It's out there

1/3/12
Standing in front of my closet each morning might be the worst part of my day. 

When I was pregnant with Leah, my students asked me if I was pregnant in September, when I had just managed to stick my toes into the second trimester.  I felt huge, but realistically I was in that awkward phase where you wouldn't know I was pregnant unless you had a side-by-side comparison of how skinny I had been three months before.

Now, each day I face the challenge of finding attire that effectively hides the large canteloupe that is growing under my shirt from nosy, personal-space-invading kids.  Kids who thought I looked pregnant when I ate too many Christmas cookies at the beginning of December.

Yes, it's out there, this belly of mine.  And so's my secret. 

Not to the kids, thankfully.  Just a few select members of the staff who are keeping track all too closely of how often I have to pee.  Yep - that happened. 

No less than three random strangers have commented on my belly.  Asking questions like, do you know what you're having?  Have you felt the baby move yet?  I don't have the heart to tell them that, despite all evidence to the contrary, the baby is approximately the size of a pea. 

I'm starting to have some serious concerns over how many are hanging out in there, too.  Not only am I huge, but I'm feeling very, very pregnant.  All the symptoms I had last time seem to be amplified this time around.  Or maybe I'm just not as tough as I was.

Nausea?  Last time around I definitely had it.  It was more like things that I smelled or was around would make me gag, but I only once got to the point of being physically sick.  This time, my stomach literally twists and rolls and does a little dance that brings me to the brink of running to the toilet.  I haven't lost it yet and I hope to keep it that way, but I still have a ways to go on the not-hurling front.

But here's the thing: I also had some very tiny spots of blood in my underware. 

And with them came the right perspective.

Because there is nothing -  nothing - in the world as wonderful and blessed as having absolutely no clothes that fit and a stomach that feels as if I'm standing on the U.S.S. Arizona in the middle of a hurricane.  You couldn't pay me enough money to take away this imsureimgonnahurl feeling. 

The little things?  They just don't matter.  If the kids find out, so be it.  If I throw up 15 times a day for the next 5 months?  I'll take it.  What matters is this little life that is still, thankfully, growing inside me.  And with a little luck and a lotta prayer, I'll still be saying that in August. 

And the odds are good that I still won't have any clothes that fit. :)