Day ~76
Week 11!

nausea scale: 3 to 4
times up to pee: zero!

It's official - my pants don't fit. I can't button any of them, except the very largest, most recently purchased pair!

Saturday was a marathon mall adventure with mom and K - wedding outfit shopping. Oh ... dear. Their excitement and insistence on trying a maternity shop for me sent them marching straight into Motherhood Maternity. I had to grit my teeth to get my feet over the threshold, feeling so uncertain and mentally unprepared for such a reality check, but I plunged ahead, shoving my flight reaction aside ... I did okay until I was in the dressing room, where I put on a jumper and felt instantly dowdy, vulnerable, and completely frightened of having to show up for work like that someday soon, exposed, unwieldy, completely outside of myself and my professional mask ...

I found one shirt that would do, and brought it to the counter, and was immediately assaulted by Super Bitch Cashier.

"I need your address please."

"Are you going to put me on a mailing list?"

"What, you don't want $400 worth of free products?"

"Well, how do they come? Are these coupons? And do you sell my information? I just don't want to get a lot of junk mail."

[sigh, rolling eyes] "You get coupons from HUGGIES. From all sorts of places. You don't want free stuff? Fine. Forget it."

I was already nervous, shaky, and sure as hell did not need to be pushed into giving my fingerprints to a mega-conglomerate diaper manufacturer. Huggies? I have no clue if I'll even use disposable! In fact, I have no clue about any of this yet!

I walked out, so close to crying, and made it into the next store, where there were racks upon racks of adorable, fitted, hip little outfits just right for the pre-pregnancy me ... and I lost it. I started crying right there in the aisle. K swooped me outside next to the ice skating rink and I sobbed and snuffled onto her shoulder. I pulled it together enough to meet mom in the department store, and when she asked if I was okay, I lost it again. Sob, snuffle, right there next to the coffee makers and cookware. Like a little girl - wailing, "I wasn't ready for that!"

After awhile, we proceeded onward, totally failing at finding anything I could possibly wear, but maintaining, through some miracle, good spirits with one another. When they dropped me off at home, I was so bone deep tired I crawled right onto our bed, in the dark, curled up ... and sobbed and snuffled on DTB for a half an hour straight. Deep, gulping, tremulous sobs.

Once I had calmed myself to an occasional wet hiccough, I moved to the couch and watched part of a very cute and fascinating documentary on how babies learn to walk ... and fell like a bag of bricks into deep, sound sleep. DTB woke me with small kisses, and I didn't wake until 9am Sunday morning.

We had a great day, and almost finished the bathroom, which is light and beautiful and the perfect cottage bathroom of my dreams!

Then we drove to the farm to tell DTB's parents. B waltzed D around the kitchen, and he got teary-eyed, and they were so very happy - I think this is the happiest I have ever made them, given our shaky history.

And when I got home, I had the most ecstatic, proud, joyous phone call from dad, from all the way around the globe, so excited to have gotten the video clip from our heartbeat appointment last week, so thrilled to be a grandpa! A's daughter L is due, amazingly, at almost the exact same time, so it remains to be seen how they'll manage to be there for both of us.

Now the parents know, the siblings know, the grandmas will know this week, my best friends will know as soon as I can catch them in their time zones ... and I will be telling The Big Boss next week, before our department retreat, so I can break the news to everyone and stop wearing my coat around the office.