Note to self...

...do not laugh, giggle, grin, clap gleefully or otherwise celebrate when your pregnant partner first experiences waves of nausea.

Yep...I did just that. Wendy and I had gone out for lunch today and just as we were seated and our drinks arrived, this look came across her face. It was a look of falling...kinda like the face you might imagine just as you begin a 100 foot drop on a roller coaster (except without the screaming!). At first, I thought it was just the bliss of the the first sip of Diet Coke she'd just taken (her first in more than 6 weeks) but it became quickly apparent that Diet Coke wasn't the culprit. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Her color faded and she looked, as my mom would say, "white around the gills".

With the hint of a smile on my face, I asked "are you feeling nauseous"? A slight, affirmative nod of the head was my answer. I lost it. I started laughing and clapping my hands like a little girl. One eye slowly opened as she looked at me in the midst of my delight. It was "the eye". You know it...it's the eye that your mom gives you when you've done something she doesn't approve of that says "stop it now or else". So, I attempted to remove my smile and stop my giggling. I wasn't overly successful and finally as the wave of nausea passed, Wendy smiled at me too.

We've been waiting with anticipation as well as trepidation, the onset of her nausea. Anticipation that nausea is usually a sign of a healthy, growing baby and trepidation that for the next days/weeks, her life will be a series of time intervals between nausea and normalcy. But perhaps, a giggling fit of delight wasn't necessarily the proper reaction to her first nauseous feelings.

I promise to be more appropriately concerned and not giggle at all when the feelings come again. Although I think I'll find it hard to be completely stoic. This whole miraculous adventure has me walking around with a goofy smile on my face that even nausea may not be able to erase. So, sorry honey (in advance) just in case....

- Karen