Pretending

I am a vegetarian and I made DH (NOT a vegetarian) and myself some stir fry last night. (DH and I have mended our rift, btw.) Tofu and veggies. Yes I am aware that tofu contains ridiculous amounts of estrogen for something that's supposed to be made out of bean curd. Yes, I am trying to 'cut back' on my soy intake, but my intake was pretty moderate to begin with so I'm not too worried. Anyway, on with my story. I added four ingredients to the tofu and veggies - eggs, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, and a black bean and garlic paste (which itself contains about seventy eight ingredients so I exaggerated when I said I only added 4). I make this dish a lot. It's a really easy way to get lean protein and vegetables into my system. It's great over rice but since I spend most of my day scarfing carbs I try to lay off them at night. But this is not a cooking or diet blog so on with my point. In the large number of years that I have been making this dish I have been totally contented with the ingredients I mentioned above. I have never really felt a need to go outside the box, so to speak. Today, however, as I took my tupperware full of left over stir fry out of the microwave at work I spotted some packets of honey on the counter by the sugar and splenda packets and thought, OF COURSE! Within two minutes I was back in my office drizzling honey all over the stir fry like it was the most obvious idea in the world. And it tasted pretty good. Hit the spot actually. I'm not sure what possessed me. Was I just feeling adventurous? Or was this...a craving....?


I also put pickles on the conveyor belt at F*od M@xx for the first time in a long time this weekend. It was so unusual that as DH was putting it into our bags he looked over at me as I was paying, held it up, and mouthed the words "did you get this?" with a quizzical expression on his face, in order to make sure he wasn't about to pack someone else's groceries.

(Other) Symptoms:

• I think i am peeing more than normal. I think.
• I am really really extremely thirsty ALL THE TIME. I feel like I should be hooked up to an iv. I am drinking water by the gallonfull. I guess that alone could explain symptom #1.
• I get dizzy still. Still not sure if that's just the side effects from getting off zo!oft. Down to about 10mgs right now. It's like a speck of dust, the dose I take. I can probably stop taking it now but every now and then I get anxious or stressed and think maybe I should go right back up to 25 or 50mgs. That it would be better for...for whatever it is that's growing in my ute.
• Heart.Burn.
• I am irritable. I don't have much of a filter lately, i think it's because of the next point.
• I'm tired. I get fatigued from standing up for too long. From being up for too long. I get mad when someone tries to make me do work. The only exercise I'm doing is walking and we still go our normal distance which is about 2 miles a night - this I'm okay with. I've been really looking forward to them lately. But overall, I just feel blah.
• My boobs definitely hurt. Nips still only sometimes.

What symptoms I am not feeling:

• I am not nauseus. I HATE that. Truly
• I am not getting the pulling shooting pain sensations in my ute that I got with my first pregnancy. I'm taking this as a good sign because I also felt them the cycle before this one - the one where I had that nice implantation dip, and no baby. In retrospect I think those pains must have been my body rejecting the embies.
• My condition is not curbing my spending habits. Last year I became far less materialistic during my short-lived pregnancy. Knowing something so much more fulfilling was on the horizon made me less materialistic. Not so this time. It's retail therapy all the way.
• TMI alert. My pee is not cloudy. It was during my first pregnancy. I therefore also consider this non-symptom a good sign.

All of these, except for the intensity of the soreness of my boobs, don't really mean anything. I'm still convinced that this is going to end in disaster but I realized recently that despite all my pessimism and paranoia, I have not actually done anything to prepare myself for another loss. In fact, I've done quite the opposite. I will be utterly devastated if this pregnancy doesn't work out. I thought I was protecting myself by imagining the worst. But I think I remain unprepared because all of this pessimism and paranoia are born of fear. And the fear is that I will lose something. So that means this whole time, despite all of my disclaimers and doomsayer predictions, every single day, I've been operating under the assumption that I have something to lose. So I've totally set myself up without realizing it. I think the best thing to have done would have been to go on like nothing was happening. To ignore it, insofar as that's possible. Don't drink, but don't think about why - pretend you're just giving the ol' liver a break. Enjoy the holidays, but try to find a reason to enjoy them OTHER than the fantasy of this being my last xmas without a child. Don't think about when to announce the news to the parents, the co-workers. Don't constantly take inventory of my symptoms.

It's too late now. I almost don't want that first appointment to arrive. Because it could put a swift end to my hopes and fantasies. I don't want to hear that the game's over. That I don't get to pretend anymore.