We have gone from snowfall to pouring rain; shutting down all of the state's mountain passes for avalanche control and the local news is on river watch broadcasting. Seeing the sand bags and the scene of people trying to escape the flood waters makes me thankful that we live in a city with no river running through it, and a house built on higher land.But with all this rain comes a new scent; one I can not fully describe to it's entirety but runs along the lines of musty wet leaves and bark and murk. And with this faint smell, I think of one thing ... morning sickness.
Now, to my parents who are reading, calm down, I am not pregnant again ... but I do remember all too well the feeling of my first trimester of both of my children during this time of year. That smells whips me back into the throws of my first pregnancy (sick far more than the second time) when I woke at what seemed like the crack of dawn (5am) in the month of January to this heightened sense of smell and it would send me over the edge.
There was nothing to escape the smell and I would honestly focus on not *tossing up* but it did not work. Rushing in the morning after spending too much time trying to get something to stay inside me, I had to leave by a certain time to catch my van pool ride for my 45 minute commute to work. However, finding myself stuck in the over heated, fogged up windowed van, I soon chose to jump off that ride and drove myself the rest of my winter's first trimester with my air conditioning running, my windows wide open, and an entire sack of saltine crackers on my lap. All the while smelling that smell as the rain dripped around me.
Trying to beat the sickness, I got those wrist guards and hid them under my suit jacket; the airborne motion sickness bands that have a plastic mound that puts pressure on a certain area of the wrist that supposedly helps with nausea. I wore them every-single-day and while it was not attractive, I could have cared less. They were an ugly shade of gray and I remember I used to press them hard into my wrist when I was in a business meeting, so I would psych myself into thinking they were actually working and I would not *toss up*. Luckily, I saved all of the rushes to the latrine for home use only, twice to three times a day, but it was always at home, Thank-You-Lord! But again, the musty rain scent haunted me the entire trimester, making me squirm to escape.
And on a side note, if I were to ever own a baby store, you know, the ones that sell all the cute cribs, and high chairs, strollers, and everything in between that a newborn might need, I promise you that my floor would be solid wood. No carpet should be allowed in these stores. Hello, clean up of *toss up*, are you kidding me?! Either a man or never-been-pregnant-woman designed the idea of carpet in a baby store. I distinctively remember this while I browsed the store with my husband, noticing the carpet as it seemed to over power me, seeing the rain outside bringing that musty odor indoors, sending me into a slight panic attack while I rushed to the store bathroom thinking .... Never should this carpet be allowed.
As the rain drips down every window pane in my house today, and the torrential down pour ensued over the hood of my coat this afternoon, I smelled that smell that drove me into a shortness of breath, as I reminded myself that it is only a memory, and not a current reality, of my January eleven years ago.
