Six week update

Since I peed on the stick last week, I have only thought about being pregnant 682,465 times. This, I'm sure you will agree, is a remarkable improvement in restraint and shows definite progress in my attempts to curb the more obsessive side of my personality. This new zen attitude thing is really working out for me!

Not only do I continue to become more pregnant each day, but I am becoming less superstitious about talking about it. I like Fridays, because that's the day I make the leap from the barely pregnant 5w6d to a very far-along and respectable 6w.

I am constantly reassured of my pregnant state in part because every morning I look at the peed-on stick in its place of honour on the lip of the bathroom counter (sidebar: when you are a sentimental and vaguely superstitious pack rat, at what point exactly is it okay to throw away the peed-on stick?) but mostly because the symptoms that have been the hallmarks of my previous pregnancies make themselves more apparent each day. I'm a little more peckish than usual, and my stomach rolls unpleasantly as soon as it detects anything close to hunger. My attention span, not good on the best of days, is practically non-existent.

*looks around*
*blinks*
*notices you waiting*

Oh, sorry about that. What was I saying? Right, pregnancy symptoms. I'm crushed under the weight of a fatigue so big that even Rip Van Winkel's 20-year nap wouldn't take the edge off of it, which is nicely complemented by the fact that where I usually sleep like a happy log, my sleep all week has been fitful and punctuated by stretches of insomnia.

The crankiness? Oh, no, that's not a pregnancy symptom. That's just me.

Hard though it is to believe, my abdomen is already swelling, too. I suppose being on my fifth (!!)pregnancy and having borne children that were larger than some charted asteroids has weakened my abdominal wall beyond repair. I had barely finished peeing on the stick when my stomach pooched out. All I can say is thank god for drawstring summer pants.

Speaking of size, I guess this pretty much halts the progress of my steady but incremental weight loss. I weigh just a little bit less than I did last summer, and have lost a total of nine pounds since February. I think I've gained three since last Wednesday. I think I just gained another one there while I was thinking about it. I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that the baby made me eat poutine for lunch yesterday and spicy sausages and perogies for dinner. Willfull little creature, it is. It's been demanding butter tarts for three days, and only the fact that Farm Boy was sold out of them has prevented me from acquiesing - which, of course, has only intensified the craving. Oops, I think I just added another pound just thinking about it.

I work on the edge of the Byward Market, fer crissake, home of some of the best restaurants, cafés and shops in the city of Ottawa. Surely to god I can find a decent butter tart out there somewhere, right? Oh, and for my American friends: a butter tart is like a personal-sized pecan pie, with or without the pecans, occasionally with raisins or walnuts, but gooey-er and altogether more decadent.

Uh, excuse me. I have a - um, a thing to do. Yes, an important butter tart work-related thing. To get. I mean, to do. Quick, point me in the direction of the nearest bakery, it's an emergency!

Edited to add: I love my peeps. Kerry and Trixie came back from a coffee break with not one but TWO butter tarts for me. And Beloved called to say he found a box of my favourite pecan butter tarts at the grocery store this morning. Oh, heavenly tarty goodness...