Horoscopes to Wear Sweaters To

Gather round, ye astrological astronauts, and cozy up to my latest witch proclamations. These go down especially nice with a good cocktail (Manhattans, anyone?), or, if you're abstaining, a hot chocolate made with real milk.

ARIES: I recently joined this Facebook trading group, where people will post photos of stuff they don't want—tables, half-eaten loaves of banana bread, unopened and slightly outdated tech—and then go "ISO" things to replace them. People are in search of the weirdest things, but the same general categories keep coming up: succulents, haircuts, mirrors, "consumables" (you're fooling no one, stoners), and, always, tall cans and tokens. It's this weird proxy economy that couldn't exist if we weren't terrible at just getting rid of stuff. We always seem to want something in return.

TAURUS: When a woman gets knocked up, there are very few objectively great things that happen to her body. The whole nine months are basically just one long ooze. The exception? Goddamn, pregnant hair looks amazing. Add in that "glow" people talk about? It's like they're radiant from the chin(s) up. Perhaps, Taurus, you too have a unexpected and time-limited glory in which you can revel.

GEMINI: One of the weirdest (to me) subgenres of film is Christmas horror, but not only does it exist, Christmas horror has a rich and bloody history reaching back to the Canadian X-mas horror classic Black Christmas. One of my favourite Christmas horror movies is Rare Exports, a Norwegian movie featuring a very off-putting Santa and a bunch of homicidal—and, um, full-frontal naked—elves. It's so weird, you guys. But it's also kind of charming, and it's actually not all that scary. It's more of a ninety-minute wtf-fest where the intersection of gore and nostalgia and amazing Scandi scenery are at its peak. Which is all to say: seeking out life's strangest intersections can be a beautiful thing.

CANCER: My sister spends her life flying between her office in the city, her work zone in the hinterlands, and her boyfriend and family three provinces away. There's something in her spirit that really enjoys this, but Cancers are known for being homebodies. Y'all like your creature comforts. Maybe this is why, when she travels, she brings her personal totems with her: favourite sweaters, an iPod loaded with pop music, her At Bat baseball app. It keeps her grounded even as she makes a habit of never quite knowing where she might wake up tomorrow.

LEO: I love office supplies. Index cards, binder clips, printers that work right out of the box without having to whack the side and pray to Jesus that everything is hooked up: magical talismans, one and all. Having a well-stocked office supply cabinet makes me feel prepared—which, when you think about it, is just another word for safe. The illusion of safety can be a powerful one, and not all bad. After all, I'm way more willing to take a risk when I feel like I have a net underneath me, even if that net is made up of paper clips and half-inch binders.

VIRGO: Can I level with you? It took me a full year to read The Hobbit, which is ridiculous because that book is not long. My husband's copy of the book is 279 pages, which is about the same as a Stephen King short story. I think it took me so long to wade through it for the same reason I'm lukewarm on Star Wars and I don't really care about the Beatles: not having been exposed to them as a kid, I missed the rush of discovery and wonder that those pop culture touchstones can create. Encountering them as an adult, I understand, on an academic level, why people dig them; they just don't make me feel anything. This year, I stopped apologizing for that. It's not my fault the timing didn't work out.

LIBRA: "I feel cheated never being able to know what it's like to get pregnant, carry a child and breastfeed,” once said noted feminist Dustin Hoffman. Allow me to fill you in, D: stick a bicycle pump in your belly button and inflate your stomach until you can no longer see your pubes, then go on a 45-day crying jag. Experiences that seem magical from the outside are often very much not once you're strapped in for the ride, and it can be tough to know, when, exactly, the payoff stops making sense. Maybe you, too, Libra, are engaged in something feels way different on the inside that it seems on the outside. Maybe you could share with the group a little more.

SCORPIO: I've been really coveting black Nike running shoes lately. I went through an intense clogs phase, and I still love my Blundstones, but there's something about a breezy pair of runners that make me go "mmmm." But all the art-school girls I see are still clutching their dirty white Chucks like they're the effing holy grail, and now that I'm in my thirties, I can't tell if they're weird or if I am. It feels shallow to "still care" about fashion, as if that's something I'm supposed to give up as I get older—like I have to trade that brainspace for, like, knowing about investments or something. But also: this stuff matters to me. Sometimes, you gotta give in to the parts of your brain that cares deeply about superficial stuff.

SAGITTARIUS: I have this recurring daydream in which I'm a farmer. I see myself with a baby goat slung around my neck as casually as a Milanese millionaire would wear an ascot, and I walk the rows of my crops—lavender? Hops? Peach trees?—with the comforting buzz of artisan honeycombs coming from somewhere over the next rise. I wear galoshes because I have to, and my hair is wiry yet alluring. This daydream has pretty much zero in common with actual farming, and is just an escapist fantasy whenever I find myself spending too much time on the computer...but it's also really useful, because it points out what I'm lacking: physical work, a connection to nature, a sense of purpose. It helps what's missing throw a shadow.

CAPRICORN: So Trudeau filled his cabinet with women, and you know who wants to talk about it? Cab drivers. Cab drivers definitely want to ask you about your opinions on Trudeau and his political harem, and they definitely have opinions themselves, although they won't share them until they suss out where you fall on the political spectrum. I get the sense that Toronto cab drivers, as a group, have some of the highest levels of diplomacy and tact on the face of the earth, even though they scare me half to death when I'm cycling and they're going extinct in the face of Uber. Maybe Trudeau can repurpose Toronto cab drivers as ambassadors; lord knows they have the skills for it.

AQUARIUS:You know what pains me? Justin Bieber is having A Moment. I've listened to "Sorry" about 300 times, and you know what? I'm NOT SORRY. That damn song is really catchy. Bieber is doubly embarrassing because, like me, he's from Stratford; unlike me, he's a gazillionaire pop star who has silly tattoos and wears/acts like the dumbest shit on earth and people are always like, "You're from STRATFORD?! Do you know JUSTIN BEIBER?!!!??" and first of all, no, and secondly, ugh. But I am powerless in the face of "Where Are U Now," as all reasonable humans must be. And you know what helps? Watching the "Sorry" video for the 301st time. Those girls can daaaaaance.

PISCES: Did you notice a lot of tandem bikes this summer? I sure did. I saw them everywhere, and I can't help but wonder if they're in a renaissance, or if they've actually been there the whole time. I feel like this is a metaphor for something: maybe there's a slightly unusual trend that will pop into your life soon, making it a bit weirder and more delightful. Maybe that thing is already circling you like a friendly, dopey shark, and you just need to start noticing it. Maybe join a tandem bike gang—it will obviously have an even number of members—and keep your eyes open on the road.

Image via The Bold Italic

Pregnancy, In Lists

A partial list of cravings so far:

• tortellini with pesto
• banana smoothies
• green smoothies
• dim sum-style turnip cakes
• pad Thai
• toast
• more toast
• seriously, an embarrassing amount of toast
• kefir
• samosas
• peanut sauce
• macaroni and cheese
• pudding cups
• soft white foods in general

Things that have been the grossest:

• my beloved kombucha SCOBY, which I had to throw away and then barf a bunch afterwards
• red meat
• the inside of my own mouth
• the stupid prenatal vitamin that I take like twice a week and always which always makes me feel disgusting

Nicknames for the baby:

• the little buddy
• the tiny dancer
• little friend
• kiddo
• the disco monster

Cutest things:

• have you ever seen a newborn onesie? Good lord 

Obsessions:

• what I'll fill my freezer with before the kid arrives
• strollers—they truly are the car parents buy before they buy a minivan
• sleek maternity clothes
• how to position my body in time and space so that I'm comfortable
• avoiding other people's unsolicited labour stories
• toast
• knitting tiny clothes
• pinning gender-neutral clothes on Pinterest
• baby-wearing resources
• poking at my belly to see if that's the kid's head or its bum
• offering people a chance to touch my stomach (I am a monster)

Physical challenges:

• stiff hips
• sore back
• leaky boobs
• my crotch is a swamp 24/7
• this, like, numb/burning area at the top of my abdomen? The midwife says this is not unusual, but I think there's a demon in there
• sometimes I go to pee and then an hour later I have to pee again, and then an hour after that I'm peeing again, and...

Physical amazingness:

• feeling this kid move around inside
• no acne?! 
• seriously, my hair looks insanely good right now
• constantly fondling my new outie bellybutton 
• yoga is fun again
• a bunch of different people have said that I'm "glowing"

Emotional challenges:

• crying pretty much on the daily, for real
• fear
• anxiety 
• developing an inexplicable fondness for Justin Bieber songs 
• that every twinge is somehow a miscarriage, or, now, premature labour

Emotional amazingness:

• when my husband reads stories to my belly and then we snuggle afterwards 
• the incredible influx of people who want to give us baby-related stuff, including furniture, clothes, and soaker pads for the aforementioned leaky boobs
• holding onto the parenting mantra my mother gave me, which was "Feed the baby. Hold the baby. Change the baby," which, like, I can totally do those things
• feeling closer to my mom in general
• finding some mom-friends (however: is there a more terrible phrase in the English language than "mom-friends"? I don't think so)
• watching my body change in all these incredible ways, and not feeling super fucked-up about it (as Virginia Slim said: "You've come a long way, baby."
• starting to maybe feel sort of like, if I can get my house cleaned up and take a shower sometime between now and January, I might be ready for this. 

Image via Rebeca Losada

On the Bandwagon

True confession time: I only really care about sports when there's something on the line. Spring training? Whatever. Regular season play? Unless something truly spectacular happens, like a brawl in a sport where there usually isn't any brawling (bowling, for example), I tend to skim it. The gold-medal games in the Olympics? The World Series? The Superbowl? I'll made a dent in my couch for that. But this year's Blue Jays—home of Joey Bats and Tulo, of Josh "MVP, MVP" Donaldson, of hometown boys Russel Martin and Dalton Pompey—have forced Toronto to fall in love with them. I'm no exception.

For the past few years, my dad has bought a 500-level flex pass, which lets him select a bunch of games at which he can drink eleven-dollar beer in the sky. He's been generous with the tickets—I regularly get texts asking if I want free tickets to the game—and we've been greedy in accepting them. My husband and I load our bags with Bulk Barn snacks and bottles of water, and we alternately roast in the sun or sit out under the stars. It's an outing: a bike ride to the lakeshore, a required-by-law Instagram shot of the CN Tower, and also, some sports.

I have great memories of my friends at these game, which were otherwise unremarkable. Going to a game with unrepentant Yankees fan Abe meant sitting next to him as he cheered for A-Rod (of all people) while the rest of the stadium cheerfully booed him. This was the same season that Munenori Kawasaki and Ichiro Suzuki were in regular rotation; the Japanese fans behind us hollered us for both the Jays and the Yanks that night, wildly waiving Canadian, American, and Japanese flags.

But the games? Oh, those games were not good. In 2014, there was a record-setting nineteen-inning game in which they barely beat the Tigers; in 2012, they burned through 31 different pitchers. They hadn't won more than 90 games in a regular season over a decade. They had the longest payoff drought of any professional sports team in North America. Before this summer, going to Blue Jays games were like going to a movie where, even if the ending was okay, the whole thing was kind of disappointing.

I was nine in 1993, when they won their second World Series and Joe Carter walked on the moon. I remember that series: I remember the Coke ads, and somehow winning fifty bucks in a family pool. I remember being freaked out by Phillies center fielder and noted felon/angry-looking man Lenny Dykstra. But mostly, I remember the electricity of caring. Feeling like it was something big, something that mattered. Not having a TV at our cottage, we went to my mom's cousin's house and huddled around the TV to take in October games. Mike tells me stories about being in Toronto when the Jays won, of going to Bloor Street and watching the city erupt in mad fandom, finally feeling justified to howl at the world. Some nights, when we come back from having a few too many drinks and want to feel that feeling, we'll lie in bed and watch the walk-off home run clip in bed together. Joe Carter's erumpent face, equal parts thrilled and shocked, and Tom Cheek's heart-eyed instructions to "touch 'em all, Joe," are as Canadian to us as Heritage Moments and Tim Hortons.

For twenty years, caring about the Blue Jays was Torontonian background radiation. They played, we cheered, they had heart and good players, and none of really mattered. Even my dad vacillated between two settings: "those bums" (when they lost) and a grudging "those guys" (when they won). I mostly went to games for a chance to yodel Ennnncarnaaaacion along with the PA announcer.They were good enough—all sports teams manage to win enough to keep fans from chewing the insides of their cheeks into lace—but they had not again touched greatness.

Until, unexpectedly, things shifted this year. When they the team acquired ace pitcher David Price and shortstop Troy Tulowitzski in the late-July trade deadline, they suddenly went from being good-enough to something special. People who hadn't known anything about baseball were suddenly showing up at the SkyDome (never Rogers Centre, please), cheering on a team that had put down two eleven-game winning streaks. Torontoist published a guide for bandwagoners. Then the Jays clinched the American League East, and then they beat the Rangers in a five-game series that culminated in one of the weirdest, craziest, funniest games ever played, post-season or not.

The Jays are now fighting the Kansas City Royals in a brutal seven-game series. They've forced the Royals to Game Six, after losing their first two games and getting absolutely slaughtered in the fourth. But the thing about the 2015 Jays is that they just keep going. They keep not losing crucial games. They're still in the running. It's the most bizarre thing. If they win the next two games—and they could, they really might, everyone is being cautious but nothing's really over yet—they'd be heading to the World Series for the first time in 22 years. I have to admit: imagining Toronto's crazy joy at that moment gives me a manic chill.

But still. For me, if we finish here, it will have been a good finish. The Toronto Blue Jays have finished in the bottom half of the division for the past nine years. Now, we have the batflip that spawned a thousand memes, a team that seems to play as though they care, players who regularly fly through the air to catch and throw. Watching them play now is a pleasure, because they believe again. And we believe in them, too.

How to Dress Yourself and Grow a Baby at the Same Time

Hola bitches! Whoops, now that we're expecting babies / baking buns in our ovens / exploring the mystical path of motherhood, I guess we have to trade the word "bitches" for something more G-rated. So: Hola, gestaters!

By this point in your journey towards birth, you may have gained five or ten or forty pounds. I offer no judgement on the number, on your general shape—some lucky bitches gestaters only gain like, thirteen pounds all the way through and we can still see their abs well into their eighth month. (Those women are stone-cold freaks, though.) Full disclosure: I'm six months along and I've gained nineteen pounds, mostly in the baby zone (tits and stomach). I've gone up about four bra sizes. I wear a special belt to keep the weight of belly from cranking on my back. According to my midwife, my abs—my hard-earned abs!—are slowly being separated down the middle line by the sheer force of my uterus growing out. (This is the same midwife who, when I told her I was feeling very pregnant that day, looked at my stomach and said slowly, "Well, it sort of just looks like you had a big lunch." CUE FEELINGS.)

Since your body is changing, you will be forced to get new clothes. In my experience, maternity clothes are both different from, and better than, just sizing up. Sizing up often means that, while the garment fits over your belly, it's sloppy elsewhere: too-long straps, gaping underarm holes, bumster pant rises. I hate to admit it, but maternity clothes just fit better. They're designed to fit over the basketball your partner has shoved under your shirt.

But they're also stupid expensive and often designed as though the average age of Canada's first-time mother is 55, not 29. Some fashionistas recommend embracing your inner Golden Girl during your pregnancy, and just rolling with brightly coloured muumuus. Counter-point: I feel uncomfortable in colours brighter than navy. Throwing a weight gain and a shape change into the mix wasn't exactly inspiring me to break out the teals and aquamarines.

I've staunchly stuck to, and expanded on, my wardrobe of grays, blacks, white, black, red, and more black. For reference, here's a list of maternity things I've acquired over the last six months:

• gray skinny pants *
• black wide-leg pants *
• cheaply made pair of black leggings *
• insanely beautiful pair of black leggings **
• spangly black party dress **
• dotted grey cocktail dress *
• black pencil skirt **
• black denim skirt **
• black poofy skirt **
• black tank top *
• green-khaki tank top *
• black 3/4-length sleeve top *
• plum tunic *
• gray short sleeve sweatshirt **
• gray v-neck baseball-style sweatshirt **
• black swingy sweatshirt **
• white maternity/baby-wearing parka *

This is in addition to a bunch of things that I've just kept wearing well into pregnancy, including a mesh tank top, a sheer blouse, an extremely tight black sweater, several long shirts/minidresses, and a pair of leggings that I kept from my fat days, because I liked the pattern and knew that, at some point, they would be resurrected in their bump-accommodatingly largeness. I've also co-opted my husband's sweatpants, and have been wearing a fur-topped toque pretty much everywhere. (I was led to believe I would be sweaty as a pregnant person, but I'm freezing.)

So what are all those asterisks? Well, the single star is something that I bought second-hand, either from a mom who was selling something she no longer needed, or from a used-clothing store like Value Village or the Salvation Army. The double star was something that was given to me free of charge—most often from my own mom, but also from friend-moms who were like "ENOUGH of these belly panels I need real jeans again!"

I provide these items to you, not as a shopping list, but as a reminder of two things:

1. It is totally possible to dress yourself on the cheap during this period. There are a few things that I need to complete this wardrobe—some maternity tights, a cozy hoodie, and maybe a couple more tank tops—but for the most part, I'm there. Second-hand maternity clothes tend to be in fairly great shape, because most women only wear them for a few months. And, in addition to checking the usual VV/Sally Anne places, second-hand and consignment shops devoted to outfitting your kids will often also have a maternity-clothes section. I scored a $140 shirt for six bucks from one these places, and I'm still not entirely over it. Trolling parents buy-and-trade groups are also a great place to pick up deals, as is Kijiji: witness my $500 maternity coat, which I snagged for a cool Borden. I think the total cost of this wardrobe has been about $300. While half of it came for free, I think it could be done for under $500 even if you had to buy it all.

2. I love showing off my bump. Maybe even flaunting it! As a well-endowed woman who has struggled to accept my weight and shape for most of my adult life, being visibly, obviously pregnant has been crazy empowering. A pregnant belly isn't like a fat stomach (shut up, I didn't know this!): it's hard and firm and well-defined with the outlines of your kidlet's growth pod. Of course, your mileage may vary. Some women gain weight all over, some gain very little, and some may not even show for a while, especially if they started out on the heavier side. But for me, this stomach is something I'm proud of! I like wearing tight clothes and showing off my kid.  (#thatmom)

But I still am not drawn to toucan prints and sunset colours. I love black and grey for the same reason that I love mesh and tight clothes: I feel most like my primal self when I wear those things. During a time that is often primal, and often confusing (hello, hormones!), the comfort of a power-outfit can be a touchstone. Finding things that reflected who I am, even as I change, has become important to me.

Thinking hard about my own fashion narrative throughout the years has been a great creative exercise, and a terrific way to figure out the self I want to project in the world. I can be so many different people—post-apocalyptic farm girl; sharp-eyed gallery curator; cozy-kitchen'ed baker-maker; gauzy-eyed lavender-and-hops farmer; all-black witchy mama; thick-muscled fitspo pinup; and so on, and so on. Each of those facets of myself, or those personas to which I aspire, gives me strength and courage in the world. I love my post-apocalyptic farm girl style for its natural fibers and self-reliant air; I love my witchy-mama vibe for its mystery and all-black colour scheme. Plus, fashion is fun, and pregnancy is often not fun. Finding a fun outlet in which to be pregnant is a kind of take-back-the-night moment for me, in between all the morning sickness and backaches and acid reflux.

These moments—these nine months, actually—are moments of transition, between focusing on myself to focusing on my wee family. After the baby is born, my clothing choices may cease to matter at all, or drop way down on my priority list. They may go from from form-fitting to forgiving, or from fashionable to utilitarian. But there is absolutely no reason I can't be a well-dressed bitch until then.

Image via Nettie Wakefield

This Week, In a Post

This week, I'm at my parents house in a very picturesque small Ontario town, engaging in some self-care and allowing others to take care of me. So far, this looks like:

• A massage!
• Family time. Just being around my parents can be really soothing, although when my dad was being a total pill about Blue Jays tickets, I did have to hide. 
• Two trips to Fabricland with my mom, to choose fabric for our futon cushions so I can hate the futon a little less
• A solo venture to all the fancy-lady stores on the downtown strip, searching for maternity tights
• Making fun of maternity clothes on the internet with my sister
• Nightly chats with my husband, who I miss quite a lot
• Lunch out with my mom and sister, where literally every dish was primarily cheese and it was v. delicious
• Multiple baths in my parent's deep (and exceptionally clean) bathtub
• Making quesadillas (filled with squash, chicken, green onions, kalamata olives and cheddar, and it was SO tasty and I feel like a chef genius)
• Knitting my dad a non-itchy hat to replace the 100% Icelandic wool toque I made him several years ago, which is nice to look at but will literally make you feel insane, which he has rightly never worn
• Chocolate, every day
• Pinterest
• Spoonflower
• Listening to The Roots, Banks, and Joe Strummer
• Not setting my alarm
• Going to bed early
• Sleeping in
• Getting gifties for the baby, including a way-cute onesie and a vintage book about breastfeeding that featured photoillustrations of hairy dads cuddling their babies
• A heating pad wedged between my shoulder blades
• Walking away from the TV after an episode of Friends, because let's face it: those people were really mean to each other! All the time! 
• Lying around in my towel for an hour after I take my morning shower, watching my stomach pulse with baby-kicks
• Accepting that my feelings are my feelings and I don't have to fix them
• Accepting that the next year or so is going to be very tough, and also very rewarding, and also very different from this year, and that it's okay to be excited and freaked out
• Setting a to-do list, and then being okay when I don't get through it
• Did I mention the baths already?
• Washing my previously unwashed and horribly filthy Icelandic sweater (my version of this process involved swirling it around in the machine using a croquet mallet, which isn't really S.O.P. but was my favourite part)
• Reading the Far Side in bed
• Feeling really good about my outfits

Image via Emilie Fountaine

Nuit Off-Blanche

My first Nuit Blanche was Toronto's second: back in 2007, my boyfriend and I wandered the streets until dawn. I don't remember much of what we saw, but I do remember the dreamy electro music that played during OCAD's atrium during their free pancake breakfast, and our pact to hail the first cab we saw on our walk home, and that we ended up sprawled in his twin bed as the day greyed out up us, never having caught that cab after all.

The following year, my heart was broken: the boyfriend had become the ex, and I did Nuit Blanche with friends, the ghost of past loves dogging me around the city, installation to installation. I remember a cloud of fog around Hart House, and handwritten wishes tied to a tree. I remember "come home baby I need you here" being one of those wishes, and my heart broke even more. Everything in my life seemed irreparable. In the fog, I cried, and let myself be seen by strangers. To be seen by friends would have been too intimate.

Over the years, Nuit Blanche has been a place to meet secret lovers, to meet friends, to wear layers, to fill water bottles full of whiskey. The best way to do the night is by bike, following the masses as they roil from one place to the next. Exhibits that are wildly popular at eleven PM or one AM usually thin out around dawn—I saw Lower Bay Station, and its claustrophobic sound installation, that way—and the crowds go from parents with children, to drunk college friend groups, to dedicated up-all-nighters. There are places of refuge, like the Gardiner Museum. There are places of wild revelry, like Trinity Bellwoods. And there are overlays of memories—old friends I once knew, new friends I never saw again.

The art is almost always forgettable. I don't mean that in a bad way, but it's like going to a museum. At some point, fatigue sets in. The art blends together, creating one super Picass-brant, and the day is a dreamy blur. Nuit Blanche is the same way. The night becomes about the trips between art sites, the blurry cell phone pictures, and trying to push through the throngs of people to get back to your bike, or onto the streetcar, or to see the thing that we all came to see.

And: the back-to-back years of romance and then mourning still seep through, even though I'm now married. It's like going back to a grave, in a way. It never feels quite normal. It never doesn't haven't that memory.

The last few year, I've skipped Nuit Blanche. Last year, I was in New York City, partying in a Brooklyn warehouse with a thousand other weirdos. Years before, it's been too cold, too rainy, too many people, too spread out, too esoteric, too mainstream. It's been not my scene. And frankly, that's okay. Nuit Blanche is dedicated to experience: it's to be immersed in art, to run around the city with friends, to show your kids the crazy scupltures at MOCCA. It's to have new experiences—and to try to recreate that for myself year after year is a misguided attempt to hang onto something that evaporated into the fog years ago.

Leave it to the kids, the art fans, the college students. Leave it to the new lovers. I'll be at home, with my husband, loving that.

Image via the Culturatti

The Only Way Around It Is Through It

Pregnancy is turning out to be a lot like rock climbing for me, in that I expected it to be something that I was naturally very good at; in actual practice, I'm not all that talented at being knocked up. The failures on my end have been manifold: physical, mental, emotional, professional.

I'll be honest: it took me weeks—maybe months—to really internalize the idea that I was going to be a mom. For the first six weeks, I was terrified that I would have a miscarriage, so instead of celebrating, I spent all my time thinking about that. I obsessed about the idea, checking different actuarial charts constantly, waiting for the daily risk rate to drop from 33% to 12% to a much less panic-inducing 2%. Every time I went to the bathroom, I had a split-second image of blood-soaked underwear and clots of...material, before I realized that nope, that dampness in my panties was just pregnancy swamp-crotch.

In the meantime, I started exhibiting signs of proper pregnancy, like food aversions and morning sickness. I lost the ability to eat vegetables and I spat meat out at the dinner table. I ate tortellini for breakfast and lunch for two weeks—something I laugh about now, but that caused my wheat-averse body to bloat and swell. I dry-heaved all the time, and went to bed at nine PM feeling like a loser. I gained a bunch of weight very quickly, and had visions of myself ballooning up to 200 pounds. For a former fat girl-turned-bulimic-turned-recovered person: hello, all my nightmares.

Fast-forward to now. I'm rounding the corner on week 24, and the last month has been terrifically, destructively, suicidally hormonal. I go from laughing to weeping to enraged in less time than it takes to load Netflix. I hate to admit it, but I have moments—hours, if I'm being honest—where I do not know that I have what it takes to be a parent. People keep asking me if I feel maternal, and honestly? I do not.

I feel fucking guilty as shit, because I'm mourning the life I feel like I'm losing. I'm mourning lie-ins with my husband on Sunday morning, and biking across the city late at night. I'm mourning the ability to dash out the door on a moment's notice, and the time I can spend meandering around the dark corners of Facebook. I'm mourning my boobs, which were never perfect but have transformed into these grotesqueries that leak randomly and look pinched and raw—and this is before breastfeeding even starts! Everyone says that kids are awesome and super fun, but they're also like tiny cult leaders who hypnotize you into thinking that squashed-up hamburger buns are a totally fine Play-Doh substitute.

I feel afraid, because I get so sad sometimes. I'm afraid that my sadness and anxiety will seep over into the womb. I'm afraid that no sleep and no money will ruin my marriage, and then I'll be alone, with a baby. I'm afraid that I will hate being a mom, and that I won't like this kid as a person, and then I'll be stuck with them forever. Forever. I'm afraid that M and I don't have the skills to cope with a baby, and we'll turn on each other, and eat each other alive. I'm afraid the baby will bear witness to that.

I'm so tired all the time. My body hurts—sitting, standing, getting out of bed, lying down, lifting things up? All of it makes my back scream. Going to the bathroom can create these little shooting pains down my belly; it's not enough to call the midwife, but just enough to ruin an otherwise enjoyable poop. Dropping the soap in the shower elicits a curse word. And yes, I know I should be doing yoga and stretching and working out. We all know the woman who went jogging until she was seven months pregnant. I hate that bitch, right?

I am not a trusting person, and this process requires a whole lot of trust. Trust in the future, trust in yourself, trust in the changes that are hurtling your way. I feel lost on how to navigate this, and I feel lonely. Nobody ever tells you that pregnancy is lonely as hell. All these feelings, all these changes? I want to talk about it all the time, but I know that doing that is alienating and weird, especially for people without kids. I don't want to call up my girlfriends and be like, "I am so soul-crushingly moody today, so please, let's get coffee and I can inventory all the clothes that I no longer fit into at you while you stare into the middle distance and pick at a scone," but that's pretty much what I want to do.

And! Finally! I feel like a bag of shit because I'm having these feelings in the first place! Let me tell you, pregnancy is not easy for everyone—maybe it's not easy for most people—and yet the message that we get is that we're going to be glowing goddesses, and our bodies will work naturally, and we'll just glide through it with a few barfy moments and a few generously cut caftans. I feel like a traitor to the cause for even saying that I'm having a rough time. I don't want to spoil the illusion for my childless buddies, I don't want to be a drag or a complainer, and yet: I feel fucking awful a lot of the time.

Strangely, I do feel a bit better after this feelings-barf. I've been keeping a lot of this bottled up (well, my husband knows, because he lives with me and I've been a monster), and letting it out only when the pressure gauge is in the red zone. I don't know why I'm doing that: experience has taught me that talking about it—naming the feeling, demystifying the emotion—can do a lot to just calm and recalibrate a person. So: thank you for listening. And if you're out there, feeling like a lonely, moody, scared pregnant person yourself, know that you are emphatically and unequivocally not alone.

Image via the Guardian