First barfing! 4:00 a.m.

So. queasy. I feel so awful, I don’t know how I can get through the next 2 months of it. (And I feel so, so, SO sorry for the women who have this the whole 9 months. I think sainthood isn’t too lofty a reward for those women.) This morning as soon as I got up, I ate saltines and ginger ale and banana, but I’m still on the verge of actual barfing. I feel tired and achy all over. Usually I get the twins dressed right after they have their breakfast, but today I barely felt like I could lift them from their high chairs into their play yard. Then I sat in the recliner for awhile, feeling yucky.

I don’t even want to read. I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything. I don’t want to pick up toddlers. All I want to do is WHINE.

I keep looking for more solutions to the problem, but my conclusion is that there is no solution. People mention ginger, and peppermint, and a whole bunch of other things, but the consensus seems to be that nothing really works on “morning sickness” except time: getting past it.

Here is what I am really wondering: Is this the usual nausea I have with every pregnancy? Or is this the more intense variety I had when I was expecting the twins?

Good pregnancy feelings:

• I am doing something important every second of every day, even if I am eating Dove chocolates and reading a People Magazine.
• I wonder if this baby will be a boy or a girl?
• I wonder what we should name the baby?
• I wonder if it will be twins again?
• I can eat well and exercise, for actual health reasons and not for “being healthier” in the sense of “I don’t care what I have to eat or not eat, I WILL hold up my ‘fat pants’ next to me and be dwarfed by them.”
• Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, a BABY.

Bad pregnancy feelings:

• I think I’m going to barf.
• Nothing sounds good. What can I eat? Everything looks gross.
• That statistic my mom told me ten years ago about most families having one more child than they should have had. My mom, who makes up statistics. That I then believe, for some reason.
• I can’t believe I have to go through this physical misery again.
• Oh my god, the medication I took before I knew I was pregnant!
• Oh my god, I didn’t realize too much ginger was dangerous!
• Oh my god, now I have to be careful of AROMATHERAPEUTIC OILS??
• Definitely, I am going to barf.

Last night I woke up at about 3:00, and I couldn’t get back to sleep because I was too queasy. I finally got up and did a few chores: labeling photos (from July–I’m more than a little behind on this chore), emptying the dish rack, etc., while drinking tea and eating saltines. I tried going back to bed around 4:00, but felt so very, very queasy I had to get up again. At 5:30 I felt a little better, and very carefully lay back down, and felt well enough to drift off. At 6:15, William came in to tell me there was a spider in his room.

So, morning sickness again. One of the few reasons I was glad I was done having babies was that I was done with morning sickness. The weeks of it seem endless. I think some people think it’s just a little touch of wooziness, and of course that’s all some women get: one of my friends assured me that if I nibbled a saltine first thing in the morning and stopped lying around so much, I’d feel better—making it clear to me that she didn’t deal with the level of morning sickness I’m dealing with. Here is what it’s like: it’s like having stomach flu for nine weeks. Anyone could be excused for going INSANE in such a situation.

Oh, I could use a baby frontpack for the new baby. I’ll be a sight, won’t I? Two walking children, two children in a mammoth double stroller, one child strapped to me. But it solves the problem I seized up with yesterday, wondering how I would even transport this many babies.

I could also shop in the evenings, when Paul is home from work and the kids are asleep.

I just had my first big swoop of doubt. I was going through some photos from the summer, Robert and William at the pool having swimming lessons. I was thinking about how great that worked: I’d put the twins in their double stroller and we’d sit and watch Robert and William swim, and it was such a nice way to have some summer automatically at the beginning of each day.

I was thinking about how I’d definitely sign them up for lessons again this year. Then I realized that this year, I’ll have a new baby, just a month or two old. The twins will be in their double stroller–and where will the new baby be? In fact, where will the new baby be on any outing? Already I am out of room in the shopping cart.

I am trying to appreciate this pregnancy, and not hurry it up. I am so impatient, already I am counting weeks until the ultrasound, counting weeks until the end of the first trimester, counting weeks until the birth—feeling restless and anxious for time to pass.

When I was pregnant with the twins, I thought it would be my last pregnancy, and so I had a little rejoicing/mourning thing going with each new thing: “Woo hoo, that was the LAST morning sickness! Ohhh, that was the last time I’ll feel ‘the first real kick’,” etc. After the babies were born, I felt a little pang of envy every time I read a book where a character discovers she’s pregnant. I wished for that feeling again, that feeling when you see the second line appear. I wished for the anticipation: will the baby be a boy or a girl, and what will he/she look like, and when will he/she be here? I wished for that feeling of having a secret passenger—and then, later, of that feeling that everyone can see that you’re working on something important.

Of course, as soon as I get the unexpected treat of experiencing that anticipation and those feelings again, I start RUSHING it. Oh, god, I’m not even six weeks, why can’t things move faster? I am trying not to do that. I’m trying to enjoy the knowledge that I Am Pregnant, and trying to enjoy the fun of not knowing everything yet. It is difficult, though, to fully enjoy The Moment when I feel like I’m going to start barfing any minute now.

I am always reading and hearing about how it important it is to “live in the now,” to “be present.” This is not something that comes naturally to me. I like to live partly in the now, and partly in the later.

This way of living is what helps me to keep things together, even with four children. Yes, part of me is here, listening to my 7-year-old tell me about number stories (that’s what they’re calling word problems now)–but part of me is keeping a mental list that stretches from what I need to do in 5 minutes (get the laundry before the buzzer drives me insane, bring that box to the basement on my way down to get the laundry, start the twins on a snack) to what I need to do in 50 years (should probably leave grandma’s jade jewelry set to a granddaughter).

This is also what lets me keep an optimistic outlook when something unexpected happens. Paul, who lives in the now to such an extent that he won’t put a twist-tie on the bread because he can’t envision a time when the bread will turn stale, is overwhelmed at the idea of this unexpected pregnancy. He is not thinking far enough ahead. He is thinking short-term at best: how will we handle so many little children, how will we afford so many diapers? Whereas I am happily dwelling in the future, where we will look back on this as the lovely, lovely surprise that brought us our darling child ____, who is getting married today and hasn’t it all gone so fast?

Last night we emailed our parents with the news that we were expecting again. This is my fourth time sharing news of this sort, and every single time it has made me feel like barfing.

The first time was most disillusioning, because I had thought that telling would be one of the most fun things about being pregnant—but then after I told, I had that barfy feeling and almost wished I weren’t pregnant. With subsequent pregnancies I’ve been more prepared for that feeling.

It’s such a relief to be getting the telling part over with.

An unexpected (but welcome) pregnancy is one of the craziest surprise treats ever. It’s like going out on errands, and when I come back there’s this huge gift-wrapped package on our front porch. It’s like finding out I have a talent for something I never would have expected I could do, breaking out into loud perfect song and getting signed on the spot.

I was walking along saying la-la-la, and I had no idea I had a stowaway. There I was, feeling sad about not having more babies! There I was, doing the grocery shopping! There I was, going out to get the mail! And all along, you were already there. And then the day came that I found out about you, and everything shifted.

Now I know you’re in there. I’m sending you messages, messages of folic acid and vitamin A and extra iron. I’m you gifts, gifts like skipping coffee and going to bed early and not coloring my hair. You’re the size of a sesame seed, and already you need things from me.