cassie ink

I won't save you but I'll show you how (2026-W16)

Despite my commitments to blog more and keep up with my week notes this year, I have fallen woefully behind. My last post was fourteen weeks ago. But I have a pretty good excuse, I think, which is that I am pregnant.

I alluded to not feeling well in my previous week notes but did not give a specific reason why, for hopefully obvious reasons (it wasn’t just a stomach bug). These last few months, I’ve been preoccupied with shit like preparing a nursery and making a registry and generally feeling like I’d had the shit kicked out out me, and so blogging fell by the wayside. I try to approach this blog with honesty — otherwise, what’s the point? — and until I was ready to publicly share about my pregnancy, it felt impossible to write even mundane weekly recaps of the music I’m listening to because I would be omitting the all-encompassing knowledge that I am growing a human baby inside me. I’ve never been pregnant before this, but I know a lot of people who have dealt with miscarriages and infertility, so I was reluctant to speak publicly until I felt assured that everything was OK. As of writing, I’m about to start week 22 of pregnancy.[1] According to my health care app, this means my baby is the size of a grapefruit. I check obsessively every week so I can feel special kinship as I walk through the fruit stands at my local grocery store.

Suffice to say it has been a wild ride. I spent close to a full two months constantly nauseous; when I later told coworkers the truth of what was going on, they commented that they had been concerned because I had looked pale and unwell for weeks.[2] Since I started the second trimester, things have been better, or at least more livable. The nausea has been replaced with general discomfort, difficulty sleeping (shout-out to my giant pregnancy pillow for making this more bearable), and the daily, surreal observations of my growing and transforming body.[3] I keep thinking about the scene in Alien where the alien bursts out of the guy, but I’ve never actually seen Alien, so my reference point is actually the Spaceballs parody scene, which is perhaps a larger metaphor for my cosmic existence.

I should note amidst all my griping that this pregnancy (and baby) is very much wanted. We had been intentionally trying for several months by the time the double lines appeared (and casually not trying but trying for a while before that). I am constantly grappling with the question of whether it’s ethical to bring a child into this fucked up world, the existential terror that I’m going to be a terrible mother, and the more present and equally debilitating knowledge that I will have to push a crying screaming person out of me in a few months’ time, but I suppose bravery (or foolishness) is pursuing one’s ambitions even in the face of such horrors. I am genuinely excited for this next stage in life and hope I will be equal to the tasks I’ve set before me. Being pregnant has affirmed my love for and confidence in my choice of partner; Joe has been so caring, patient, and attentive with me throughout the pregnancy (sometimes to the point that it’s annoying, but that’s more on me). So even if I have my doubts about myself, at least I have him to make up for what I lack. Sadly, of course, he cannot actually give birth for me.

a hastily thrown together list of the shit I’ve been doing / into over the last three months so I can still call these week notes instead of the mortifying reality of a pregnancy announcement on my little fucking blog

  1. I also learned that, medically, doctors count your term from your last period, so pregnancy is actually 40 weeks (10 months). If you had no idea of this, I imagine it is because you have never been pregnant. I didn’t know until I had my first OB appointment. ↩︎

  2. I suppose it was courteous of them to keep those observations to themselves, but I received the information about the same as you would if someone told you that your pants ripped down the ass and everyone was commenting on the color of your underwear all day. ↩︎

  3. I say daily but honestly it’s felt like waves. Some days I look in the mirror and don’t feel too far off from my pre-pregnancy body. Some days I look in the mirror and feel like a monster. There’s not been much of the middle ground. ↩︎

  4. My alarm goes off at 5:15am. ↩︎