Anne Nahm

So far, this is the Pregnancy That Ate My Brain. Which is hella depressing since I am only five weeks in and my due date looms out there in 2009. Some people get morning sickness. For me, all the hair on my head falls out, my bush ‘fros, and I run around seriously pissed off about completely insignificant things. Poor parking that results in me to have to walk ten feet? MUTHAFUCKA ! I will cut you. I will cut your poor parking skills ass.

While I am frothing at the mouth and tearing up and seriously considering leaving an angry note (even if the driver is still there in the car, shuffling through her purse), there is this tiny voice of sanity from deep inside my brain that asks, “Anne, you are crying over a parking spot. Really?”

He sounds a little like Captain Kirk. I imagine his frontal lobe flight deck is slowly being overwhelmed with the tribbles of my hormones. Old C.K. is also bummed about all the sleeping and staring into space, and the fact that I have started saying “li-berry” instead of “library” this week.

I don’t know how to snap out of this. I feel out of control and like I am not getting anything done. I am so mad that I have nothing to talk about but stupid pregnancy symptoms because already screaming: Enough with bitching about this pregnancy. Which is chased by the angry yapping dogs of: you should appreciate what you’ve got and umm, if you can’t handle the pregnancy, you’re probably not mature enough to raise a baby.

But jeez, is it too much to ask for these last nine months to get some stuff done before I go back down in the trenches? And, hello, how did things get so overwrought over here? Why am I crying? And how do I get this pick out of my pubes?

* Ok, and even that is not the truth. Well, it is the truth. But what is getting at me is that my mom is leaving town for two months (gone three weeks, home one week, gone four) to help my aunt go through chemo across country.

Also, I woke up Sunday with a sugar cube sized lymph node behind my ear, which was going down but still painful when I saw the doctor Monday, who gave me antibiotics that I didn’t take because first trimester medicine scares the hell out of me, and I figured the infection was dissipating anyway. But now I have this lingering anxiety about disobeying medical authority.

Additionally, my ear is freaking out and demanding topical steroids**, which I am also not using, because first trimester. When I double checked with the pharmacist about both medicines, she said, “well anything you take in the first trimester risks birth defects. But so does not treating a medical problem like an infection.” And so I am just all damned- if-I-do- damned - if - I don’t cranked up and tearful with a hurty ear. And Captain Kirk has to stand back with a little amazement that I can squeeze that much melodrama out of a parking space and a puffy ear.

** my ear, like my cooter, has issues with getting a little angry and needing cortisone.  Is not infection related, just constant annoyance.  And hey, I bet your mental image of me got even sexier just now, huh?

PS: Thank you everyone for your well wishes - it means a lot to me.

I swore off caffeine once I saw there might be two lines on that pregnancy test. I know some caffeine is OK during pregnancy, but I have a problem distinguishing between drinking a cup of green tea and drinking an entire pot of coffee. Especially since my ‘pot of coffee’ is actually made in the espresso machine and simply poured into the pot because it is the only container big enough to hold my drink.  I will then drink directly from said pot, using a Big Gulp straw until I have my daily meeting with the Great Cornholio.

So I have been in a detox coma since Wednesday afternoon. It has not been pretty - only yesterday I had to restrain myself from french kissing a two-liter diet coke bottle my husband left on the counter. Also, I have woken up in a real and true puddle of drool twice in the past week. But the precaution does appear to have been worthwhile. I seem to indeed be pregnant as indicated by two dark red lines on the latest test. March 25th is the due date. Which has a reasonable chance at being an April Fool’s baby if I go late again.

All those familiar symptoms of pregnancy are present. Like today, I have spent most of the morning running around my house demanding, “What…. IS…. That…. Smell?” Also, I started a David Sedaris book two weeks ago that I thought was really funny. Now I just want to slap that guy. And tell my husband all the tiny reasons I hate that guy while refusing to quit reading or shut up about it.

We haven’t told our families yet, but today my mom made some comment about my pants fitting differently. Also, my sister-in-law called two nights ago ‘just to see how everything was going’ which she has not done in at least a calendar year. So either: 1) this blog has been infiltrated or 2) I am enjoying a nice bout of paranoia and am visibly popping out at five weeks. I’m not sure which possibility is more horrifying.

My head hurts from all the squinting. Or maybe it is all the obsessing. Damn it. What do you see? Besides the pee of a crazy lady. (Which I know you are totally enjoying while drinking your coffee this morning! You’re welcome.)

PS I am totally overwhelmed with the classiness of this post. I might have to go and put on some pearls and low heel pumps.

Over the past two weeks, I have:

1. Slept fourteen hours in a row.
2. Cried a whole lot.
3. Thrown stuff.
4. Blamed all these behaviors on my husband and his Demon Seed, Which is Obviously Growing In Mah Belly. Damnit, can’t you see my glow? I am lit from within by demon seed.
5. Insisted I felt conception happen. And yes, it felt like hurty boobs and seasickness for two hours if you are curious.
6. As a counterpoint to my husband’s rather logical argument (e.g.: Anne, you could never feel that happen in a million years. Take a nap if you want, but Gee to the Zus, quit insisting on the clearly impossible) I heard myself say, “I have been pregnant twice before, and damnit, I’m getting better at knowing it all. The. Time.”
7. Peed on a stick fifteen days before my period and expected visible results.
8 Cried over lack of positive results. Not because I thought I might not be pregnant. Oh no. But because I couldn’t waggle a positive test in my husband’s know-it-all face.

9. Eaten fudge ice cream topping off a spoon because there was no other sweet in the house.

10. Cried briefly over there not being a tenth thing on this list.

Yeah. Well only four more days until I’m actually close enough to take a test.

The last fight we had in our house was about:

If this carrot should wear pants.

subcategory a: I think he should. Why? What could be hiding under those pants?

subcategory b: That is disgusting.

subcategory c: Why do you have a tiny toilet in your possession?

subcategory d: Do you think it’s OK for your daughter to see that carrot without pants? Or even with pants? Pants on a carrot can mess I kid up, I bet.*

*No children saw this carrot, in or out of pants.