Tell me how anybody thinks under this condition

I think I was waiting to write until I had something new to say. Something other than pre-baby hysteria or swearing at strangers under my breath or sometimes maybe not so under my breath. It seems, though, that this is where I live for now. No sense pretending it's otherwise. Every morning frustrates me with its challenge of having nothing to wear. Maternity clothes hang loose off my hips. Pre-pregnancy clothes don't fit. I'm awaiting a confrontation with The Boy over my frequent trips to Old Navy-- but it's not like I've been enjoying them, or like I have a wide variety of clothing options. And still, people don't seem to believe I'm pregnant. At work the other day, a man mistook me for somebody else. "I thought you were Kristen," he said, "but she is pregnant, and you are obviously not." When actually, I am four and a half months along. What to say?

I have always been clumsy; my mother once told me, watching as I practiced plies in the basement, that I had the gracefulness of a frog. I used to fall a lot. Not so much in recent history, thank goodness, but there are always bruises of unknown origin on my shins. Lately, though, it's even worse. Dropping everything, spilling drinks, banging elbows and other appendages into doorjambs-- you name it.

I had The Boy on speaker yesterday while I got ready for a girls' night out. I dropped makeup on my foot and swore loudly. "It's like talking to a sailor!" He remarked. While it's true that I've never been known for my patience, these days I have the shortest fuse I've ever had. I yell at drivers, think awful thoughts about shoppers in the mall, walk out of stores without what I need because it really feels like, if I have to wait in that line, I might explode. Today was not a good day, irritability wise. I made it through Pilates without much trouble, but it seemed to go downhill from there. Of course all of this new found salty talk comes at a time when my incubating child's sense of hearing is maturing. Our journal tells me, though, that the baby "might not understand everything" I say. So that's good to know.

We have argued lately over whether to have a Quad Screen-- an optional and somewhat controversial test used to screen for chromosomal abnormalities like Down Syndrome. A positive test would not result in any type of actionable information, other to than allow for termination of the pregnancy, which we are adamantly against. "So what is the point of the test?" I asked my OB while The Boy listened.

"It's really depends on your personality, whether you think it would help you to know." I told her I'd talk to my husband about it, figuring it would be another non-issues. I wanted to get it done because I figured, if we found out something is wrong, I could begin dealing with my disappointment then and learn as much as possible to prepare. The Boy doesn't see it that way. He's afraid it would just make things worse. We cannot agree on this issue. I am unaccustomed to being so divided on something that feels so serious-- we have a long history of concurrence, or at least compromise. When something is more important to one than the other, one concedes. On the things that have seemed important, we've typically just happened to agree. We were not equipped for this type of fundamental disagreement. We are still undecided.

The big sonogram is Tuesday, the one in which we assumed we would learn the sex of the baby, but I recently realized there's more to it than that. First of all, we may not be able to tell at all. That hadn't even occurred to me until a girl at work (who had never even uttered hello to me before she knew I was pregnant) told me all about the sonogram shenanigans leading up to the birth of her little Evan. They could never tell what he was. I'm really hoping ours child is more cooperative, but it wouldn't shock me if it isn't. And more important than all of that, this sonogram is meant to detect any congenital defects-- it's not all "Hi Mommy" written on a grainy image. So I'm nervous, of course, because that seems to be the pregnancy symptom more widespread than morning sickness: worry. When I found out I had only gained 1 pound through my 16th week of pregnancy, my first thought was "hooray!" Then, without even taking a breath, I asked the nurse, "Oh no, do you think that's okay?"

At Old Navy today, clinging to my sanity when I probably shouldn't have been allowed to be around people, I bought two t-shirts. One says "It's a Boy," and one says, "It's a Girl." I'm trying to be hopeful even though lately it feels like it would be more appropriate for it to say, "It's just too many hamburgers lately" or "It's the worst and longest-running PMS of all time." Take your pick.