This is terribly serious!

I want to thank everyone for the kind words and well-wishes. It is wonderful to share happy news with those I love. And I do love you, all of you. To be honest I'm quite touched that so many people are still checking my poor little blog. Even my own Father gave up on it a few weeks back.

While I am thrilled to be having another baby this pregnancy does not seem to be shaping up the same as my other pregnancies. I was feeling fine for the first week or so after I took the test. Life was good. The Greatest loved his job, my children were happily living in the kiddie pool turning into brown sun babies, and I had a new baby to knit for. Not just any new baby. A WINTER baby! This means hats, booties, and sweaters of all kinds.

I became enamored with the idea of a hooded cabled sweater for the baby. I wanted to knit a little cabled sweater. I have the most wonderful cherry red wool that either sex could wear. It has great stitch definition and would make the cutest cabled sweater. I could feel it in my bones. I had to knit a tiny red cabled sweater. This obsession with a cabled sweater had absolutely nothing to do with the fact the I received the Vogue Stictionary Volume 2: Cables for Mother's Day.

I picked out a simple cable pattern.

Please excuse the bad photography. It's called French Cruller. Because who doesn't like to think of pastries while they knit. I know I do.


The Greatest decided that I should knit tiny baby booties into the sweater. *shrug* Not loving this idea, but I love the Man. And this is his baby too. So textured baby booties I knit.

Again, forgive the bad photography.I'm thinking of adding little yarn bows to the booties to make them stand out more. But that is neither here nor there.

I sailed through the back of the sweater with no problems. I was feeling good. Life was good.

Then we were struck with the flu. The Greatest brought it home, and it wasn't long before Pork Chop and I were infected as well. Even Bird had a mild case. Only Meaty escaped this plague. It was an especially bad bug that stayed for a week. As I laid around and sipped seven up I knit the right front of the sweater, then the left, then the sleeves. I sewed the shoulders and still felt crummy. I knit the button bands and still no relief. I started the hood but nothing made me feel better. I felt so bad I abandoned knitting all together in favor of lying in bed and praying for death.

Finally there was hope. First Bird perked up, then Pork Chop and finally The Greatest felt like himself. But I still laid in bed and waited to feel better. The children had free roam of the house and I didn't care. They ate all 12 packages of Pop Tarts from the big box in one day and I was just happy they did it quietly. Pork Chop learned to run the DVD player and instead of worrying about how much TV they were watching I said prayers of gratitude. Algae grew on the abandoned kiddie pool. The situation was dire indeed.

My flu had morphed into full blown morning sickness.

My other pregnancies were not like this. No morning sickness at all with Pork Chop. A little queasy with Meaty, a little worse with Bird. But nothing like this. I've tried every home remedy known to man, and a few I made up myself. Only vitamin B seems to help a little. And I wouldn't swear in a court of law that the effect isn't psychosomatic. It works because I desperately need something to work.

I'm feeling a bit better and as long as I am careful and take it pretty easy I can function. But here is the bad part. Yarn makes me feel queasy. It's now forever linked in my memory to those first weeks of illness where I just wanted to die. I have no desire at all to knit. Red yarn makes me instantly dry heave. I can not even look at the tiny unfinished cabled sweater. I get hot flashes and have to throw up. I THROW UP WHEN I LOOK AT MY SWEATER! The sweater The Greatest and I designed together for our much longed for baby! Now you know why the pictures were so bad. I could hardly stand to take them this morning. This is serious indeed.

Tell me that like the morning sickness, this too shall pass.