Baby talk

The other night I overheard my husband talking to out loud to himself from the other room. Except he wasn't talking to himself, he was apostrophizing our wee-one-to-be. Obviously I teased him about this a bit (he did sound pretty ridiculous), but he just asked, "Don't you talk to the baby when you're alone?" Uh... no. Usually I just forget there's a baby at all. My initial euphoria has given way to a feeling of detachment.

Apparently it's pretty common early on in the first trimester to feel like it's all just a dream. That's certainly true for me, but there's another side to that which I haven't heard anyone mention before. In some weird train of logic that only makes sense on an emotional level, that because the pregnancy isn't quite real to me, the possibility of my not carrying to full term seems much more reasonable than the thought of ending up with a real, live baby in 9 months' time.

Until yesterday, my body hadn't been helping out much with this impression. The only physical manifestation of the pregnancy was low-grade cramps that persisted for about a week as my ligaments stretched and my body made room for baby. Even though this is one of the first real signs that there's life in there, as far as I was concerned, it just felt like I'd be getting my period any second now. Each day that I didn't came as a surprise.

I know that part of this detached feeling is my enormous fear of not carrying to term. The pregnancy might feel like a dream, but it's a beautiful dream and I don't want to do anything that might cause it to end. The snowy, icy weather recently has encouraged me to cocoon myself at home, discouraged me from doing anything that might wake me to a pregnancy-less reality. And so I've used the weather and icy sidewalks as an excuse to not go running, even though I know keeping up running is good for the baby, and even though I've got Janathon coming up in (yikes) a little over a week.

But the other day things started to thaw a little bit. (I mean that metaphorically, although it's literally true as well. Our back garden went from winter wonderland a few days ago to almost snow-free this morning.) In my post-test high, I had emailed a friend from back home for advice on running. I know it's fine to run during pregnancy, but I wasn't sure if it was okay to continue doing what I would consider training runs: tempo and interval runs. The friend I emailed works in a sports-related medical field, is an expert long-distance runner (Iron Man athlete, no less), and is the mother of a beautiful and healthy toddler. So, not a bad person to ask about preggo running.

She got back to me with some excellent advice, but one thing in particular that she said really resonated with me. "Most of all listen to your body," she wrote, "...If you have spotting with intensity, I would tone it back." I've heard the whole listen to your body thing before; it was the second half of that that really struck me. Because, in other words, what that says is, if you screw up a little, it's okay. If you try to find your limits and end up going a little past them, it's cool. You'll know better for next time. You get do-overs with babies. And unless you do something really freaking bad, or do something bad chronically, you're not likely to hurt the baby. 

Needless to say, this makes a lot of sense, and I think I already knew it. But only about other people's babies, who, let's face it, are a leetle less precious than one's own. (And if they get screwed up, it's a whole lot less my fault.) When it came to my baby, this was mind-blowing stuff. Live your life, train, because it's probably going to turn out fine.

And then, just yesterday, something else mind-blowing happened. My boobs expanded like the Grinch's heart. On one hand, this was not so great, because if there's one thing my life does not need, it's more boobage. But, on the other hand, this was not caused by all the cute little Whos in Whoville singing their happy little heads off. No, this was caused by hormones. Baby-type hormones.

This pregnancy might not feel real yet, but those boobs sure do.* And that means, holy shit, I just might be pregnant. This morning I muttered a word or two baby-wards. And I've resolved to get right out there and start running again. Not just running, but tempo running, my favorite. Starting a little slower than I would've pre-baby, but cranking it up notch by notch until I reach my limit. Our limit.

Then I tried to go for a walk yesterday, and decided to wait on running for a day or two until they de-ice a little more. I think by tomorrow they'll be ready and I hope so, because I think I am, too.

Has anyone out there experienced this fear? Any sage advice?

And has anyone tried these? I've heard they're pretty good on packed snow, but was wondering if they work as well on ice.

*I came very, very close to using this sentence as the title of the post. You're welcome.