoying the company, roaming the aisles of Home Depot for our bathroom remodel, and I forgot for long stretches that I am pregnant.

When my eyes open in the morning, I am so careful not to move too quickly, to take a bite of saltine, to gauge the situation in my stomach. The crackers leave my mouth sour, and it takes a long time to fall back asleep. I'm up two or three times a night to pee. And stretching, arching my back, or anything that engages my lower abdomen leaves a strange, tight, pinching sensation. How can this be? The baby is still so tiny ...

This morning, I lay awake in the pre-dawn quiet, and slowly panicked about the irreversability of this. The idea that I'll never get any sleep again, that I'll be utterly responsible for another person's well being. What if I can't manage it? What if I am never happy or vibrant or quietly reading on the couch again? I'm not being selfish in these thoughts ... I am just so worried that my limits have shrunk since I've had to care for mom so much. That I know too well what it is to give yourself up entirely, to toss aside the things you love, the projects that make you feel whole, the leisures that are restful. To become a pale, hollowed shell of yourself, ghost thin, unable to feel mirth or satisfaction because it is all ... too ... much.

What if DTB and I aren't on the same page? What if it becomes an unbridgable distance, the responsibility and the work of it all? Will we share joy? WIll we eye one another over __'s head with knowing glances and suppressed laughter, and feel like a team? Will it finally be that shared passion? Is our relationship the kind that will thrive under the experience of parenting together, or will it all crumble away? Will he remember to kiss my forehead?

Finally, I got out of bed, ate a bowl of cereal, pondered the pre-natal vitamins I've been a little lax in taking, showered, and went out into the world.

Today, nausea and a mild headache. I'm sick of eating carbs, but fruit makes my mouth sour and veggies turn my stomach. Lemonade sounds good. A sour apple. Potato chips.

Dad emailed me that his girlfriend's oldest daughter is now pregnant, and had "beaten me in the baby Olympics." She's 21. Everyone is thrilled. I know he was joking about the Olympics, but why doesn't he understand this is a sensative issue for me? That he's always chosen his lady friend's families over being present in my life? That I was trumped on providing him with grandchildren a long time ago, when his first stepdaughter had two little girls? That it would be easier to decide to become a mommy if I knew my own daddy were around the corner, instead of halfway around the world? I wonder if he'll stay until _____ is born. He planned on being here until August, so it would only be another few weeks. I wonder when his pseudo-stepdaughter is due. For certain, his girlfriend will want to be home for her first grandchild's arrival. WIll he choose to go with her? Or will he, for the first time, choose me?

I sound like such a child. But that's the purpose of this blog. To record my most forbidden thoughts during this pregnancy - this planned pregnancy - because I know there must be other mommies out there who had the same taboo conversations with themselves.

I think we'll tell R and K on Wednesday - they'll be so happy, and that will really help.

The hands and feet are forming -miniature little buds, the beginnings of fingers.