Differences

One of the benefits of keeping up with this blog throughout my pregnancy with LL is that I have a resource to refer to, week by week, to see what to expect this time around. When I'm feeling particularly crappy, it helps to read my posts from last time and see how they gradually got more upbeat about side effects, reminding me that things do get better. But, there's a downside to having that journal from last time: it emphasizes for me just how different this pregnancy has been.

I'm a little over 18 weeks pregnant right now. Middle of the second trimester, almost halfway there. By this point with LL, I was done with the morning sickness entirely, which had been replaced with frequent migraines and back pain. I had told all of my friends and coworkers about the pregnancy, and was happily planning my maternity leave. I had started looking at stuff that I wanted to buy for the baby (didn't buy anything yet, but I was looking) and we had already received several baby gifts in the mail. I was almost done crocheting a blanket for the baby. I was wearing maternity pants every day, since my regular pants had grown too tight and uncomfortable. I had gained 5 pounds. S and I were tossing around a few names (though nothing serious until we found out the gender). We had started clearing out the room that would become the nursery. And I was feeling regular light kicks from tiny LL.

I know that every pregnancy is different, blah blah blah, but I still expected a fair amount of overlap. But, it's not happening. Comparing that list to this time around, the only commonalities are the frequent migraines and back pain. That's it. Everything else is different. I'm still getting morning sickness, worse than it was for most of the first trimester. I've barely started to tell my coworkers (it's leaking out slowly this time around) which means that many of our friends don't know yet, either. I have no idea what I'm going to do about maternity leave, because I don't know if I'm going to have a job. We have done zero shopping for the baby, and have received no gifts. I haven't so much as bought yarn for a blanket, much less started working on one. I'm still wearing normal clothes, which fit just fine. I'm 2 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight. S and I haven't mentioned a single baby name. We don't know where the baby is going to be sleeping, because we don't know if we're going to be buying a new house before the baby arrives, so nothing has been done for a nursery. And I've just barely started to feel some kicks, and I'm not completely convinced that they're not just my imagination.

Some of these things are entirely under my control -- if I wanted to tell people, I could. And nothing in particular is stopping me from discussing names or looking at new strollers or crocheting a blanket (other than, um, writing my dissertation, which has a self-imposed deadline of "before I go into labor," but it's not like I'm not procrastinating on that with everything possible under the sun). Still... I'm not feeling any particular drive to get going on the baby stuff yet, either. My defense is, of course, partly to blame -- I'm been very very distracted by getting through that ordeal. And now that it's over, the dissertation writing and job hunting are sharing front stage. But not gaining weight and not showing and not feeling many kicks... those things have kind of combined to make this pregnancy feel very abstract for me, even this far along. I'm not particularly worried about those things (lots of people don't feel kicks until closer to 20 weeks, and the baby is growing normally so I've been told not to worry about the lack of weight gain) but still... it seems to be making me feel more "distant" from this pregnancy than I was with LL. And that makes me a bit sad.

We're hoping to find out the baby's sex at next week's detailed ultrasound, which should help me to put an imagined face to this oh-so-abstract baby. I'm hoping that the sex information helps to make things more real for me. In the mean time, I forced myself to buy something for the baby, something that I can look at to hopefully start some of the baby daydreaming that consumed me during my pregnancy with LL. I bought this onesie for the baby this week. Appropriate, no?