Thinking Outloud about the Thing in my Tummy: Part Deux

Being pregnant has produced a few unexpected results, the top two of which might be immediacy and fear. What I mean by the first is that when my body has a need, it needs it IMMEDIATELY. This goes for sleep, food, and lavatorial pursuits. Food is by far the worst. I didn't know hunger until this baby came along, and it's a different, painful, dire kind of hunger. Also, my capacity to pig out has increased.

As for fear, I've always been a weeny, but I'm suddenly...a bigger one. My top two fears are that a) I will get in a car crash or a car will run over me while I am walking and b) the pens and keys in my purse will jut out of the cloth and stab me in the abdomen, right at baby level. Or the impact from a car crash will cause a pen or key to jam into my belly. One of those. Once I realized that my baby's survival depends on my survival, I became much more wary.

And this isn't much of a surprise, but I have also noticed myself becoming more forgetful, absent-minded, distracted. This does me wonders in the workplace.

And finally, I've been thinking about my baby's state of mind right now. People like to talk on behalf of your baby, things like "Oh thank you mommy!" when you eat something delicious. But our baby isn't aware of me, and it's not even really aware of itself as a finite, developing entity. It's not, as one friend suggested, wondering where that female voice and all that food keeps coming from. It is its own universe, and all things in it are a natural part of that. No wonder babies cry when they're shoved out of that universe and cut from the umbilical cord. But still, even as a child, I took clothes, love, my home and the utilities thereof from my parents without really wondering where it came from. They were still feeding me what I needed and I assumed it was natural. Now that I'm supporting my own family, I may feel like I'm providing everything for myself. But I'm totally not. Hippie as it may sound, I think you could look at the world as a sort of giant, blue umbilical cord. Oxygen surrounds it, food grows from it, and I never really question that, how natural it is, or how much effort is going into that on my behalf. I'm being provided for while I develop.

Just like a baby.

These are just my thoughts.