From March 12, 2007....

Well, no heartbeat today.

:(

I'm definitely bummed. I was SO looking forward to telling the rest of my friends, blogland, and my students. In fact, I was quite excited to tell my students as I could use it for leverage. I.e. "PLEASE sit down and be quiet NOW or the PUDGY PREGNANT TEACHER will HURL on you!"

Alas...I must keep things quiet for 3 more weeks. Hopefully then the little Z will be big enough to register a heartbeat. And, I'll be out of the woods for any bad stuff, which will really be a load off. It's quite exhausting, this first trimester thing. You're so afraid to do certain things, for fear of screwing up your kid that you can't even really tell exists...the only reason you know it does is because you have a perpetual, Miami University Natty Light Style hangover 24/7, and you look like you can't lay off the brownies.

Seriously. I had to rubber band the button on my jeans. Arg! I don't look pregnant yet. I just look FAT. And not with a PH, either. F.A.T. pudgy pudgy beer gut fat. Oh well...I suppose this ain't NUTHIN' compared with what's coming my way later.

The only other thing that happened today at the Doctor's office was they had to do standard prenatal blood work, which I was NOT crazy about. I mean, I fainted in my 12th grade government class when some nurse came in to TALK about giving blood. You say needles, I say "THUNK." As in "THUNK-my-passed-out-head-just-hit-the-floor." Why? I don't know. It makes no sense. It doesn't hurt. I think it's just the thought of my blood and stuff leaking out of me freaks me out.

(Boy, I'd better get over that by October)

Anyway, so I had to get blood work and apparantly prenatal blood work involves ELEVEN VIALS OF BLOOD.

ELEVEN!

Dear LORDY what on earth can you possibly need with ELEVEN FREAKIN' VIALS OF MY BLOOD? Are we going to be performing some kind of sick ritual in the LAB TONIGHT YOU SICK BLOOD SUCKING FREAKS? ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?

So, yeah. Good times. I closed my eyes, thought happy thoughts, and looked away and tried to breathe. You know what's funny? The happy thoughts that came to my head were my recent Hawaii trip (well, that's obvious) and crossing the finish line at Ironman Wisconsin (not as obvious, but it worked, big time). Over and over again, running towards the chute. I really, truly thought of that as the bloodletting ritual ensued. I think I was trying to convince myself that I was tougher than I felt, you know?

Anyway, this is hard. Because I don't know what to say. And I love to write on this blog, but I can't say anything about this yet, and it's sort of all I can think about. So I think I may have to take a month off here, which I'm sure will make some people wonder what's up. I don't know what else to do...

The doctor said I really shouldn't be doing the half marathon. I guess that makes sense, since I have barely been able to run more than 10 miles/week here in this first trimester, but I'm sad. I really wanted to at least run-walk it, but she said that "moderation is key" and "half marathons are not really moderation." In my head, I was thinking, "But that IS moderation, Doc! Come on! It's only 13.1 miles!"

Sigh. Moderation for an endurance athlete doesn't really translate well to the rest of the world I guess.

But you know what? I'm still gonna go. It's going to be fun--I'm going to stay with Luscious and Jacks is meeting us there, too. Runner Susan will be there, so COME ON! How cool is that? So I can't break 1:50. So I can't break...um...anything. I will walk a little and be a good fat pudgy pregnant cheerleader and it will still be fun.

So, I shall remain quiet. Those who know me will definitely know something's going on, but it's all I can really do right now. The next three weeks will be a little nerve wracking, so I'm just going to have to remember that I'm wired for this. As long as I do what I'm supposed to, if it's meant to be then everything will work out fine. All I can be is me, and all I can do is what's healthy.

And so it goes...