i've been sick for two full weeks now but there is a light emerging at the end of this congested, miserable tunnel. today i ate a popeye's biscuit and could actually taste it. and it tasted amazing.

the question everyone asks me these days is "how are you doing?" and i never fail to respond in an obliviously charmless way, steady talking about how busy i've been with the workload of clinic acquisitions. it always takes me a moment to realize that no one cares about how i'm handling my professional obligations (poorly); they want to know how my pregnancy is progressing.

little j has been very, very kind to me. the past 3.5 months have flown by with no nausea or major discomfort beyond a few weeks of fatigue and sore breasts.

(early on, i DID get real dramatic about a singular incident of nausea that mercifully turned out to be the trappings of food poisoning- i have never in my life been so thrilled to be the recipient of foodborne illness.)

jesso's nickname is continue because she's almost as bad at super mario 3d world as i am at communicating discomfort without hyperbole.

i've also had some intermittent issues with sacral pain that can be blamed squarely on momo. nearly two years ago, this awful dog caught fleeting sight of a squirrel while we were embarking on our morning walk. the ensuing sudden, spastic chase dragged me down a full flight of stairs, fractured my tailbone, twisted my ankle, broke my car key, and decimated any remnants of my dignity while a handsome neighbor captured my terrorist animal and witnessed me lying on the ground like a busted sack of garbage. it took several months and a bottle of hydrocodone before i could sit comfortably and begrudgingly cuddle momo again. but now that pregnancy is loosening up my ligaments, my godforsaken sacrum is probably sliding around all wiggly-woggly (this is the clinical term) and causing nerve impingement. this means shooting pain in my hips and glutes from time to time that causes a very attractive limp. mobility has never really been my strong suit anyway.

the heaviness in my lower abdomen is an omnipresent but mild white noise type of symptom, a background reminder that i'm hauling around a large navel orange in my uterus. the tightness of skin and muscle stretching, an old familiar friend from my post-op recovery days, is back and also ever-present; i imagine it will get more painful and intense as i transition into third trimester. my abdomen is still stubbornly flat, but my chest and butt have ballooned to comical proportions more conducive to magic city than maternity. this is less desirable than it sounds, because now i just look like a thick girl who needs to chill on the ranch dressing—and not the ethereally delicate mother-to-be i had envisioned. by summertime i will actually become the final fantasy x land worm, just wistfully sobbing over faded photos of my former size 2 self.

but aside from the sporadic pain and dreaded hogbody, and for all the intense hormonal realness my body is serving in order to grow a whole new person, i am feeling great. this is easily the best experience i could have hoped for in the first half. i feel peaceful and comfortable when i think about this baby and these few months thus far of being an apartment for a tenant i'm excited to meet. my favorite thing in the world right now is when ian stoops down to put his ear against my abdomen and asks "hello?"

my second favorite thing in the world right now is the mcdouble.