There are a number of grassy lawns around town – the council lawns, the hospital lawns and the church lawns. They are quite nice places to sit. Shady and the grass is green and soft. On a few occasions I have eaten my lunch on one of these lawns. Although everytime I have, I have noted that I am the only “white fella” among a number of groups of indigenous people. It is a stark reminder of the very real divisions in this town. Indigenous people eat lunch on the lawns and non indigenous people eat lunch in cafes.

For the first 6 weeks of this semester my wonderful colleague and friend Joy was helpign me with my classes. As you all know I have been so sick and was just unable to teach all my classes. unfortunately Joy decided to take another job and so we quickly hired someone else. That woman worked for one week but then decided not to continue. I was pretty worried as I would be left with the classes but it may have been a good thing as I didn’t get very good feedback about her from the students. This week I was left having to take the classes. Thank God this happens to be the week that I have begun to get a bit better as I would not have coped even two weeks ago but I have say a 30 hour week is still pretty hard on me and as I was walking into my last class for the week I was wondering how I was going to go. But no one showed up. I think last semester I may have taken this personally but now with enough good feedback from my students and enough experience with the fairly chaotic lives of many of my students I am not taking it personally. Rather I am taking it as another little blessing from God to help me get through this fairly intense period of my life.

17 weeks on Friday and I think I may be finally getting better. I have started accupuncture and it seems to be making all the difference. There are still waves of nausea, especially if I don’t eat every two hours, but it is not as constant. I also seem to finally have some energy. I have actually been getting up before 10am the last few days and have managed to clean my house and do some shopping and go to the pool. I also got to my Quaker meeting on Sunday for the first time in months.

Food is still a real chore. I am fairly constantly hungary but most foods really repulse me and if I eat anything too exotic or too healthy (Che doesn’ seem to what is good for him/her) I will vomit. My diet at the moment is toast for breakfast and then porridge for second breakfast. Tin spaghetti for lunch (can you believe it, tin spaghetti?) then an egg or a potatoe and a hot cross bun for afternoon tea. Then I have a chicken sandwich for dinner and yoghurt with banana before I go to bed. It’s not what you’d call eating for pleasure but it seems to be doing the trick.

Smell is also a real issue. I think it is amazing how much your sense of smell increases when you are pregnant, but it is a bit of pain as everytime I smell something I don’t like (which is most things) I find myself gagging. Anyway one smell I like is lemon. So I was advised by my accupuncturist to clean everything at home with lemon. I did and it is great. I also put lemon in my water now so everytime I smell something I dont’ like I sniff at my water until my stomach calms.

I hope I continue on the up. I have been sick for almost 3 months now (although it seems like forever) and I have definitely had enough.

We heard Che’s heartbeat today. For those of you who don’t know Che is the name of the baby while it is inside my tummy. Most of you know it is the nickname of the famous Latin American revolutionary but also the word used for mate in Argentina. I think little mate works for a fetus but it will definitely not be it’s name outside the tummy. Anyway, hearing Che’s heartbeat was very exciting. It was suprinsingly fast but the midwife said it was all very normal. I have to admit I live for signs of Che’s life, like the ultrasound and my slowly growing tummy, this heartbeat reminds of why I feel so crappy all the time and that it is worth it.

I was going to write about all the books I read again this year. I enjoyed doing that last year but I seem to be devouring books too quickly these days. In fact it’s about the only thing that I do really so I am up to about 15 already.

Apart from being able to read so many books this being pregnant thing has been really tough. A lot tougher than I expected, I think I was expecting morning sicknees to really be “morning” sickness and oh how wrong that was. I was vomitting up to three times a day for a few weeks there and could be at any time.

No cravings as yet, in fact food has become the bane of my existence. I’m fairly constantly hungry and know I need to feed the baby but almost everything repulses me and a lot of it comes up again anyway.

I feel out of control not having the energy to keep my house as clean as I like it, eat and exercise as much as I want, visit friends and attend my Quaker meetings and I don’t think my work is as good as it could be. Although I guess this is just the start of feeling out of control. Thankfully Martin is fantastic.

I’m 15 weeks now (well on Friday). I’m just starting to show but if you didn’t know you’d probably just think I was putting on weight,

Everyone tells me it’s all worth though and I have to say seeing the little one on the ultasound was pretty moving. I can’t imagine how I’ll feel when I actually have a baby my arms.