Dear Diary

Today Betty is 4 months old. One year ago today I started a pregnancy journal that would eventually grow to be 67 single-spaced typed pages. It's almost as long as my dissertation. (Though to be fair at least half of it is a catalogue of what I was eating--since I didn't take prenatal vitamins I kept careful track of my food). There's some funny stuff in there, in addition to the careful documentation of mac-n-cheese breakfasts.

Oct 6: I felt tired and queasy all afternoon and evening

[...]

Oct 11: Am now referring to the baby as Peanut because something that makes me feel this bad needs a cute name that reminds me to love it. Also "it" is not a good name.

The day to day stuff is funny, but I also wrote about my concerns and plans. I can see now how I had no idea what to expect, and no amount of reading and journaling could have prepared me.