Add to the joys of pregnancy a new one: moodiness.

Any normal human with as many hormones as I’ve got would justify the ups and downs. Top that off with severe lack of sleep, constant heartburn, incessant sneezing, and a huge belly with huge boobs that my back and legs aren’t too thrilled with lately and you got yourself the perfect combination of an unpredictable bitch.

I am not the jolliest person you’ll ever meet. Most people who would describe me as ‘fun’ already like me and therefore have a biased opinion. I am not light, jovial, or easygoing. I tend to be pensive, thoughtful, caring, and reliable. I’ve always wanted to be funny and fun but I have come to admit neither seems to be a part of my personality. What can you do?

Most days I can dance the line between sad and happy quite well. While I am neurotic and worried a lot, I am not often very sad. Since I’ve been pregnant I get these random attacks much more frequently. I am overwhelmed with sadness and frustration and feel really miserable. Nothing looks, sounds, or feels right and no one can convince me otherwise. Things seem purposeless and I am too tired to care. It doesn’t last very long and it’s not something I am terribly worried about in the long term but it’s quite unpleasant to experience. Especially since I get no warning whatsoever. The good news is, I could eat ice cream since I am no longer dieting. The bad news is I don’t want ice cream or anything else.

What I try to do is sleep or curl up with a book and wait for it to pass. Hormones, I remind myself. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean I’ll be a bad mom. It doesn’t mean I’m hurting the baby. It’s just hormones.

Or so I hope.

I’ve always had the morning sniffles. Since I was six years old, the first twenty minutes of every day have been welcomed by a collection of sneezes and lots of nose blowing. Over the years, I’ve discovered that I am allergic to down and that might have contributed to some of my morning joy, but I still greet many mornings with a lot of snot.

Even though I had read that one’s mucus membranes swell during pregnancy and allergies get worse, I couldn’t have remotely estimated the horrific effects all this would have on me. Almost immediately after the vomiting sessions dissipated, the sneezing began. We’re not talking your ordinary sneezing here. We’re talking the sort of sneeze that could easily be heard three blocks down the road. The sort of sneeze that rips muscles. The kind that causes hemorrhoids. The kind that is accompanied by projectile snot. The kind that makes me wonder whether my lungs are about to come out of my chest.

To add to the joy, I always sneeze in multiples. This isn’t a single loud sneeze. It’s one that comes out in triplets or twins. So unbelievably unreal that you’d think I’m doing it on purpose or to be funny. But there’s nothing funny about these sneezing sessions. They make me choke on my own saliva/snot combination. They make my already short breath run out. They hurt the few muscles that aren’t already hurting in my stomach. They are like an earthquake occurring inside my body. I can’t even begin to imagine what the baby must be experiencing each time one of them rips through my body. Thank God for all the insulation covering it.

For two months, the sneezing sessions would be continuous when I was awake. When my bladder gave out in the middle of the night and I got up to empty it, I would be guaranteed to sneeze for the next twenty-five minutes before the option of falling back asleep became available. Two hours later, another peeing session meant another sneezing attack. There were nights Jake and I gave up around 3am and figured we might as well start our day.

One would think I would run out of snot. Well, my body seems to make it faster and in greater quantities than I am spending. It’s as if each time I blow my nose, the snot decides to get stronger and fight me harder. It will not give up. It is determined to win. I have gone through 27 Kleenex tissue boxes and over 200 paper napkins in the last two months and still the snot is not showing any signs of weakness.

Just in case you’re thinking I’m stupid, I’ve changed sheets, I’ve tried different detergents, different pillows or anything else you can think of. The good news is that in the last two weeks, the night-time sneezing sessions seem to have disappeared. Now I’m only faced by a serious round when I wake up and several sessions that come unexpectedly during the day. My muscles are still miserable but my body, and Jake, get to enjoy a few hours of sleep between the peeing trips.

One of the how-to-get-stuff-done books I was reading about the other day mentioned that one of the biggest problems of getting stuff done is that people sign up for too much stuff. We want to get too many things done. We add too many items to our lists and then feel buried under the load. While I understand this person’s point and may even agree with parts of it, the idea sort of depresses me.

I look at my lists and can’t decide what I can give up. I like taking photos too much to give this site up, yet it consistently takes a chunk of my life daily. I obviously can’t give work up (though that would be quite nice). I won’t even consider giving reading up and that takes a few hours of my weekend depending how regularly I’m doing it. These, besides the pregnancy, are some of my only priorities lately. On my good days, I aspire to get so much more done. I have ideas for software to write. I want to go back to learning or bettering my languages. I want to volunteer. I want to meet more people and have some friends in this town. These are just the beginning. My list can go on for a few pages.

So is the only way to feel happy and not overwhelmed to not shoot for much? Is that really good advice? I know having a small list may mean the items actually get crossed off. I know there is some sort of joy to be gained from having all my to-do list items done. But then I don’t get the jitters of a new, crazy idea. I don’t get the excitement of aiming for a project that’s obviously too high. I don’t think that’s good advice.

So I guess I am bound to be disappointed in my lack of ability to complete my lists for the rest of my life.

Warning: Gross content ahead. One of the few symptoms of pregnancy that is well advertised is morning sickness. Most people, thanks to TV or movies, know that when someone gets pregnant, at some point or another, they throw up. So, when I found out I was pregnant, I was prepared for the inevitable. My minimal online reading claimed that 25% of women don’t get morning sickness. I figured I’d like to be one of those wonderful people. How was I going to accomplish this phenomenal feast?

Simple. I just refused to throw up.

I was determined to keep food down, no matter what it took. I figured if the vomiting doesn’t start, it won’t happen. About six weeks into my pregnancy, Jake and I flew to Istanbul, actually to Fethiye which is in the south of Turkey. I had yet to feel nauseous or throw up. My plan was working. The resort that we went to was famous for its food. Each meal consisted of a room three times the size of my old Manhattan apartment, filled with a buffet of appetizers, main dishes, and dessert. I remembered the food from the previous year and relished in knowing that while I wasn’t allowed to indulge in Diet Coke this year, I didn’t need to spend as much time worrying about losing weight.

Two days into the vacation, I threw up for the first time. We all decided that it was too soon for morning sickness so this must be food poisoning. It made no sense. It was definitely not morning sickness. Four days and four more sessions of vomiting later, we had to admit that ready-or-not, my very first pregnancy symptom was here. I spent my meals eating rice and bread, hoping I couldn’t throw up something as blend as that. Let’s just say I was wrong. I might have decided to refuse to throw up but my body thought otherwise. Guess which one of us won?

I’ve always had problems with public bathrooms. Unless my bladder is about the explode, I will not do number one in a public restroom. Number two, you ask? Under no circumstance whatsoever. Ever. For a woman with a bladder as small as mine, this is a major achievement. Our cross-country trip cured most of that sickness. Now, I can use a public restroom to pee just about anywhere, though I’ve still never been in and refuse to use a Port-a-Potty. Even though I can use them when inevitable, I still hate visiting a public restroom just about anywhere. It’s not because I am a neat-freak, it’s just because I am a freak.

Our trip back collided with a NATO conference, meaning we had to wait at the airport in Fethiye for a flight that was 3-hours delayed and spend the night at the airport hotel in Istanbul just to catch our flight back to New York. The morning of the flight, I ate one plain bread product when my stomach decided it didn’t like it and had me test out the lavatories at the airport. Now, most public restrooms are quite disgusting to me, but few can outdo a gas station or an airport where millions of people pass through during the day. And while peeing in a public bathroom is still an issue I’m working on, puking in one is something I will never, ever get used to. By the time we made it back to San Diego, my face had been inches from the toilets in the airports of Istanbul, New York, and Los Angeles. Not to mention an on-flight bonus on the way from New York to Los Angeles. One would think that by the time I made it to LA, I was getting calmer about having to come face to face with an airport stall, but facing the bowl only made my stomach churn harder and the vomiting session longer.

I might have been wrong about my body listening to my refusal to start throwing up but I was definitely right about “It won’t stop if it starts.” The night after we came back, I made the mistake of eating a small bag of Fritos. It’s been five months and I still remember crying on the bathroom floor, trying to get those chips out of my system. I don’t believe I’ll ever eat Fritos again. And then there was the In’n’Out Burger incident where an untouched half-slice tomato came out of my nose. That’s another meal I haven’t approached since. Every fast food item I’ve swallowed in next four months found its way to the toilet bowl.

Lest you think the vomiting was due to my bad diet, the fast food instances could be counted on one hand in those months. I started each day with yogurt, berries and a banana. Lunch consisted of something blend like rice or bread and cheese and more fruits. Dinner, too, was blend like potatoes and chicken and even more fruits. My body didn’t seem to care what I ate or if I ate. Each time I took my prenatal pill, it was a sure sign I would throw up. I remember an instance of Israeli cous cous which came out four seconds after it was in my mouth. I ate the meal, got up, and threw it all up. (By the way, throwing up something consisting of tiny dots is easy on your throat but really painful for your nose.) Just when I thought I could fool my body by eating yogurt and banana, which I had never thrown up, it would laugh at me by making sure I puked it out the next morning. Nothing seemed safe.

People recommended crackers. They didn’t work and they were painful to throw up. Lemon drops. They seemed to make me throw up instead of preventing it. Ice pops. I couldn’t even eat them, let alone puke them. It got to a point where each food item was scrutinized to ensure for its “How will this feel on its way up?” factor. Bread and crackers hurt my throat a lot. Fruits were good since they tasted pretty similar on the way up as they did on their way down. There were days I threw up every meal and days where I held down all but one. I had no control of it whatsoever. We allocated our bedroom toilet to be the “puking toilet.” Its sole purpose was for me to exercise my “morning” sickness. Between the lack of sleep, lack of food, and the exhaustion caused by vomiting, I felt more like roadkill than human.

I was told it would be over by the end of third trimester. Third trimester came and went with no signs of ease. It took until around sixteen weeks for my sickness to fade out. Even today, if I brush my teeth a tiny bit more vigorously than usual, my gag reflex kicks in and I am guaranteed a trip to the designated toilet.

People tell me that once the baby comes, I will forget how much fun those first months were, but it honestly seems impossible to me. I doubt the images of crying, heaving, and facing the toilet bowl will leave my brain anytime soon.