Pregnant Woman or Petri Dish?

It has occurred to me lately that yellow dock root tea tastes somewhat like hazelnut. Or maybe my taste buds are hallucinating because their starved for real, fully-loaded, caffeinated lattes. Hmm. I am taking yellow dock root and nettle and chlorophyll to boost my iron and hopefully my energy levels—the baby is taking everything.

I am reminded just how unglamorous pregnancy is. Whoever started spreading the rumor that pregnancy is a time of decadence was severely deranged. I, like many women, pictured wearing cute new maternity clothing that made me feel maternal and sexy, eating whatever I wanted for nine months and gaining weight only in my firm, round, belly, then producing a beautiful tiny angel that slides effortlessly from my body—okay maybe I made that last delusion up. But I really do remember pregnancy with rose colored glasses. Maybe that’s a condition of motherhood or wouldn’t we all have only-children? I think so. Maybe I just try too hard, maybe I make pregnancy dull by trying to do it too well?

Most days I feel more like a petri dish than anything human, let alone sexy. I add various herbs and minerals, oils and vitamins to my body in careful doses to create just the right environment in my uterus for this human to grow. After a day of dark green and brown teas, vitamins and caplets, vegetables and proteins in just the right combination, I have this undeniable desire to eat or drink something really un-pregnancy, like a big glass of red wine and a chocolate cake. Is there such a thing as being too healthy?

I have not been sleeping well these days. After having given up nap (a harder transition for me than for Twila) I am usually exhausted from 4pm to 7pm. As soon as Twila crashes out, I have my second wind for a couple of hours. Around 9, maybe 10, I hit the sheets like a ton of bricks and am out cold until around 2 or 3 in the morning, then I am awake—wide awake as if it were noon for a normal person. I toss and turn; sometimes I get up and write.

I’ve heard that writers don’t sleep well; their stories come and disturb them at night. So though life seems to plod along without vest, inspiration, or vigor, I try to at least see the silver lining in my insomnia as that maybe I am gaining legitimacy as a writer, if only in my own mind; Julia Cameron would say that that is the most difficult legitimacy to gain anyway.

Julia Cameron also says that when life feels dull and stagnant, when we feel directionless, we must simply do the next good thing. Often this is a very small step towards whatever our large goals are. We don’t even have to think about the large goal, just what the next step is, we only need to see the path a small flash light’s beam ahead.

So I guess I’ll do a few more pages on my novel and make another cup of yellow dock root tea.