A green pregnancy; the good, the bad and the ugly

Guess who is pregnant…

And over 35.

Yeah, me.

THE UGLY:

These two together plus this child who has decided to join our green world has made me so, so sick I’ve toned down my blog posts from four a week to one–when I can even muster that. AND I’ve been using old posts I’d pre-written last year because I’ve just been too darn sick to sit at the computer. I had to stop the G.I. Crockpot blog all together. “Well, for now,” my husband encourages. The small amount I’ve been cooking, I don’t have the energy to snap pictures of or download at all. We ate out 18 times last month.

 I’m not proud of it. (Many of them were just me–eating sandwiches and candy for lunch in-between a shlew of appointments. Is shlew a word?)

We’d planned for this. And we wanted it to be green. A green pregnancy. It was going to be the very beginning of a wonderful green creation. Already making most of our foods from scratch, we’d also planted a massive garden so I would have plenty of fresh, healthy food to eat. I planned on only buying used maternity clothes and specifically said I did not want a baby shower.

Reality hasn’t gone quite as planned, though.

THE BAD:

The sickness hit. Morning sickness, afternoon sickness, evening and night sickness–you name it, clinging on with a shadow of depression spread thick as peanut butter. And the migraines that kept me down for days unable to even talk on the phone because I refused to take any medication at all. I’d suffer through it. I didn’t want to hurt the baby. I couldn’t even get off the couch and we ended up ordering out food much more than either of us would have liked. The hubby even started to get a little stomach. I just couldn’t stand up long enough, the heat made me ill. Standing made me ill. Everything made me ill. The house was a mess. I felt overwhelmed. I could no longer write.

The garden was a bust. It was too hot for much of the food to produce and because we tried organic– the bugs beat me to most of the produce as I could not get off the couch to get to it. Livid is the word I would use when I wasn’t crying out of frustration. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. Thank goodness for the farmer’s market. Peaches and watermelon are in season, at least. 🙂 My tummy is full and happy.

I had no desire to go in search of cute maternity clothes that made me look adorable (used or not) so I wore my husband’s clothes which hung off me, making me look as big as a barn. I rarely left the house because I had nothing to wear.

 When I finally bit the bullet and went out shopping, I hit every consignment shop we had in town (which I believe is three) and then went to the military exchange. Not only did none of the stores have ANY maternity clothes, neither did the huge military exchange in Jacksonville. Seriously? How is that possible? With all the pregnant military women and there are no maternity clothes at the exchange? I refused to shop anymore in Jacksonville, mainly out of irritation and exhaustion. I’d spent a day shopping and wobbling on my feet, and anyone who knows me knows I put shopping right up there next to poking my eyes out with a hot poker. I was done.

But my snappiness and anger might have been caused by the fact my clothes no longer fit. I was nearing month six and no matter what I pulled on, I had to go to the bathroom in a matter of minutes. Or I had to not button my pants and just use a safety-pin. Yeah, real fashionable there.

My husband had had enough. The very next weekend he went maternity shopping with me. He waited outside the dressing rooms and told me everything looked good on me, even the bright, aqua pair of shorts. He told me it did not make me look fat and it didn’t matter how much it cost. Was it comfortable? And suddenly, the sun broke through and I felt so much better. So much better in fact, I didn’t even want to take them off to pay for them. I changed into them right there in the passenger seat once we got to the car, to the horror of my husband.

Stupid on my part, I know, I know. 😛

By the end of month five, the nausea feigned a bit and I was able to get back in the pool. I’m starting to feel a bit like my old self again. I have more energy and motivation to try to blog a little more and maybe start back with my edits. The green pregnancy pitches to local parenting magazines never went anywhere. I didn’t have the capacity to even check email if they’d written me back. I’ve put that on the back burner for now. It’s all so overwhelming and I tell myself I don’t have to get articles published in magazines to prove my worth. I just have to take care of my health right now–eating right, exercising, trying to be positive, getting enough rest–in order to birth a heathy baby. Priorities seem to be shifting, no matter how much I’ve fought them.

THE GOOD:

What has worked out so far: We’re still set on the cloth diapers and I plan on trying to breast feed and then make my own baby food. Everything up until this point has been purchased used from the Goodwill or given as a hand-me-down. The only things we’re missing are the crib and car seat which I’ve been told “need” to be new, and a swing which I intend to buy at the massive baby consignment sale in Jacksonville in October. So, in that area we’ve done well! As the baby clutter moves in though, our clutter gets more and more crowded and I get more and more overwhelmed….but I’m learning to let go a bit. If I’ve learned anything from all this, it’s that I have control over very little and the more I let things go, the better I feel. The easier life gets and the more palatable it is.

We know it’s a girl and think we’ve decided on a name. She kicks non-stop now, especially at 4-7 in the morning when I’m not ready to wake up yet. She kicks and punches all day long. She must know it’s the Olympics because she seems to be swimming non-stop.

 The chair of the NGO Earth Keepers says I get to teach her all the things I know, that she’s going to grow up to change the world, that I should name her Rachel after Rachel Carson. Mainly she says it’s going to be one amazing, green adventure.

God, I hope so.

Here we go–it’s already been one heck of a ride, thus far! Pictures of the tummy soon to follow.

Related articles

• Mrs. Money: Save Money on Maternity Clothes (savings.com)
• Cloth or Plastic? (stophereiwannagetoff.wordpress.com)
• The button popped… (solomamalife.wordpress.com)

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