In the Family Way

Maternity corset, Victorian era
(www.melissanemitz.wordpress.com)

Yes, I am "with child." I am also...

"In a delicate state."

"Carrying a child."

"Expectant." 

"Fecund," "fertile," "fraught." (Oh, boy.)

"Fruitful."

"Gestating."

"Heavy." (Yes, oh, heck yes.)

"Parturient." (Whaaat?)

"Productive."

"Prolific."

Can you tell I love my Writer's Thesarus? It keeps me warm on cold nights.

But back to the topic at hand: It's true, and at 15 weeks along there's no denying it. I am expecting Baby #2--gender yet to be revealed--on May 8, 2013.

Holy freaking moly.

To say that trying to manage all those things in my life I love to talk (or complain... cough) about has been difficult would be a massive understatement. As so many mamas know, working, parenting a young child, taking care of a house (snort), trying to promote a novel and attempting to be a reasonable spouse all take on an entirely new meaning when you are "in the family way."

Add a full graduate course load and attempting to write a second novel, and it's a circus act of massive proportions. Except, in my case, it's not snazzy, fancy Ringling Brothers, but instead one of those state fairs where the carnies running the ferris wheel look like meth-heads, all the animals in the 4-H competitions bolt for the hills, and carnival-goers all seem to look as if they'd sprouted from the same gene pool.

Nursing corset, circa Thank God NOT 2012
(www.breastfeeding.blog.motherwear.com)

Please forgive me. I'm pregnant.

What I'm trying to say is, the past 3+ months have been a doozy. And I've not done anything--parenting, wife-ing, teaching, writing, novel promoting--particularly well.

See, I'm a college English professor who just used the word "wife-ing." I should be shot.

Thankfully, I seem to have moved out of the I-want-to-die-NOW portion of pregnancy, that oh-so-lovely first trimester. (I'm writing that in a whisper, so the nausea gremlins don't get me). With this move into the Lord-be-praised second trimester, I seem to have reclaimed some of my old energy. When I was pregnant with my now 3 year-old, I used this energy to grade papers, to exercise, to hike some pretty big hills.

Somehow, this isn't the case with Number 2. There's more to do.

I don't have the antidote. The magic potion. The solution. If you do, send it to me. Please. Now. Ye shall be rewarded forthwith.

Some day, "they" tell me, I will write about all this. And I'll be calm. I'll be enlightened, helpful, humorous.

But for now, I'm just pregnant. Happily, but maddeningly, "fecund, fertile and fraught."