frugan

I’ve been a little busy since returning from summer vacation. Getting prepared to move (in a week), contacting contractors, planning a kitchen, choosing floors, and making it through crazy days at work. All this moving and work mayhem has been getting in the way of being in pregnancy la-la-la-land. I often leave the house without having smeared cocoa butter onto my belly; I have yet to buy a pair of pants that I don’t feel the need to unbutton as soon as no one is looking; I haven’t made an updated list of names; and I definitely haven’t begun to knit mini sweaters or crochet any blankets. Actually, despite wanting to learn for years, I still don’t even know how to knit.

Much as I realized when I was a bride-to-be, maintaining a normal life means you can’t actually think about the main thing on your mind all the time. And that’s a good thing. I didn’t want to be a bridezilla last year, and I don’t want to be a pregzilla this year. (I’m not exactly sure what I pregzilla would be but I think maybe it would entail a certain smugness when refusing alcohol, a generally superior disposition, and showing your ultrasound pictures to every person you know.) I know that my pregnancy is most interesting to Erik and me (followed closely by my mom) so I try not to talk about it overly much, especially with people at work. And while I made time to swing by the baby department at IKEA when ordering my kitchen, I’m not planning obsessively. Um, I still don’t know what the baby’s last name will be.

But, there is a balance to be maintained – somewhere between pregzilla and letting this time slip by. These next few months will be hectic, setting up a new apartment and keeping afloat in my busiest time at work. But these months are also the second half of my first pregnancy. That’s why last weekend, in an effort to become better at chronicling this, I took a picture and wrote about my growing bump. Because I can never get back the first real signs of my first real pregnant stomach.

This week I’ve been in all-day meetings, everyday. When I come home, I’m wiped (hence the still-empty moving boxes in the living room), and I’ve been edging dangerously close to walking right by the proverbial roses along the pregnancy path.

A few minutes ago, I rushed back to my office from a meeting, grabbed my computer and made a dash for the train. I sat down, read the e-mails I missed today and then closed the e-mail program. Before opening the word document I’m typing this in, I paused. I double-clicked on three small images on my desktop. I had let a few days go by without looking at them, but one glance at my little girl in those hazy ultrasound pictures marked the end of my busy day and the return to balance. Miles away from power-point and air-conditioned conference rooms, mesmerized by a little head, little lips, little nose and a familiarly large forehead.

On Friday fall decided to arrive and the temperature dropped down to 7 degrees (that’s 44.6 F). By the time I arrived in Malmö after work I was freezing in my short-sleeved sweater, light jacket and no scarf. I could only run home long enough to drop off my computer and grab Erik before running back out to meet my visiting aunt and uncle for dinner. So I called Erik and asked if he could bring my fall coat up from the basement so that I could switch before leaving for the evening. He found it, I threw it on and then… it wouldn’t button around the middle.

Finally. A concrete, “this is not gonna work”, example of my growing belly. Up until now it’s been all “a little too tight here” and “a little uncomfortable there”. I haven’t quite been fitting into my clothes but I haven’t not been either. At this point, I’m ready to shop for some cute maternity wear if only my belly would oblige.

I never expected I’d be a huge pregnant woman but there have been times throughout these 19 weeks when my little bump had me doubting whether or not I was, in fact, just packing a few extra burritos and not with child. That lingering fear was amazingly put to rest at my first ultrasound two weeks ago when I saw, not a been filled tortilla but a wiggling, turning baby with the cutest darn unborn nose.

The day after the ultrasound my stomach seemed to pop. I suddenly felt like I looked pregnant and even went up to a pregnant girl at work to strike up a “hey, you’re pregnant, I’m pregnant, let’s bond” conversation. It’s been obvious that this particular woman is pregnant for weeks and I was guessing she was about a month ahead of me. When it turned out she was five weeks behind me I felt equal parts relief (maybe I won’t get so many stretch marks this way?) and envy (wah! you look more pregnant than me!), which got in the way of our bonding.

I don’t want to be like weirdo Nicole Kidman who looked about 3 months pregnant when she was 7 months. And I don’t want to return to burrito-like worries. Which is why my uncooperative button and my increasingly suffocating tights are welcome inconveniences.

Now, the apartment is clean, the sun is out and I am going to try and find me a generously cut fall coat.

(Note: the picture to the left was taken last night after two heaping servings of very buttery mashed potatoes, so you might want to to subtract a few millimeters.)

It started out that I couldn’t write because there was only one thing I wanted to write about and I didn’t want to write about that. Then I went to America, then I came home and was stressed and then suddenly it had been months. That wasn’t my intention. Let’s see if I can actually do this again, shall we? I don’t have many excuses now. I’m back from America, I’m back in the swing of work, and the cat is out of the bag: I’m pregnant! That should give me some blog fodder, no?