What was I thinking?

So as many of you know, I am pregnant again! #3....give me strength. I am due Dec. 4--now doesn't that just sound right around the corner??

So here's the deal....every time I get pregnant I try to tell myself that I am going to be so stoic about it all; I vow to not complain and to just persevere without voicing every complaint I feel at every minute of every day. I promise myself that I'm going to carry on with all of my daily activities, excuse myself to throw up quietly, and resume cleaning the house and reading books to my children. Well then, of course, I actually get pregnant.

But honestly, these past few weeks I have just been thinking about how no woman should have to go through this, for 9 full months, with other kids to care for, again and again and again. As I'm vomiting in the toilet, with Ezra patting my back, I just feel like such a martyr, like the whole world should know what suffering I am going through. Sometimes I think to myself, I don't know how I will be able to handle this nausea for one more minute, and even as I'm thinking it I am also thinking, "Well you better figure it out because you've got at least 4 more weeks of it." How dramatic is this...the other day after I threw up, i literally started singing the song (in my head) "No-body knows...the trouble I've seen. No-body knows.....my sorrow." Ha ha, I actually smiled though, realizing how dramatic I am. I mean, geesh, picture the pioneers doing this! I've got my Zofran to keep things from getting too out of hand, and yet here I am, silently singing Negro spirituals to myself.

My mom, mother of 7 kids mind you, used to always tell us that whenever she was pregnant, she wanted to write herself a letter to tell her self to NEVER get +pregnant again. She wanted to be able to talk some sense into her self down the road, and remind herself just how miserable she was at that very moment. How is it, if we are that miserable, we allow ourselves to forget? It is obviously part of a divine plan.

But here is my main complaint about this first trimester nightmare-the endless amount of SPIT in my mouth. Honestly, what part of growing a life inside me requires my body to produce massive amounts of slimy, foul-tasting spit that endlessly fills my mouth? I know it's gross, but this is me being a martyr, remember? If I have to suffer through it, so do you, at least through reading it and reliving it if it happened to you. My friend Christy described it as her mouth "watering." But that is much too nice of a description--in fact, it has a positive connotation, like your mouth watering over something tasty and delicious. When Jim had tonsilitis, his throat was incredibly sore and it hurt his throat to swallow. So he resorted to his "spit cups." That's right, I would discover cups of his foamy spit all around the house. Nasty right?? Well, not so nasty to me right now! i would go to any length to avoid swallowing. And I've tried sucking everything under the sun, from Lifesavers to breath mints to preggie pops, etc. And while it flavors the spit temporarily, it then leaves a bitter aftertaste that then lingers and mixes with my own nasty spit and it is all I can do to not get a spit cup of my own. It's awful....the taste in my mouth 24/7 tastes like I'm sucking on a penny. Ugh....

So anyway, that is my complaint. I wish I could say I got that off my chest so now I won't complain, but I've gotta keep it real and that is for sure not going to happen. But to put things into perspective of how things are going around here, I will leave you with a few of Kate's latest comments.

Quote #1: Last week, Kate had a friend over, because she plays endlessly with friends, which leaves me to lay on the couch. I had been on the couch for several hours, when Kate came and asked me to turn on the hose for them so they could water the grass. So I stood up to go help them, and Kate went running to her friend Avery yelling, "She's coming Avery! She's coming!!" How sad....me leaving my post on the couch was cause for celebration.

Quote #2: My mom came last week to help me out and she stayed all week long. She was a lifesaver, and when she left yesterday afternoon, I literally cried like a baby. I was wiping my tears, sitting on the couch, and Kate says to me in such a tender, little voice: "Mom, are you sad that Grammy Kay left?" And I said, "Yeah, sweetie, i am." And she said, "Why....cause you still need her to take care of you?" Kids can truly be so insightful.

Quote #3: I got an e-mail this week from a lady in my ward who had substituted in Kate's Sunbeam class last week. She e-mailed me and told me that Kate had said the prayer in class, and apparently she thanked Heavenly Father "that my mommy isn't mean to me anymore." Whaaa? I was mortified. I e-mailed back, feebly trying to redeem myself by conceding that maybe pregnancy doesn't bring out the best in me.

Out of the mouth of babes, right? So anyway, here's to at least 4 more weeks of misery (picture me, raising a toast with my spit cup! :)