Being Pregnant

Oh, how I wish I could follow the title with "This has been a test of the Emergency Blogcast System. Had this been an actual pregnancy..."

Oops. I'm not supposed to say that, am I? I guess I don't mean it (not now, since I'm not puking, anyway). I was going to tell you not to worry, it's too late for an abortion. But since you can have one up until about 6 months (Wow. That's grim!), never mind. I do support a woman's choice, even if I can't imagine doing it myself. But 6 months? You've almost got a baby on your hands. And now that's making me sad and I want to cry. Let's get out of this depressing quagmire and move on to the parts where I wax philosophical and bitch. A lot.

This whole thing wasn't exactly planned. Don't know if you could already infer that. Kudos, if you could. My husband and I just happened to forgo our usual of method "protection" (withdrawal) one time and blammo! I'm not a woman anymore, I'm an incubator.

I had allowed myself a few daydreams of finding out/pretending I was pregnant before we got the 2nd line on the test (then the third 2nd line, and the next, and definitive YES). It was scary in a thrilling, roller-coaster-riding way, then. The fantasies were much like what you have as a child, dreaming of what you wanted to be. Highly romanticized, and unutterably naive. Don't ask me for specifics, as I've locked them in a dusty, cobwebbed basement unit in my mind, so as not to be further depressed. As it turned out, gazing at that test and seeing the unexpected (even if it wasn't TOTALLY unexpected, not really) 2nd line - gave me the feeling I imagine is akin to seeing the freakish arch of a funnel cloud bearing down on you from the sky. I was awash in a sickening and overwhelming panic. My mind quelled, "What the fuck do I do now? There were no drills for this!"

Thankfully, shock took over and I imagined only good things for a few days. Teaching the kid to be cool like me, holding and singing the baby some Pearl Jam song, getting kick-ass baby accessories. Inevitably, reality kicks in and I realize that I'm going to be pregnant for a very, very long time and eventually I'm going to have to expel this parasite.

But before I could get bored and impatient with pregnancy, I got morning sickness. I guess in my imaginings I always assumed that I would be an exception to this rule, because it was never a part of the fantasy (actually, the pregnancy part was never in there at all). As it turns out, most of being pregnant kind of sucks. I am almost over the nausea, which is really almost all I had. After years of practiced drinking, I was smart enough to avoid having a hangover (mostly), and well-versed in avoiding puking. Thus, the only times I barfed (barring a few exceptions) was when I brushed my teeth. So...I kind of didn't really do that for a while. Gross, yes. But barfing really, really, really sucks (ad infinitum). Now, being 17 weeks along (for you people who haven't been pregnant, that's 4 months and 1 week), I get along without much nausea. That's been replaced by world-record holding indigestion. Yay!

Okay, I'm annoying myself with all the usual pregnant-lady whining. Suffice it to say that I was also super-duper tired until a week or two ago, and I get weepy. Well, the weepy part does deserve a little bitching. 

I'm not a natural crier. I'll cry sometimes, but it's almost always grudgingly. Now that I feel like crying at least once a day for no discernible cause, I get extra grudging about it and make it that much worse. Perhaps it's a control thing, I don't know. 

Getting back to the bored and impatient part of being pregnant. Ya know, sometimes I actually forget I'm with child. Yeah, I'm fat and moody, but there are 86,400 seconds in a day (24 hours), and other shit happens in life. So, every once in a while I'll stop in mid-sentence and be like, "Hey. I got a thing growing inside me. WTF?" STILL. I keep wondering when it'll stop being surreal and cease to be a wonder. Is there a time period I will reach where it'll just be: "Yep. The things moving now. Working on taking more of my precious nutrients away from me. Get me another bagel bite, honey" ?

I waited so long on this blog post because it's always annoyed the pre-pregnant Jennifer when other people went on and on about being pregnant or having kids. I mean, if it wasn't happening to me, why should I give a leaping shit? And, honestly? I don't have the energy to try to think up some bullshit reason why you should care, either. I just have to get used to the fact that I'm probably one of those bitches now. (Probably the most depressing thing about pregnancy.) The only thing I can do is try to minimize the annoyance factor. 

Let's talk about having a natural birth! (Just kidding. I'll wait a month or two until I go into that.) But speaking of, I did finally decide to visit a dark (very dark) corner of Youtube for educational purposes: women having babies. I'm not sure why I did it. I mean, I'm not going to have a mirror and watch the little fucker come out. That's just morbid and groady! But, I did it anyway. Curiosity killed that cat and all that... Now I can't wash the scenes from my mind. I just keep thinking, "My pussy's going to do that?" And I want to cry. Cry, and cry, and cry. I'm such an idiot.

I literally can't think of a way to help myself now. Some things once seen cannot be unseen. Unless I could have a partial lobotomy? Does Medicaid cover that?

Yep. I'm going to go get on the bed, spin around three times (that's how you make the best, most cozy nest) and lie down. Then I'm going to cry and try to forget I'm "creating a miracle" for a little while.