Time to start my pregnancy series! My friend Jan is a photographer and has been taking wonderful pictures of me.

In the first one, I wanted so badly to look pregnant that I was sticking my stomach way out and I ended up looking bigger than in the later pictures, haha. The third picture was taken right when we moved in to our new house.

I didn’t feel much like keeping a journal or anything during the first trimester, even though I had envisioned myself getting more into it. Basically, the two months or so from when I found out I was pregnant were…well, they sucked. At first I thought, “I’m not sick, maybe I won’t get sick,” then it was, “I just feel kind of queasy, that’s probably as bad as it will get,” then I started hating pretty much all food and all food smells, and all of my own smells (like the insides of my elbows; they were suddenly disgusting), and I was living on crackers and ginger ale, and then I started throwing up, too — eventually a few times a day. Mostly a lot of dry heaving though, which did usually make me feel better. It was mostly during the time that we were housesitting and then living in the tiny studio while we waited to move in to our new house. Every now and then I had cravings, usually for something salty or greasy, and one night I was wide awake at 3am (night shifts!) and eating cheese off a giant block while sitting on the bathroom floor so I wouldn’t disturb A. I also discovered heartburn and the only thing A. has had to make a late-night (1 am) trip to the grocery store for so far has been Tums.

Then there were the night sweats, weird dreams, headaches, mood swings, extreme fatigue (night shifts?), and some other things that don’t need to be mentioned on the internet. I didn’t feel like myself AT ALL, which was frustrating because I thought I would get 9 months to prepare for having a totally different life, but already I couldn’t do the things I used to enjoy doing and I didn’t want to go out or do anything. I kept wondering why anyone would have more than one kid. I also felt more strongly pro-choice because no one should be forced to go through that for the sake of an unrecognizable tiny cluster of cells. (Especially not if they also like to kill and eat animals. But that’s another discussion.)

Now I’ve almost totally forgotten how bad I felt, so I can see how women end up going through it again. I had to go review the one journal entry I made at the time in order to write this, even. And it’s worth it, of course (I say now, while I still get to sleep through the night…).