And what if I don’t stop feeling sick? What if I’m one of the women who doesn’t get to feel the magic of the second trimester? I have not yet snapped to and felt surges of power and vitality; isn’t the placenta supposed to be done forming by now? Isn’t that the reason for so much of this nausea, this exhaustion, this…all of this? I’ve been banking on that magic moment, that pay off, but what if I don’t get it?

I get rattled when I look forward into two years of my body being taken over by these sensations; pregnancy and then nursing and then I suppose beginning to get back to normal. What is my body going to be after all this? There is a varicose vein behind my right knee that began forming in college. It’s gotten bigger.

The problem is that there’s a good chance that if I got more energy back I would simply expend it. I think the universe gave me such a rough first trimester because that’s the only way it could get me to slow down. I tried bargaining a few times: “Please universe, I promise that if you lift this nausea then I will rest more and take it easy.” Am I tired today because I stayed up late reading and then did a whole bunch of stuff? Or am I tired because my baby is now the size of an apple?

I don’t get even the illusion of control. And I haven’t even written about the gas. Miraculously, I’ve only gotten caught farting once and it was kind of a cute one; a classic whoopee cushion sound while talking to my co-worker in a silent hallway.

I will say this though. The sex really is amazing.