and then i'm going to calculus

Over 24 years ago, I was pregnant with the drummer. Pregnancy was not easy. Probably isn't easy for most, but I spent most of the first four months either puking or recovering from puking. Then I got really big and surgically delivered a baby and spent six months recovering. Or at least that's the way Jack would describe it.

Okay. Wait. That sounds like I was miserable. Okay. I was. But I was also, always, very excited to welcome a new baby into my arms and I was more than willing to go through the pregnancy to get the baby. Especially the part when I felt life, evening the kicking. Relished it all. Seriously. I loved pregnancy and motherhood.

But there was this one time, a few days in the spring of 1986, when I knew I was pregnant because I'd been barfing out my guts for days, and this time, I wasn't so sure I could love pregnancy. I was sicker than I'd been with my other pregnancies--barfing, yes, but this time, I was achy all over. I could hardly drag myself out of bed or off the couch or away from the toilet, but I remember especially, how difficult it was to drive my two older kids to their preschool classes. I remember thinking that I didn't know how I was going to do this, this mothering thing, while I was feeling so, so bad. I didn't remember it being so hard, but, I reasoned, I hadn't had a four-year-old or a two-year-old to care for and drive to and from preschool three days a week. I even considered quitting preschool.

But then, miraculously, on day four of this misery, I felt better. My aches stopped. I was back to just the usual pregnancy-induced vomiting. And I remember very clearly driving to preschool to pick up the kids and realizing--WAIT--THAT WASN'T PREGNANCY, THAT WAS THE FLU." Aaaahh...pregnancy with the flu! No wonder I felt so sick. What a relief.

And right now, I'm getting ready to go to calculus class. And I'm telling myself that the achy feeling I've had for three days now, that isn't calculus, it's the flu. Or some other viral thing that will miraculously go away by tomorrow. And I will feel better even with calculus for another six weeks.

I have yet to determine the payoff for suffering through this thing they call calculus. I suppose it could be worse--what if I was trying to do calculus while pregnant in 1986 with no calculator! Oh yes, that would be worse. Definitely worse. But I'd be getting a baby.