Hyperemesis Gravidarum

Dear Future Self,

Look at you, fawning over your mewling offspring like some idiotic, idealistic moron too chemically unbalanced to acknowledge reality. But as you breeze your way through recovery to the tune of your wailing infant, as you stare and stare into the glazed-over eyes of your newborn child, remember this: I got you here, you fool.

And it wasn't by making lists of baby names and checking to make sure the initials won't spell something untoward. It wasn't by picking out impractical baby clothes to stock your already overflowing nursery closet. This miracle of life came to be because of my cold, glaring, unadorned misery.

Here are the things that make me nauseous: The sound of people clapping, the odor of my sister's fall hand soap, when the car makes a turn, when someone else sips from a straw and I hear it, thinking about, smelling, or God forbid, eating any food.

In order to avoid going to the hospital to be on a IV I take anti-nausea drugs that were created for chemo patients. Every couple of weeks I have a fight with our insurance company to pay for said drugs, usually they do, after I've run out and haven't had anything to drink for a couple of days. When they don't I pay several dollars per pill. When the pills are working, I can keep some liquids down. What I can't do is go to the bathroom. Ever. Again. Or get through a day without a nap, since the pills cause drowsiness. Oh yeah, and the headaches, remember those?

Oh you don't? That's right. You're too blissfully self-absorbed with your new gift to even take a moment to thank me. Figures.

You probably also forgot how alone I felt, how I feel like no one really gets how sick I am. How when I tell people I have "morning sickness" they give me a little sympathetic smile, and say "Have you tried saltines?" Or, "You should feel great soon!", and then expect me to go about my business of taking care of Henry and showering regularly. Meanwhile I am past the first trimester and things seem to just be getting warmed up, just the way it was last time when I puked for a full five months straight.

You probably can't even fathom how I lie in bed trying to think of something, anything but the way my body feels. All the petty pleasures that used to cheer me up do nothing now. Other than watching Henry talk, there is really only one thing that I can think of to keep it together when my husband asks if I want him to get a vasectomy: the letter that you will never bother to write to me. The one that says: "Dear past self, It was all worth it. Sincerely, Riding Your Coattails."

I hope, sincerely, that it was.

Your faithful friend,

Pregnant Grace

Feeling Some Yuppy Envy

We had lunch with some friends from church last week. We met some new people, mostly couples with kids Henry's age, and generally had a really fun time getting out of the house and socializing. I felt like I could be myself, not because everyone in the party was just like me, but because I'm at a point in my life where I just don't care about blending in, maybe I never really have. It's more important to me now to be honest, to be vulnerable, to put it out there and make real connections with people instead of just propagating more small talk.

Yet while the differences in our personalities didn't bother me, I have to say that as a parent, there were other differences that left me thinking. I was younger and poorer than everyone else there, probably a lot poorer. But our kids will go to college at the same time. I don't usually feel envious of people's stuff or money, but in this case the experience left me wondering. Will Henry have the same opportunities that these older, more established people's kids will? Can I afford to give my kids violin lessons and take them to museums in the city and send them to whatever school is best?

This month as I've packed up my wedding china. I packed up my Chaucer and my Shakespeare. I packed up everything in our house that we don't absolutely need in the next four months. In some ways, I know that this experiment in voluntary frugality will be a good thing for us. I'm hoping at the end to look at some of the treasures I put away and say, "You know what, we really don't need this." But it is also hard. It's hard because part of me feels like we will never go back to a life of grace and ease, of eating out when we wanted, of buying books and music and beautiful things, of traveling and not worrying all the time about the costs of things. Maybe that time is long gone, or maybe it never really was.

There are so many problems I would love to have right now. Pets and interior decorating and deciding whether or not to use the traditional or modern themes when choosing an anniversary gift. All I realistically want right now is to afford our health insurance for another 200 days so that a good doctor can deliver our baby. Maybe this is in and of itself a decadent third world problem. I don't know.

All I know is that I'm thinking more often about neat white fences and backyard pools, about operas and paint chips, book clubs and buying sandwiches that someone else has made. But also I'm wondering, what are the millionaires fantasizing about?

Co-habitating

It's been a bit slow on this blog lately, but my life has been ridiculously busy this past month. Why, you ask? Shouldn't I just be playing with Henry and gestating baby number 2? What else have I been up to?

Um, packing. We are moving in with my sister, her husband, and her one year old in November. The move will hopefully be short term, as we were planning on moving into my childhood home in March at the latest anyway. That house is being renovated from a labyrinthine and decaying boarding house into three separate apartments with brand new everything. But in the meantime, our family and my sister's will downsize into her three bedroom apartment.

There are several reasons why we made the decision to co-habitate, the financial benefit of sharing rent is really just the tip of the ice berg. The other big reason is that I will be 8 months pregnant when we have to move to the big house, and the idea of going through that again (last time we moved I was also 8 months pregnant) just makes me want to cry. So the plan is to do the hardest part of moving (packing up all of our useless stuff) now, and just keep out the clothes we'll need for the next four months. Oh yeah, and the truckload of stuff that Henry uses every day. That way, when March rolls around, we can move all of our neatly labeled boxes from the storage unit to the new house and unpack at our leisure.

We're also getting rid of nearly all of our furniture, and plan on getting smaller stuff when we move to the big house so that we'll have enough space there. My sister is doing something similar, packing up things she won't use until after the final move, so that there will be more space in the apartment for us. Basically, we are downsizing as best we can to make room for the new baby and all of Henry's gear.

As far as the interpersonal side goes, I think we'll be ok. Our families spend most of our time together anyway, and I actually think this move will be a good precursor to moving into the same house but in separate apartments. I think we'll feel like having our own apartments in the same house will be a move toward more privacy and independence, instead of the other way around. But we'll see! Greg and I are sort of independent people so it might be hard. That and the kids... oh the kids. They are doing better but we still have to watch them when they are together because things can get rough :) I'm hoping that sharing space will actually help them get along more consistently.

So... that's the plan. We'll soon be joining the ranks of the co-habitators. Wish us luck!