About Being 6 months Pregnant

There are some things about being pregnant that I didn't know and am finding interesting, if not always pleasant. Today, for example, I sneezed very very hard indeed and quite unexpectedly leaked. Luckily I was just outside my front door, on my way home from town, but still - this is something it could take a while to get used to. Like more than 3 months. Also, if I try to eat or drink while slouched, I can't. The food won't get past swallow. I need to sit upright. And if I bend too soon after eating, the compression of my digestive bits by my reproductive bits causes reflux.

This is all very inconvenient, though it does mean that I have a cast-iron excuse for not vacuuming the stairs. And I rather enjoy being kicked in the ribs; it feels pleasantly thunky and solid, and makes me think that the baby must be good and healthy. It's nicer than being dive-bombed in the bladder, at any rate, which is another night-time favourite (bad on the stairs; some dives cause me to involuntarily double over in oofness, which could be dangerous).

Itchy Abdomen is another new thing to me; I apply Body Shop Shea Butter by the fistful and heave loud oleaginous sighs of relief which must amuse the neighbours no end - because I can't sleep with the windows closed, because my sinuses have been killing me since September and I'm not allowed to take anything for them. It's mainly allergies, I think, and I keep hoping that the vast increase in housework will decrease the ambient dust levels to something more congenial. I'm growing almost visibly, so naturally my belly needs to stretch.

(I periodically lift my shirt and look at my new tum in fascination, much as 2-year-old girls do. Come to think of it, that's probably the last time I had a tum this big. I never understood why they wanted to look at their own tummies so much before. Now I know. It's just compelling.)

I feel fabulous. I keep wanting to sing and dance with sheer unadulterated fabulousness. I channel this energy into housework; I suspect some of the housework is related to the nesting instinct by now, because I don't believe that an Ailbhe in her natural state is this housetrained. I've more or less lost my urge to buy vast swathes of baby clothes and blankets and furniture, though I do still enjoy looking at them. I'm also less overwhelmingly attracted to other people's babies, though other people's pregnancies and births are endlessly fascinating. My skin seems to be thinking about clearing up. My hips and knees feel sort of crunchy. I can't face the adult section in the library because it doesn't have enough chairs. Luckily the children's section is pretty good and has a lot of Aiken I haven't read.