First Trimester

Cultural cramming at The British Museum, January 2012

Depending upon which pregnancy manual I am obsessively reading at the moment, I am either in the beginning of my second trimester or it begins this Thursday.

Either way, it seems about time for a catalog of the strange and not-so-strange symptoms I've been experiencing.

1) I haven't been able to find much about this online, so I am uncertain if it's a pregnancy symptom at all or just another weird "thing" I attribute to this odd journey that is reproduction. The week before I took a positive pregnancy test, my bottom teeth were incredibly sensitive, and all I wanted to eat was potato and leek soup.

2) Weight gained thus far: -2 lbs. Although I had a great deal of patience for anything pasta or bread-and-butter-based in these last few months, overall my appetite was really off. One evening I attempted to make lasagne but was hit with a giant wave of exhaustion mid-way through and went to bed at approximately 8:30 p.m. after eating a Fuji apple for dinner.

Impossible to say no... Nevis, December 2011

3) It wasn't at all difficult to give up alcohol. Though I had a Red Stripe in the Caribbean at around 5 weeks pregnant, and a mimosa on Christmas Day at around 8 weeks, I have really lost my taste for alcohol. The few sips I've stolen here and there from Will along the way have tasted really acidic to me, the way I remember wine tasting when I was about 14 and I couldn't fathom why adults liked the stuff.

4) I've been extremely winded. I noticed it first around Thanksgiving, before I knew I was pregnant, when we were out on a 4 mile walk and every hill seemed like K2. I'm relatively fit, but the huffing and puffing has been noticeable any time I hike up stairs or get my heart rate going at all.

5) My dreams have been spectacularly vivid, and spectacularly weird. I've never done acid, but I imagine it feels like this. Mostly they've been benign, occasionally sexual, and always very very detailed. In one a platypus tried to mate with me. I wake up nearly every day bemused and perplexed.

6) I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but I have a hugely unhealthy obsession with reading the birth month club message boards on sites like Babycenter and The Bump. Half the time this is reassuring, as in, "Okay, that stitch in my groin is most likely round ligament pain and not a fatal blood clot." The other half of the time, the posts send me into a tailspin. "This woman just found out her baby has a club foot. I must look up horrible pictures of club feet on Web MD immediately."

7) I have a strong urge to do as many cultural, vaguely improving things as I can (hence the picture, above, of the British Museum, which I went to solo in January.) It's not that I imagine these places will be shut to me come August. It's just that I'm conscious of taking advantage of my freedom and not spending it all watching absurd episodes of Kathie Lee and Hoda.

8) In pursuit of #7, Will and I went to see Richard III at BAM this past weekend. It was over 3 hours long, and I spent much of the second act convinced I was getting deep vein thrombosis for sitting still for so long (see #6.)

9) I've been eating fairly well, working out with my trainer twice a week, and going to pre-natal yoga at Kula Yoga, drinking a very virtuous beet, ginger, and apple juice after class. I am also craving plenty of things with absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever: sour patch kids, wine gums, Haribo anything.

10) "Bump" pictures to come. I swear. In the mornings I can't tell the difference at all. By 8 p.m., I am convinced I am expecting triplets.