Chocolate Cookies and Milk
Hello mysterious world of Pregnancy! Although this is my 2nd turn at this, I feel this time around I am much more aware of all the changes my body is going through. I find myself at 18 weeks pregnant currently feeling hungry, tired & sleepy all the time; not the best combination but one I’ve learned to live with. I guess I should just get used to it right?
Living in New Orleans is an everyday adventure but one that cannot compare to the adventure my body is going through at this moment. One of the many reasons I am even pregnant is oddly connected to my magical city. My partner is a musician and part of the class acts we experience here in our musical, little city. He is also a traveling musician who finds himself on the road a lot making his homecomings something to celebrate. This baby was conceived in the spring right after he had a 6 week stay on the road.
The spring in New Orleans is wonderful especially if you find yourself in love with the music scene here. Around March we begin to experience a vast number of festivals all leading to Jazz Festival in late April/early May. This combination of our excitement over being reunited & the festive spirit surrounding us is the reason we are expecting. Spring + Music= Baby, well in this case it did!
I found out I was expecting 5 weeks ago at 13 weeks, relatively late in the game because I kept second guessing my instincts since I’ve had NO morning sickness and continued spotting early in the pregnancy leading me to believe this was a menstrual cycle. I was also told a few years ago after going through surgery to remove fibroid tumors, that I could not have any more children without getting my fallopian tubes flushed due to debris in them but God/the Universe had other ideas in mind. Although this was definitely unexpected we welcome it with love.
At the age of 34 I find myself experiencing a much different pregnancy than my first one at age 21. Back then I couldn’t stop barfing and my breasts felt like they were on fire. The mere faint smell of Lysol or cigarettes would send me rushing to the nearest barf bin. This was NOT fun especially since I was a full time student at Loyola University juggling exams and a huge belly. But those days are over and now my chief complaint is the tiredness I constantly feel maybe attributed to the epic loss of sleep I’ve been experiencing.
Among all the changes happening in my body, the most noticeable one to me lately is the enormous size of my expanding nipples and areola. Really, if these things were exposed they could be used as targets which is exactly their function. I sincerely don’t remember this happening last time until the 3rd trimester, they hurt in the worse way but didn’t get this big. I have begun to call them my “Chocolate Cookies” because this is exactly what they look like. Seriously I just stare at them sometimes, so big, so brown, will they go back to pre-cookie size? I’ve also been craving lots of whole Vitamin D milk, how appropriate!
I am amazed & humbled at the magnificent task put before us as mothers even before our child is born. The many contrasting changes our bodies are designed to perform is truly a miracle. This is the way I choose to think about things as I experience ligament stretching pains or feeling bloated or crying at ridiculously silly things. All these symptoms are just a precursor to holding my baby on a cold day in December. Although the weather will be cold & clammy, as New Orleans winters are, our hearts will be warm & touched my the new creature who will look to us for love, care & support.
But for now, I am off to get a glass of milk.
This entry was posted on Monday, July 25th, 2011 at 3:56 pm and is filed under House of the Rising Belly.
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Tags: music, New Orleans, pregnancy
Hey
I call my nipples the same thing almost anyway mine we call subway cookie nipples! They are huge! I also found this pregnancy so much different I was 20 when I had my son and now at 26 and 24 weeks pregnant it’s a whole new thing!
Just call us Preggo’s the Cookie Monster..haha!