Frankenstein

Last week I went to have the extended glucose tolerance test in order to assess if I have gestational diabetes. Having to schedule the test and being given advice by a midwife ‘to be really good 24 hours before’ made me realize how much sugar I do intake on a daily basis. I’ve always had a sweet tooth but since the pregnancy, the occasional Coke, ice cream, cookie, or piece of chocolate has different consequences than it used to. While I haven’t yet found out the results, and I have relaxed into mini cokes and small doses of ice cream, the cramp in my style and my growing girth are reminders that I am in my last trimester.

This morning after about a month break (or longer – can’t really say I’ve kept track) I panted from the 20 minutes of floor work on the pre-natal yoga video. A stern reminder that my arms could not handle the 30 pounds I’d put on in the past seven months and that they were severely underworked from my 8 hours a day (plus at least 3 or 4 in the evening) of my desk job.

The good news is the sciatic back pain that had plagued me the first few months has abated. Whether because I’m more active or have more padding to shield the nerves: not sure, but grateful in either case.

I am starting to play with the idea of being pregnant as a excuse for getting out of things I wouldn’t want to do normally anyway. For example, during a meeting at the week’s end, I declined someone’s offer of tea because of the caffeine, referring to my pregnancy.

“I’m in the home stretch,” I said, “I can’t wait until this child is on the outside.”
Everyone at the table looked surprised.
“Well, things will be different,” two of the men at the meeting said. “Your whole life will change.”

This hit me in a different way than all the other times people have said it to me. Because my life has already changed. I’m a chronic sleeper, I’m a water drinker, I’m easily irritable and that’s all just in the seventh month of this journey.
I’ve been focusing on the things that I will be able to do again after the baby without guilt: Eat as many sweets as I want, drink all the carbonated beverages there are in the world, attending spinning classes, and use the time that I am now sleeping to write or catch up with friends.

But for the first time yesterday, I had a small notion of the things I would now start doing. Not that I could focus on them close up – breast feeding, changing diapers – but the reality of a child not being inside me anymore but on the outside is starting to dawn on me.