The size of the container

I thought that, as usual, it was about 6am. I've been getting up then, getting my multivitamin
and getting back to sleep. But no, 3:30am and there is a bird singing somewhere in the dense fog outside. Not that that woke me up, but i was really hot so I opened a window.

And now I'm up, and waiting for the juice and half a pear to digest enough that I can lay back down without the heartburn. In the meantime, I've been to a number of websites, and found this great visual blog on NYTimes.com:

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/bathroom-art/

Anyway, back to that heartburn thing. I need to eat more because I'm not gaining as much weight as I should be right now. However, given that my stomach is currently about the size of a mandarin orange, it can be hard to fit much more than a mandarin orange in there at any given time. So I have to pace my eating. But this then means I need to pace my laying down, too. And since I can no longer lay on my back (too much baby weight makes breathing hard), and stomach lying has long ago exited my repertoire, and side lying is not so effective at making my back feel better or keeping me propped up, I have entered a strange minimization problem. Eating spaced out, but napping spaced out more. (And thinking about the correct usage of lay and lie is definitely not on the list once those issues come up.)

Which brings me to all the advice out there about enjoying things now that will be impossible when the baby is here. Like quiet dinners out with M, or sleeping a lot, or the feel of the baby moving. I understand these will change, at least intellectually I do. But at the same time, I can't have more than a mandarin orange at one time, nor is sitting for a long time all that comfortable, so I'm not sure which quiet restaurant I'm supposed to choose.

Taking "a last trip together" has also fallen off the list. Sure, I get that this will change once the baby is here, but too late. I sleep in the guest room right now because the mattress topper supports my weight better. I need to nap in the middle of the day. I don't feel very comfortable in upright train seating. Walking gets my back pain going. I'm not sure there is a destination left that is really that appropriate for me, other than the guestroom.

And as for the baby kicking, or the being pregnant feeling, I get kicked a lot. In all sorts of directions that don't make for fond memories - lungs, ribs, cervix. And I can't remember what it was like not to have this belly. So I know it will probably be the same when the baby is out and I can't remember what it was like to have this belly.

My point is, even though people can say that greater suffering is coming, with lack of sleep and exhaustion and never being alone again, they also say I can't imagine what those things will be like. So how am I supposed to enjoy this time in some way that makes up for the coming time. I have nothing to compare it to. I can't sit here and flip back and forth between pregnancy back pain vs. sleep deprivation. I can only know the discomforts of now.

There was a book I first read in highschool, about life in a concentration camp (don't worry, I'm not about to compare any of this to that....not really), written by Victor Frankl. I think it was called Man's Search for Meaning. And I think he was the one who talked about suffering as gas-like. In that it fill whatever container it has. That you can't say someone who suffered one thing suffered more than someone who suffered another thing, because suffering expands to fill us up. So I have a minor ache or pain, and you have something which involved going to the hospital. Since I can't experience your pain, my pain can fill up my container (me, my experience of pain) as fully as your fills up your container. I have nothing to compare to.

I don't think I explained that very well, but the point is this. I can't experience any postnatal things right now. I can't even imagine them. I still do appreciate people giving me a heads up on some last things to relish. But it isn't worth me trying to relish them as if I also knew what postnatal land was going to feel like.

So I'll have to settle for being excited about sleeping on my back, and being able to drink a whole glass of water just before I do it. Or about being able to walk up our hill without back pain later. Right now, my container is shaped differently than it will be in a few weeks, so for now the best I can do is imagining my current aches and pains and minor complaints being gone. Instead of feeling like I should be enjoying this time more.

I'll do my best, now and later, to enjoy life as much as I can, and put up with the container-full of whatever it brings.