The nausea really let up approaching the second trimester, so I assumed the day I hit 14 weeks I'd feel like a new woman.
Turns out the new me did stop feeling nauseous and went straight to surprise puking while peeing her pants.
Luckily, that didn't last long, but what will stay with me forever is the joy of being pregnant in front of a teenage audience.
I wanted to hide my pregnancy for as long as possible at school, but my body said, "Bitch, you thought." I confirmed it to the first kid who was brave enough to ask me within the fourteenth week. It spread like wildfire, but they had all "been knowing" and had taken bets.
I'd arranged a field trip to see an Auschwitz exhibit earlier. However, we had a snow day on our original date, and by the time I could reschedule it, everyone knew. That wouldn't have been a big deal except that we, like every school, are short-staffed, so I had to invite Jaime to be a chaperone.
Kids are awkward around Jaime for two to three reasons: they think he's cool and/or an absolute smoke show, but also, you can feel his absolute disdain for them radiating from his whole body.
This time, unfortunately, they had the added factor of knowing that he had impregnated their teacher, and it was too much for them to handle. Everyone wanted to be in his group while simultaneously not daring to go near him.
And that's how we almost left a kid behind.
But the highlight of the second trimester wasn't hanging out with teenagers. It was the trip we booked to Miami before we knew how big I'd get and how quickly I'd get there.
Jaime had a conference in Bonita Springs at the same time I had spring break, so we decided to make a babymoon in Miami out of it even though anywhere in Florida would have been my very last choice on Earth.
The conference days weren't so bad. All I felt pressured to do was waddle down to the pool and back to our room several times a day and even got some work done. My best friend David Marquez was also at the conference, and the reason why David Marquez is my best friend is because he made Jaime bend over to get my ball out of all the holes at a mini-course that featured real caimans you could feed with lil fishing poles.
But for all the thousands of Marquezes in Miami, David was not one of them, and I was stuck with an over-zealous Valencian on a beach vacation with no buffer and heavily pregnant when the conference was over.
Jaime started each day with a miles long run on Miami Beach while I sat and obsessively adjusted the umbrella each time the sun moved an inch then I'd continue to sit while he complained there were no waves as he looked for surfboard rentals nearby. In the humid heat of the afternoons, we'd take long walks on urine drenched cement sidewalks window shopping the sex stores and CBD distributors until we found something to eat.
My favorite thing about Miami is assuming people speak Spanish because they always do except for the Australian lady at the table next to ours who asked Jaime if he recommended the "pay-el-la."
We'd really wanted to try a Cuban restaurant, which is difficult for vegetarians, so we caved and got a seafood Cuban-style paella that turned Jaime into Gordon Ramsey's more critical and handsome brother.
He says I say paella wrong, but the way she said it even made my skin crawl. He slowly turned to look at her, and I swear to god, I thought he was going to flip the table.
Our last night in Miami, we had tickets to see a singer from Barcelona who'd sold out the house.
We got there on time, which of course meant we had to wait another three hours for the hall to fill and the show to start. Sometimes stereotypes exist for a reason.
While waiting, the fire alarm went off with a recording that said repeatedly, "The building is on fire, evacuate now."
No one else seemed concerned, but we made our way towards an exit. Near the door, I asked a security guard if we really needed to leave. He responded, "Well that depends, are you due today?"
We went back to our seats.
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