a (pregnant) pause.

yesterday i arrived at work, and was photographed by the local newspaper for an article being written about me and my female colleagues.  yesterday also marked the first day i arrived at work with my pants unbuttoned.  don't worry.  i broke down and bought a belly band, so it wasn't some risque lapse in judgment. 

yes, i am pregnant.  but i assume that if you're reading this blog, you already knew that.  you were either present when my dear friend liz outed me while drunk at her wedding shower, or you saw it on facebook, or you happened to glimpse my bodily expansion and guessed for yourself. 

so anyway, here we are.  even after getting the surprise of my life by a urine-induced plus sign, life goes on.  (and no, this pregnancy was not UNPLANNED.  i maintain that no matter if you're trying, or not preventing or whatever, you're still going to be in total, utter, complete shock when you and your significant other discover that you're expecting).  i am pretty much the same person i was 3 months ago, except i can't drink a blue moon when the mood strikes me, i avoid coffee at all costs (it doesn't taste right anyway) and most of my clothes are a little too snug for comfort.  i have started irrational arguments with my husband (most recently about the lack of apples in our refrigerator) and i have managed to bill a full day's work on approximately 2.5 hours of sleep.  (i asked my mom when the lack of sleep issue was going to get better, and she laughed and said, "i didn't get a decent night's sleep from 1984 to 1997.  you better just get used to it."  needless to say, i was less than enthused with that answer).  i have developed an aversion to eggs, which used to be my favorite breakfast (or rather, anytime of the day) food.  i can now cry at anything remotely sentimental, happy, sad or upsetting.  (this includes any news stories involving children and any country songs at all.  no kidding -- en route to chicago this past weekend, john insisted on playing a series of country songs just to make me cry.  he thought it was funny.)  my hair is growing fast, which i assume can be attributed to the pre-natal vitamins and the fact that my body is chock-full of crazy hormones. 

but anyway, this post was not going to be about me and all the crazy things going on inside of my rapidly changing body.  instead, this was going to be a shout-out to my husband (who, for the record, doesn't even read this blog -- haha).  when and if you find yourself knocked up, you may get a little overwhelmed thinking of everything you need to buy or get or learn or read.  what to expect when you're expecting suddenly tops your personal bestseller list (ok, to be fair, i haven't even cracked it open.  i have, however, completely freaked myself out reading message boards on babycenter.com written by a collection of people who have experienced every disaster and tragedy associated with pregnancy.  oh, and john and i had lots of good laughs while perusing the dude's guide to pregnancy.)  you spend endless amounts of time searching for cribs and changing tables, pouring over each review, perplexed by 4 vs. 5 stars.  and you start worrying whether your life insurance policy really affords your new family enough coverage.  but i'm here to tell you that what's more important than reading reviews, subscribing to parenting magazines or becoming fixated on the nutritional facts of every morsel of food you ingest is that you have a supportive partner cheering you on the journey.  i'm serious.  from hiding peanut butter m & m's in the freezer for an after-dinner snack to heating up milk as a sleep aid at 3:00 a.m. to ignoring the fact that i'm a little more gaseous than i would otherwise be (sorry if that's more than you wanted to hear), john has really been the epitome of a saint.  we went out for chinese food a few weeks ago, and the only thing i liked was fried rice.  he took it upon himself to find a healthy homemade recipe and i came home last week to find his one arm getting busy with the wok.  last night, i woke up around 2:30 to use the bathroom, and i found him sleeping in our spare bedroom.  "what are you doing," i inquired. "was i snoring?"  "no," he replied.  "i know how much trouble you've had sleeping, and i didn't want to wake you up by opening the door, so i just decided to sleep in here."  i don't care about the plethora of gadgets we supposedly need or which baby accessories are must-haves or which items of maternity apparel i simply must own.  i just need my one-armed husband. 

i'm getting all sappy & sentimental.  is a country song playing???