This is post three in a three-part series that documents each of my pregnancies. I wanted to capture my memories of these child-bearing years before they become too hazy in mind…
Baby #3…
Fancy clothes. People always pitied me for having summer pregnancies, but I always thought they were wrong. Your sisters were born in September and June in blazing Phoenix, but I happen to be a teacher who got to spend my largest, most uncomfortable weeks of pregnancy wearing casual cotton clothing over summer break. I always thought dressing up in formal work clothes in the middle of winter during the third trimester of pregnancy sounded far more complicated than sweating in a maxi dress. It turns out, I was right. I found out I was pregnant with you the week I started my job as a professor in the fall, and my spring classes are scheduled to end the week of my due date. From September until now, I’ve had to figure out how to dress the bump in professional clothes. To make things more complex, I have horrible varicose veins this pregnancy, so all short dresses and skirts are out the question. This makes about 80% of my maternity wardrobe from Arizona completely useless. Tomorrow, I am going to wear nylons for the first time since the 90s to see if I can pull off a knee-length maternity dress for work.
Eggs. I thought I learned about nausea with Talitha, but I actually had no idea. You were my first baby to make me feel like many moms do during their first trimester. All-day queasiness and utter exhaustion. I remember carrying Talitha upstairs for her morning nap the first few weeks of pregnancy and having to lie down on my own bed afterward because I felt so fatigued. And for weeks I struggled with an ill-tempered stomach that could only be appeased by constant eating. I finally learned that I had to eat two breakfasts to feel good the rest of the day. My first meal was at home – a latte followed by cereal or a waffle with a banana or yogurt. The second meal was eggs. I know some people crave meat during pregnancy, but my protein of choice was eggs. All through the fall semester, I would stop for eggs before my first class of the day. Sometimes I would seek out the best local breakfast burrito on Yelp, but most mornings, I would just pull into the Starbucks down the street from work and order a bacon, gouda, egg breakfast sandwich. It was my $3.75 solution to pregnancy nausea. I actually cried on Election Day this past year, not because of the awful candidates, but because Starbucks ran out of my beloved sandwich on a morning when I was particularly hungry.
Ocean. It’s too soon to be nostalgic, because we still live by the beach and you haven’t even arrived yet, but I’m pretty sure whenever I’m by the ocean, I’ll think of you. I learned I was pregnant just a few weeks before we moved to our beach house. I will always remember jogging slowly down the boardwalk during those first few months of pregnancy and hauling our laundry up and down the stairs with a giant bump. I’ll think of the ocean sunrises and sunsets that marked the passing months as you grew in my womb, and I hope whenever I smell the sand and the salt, I think fondly of you.
