More than 6,000 days
of being a smoker. How's THAT for a number to scare the shit out of you.
Tomorrow is Day One of something else. Something better. Something painful and scary, but definitely something better.
To inspire myself, I keep thinking back to the day I found out I was pregnant. My husband and I got pregnant literally the very first time we tried, so although our Long Term Pregnancy Plan involved both of us quitting, we hadn't gotten around to that part yet, because we figured we had at least a month before The Pill worked its way out of my system: more than enough time to do The Quitting Thing, too.
Less than two weeks later, I felt so bizarre that I went to the doctor, smoking in the car all the way in to the office in Banff. Hey, we were trying to get pregnant, I couldn't afford to get sick now. And, oh, the smoking? Yeah, I'm working on that.
So when, twenty five minutes later, I was told I was in the Family Way, the first words out of my mouth were, "Holy Shit."
The nurse was quite taken aback by my colourful language, and gently asked, "Is this not good news, dear?" while she not-so-furtively glanced down to see if I had a wedding ring.
Well, I had a wedding ring, and I wanted to be pregnant, and it was the best news I had ever received in my life, but there was that smoking thing. Had I hurt the baby?
She didn't quite laugh at me, but it was close, and she assured me that it was absolutely impossible at this staggeringly early phase for me to have hurt the baby, but now I needed to quit.
I walked out of the office, and was a non-smoker. There were no withdrawal symptoms, not one moment of longing, nothing. I simply was a non-smoker, because, DUH,of COURSE I'm a nonsmoker, I'm PREGNANT. Quitting smoking was literally the easiest thing I have ever done.
Not going to get in to long, boring story of why I started again (mainly because this post is already way too long and way too far away from the point I was trying to make). The point is I did start up again after Brian was born. And I have made several attempts to quit in the years since, and they were excrutiating in ways I had never dreamed. I tried cold-turkey, I tried weaning, I tried the Patch, I tried the Gum. Nothing but endless, screaming pain.
This time feels different. And while there is absolutely NO chance I am pregnant, my heart and soul keep going back to that painless day when I simply decided to stop because Something More Important was happening. I feel like I did on the morning I was told Brian was coming.
Well, DUH, of COURSE I'm a nonsmoker.
Tomorrow is Day One of something else. Something better. Something painful and scary, but definitely something better.
To inspire myself, I keep thinking back to the day I found out I was pregnant. My husband and I got pregnant literally the very first time we tried, so although our Long Term Pregnancy Plan involved both of us quitting, we hadn't gotten around to that part yet, because we figured we had at least a month before The Pill worked its way out of my system: more than enough time to do The Quitting Thing, too.
Less than two weeks later, I felt so bizarre that I went to the doctor, smoking in the car all the way in to the office in Banff. Hey, we were trying to get pregnant, I couldn't afford to get sick now. And, oh, the smoking? Yeah, I'm working on that.
So when, twenty five minutes later, I was told I was in the Family Way, the first words out of my mouth were, "Holy Shit."
The nurse was quite taken aback by my colourful language, and gently asked, "Is this not good news, dear?" while she not-so-furtively glanced down to see if I had a wedding ring.
Well, I had a wedding ring, and I wanted to be pregnant, and it was the best news I had ever received in my life, but there was that smoking thing. Had I hurt the baby?
She didn't quite laugh at me, but it was close, and she assured me that it was absolutely impossible at this staggeringly early phase for me to have hurt the baby, but now I needed to quit.
I walked out of the office, and was a non-smoker. There were no withdrawal symptoms, not one moment of longing, nothing. I simply was a non-smoker, because, DUH,of COURSE I'm a nonsmoker, I'm PREGNANT. Quitting smoking was literally the easiest thing I have ever done.
Not going to get in to long, boring story of why I started again (mainly because this post is already way too long and way too far away from the point I was trying to make). The point is I did start up again after Brian was born. And I have made several attempts to quit in the years since, and they were excrutiating in ways I had never dreamed. I tried cold-turkey, I tried weaning, I tried the Patch, I tried the Gum. Nothing but endless, screaming pain.
This time feels different. And while there is absolutely NO chance I am pregnant, my heart and soul keep going back to that painless day when I simply decided to stop because Something More Important was happening. I feel like I did on the morning I was told Brian was coming.
Well, DUH, of COURSE I'm a nonsmoker.
posted by Jenn at
7:46 p.m.
1 Comments:
Woooooooooo! Go Jenn! I can only imagine. Gee, maybe you'll get preggers again and I can be Auntie Kelly again... heeeeeeheeee Curses! Go ahead, call me a whore again! Three times a charm. Ahahahhahahhahaaa.
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