>At some point in every first pregnancy, I assume, the woman in question begins to wonder:

‘On a scale of 1 to 10, how painful will this labour thing be?’

At almost 20 weeks pregnant, I find myself comparing the pain of anything that happens to me to labour. For example, I stubbed my toe against our bedpost the other day while picking up laundry. It hurt like hell but all I could think about was ‘I wonder how this pain compares to labour?’ Which makes about as much sense as comparing Amy Winehouse and Anne Hathaway on a style scale. But pregnant Ezmy doesn’t shy away from the nonsense thoughts, as we well know.

All this wondering about pain could prompt someone to ask other women who have kids about their experiences. I mean, who better to tell you, right? But this means opening yourself up to one of two types of answers, neither of which is very satisfying. First, there are the Super Frightening answers – the ‘Oh god, I was in labour for 50 hours before they finally decided to perform a C-section because the kid wasn’t coming out’, the ‘Oh yeah, the labour was so fast that the baby was born in the bathroom and came out not breathing and the paramedics revived her at the last minute’, the ‘The baby tore through my uterus and both of us nearly died’, and the general ‘I thought I was going to die from the pain’ stories. All of which are enough to make you think ‘Huh, I wonder if the kid can just, you know, stay in there….”

Second, and in some ways far worse, is the Beautiful Experience type of answer. Which, unsurprisingly, often comes from those same women who insist that pregnancy is a beautiful journey (interesting, yes. But beautiful? No.). You know the ones – ‘Oh I was so caught up in the magic of the moment, I barely felt the pain’, or ‘Well, my labour lasted about 45 minutes…I guess it was painful’, and my personal favourite, ‘I don’t know what these other women are complaining about – I don’t remember labour being that bad.’ Really? Really? You pushed out an 8lb watermelon and you don’t remember it being that bad? All I can say is pfft.

What the variety of answers means of course is that no one’s experience will help me. Neither will comparing the pain of stubbed toes, paper cuts, and foot cramps to the pain of labour on some irrelevant pain scale. There is nothing I can do to prepare myself for this, just like there is nothing I can do to prepare myself for my life post-pregnancy.

How infuriating.

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I don’t often post things asking for money and such but I think it’s important to put this out there. The earthquake in Haiti is shaping up to be one of, if not the worst natural disaster to hit the Western Hemisphere. Time to whip out your pocket-books, my blogger friends, and help the poor people of this country out. And I do mean poor – on a good day in Haiti, roughly 80% of the population lives below the poverty line…yeesh.

I chose Doctors without Borders. Here’s the link: http://www.msf.ca.

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What if I can’t find the stroller I want in time for Ewan’s arrival? And what if he doesn’t like the colour red (his likely room colour)?

This is what I woke up at 5:00am this morning to worry about. Seriously. As if I can do anything about these issues at that time. More to the point, as if these even are issues to worry about at 5:00am or any other time for that matter. Of course I will find the stroller I need and of course the kid won’t give two hoots about the room colour. Sensible words that were lost on me in the wee hours of today. When I had moved on from worrying about these things, I started in on the ‘What if we can’t find someone to marry us?’ worry and the ‘Oh man, I better get LD to book a block of hotel rooms’ worry. Around about 7:00, while LD lay peacefully sleeping next to me, I headed into the worry to end all worries – money. How the HELL are we going to afford all of this? By the time LD was awake at the sensible Sunday morning hour of 10:00am, I had worked myself into a right tizzy and was frantically trying to figure out how I was going to get my drivers license renewed this week (way past due because of the strike and now I’m worrying I won’t have a license in time to drive Ewan to the hospital when he gets some rare disease I’ve never heard of…), while at the same time wondering if Ewan has spina bifida (a regular worry for me…don’t ask me why) and if people are going to like the food at the wedding.

Ha.

Mornings like these are becoming increasingly common…this is troubling. I don’t know what I would do without Andrew. He’s the one who calmly assures me that Ewan’s organs are likely all where they should be and that he will in fact be born with a head. He is also the one who reminds me that as long as we keep plugging away at it, the wedding will get planned and the house will get moved into. Sensible man.

I wish my new prenatal yoga dvds would arrive…I’m desperately in need of a good new stretch. And a nap…

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Sigh.

So I’ve been working for a patent firm since just before xmas. I was hired as a copy-typist but have been working at the reception desk for the last two weeks so that the other receptionist could take some vacation time. Reception is one of the most boring jobs a person can have, but there are some perks. For one thing, you get to meet the cute Canada Post guys (and some of the morning ones are cute with a capital C). Reception is also the place where the food and supplies stop first, so you can pull out your favourite tea or the coolest pens before anyone else nabs them. You get to answer interesting phone calls and, if you’re very lucky, hang up on rude people. But most importantly for me is the fact that reception is the place where everybody stops by. And generally speaking, the people you work with are nice to you (in part because they feel sorry for you, and in part because you have control over the distribution of valuable things like white-out pens and batteries). In the last two weeks, I’ve been having a pretty good time up there at front desk. Sure I’ve been bored as all get out, but I’ve met some really nifty people and have managed to fit in with a good lunch crowd (an absolutely essential part of working in a boring office job – good lunch people make all the difference).

Yesterday was the big moving day. After some confusion as to where my new desk would go, I finally packed up my Burts Bees lip balm and hand lotion, my favourite pen, a pack of post-its, and about 10 pairs of shoes and made my way to the copy-typing section of the office. I was really excited about this. I know I’m only going to be in this job until May/June but I like what it entails – proofreading!! I love proofreading. Not my own work, mind you, because by the time I reach proofreading stage, I want to kill myself and burn everything I’ve ever written (not in that order, obviously). But proofreading other people’s work? Love it!! And this stuff is even cooler than most things I’ve done because it’s a lot of chemical formulas and spiffy diagrams that require a precision and attention to detail I find intoxicating. So I was excited.

And then quickly disappointed. Not by the job – the job is everything I thought it would be and more. No, I was quickly disappointed by the work environment. The incredibly toxic, oppressively quiet work environment. Without getting into too many specifics, I’ve wandered into an office bees nest that’s been building for some time – my arrival adding considerable fodder. People aren’t speaking to each other for various reasons, no one in this neck of the woods likes new people, and everyone appears to be suspicious that you’re after their job. I’m hoping to set some minds at ease when I announce that I’m pregnant soon but I don’t know if that will make things better (yaya she’s leaving so she can’t get promoted ahead of me) or worse (so she’s new and I’m going to waste my day training her only to have her leave in what four months?). SIGH. Andrew has advised me to just be cheerful and keep on working and he is, of course, right. That’s exactly what I will do. But…..well, I just like to have a fun time at work and this is not going to be fun. Boo. Plus I want to be comfortable asking questions…and in this kind of environment, it feels like every question is a reason to hate me more (incompetent newgirl) or throw me off (well, I don’t know…better ask so-and-so even though I’m the lead on this project and do in fact know but don’t want to tell you blah blah blah).

Argh.

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So here we are. 2010. This is the year I have a baby, get married, and move into a condo with LD. It is also going to mark the first anniversary of my 29th birthday. Big times ahead. I can remember sitting around my mum’s dining-room table with my sister and brother when the announcement came on about the 2010 Winter Olympics and we all sat and chatted about where we thought we’d be. Of course the over-arching theme of this discussion was “And Ezmy will be 3o!! Hahahaha!!” (hardy har har) but other things came up too. We all thought we’d totally be in the financial position to afford going to the Olympics for one thing. HAHAHAHA. None of us factored in kids or marriage really – all of us will be married by the end of this year, and two of us will have children. I think at the time I figured I’d be living in some far off land like Luxembourg or Spain or France – I certainly never would have guessed O-town. Just makes me chuckle to think about. I’m pleased with how things have turned out (although I must admit I’m excited about us moving someday…I love you, Canada, but I need to stretch my legs).

Anyway, so it’s 2010. Usually I start the new year with a bunch of resolutions in my head. Things like ‘cut back on the booze’ or ‘stop smoking at parties’ or ‘stop dating losers’ or ‘start treating yoga like food’. Not so much this year. The first three are taken care of by the very existence of Ewan and Andrew, and the fourth is a no-brainer now. I NEED yoga like I need water. Pregnancy without yoga is just not possible, I’ve decided. My only resolution this year is to go with the flow. We have so much going on, with the baby and the wedding and the move and Andrew travelling, and blah diddy blah blah that the only sensible way to approach the year is with the following mantra: ‘Whatever, it’ll all work out’. I’m not too worried about things. The wedding will totally work out, as long as I tackle a different wedding task each weekend before the baby gets here. My goal is to have the whole party planned by June so that I won’t have to worry about wedding stuff while trying to figure out how to not accidentally kill the child. I’ve never been happier that I have five bridesmaids – delegate, delegate, delegate. The move will be fine because we’re tossing everything we own anyways and the house doesn’t need much work except for paint which can wait. And the kid, well the kid will just work I figure. I mean, heaps of people have kids everyday and it works, so whatever. My biggest concern at present is that I will accidentally leave him somewhere but if I have a baby like me (I cried for the first three years of life), I’ll have no trouble remembering him.

So that’s it. Go with the flow. This is the most excited I’ve been about a year ever. I’m nervous and excited and a little nauseous…wait, the nausea is because I need to eat. Ok, off to make some sort of healthy treat for Ewan. Olives and pasta with chard, tomato, parmasean, and some fish oil supplements? Tasty times.

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Right, so first, this is the best pregnancy book I’ve found out there. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking the same thing I did when I heard the name. Girlfriend? Girlfriend, pul-leeeze. But seriously, this book rocks my socks. Sure, I disagree with parts of it (the doctor over midwife section in particular – but to be fair, the book is geared towards Americans and I don’t know what their midwife and OB situation is like…here in Canada, where finding a decent OB who will do more than poke you for five minutes is like trying to find sense in Catholicism, a midwife is a clear and obvious choice). But overall, this book is the first book I’ve come across that a) did not try to convince me that pregnancy is some glorious, glowing journey (it is NOT) and that b) gave me the straight and dirty facts about what this crazy kid is doing/will do to my body. It is the only book I’ve come across where the author actually reminds us preggos (sensibly, I think) that there is no award offered to those who manage to deliver their children naturally and not to those who choose the epidural/C-section root (thus justifying my answer when people ask how I plan to deliver – which, btw, is none of their business – and I respond with ‘Drug-free and natural but I’m keeping my options open’. I mean, I’ve never done this before…how the hell do I know how I’ll feel about things until I get there?). It is also one of the only books I’ve come across that acknowledges the importance of breast-feeding while pointing out that you should do what makes both you and baby comfortable (my poor sister could have used this advice – she spent ages trying to breastfeed a child who simply would not do it, convinced that she was a terrible person for not being able to fulfill what is considered by so many to be the most basic of human responsibilities. Turns out little FJ had a funny tongue that made breast-feeding impossible…like her dad, in fact. But that didn’t stop Lady Heather from feeling just plain awful and it didn’t stop the breast-feeding police from making her feel worse. Sigh.). Finally, instead of beating around the literal and metaphorical bush, it is the only book that gives real (albeit disturbing) answers about sex and pregnancy. Oh, other books try certainly but it all comes across as flowery lovefest crap. I have no time for these books. Humourously written and well-thought out, this books is tops according to Ezmy.

Second on my list of things to say before I go to bed (which I should have done ages ago) is holy hellfire, pregnancy is some tough shit. Tough, daily-guessing game, shit. Will I wake up feeling fat tomorrow? No idea. Will my skin look like Christy Turlington’s or like 12 year old Ezmy’s? Could go either way. Will I wake up wanting to kill everybody? Couldn’t tell you. And even if I could tell you, the answer would be useless because 20 seconds later, everything could change. I might have been grumbling about yet another new hole in a once great pair of tights one minute, but the next I could be crying over a Folgers commercial. Or laughing hysterically at the cat. Or devouring with incredible and frightening speed, an entire Terry’s chocolate orange. Who knows! Sounds exciting doesn’t it? I’ll bet Andrew sure thinks so.

The thing is, I’m not surprised by any of this really. I’ve been around plenty of pregnant women, I know a fair bit about the hormonal changes and what they mean, and I’m pretty on top of, and indeed comfortable with the fact that pregnancy is just fucking weird. But even if you’re ready for a crazy ride, the ride is still crazy. Today’s fun crazy event? Everything I touched made me itch all over. Pens, files, my pjs, Andrew – everything. Now, if I had been at home this probably would have just been mildly irritating. But since I was at work, and since scratching yourself within an inch of your own life is considered by some to be inappropriate and indeed unhealthy behaviour, I had to settle with frequent trips to the loo where I had sneaky scratch fests. Sexy, no? Ugh.

This brings me to my last comment before I attempt to go to bed and NOT dream about leaving Ewan on a bus: I’m going to have to tell work soon. I’m a tiny person, who up until now hasn’t gained a tonne of weight but this is changing daily. Case in point – I’ve gone up three bra sizes in the last month. People are going to start asking questions. How to tell them…well that’s a pickle. Particularly since they hired me to help cover off other mat. leave ladies who are leaving, well, when I would have to leave. Awkward? Yes. Sigh.

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A quick update:

I have a job. At a patent firm doing copytyping, editing, etc. Phew!!

I’m having a son. We just found out that Baby E is Baby Ewan. Woot!!

I’m not sick half as often, thank g*d.

I am, however, exhausted from working and baby-growing so I’m cutting this short.

will return soon!

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Since getting knocked up, I have been wanting the strangest food. Not strange for regular folk, mind you, but strange for me. Case in point: I want mayonnaise. ALL THE TIME. I have never in my life liked mayonnaise. As a child, I always thought it looked like cream cheese or something awesomer than mayonnaise and was always disappointed. As a teenager, I hated how everything people made seemed to be bound with the stuff – tuna sandwiches, veggie burgers, all coated in mayo. Ugh. And as a vegan adult, I’ve just never touched the stuff. I’ve made the odd batch of veganaise, which is, I should add, pretty awesome stuff in itself. But genuine mayonnaise is something I only keep in the fridge for Andrew and I don’t even want to know how old the stuff was that we had until recently. Yikes.

But today I wanted mayonnaise. With roast beef and cheese and mustard on an onion bun. None of these things (save the mustard) are things I ate pre-preggo with any regularity. And yet here we are. The sandwich was YUMMY and while it may come up in an hour, I don’t care. It was totally worth it. Vegan Ezmy will return, I’m told, after the baby is born…or at least some variation of her will. But right now she has been replaced by Omni Ezmy. Omni-mayo-lovin’ Ezmy.

In other news, I’ve been having terrible baby dreams. Dreams that the child has no head. Dreams that the child is two children and we’re looking at the ultrasound and one of the babies is beating the crap out of the other one. Dreams that the baby has no legs or arms or has one eye. Dreams that the baby is dead. Frightening, awful dreams. Apparently this too is normal but given that I’m prone to horrific, Stephen King-style nightmares when I’m not pregnant, I suspect my baby nightmares are more graphic than most. It’s all very troubling. So much so, that until I see that ultrasound and confirm that none of my dreams are true, I remain skeptical.

Right, back to the mayo. Nom nom.

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So I’ve been unemployed for awhile – since July in fact. This has not been a problem, really, because August was spent away with Andrew, September was spent doing school work and October and November were spent in the loo. But now it’s December, I feel pretty great, and I’m BORED. I’m looking for work, don’t get me wrong. Indeed, I have been since September. Depressing, no? I spend hours each day filling in forms and searching for employment opportunities and harassing my temp. agency and nothing. But I don’t want to talk about it in this post because frankly, I’m worried about how we’re going to pull through and blogging about those worries here makes them even more real.

No, I want to focus on how BORED I am. The thing is, I could get used to staying at home, if staying at home meant I could relax and just knit or read or paint. But I’m constantly worried about the job thing so when I’m not looking for work, I become restless. What to do, what to do?

Well, a few days ago I discovered it – baking. I am terrible at baking. Aside from vegan brownies (which are easy) and bread, I just can’t pull it off. I’m not precise enough, see, and baking is far less forgiving than cooking when it comes to exactness. But since I have all this time on my hands, why not use it to become a better baker, I thought? And what better time of year to focus on baking than the holiday season?

So I started with chocolate chip cookies. These are Andrew’s favourite and pretty straight forward. I over-baked the second batch but overall, success. Next – Martha Stewart’s ‘lemon pistachio xmas wreath cookies’. Somewhat more challenging in that I had to master the art of zesting and icing making, the latter being something I’ve never quite gotten right. And I forgot the parchment paper which meant that a number of my trees (I have no wreath cookie cutter) went stump-less or top-less. Ah well, they tasted just lovely. Lemon-y goodness. Then, I moved to biscotti. Cranberry-pistachio biscotti. These – were – awesome! I don’t know why, but I always assumed biscotti would be complicated. It’s something about the name – ‘biscotti’ sounds special and mystical and therefore difficult to make. Oh contraire! Super easy, so much so that I bet I eat more biscotti over the next couple of months than anything else.

The final step was a cheesecake. Not for xmas, mind, but for Andrew’s birthday. Here, I chose Jamie Oliver’s ‘Blooming Easy Vanilla Cheesecake’ because it looked, well, blooming easy. Hmmm, not so much. I should note that cheesecake is easy, if you have either a) an electric mixer or b) biceps of He-Man. But if you are a) mixer-less and b) a weakened from weeks of vomiting pregnant woman, well cheesecake is tough shit to make. Mixing together 2 lbs of cream cheese until creamy took me half an hour of really solid pounding and stirring. Ultimately I gave up the spoon and just dove in with my hands. Then came the zesting. I don’t like zesting, in part because my zester is not user-friendly. It desperately needs a handle. Finally, I popped everything in the cake pan and into the oven it went for “40 minutes”. Twenty minutes later, the entire house was full of smoke…eep! So the crust was a little on the toasty side. Meh, it still tasted awesome and was a hit with the boy. Woot.

So that’s what I’ve been up to. Dull, eh? Today is gingerbread I think. Gingerbread ladies and stars. And perhaps polar bears. The thrilling tales of ezmy never end.

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So I’m 12 weeks pregnant and next week I will officially be in my second trimester according to babycenter.ca, one of my new favourite sites for updates on this delightful condition I now find myself in. I’m going to refer to the second trimester as Round Two in the battle between me and the fetus. Some might consider it strange that I think of myself as at war with my unborn child, but let’s face it – at this point, neither one of us is a fan of the other. Baby E and I live in a parasitic relationship, one that Baby E currently dominates. This past couple of months has been the most brutal of my life since the hairschool/Starbucks/Norovirus days, and that’s saying something. Baby E has engaged in a full attack on my person, tempting me with cravings and then promptly annihilating me with hours of vomiting. Or filling my system with overwhelming amounts of progesterone and therefore causing me to nearly faint in a 7-11 no less. Or completely draining me of energy such that I haven’t lifted a finger to help Andrew around the house in weeks. I haven’t been much better – in retaliation, all I do is sleep, eat bland food (no tasty curry for the mean fetus), or poke at my stomach while muttering ‘stop it!’ to what I realize is a relatively deaf, plum-size being. Furthermore, I have an negative bloodtype which might be fucking with Baby E (I sincerely hope not, of course, but until I get my anti-D shot, not much I can do about it). That was Round One.

My goal for Round Two is pretty straightforward: force Baby E to live in a healthy, well-fed vessel, one that walks occasionally and eats more than yogurt and brazil nuts. My strategy? Fill the house with healthy snacks which I will then constantly shove in my face, even when Baby E gets notions of making me ill. I was doing this at the beginning of my pregnancy but ran out of steam, and therefore the ability to procure healthy snacks, around the end of October. Well no more. My bedside table has had a permanent stash of Premium Plus crackers for the last month or so but I’m upping the stakes by adding small candies, dried fruit, and chewy granola bars to my personal stores. Also in my arsenal? Mad amounts of sleep but at reasonable hours – no longer will Baby E have me vomiting from midnight until 2 am because I, brilliant, evolved being that I am, am going to go to bed so early that the kid will have to wake me up to vomit. Which it just doesn’t seem capable of doing. Take that! Finally, I’m going to ignore efforts on the part of my unborn child to convince me that I want any of the following: apple juice, Dorritos, pickles, deep-fried zucchini, sour cabbage soup, banana smoothies, bagels and cream cheese, or spinach. I do not want these things as they make me vomit 100% of the time. I will refer back to this post as a reminder.

So there you have it. I do secretly love this child, really I do. And I’m sure once he/she gets to know me, he/she will think I’m just dandy. But this is no time to go all soft. A battle is being waged, and I am going to win it. Round Two here I come!