There's a new life in my way

There are a lot of things nobody told me about pregnancy. Top of the list is the utter exhaustion these first three months. I'm tired all the time, with nothing to show for it. All I want to do is sleep, sleep and drink tea and read books. Nobody told me, either, about the hurricane-like feeling that my life has been stolen.

I feel plugged. The works are gummed up. Not just the parts that are meant to excrete, but the rest of me, too. My mind--it's dammed. Or damned. Everything has stopped, as if stuck in a held breath that will never exhale. Emotions float around so lazy that it is too much trouble to be sad, scared, or angry. I have been stoppered.

It's a child that's done this. Or it might not be a child yet, depending on how you look at things, especially whether you want it or not. I've had this feeling before, when I was a stupid teenager, and it was most definitely not a child then. It is one this time because I wanted it. Or thought I did. That's the problem, that I wanted this and am now horrified because I feel like I'm caught in a web or stuck in resin or, as I said, stoppered. I have been stopped. Everything that I am, or want to be, has stopped to make room for something more important: new life. That's how it feels, anyway. It's terrifying to be afraid--or is it jealous?--of something that doesn't really exist yet, and when it does will be totally dependent on me.

I should stop calling it 'it.' It has a name. She has a name. Nobody's told me she's a 'she,' but I know anyway.

Nobody told me that it would feel like this, that the happiness and expectation would be replaced by a limb-gripping fear that my life has just come to a screeching halt. And I haven't even done anything with it yet.