Things I Love About Being Pregnant

Hello Dear Readers!

There are a lot of hilarious blogs, books, movies, etc. out there about what a pain in the butt (literally - hemorrhoids, anyone?) it can be to be pregnant. Fair 'nuff. But I'm kind of sad that this is probably my last ride on this merry-go-round, and I want to enjoy it as much as I can. So here, in no particular order, is a list of things I love about being pregnant.

1. Happy attention. Yes, I seem to like attention. Are we surprised? But this is not just attention - attention can be bad. (Stop staring, I know my kid is screaming on your airplane and I'm doing the best I can. Go away.) This is happy attention. Pregnant bellies make people smile, ask how you are feeling, when is the baby due. Pregnant bellies inspire hope and optimism, and perhaps a bit of wonder about how that fairly small woman is carrying around all that baby belly and that bag of groceries and that toddler...

2. BOOBS! Yes I admit it. I like the bigger boobs. I have never been busty, even at the times in my life when I needed to take off a few pounds, it goes pear shaped (and then when I do take off those few pounds it seems to all come out of my chest - not fair!!!) So the busty look of being pregnant and the early months of nursing are a lot of fun for me. And maybe for someone else too but we'll leave him out of it for now.

3. Food. I like to eat. It's fun to eat more. This is great about nursing, too, of course, but I find it very freeing to be in this time where I *should* eat more and put on weight. All in moderation of course, and I don't get to just chow down on cookies (mmm, cookies...). But I had a steak sandwich and fries for lunch yesterday, and it was DELICIOUS. And I'm not even a little sorry - I need the iron and protein, and Protoperson seems to love potatoes. Even the resultant food coma was kind of fun.

4. Spoiling. Of course having folks carry things for me and let me off the hook for stuff would be more fun if I wasn't so freaking tired. (Read: if it wasn't necessary.) But if I get to be Princess for a Trimester, that's just fine.

5. There's a person growing in my tummy. Dude have you checked this out? It's incredible! There is a whole, if tiny and not yet independently viable, human being, in my BELLY! She moves and kicks and I'm so curious who she is going to turn out to be! It's so amazing. And she's so small! Okay she does not FEEL small when I'm trying to carry Robert and the groceries. But think about it - if you set out to, say, carve out of driftwood a creature with fingernails that small, I reckon you would have a hard time doing so. DNA is wild stuff.

6. Improved body image. Okay this one is a bit of a dome scratcher for a lot of folks, and on the first try it didn't kick in during pregnancy. In fact, I felt like I was wearing a clown suit. But sometime after Robert was born, I went from a sort of typical American female level of poor body image to "holy crap! I made that person in my belly! and I fed him with my breasts! How the heck did I do that? That's amazing!!!" and all those pesky details about cellulite and breast size just sort of faded into the background. It probably didn't hurt that I lost more weight after the pregnancy than I gained during it. Although I will fess up that I was pretty disappointed when my chest deflated after Robert's solid food intake ramped up. So this time around I'm enjoying my nice round belly, and the fact that certain other areas are getting bigger too are honestly not bothering me as much.

7. Robert. It is so cute to watch him look at the ultrasounds of Proto and say "That's a head. That's a belly." He kisses my belly too, and says, "Robert kiss the baby." And lately when he asks me to pick him up he reaches up with both hands on my belly and says his usual "Want upamomma." So from my point of view I see belly, cute little hands, cute little upturned face. Yay.

8. Looking forward to nursing again. Maybe this time I'll get lucky and won't get some nasty yeast infection to spoil the fun. And I feel like all I learned on the last go-round has to make it easier this time. But I've lined up a great lactation consultant service (Yay Zenana Spa!) just in case and some $$$ in the "Baby Wish List" budget to spend on it.

9. Contraception. What contraception? Exactly! Although to be fair this doesn't necessarily totally make up for the complicated mechanics of the big round tummy.

10. Matt. I have the sweetest husband. He takes such nice care of me while I am preggers, and it's fun. He doesn't complain when I am behind on my share of housework or when I want to go to bed at 8 pm on weeknights (not that I do a very good job at actually going to bed at 8...) And he's always telling me how cute he thinks I look pregnant, and never once has he rolled his eyes (where I could see him anyway) about the flatulence or how much unsolicited information he's getting about various bodily functions that are getting confused by all the hormones coursing through my veins.

11. My midwives. That's right, plural. These women are taking such wonderful care of me, and they are so kind and gentle and reassuring and patient. I'm sure I'm not the most high-maintenance patient they've ever had, but I bet I'm more than one standard deviation above the mean (So that's more high-maintenance than 67% of the population, or so, assuming a normally distributed population, which is an heroic assumption, and way more math than anyone probably wanted to see on this blog.) And they just sit patiently answering my questions and asking if I had anything else I wanted to talk about. Yay.

Feel free to waive these at me in a few months when I have to mosey from place to place and can't take a deep breath.

Much love,
Suzi