Sweet and Sour Thoughts on Pregnancy

SOUR

What, I'm supposed to post pregnancy pictures? Why didn't you say so? Too bad we don't have a camera. And too bad I don't have a solid, adorable baby bump instead of steadily increasing full-body bulk and flab. It's almost like my body thinks I'm carrying the baby in my THIGHS! :) I wanted to write out some thoughts I've been having. My emotional discomfort has been heightened thus far much more than my physical discomfort...and as usual, it is all tangled up with vanity, pride, and self-loathing, so I don't expect anyone to relate to this necessarily.

I always had this idea that I would gain weight very virtuously when I got pregnant and that it wouldn't bother me at all because it was so great a cause; I would just be grateful to be a sacred vessel. :) I was disappointed to realize how much it actually does bother me...Especially when people constantly point it out. One lady in my cohort always pokes my stomach and says, "Oh, I can really tell there's a baby in there now!" Um, but you can't. That's actually just my fat roll that's always been there but now is getting harder and harder to suck in. My waist's favorite Radiohead song is "How to Disappear Completely." My sister in law informed me the other day, "I think you're at that stage where it's hard to tell if someone is pregnant, or just getting fat." Gee, thanks. Over Thanksgiving my mother tenderly invited me to go clothes shopping with her because "It's obvious you've gained quite a bit of weight." When I have pointed out the insensitivity of these comments, I am gently reminded, "Well, you ARE pregnant." Okay. Does pregnancy somehow inoculate me against feeling hurt, embarrassed or insecure? This is a sacrifice I am absolutely willing to make, but being willing doesn't take away the scariness and unfamiliarity of it. I'm also resentful of the Westernized cultural conditioning that contributes to me caring so much. I wish Dave Schuler were still around because I bet he could tell me how to get rid of it.

It's also frustrating to be treated like an invalid. I guess it falls in the same category as "chivalry," which I also have raging issues with, so it's not too surprising that I struggle with this as well. I know others mean well and are trying to be kind, but I want to be treated like a capable, competent person, not as a walking frailty. Sometimes I regret sharing with people that I'm pregnant, because they immediately start doing things like telling people to hurry up in the bathroom, the pregnant lady needs to use it, or having me sit down, or telling me I must be exhausted, or trying to stop me from lifting things. It makes me feel a little reduced. I'm carrying a baby, but I am not the baby myself! I'm still a whole person, not a sick person. I know I know I know people are probably just projecting their own experiences and the collective conceptualization of pregnancy on me, but I do find it stifling. I wish people would ask me, "What has your experience been like?" instead of making assumptions. I'm going to try to do that, too.

I might be more grateful for the special treatment if I felt it was warranted. Everyone who knows me well knows I LOOOOVE to wail and moan and get attention when I am actually sick, so I'm definitely not above bringing the drama when I'm actually suffering. I am lucky that [so far!] I've had a very easy time of it. I haven't been sick at all and never threw up once. For a few weeks I developed a bizarre sensitivity to smells and certain ones would make me queasy--such as Jonathan's deodorant, which had never before been offensive to me. I could smell it on his shirt from across the room...all deodorant-infected shirts had to be quarantined! Also I would immediately hate the thing I ate most recently immediately after consumption, even if it was a food I usually loved. Other than the super-power sense of smell and some chronic fatigue earlier in the semester that may have been pregnancy or may have been full-time school and therapy, I haven't really felt all that different from normal. Just more corpulent. :)

I just want to add that I REALLY hate the words preggers, prego, preg, preggy, and any variation thereof. Also anyone who calls my baby a "little nudger." Please don't do that. And now I'm done being negative. :)

SWEET

In other news, today is a glorious day. I had a thousand things to do and they all went well! I staffed a client at multi-agency and it went great, even though I was so nervous. I took my last final and got an A-, O Bendita Sea! I am so relieved and grateful that fall semester is over! Now I can immerse myself in beautiful Christmas and I only have one semester left till graduation and my master's degree!!! I love what I study and I'm so happy I'll be done by the time Baby comes. :)

Not surprisingly, I've been noncommittal when it comes to choosing a provider, and I might write more about that later after I come to a few conclusions. I did visit an OB who takes the student health plan just to make sure the Little Stranger was doing okay in there. I've had two ultrasounds and I loved seeing that little blinking heartbeat that meant my sweet baby was okay! It's exciting to realize there really is a little creature in there, swimming around in the goldfish bowl. I can't feel it moving yet but I am very excited to.

Today is the 14th so we have been married 4 months today! I have such a sweet husband, I really do. He is so good and so dear to me. He is so lovingly excited to be a father. I'm as excited for him to have that experience--and to be able to observe it--as I am to be a mother. When I think about him holding and loving our baby I feel this effervescent joy that lights up my life. This is something I have always known deeply about Jonathan, that he would be an excellent, very kind and wise father. When we were dating I used to have these **secretheart** thoughts about us having kids. And now to finish off the sweetness I have a story about that.

We had Crystal and Allen over to dinner tonight and I made meatballs for the first time ever and also broccoli with spicy hollandaise sauce. Everything turned out okay and Crystal and Allen are such good company! I love their children. Crystal is one of my favorite mothers...she is playful and loving and enjoys her children so much. She is a "joyful mother" like it talks about in Psalms. I have never heard her speak resentfully about her children and that is something I admire very much and aspire to. I was playing with their baby Alex and he was so smiley and lovely that it melted my heart. I've always felt like I'm my best self when I'm playing with little kids. I can't wait to meet my own baby and be sweet with him/her. What a joy it will be to have a little soul that belongs to me and not have to hand them back to someone else! While I was holding Alex I sat on Jonathan's lap and he put his arms around both of us and it was so sweet. We both felt struck by that moment, and it reminded me of a time last year...coincidentally with Crystal's OTHER son...we were babysitting him and he was crying and fussing and I picked him up and held him, and Jonathan and I had a Moment. I wrote about it and sent to to him. Here is what I wrote, last November:

"This is the sappiest thing EVER! don't judge me. bradley is just a really cute baby, maybe with magic powers.

"Love to be, in the arms of all I'm keeping here, with me"

Last night I was holding the heavylight weight of Bradley in my arms; Jonathan looked over at me while I ran my finger across Bradley's impossibly soft hand and his tiny baby fingers grasped mine. I whispered, "Oh, sweetheart," I felt so aware suddenly of this sharp sweetness associated with wanting my own baby who will know and recognize me as its mama, it brought tears to my eyes to think it night not be for me, this white-hot center of my being. My arms were made to cradle, what better thing could I do with them? All this was hanging in the air. I could see him knowing what I was thinking, he came over and kissed me. "I want to end up with you." He told me this the other day. Can you say that? Can I hear that without terror? I dont want to end up in the showcase but I feel myself drowning in the missing. I want it to have meaning without having sting. But why should any of that matter if there is a baby? And I thought--I thought--despite the severity I sometimes feel from you, I want to be this way with you. I want that great kindness to be first for me. You'd be so good, I know it. I want your hands on my stomach with our baby in there. I want the honor I would feel being that for you, I want the softening effects that being a mother would have on my selfish nature. I want a little being a light to pull forth all the good from the depths of my heart. Then he came over and put his arms and me and the baby and it was so sweet."