June 10, 2009

• Notes from the Insomniac Extraordinaire

  I say this with good humor, as I’m surrounded daily with people who make me laugh: this week sucks.

  After thinking that I’d shaken loose all the grotesqueries of pregnancy with the dissipation of morning sickness at week 12, I seem to have entered the 7th month feeling like a sick sack of gas. I’m hoping that it’s not the actual pregnancy that is making my life crud this week. Is it possible that I’m feeling under-the-weather and the presence of fetal life is compounding the issues of an already worn out body?  Hope so. Because this baby’s got three more months to cook.

  I left work early on Monday to get my nose sorted out at acupuncture. I’d spent the weekend with a miserable sinus cold nightmare and once you are in the third trimester, medications for shit like that are out of the question. Babies hate drugs.  The good news is that I felt instant relief. Four pins were jammed in my ever-loving nose, one between the eyes, and two at the base of my neck. Oh good lord it felt so good.

  I’m a big fan of the acupuncture, but I’d never gone for something quite as concrete as a sinus cold. For the unacquainted, acupuncture doesn’t hurt (the needles are thinner than a strand of hair), but you can feel them hitting your nerve in a crazy way that is akin to when someone is giving you a really nice massage and getting a knot in exactly the right way. Acupuncture is also horribly expensive ($70 for an hour session is normal); if I were a rich girl, I’d go every week. As it stands, I go when I have issues.

  Anyhow, so after acupuncture I felt really good. I went home and napped one of the top ten naps of my life.  I hadn’t been able to sleep for about two days, what with the inability to breathe properly and the constant pissing and the feral Fetal Friend and the inability to get comfy with a volleyball stomach. It was amazing how much a functional nose helped my REM cycle. Monday night, I slept like a baby.

  Tuesday, I woke feeling 90% better. My cold still existed, but the congestion was gone and with it, the horrible headache. I could breathe. I’d slept. Life was good. Or so I thought.

  Once at work, I had lots of setting up to do. Staff meeting to lead, new signage to put up in the building, random running around. I’d been in constant motion for a good hour and 1/2 when I finally stopped by a friend’s cube to answer a visitor attendance question. I was standing while she explained her question when suddenly I knew: I was going to pass out. I excused myself awkwardly and stumbled into my old office (I used to work in the Marketing department). “Hi Chaz,” I said, “mind if I pass out on your chair?” My vision was darkening and I knocked a stack of folders from an extra office chair. I got down just in time. My vision and hearing was completely gone, but I’d not lost consciousness.

  Chaz was amazing. She fetched me water, set me up with paper towels to mop up the profuse sweat pouring off my face (my shirt was also soaked through along my chest and belly, which is a very professional look for a woman). Chaz stayed with me and was quiet until I felt normal enough to sit there and be a part of the world. Once I was alert, but un-ready to rejoin the world, she talked to me about other, fun, things to take my mind off the bad feeling.

  I got to the point where I felt fine enough, but I spent the rest of the day feeling out-of-sorts. I also think I experienced my first bout of Braxton Hicks contractions today, which sucked. This is a normal thing to happen at this point in preggers; your already stretched taunt stomach goes from feeling like a drum to feeling like a horrible underseas rock with barnacles all over it. It is a practice contraction, the uterus warming up for the big day. The shock lasts only a minute, but holy crap. It’s a little more than distracting.

  I went to bed at the more than decent hour of 8.30pm, exhausted trying to get myself rid of this cold entirely. But now I’m up, insomniac extraordinaire.

  In other news, I attended a really great staff talk today with our summer artist in residence, Nora Chipaumire. Aside from being an interesting, engaging, and seriously nice woman, Nora is an internationally renown coreographer from Zimbabwe. Nora also mentioned a name of one of her collaborators that I liked for Fetal Friend: Joelle.

  For those of you who enjoyed round one of Name That Fetus, the top contenders for names these days are:

  * Lila Eleni Manning

  * Joelle Eleni Manning

  The name Eleni is one that my grandma and grandpa Jaggers proposed. It is the Greek form of Helen, as in Helen of Troy, daughter of Zeus and Leda. This is fitting because the girl is a good part Greek, thanks to her dad. Shaun and I are also fans of Greece and Mycenaean myth. Plus, I imagine having a face that “launches a thousand ships” might come in pretty handy for a girl. The reason why we’re thinking middle name here is because I’d hate to spend my whole life correcting people who mis-pronounce my name. And seeing as we live in the midwestern United States, this seems pretty likely for her. (For anyone curious as to the correct pronunciation of this name, click here and listen.)

  Lila is a word I learned in yoga class. In the Hindu tradition, Lila is a word used to describe the notion that all reality—life on earth, the cosmos, everything—is the outcome of creative play by the divine absolute (Brahman). A story is told of two gods who were having sex at the beginning of time—with no real intention, just enjoying the thing that is sex—and the world was born as a result. This is “Lila” in action.

  Joelle has a less thrilling meaning (its a French name, deriving from some hebrew phrase that praises god), but I find it really beautiful said aloud. It is equal parts masculine and feminine. It is a name that somehow sounds like a successful person, a person who might be a scientist or an indie rock legend; a lawyer or an artist. I like how open it is.

  The baby will have Shaun’s last name. I have no need to pass my dad’s lineage on to anyone else.

  Anyhow, I’ve finally written myself sleepy. So goodnight folks.

  • 4:18 am
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