Pregnancy Unicorn

If you haven't seen the What To Expect When You're Expecting movie, you might not be familiar with the concept of a Magical Pregnancy Unicorn. I'm sure you can guess, but basically, it's someone who gets all of the desirable pregnancy effects without the miserable and less-than-glamorous symptoms. Like every woman (I'm sure), I hoped & hoped this would be the case for me. I've wanted this my entire life, & I really wanted to be able to enjoy being pregnant. And I have to say, I've been (& still am) really lucky in that aspect. I mean, I've still had a few food aversions, random bouts of nausea, some killer sciatica pain (which, side note, a chiropractor, supportive footwear, and steady schedule of low-impact exercise - like swimming/water walking - will do wonders for this!!) & various other discomforts, but compared to some of the other pregnancies I've seen, mine really has not been bad at all.

Having said that, I feel obligated to say this as well: shit has gotten real over the last month or so. And by real, I mean really uncomfortable. At this point, my breathing sounds as though I just finished running some kind of race all the time; I'm fairly certain my feet could qualify as kayaks (canoes seemed a bit extreme); if I try to walk or otherwise move quickly, I feel like the entire front portion of my body might suddenly fall off; I snore now (that's new); I am always thirsty, always hot, and always have to pee; the only part(s) of my body that haven't gotten bigger with this pregnancy so far are my boobs (seriously how is that fair???); and this morning, my chocolate muffin actually gave me the worst heartburn I've experienced so far.

It hasn't only been the physical symptoms, however. It is really hard to explain how you can feel so unbelievably grateful, happy, & excited, & so frighteningly overwhelmed, alone, and unprepared all at the same time (or at least within a few moments of each other). A friend of mine shared this Facebook post that, I would say, pretty much explains what pregnancy has been like in my experience. If you don't want to read this woman's entire post (though I would highly recommend it!), here is a summary of the parts I found the most true: "Pregnancy has made me feel the cutest/prettiest that I ever have in my life. But no one tells you, that at the same time, it will make you feel the most self conscious and vulnerable... For an already self/body conscious woman like myself, it's a tug of war on my mind... Pregnancy is also the loneliest. Yes, you have a supportive husband/partner, but they don't get to know what you're going through, or feel the crazy kicks and flips, it's all you. There is always something to want to be able to tell or explain, but no one else will get it because it is happening inside you..."

As much as I love my pregnant body, it is really weird/uncomfortable/disconcerting to know that everyone is staring at your body, pretty much all the time. Some days I love the attention & I love having random people ask me questions about the baby & the pregnancy. Other days, it makes me horribly uncomfortable, & I want to hide in a corner (I think it's a combination of hormones & a lifetime of body image issues colliding together).

Now, there is one question that I get anywhere from 2 - 4 times every day that, for me, makes all of this that much more difficult to deal with: How are you feeling?

I despise this question.

Everyone & their dog wants to know How are you feeling? How are you feeling? How are you feeling? When in truth, they really don't. I know this because for a while, I got tired of answering with the standard "I'm feeling good, everything is going really well" answer (because I can only repeat myself so many times before my response loses all sincerity, &, let's be honest, some days I genuinely am not feeling good. Sometimes, I'm just having a bad day - physically, emotionally, whatever), & started telling people the truth. And you know what I discovered? Just like most other situations, people don't actually want to hear the truth. It's like asking a customer or a stranger how their day is going & having them launch into this elaborate story about all the terrible things that have happened to them recently, & you're standing there, awkwardly, like "Dude...overshare..."

Maybe they really do want an honest answer to how the pregnant woman is feeling, but only so they can "correct" you. For example, when I would answer with something like "I'm really tired, actually; I've been having a hard time sleeping," they would inevitably give me a "Oh, you poor stupid little girl, you think you're tired now" look, or they would just pipe right up with a condescending chuckle & super helpful quip like "Oh, just wait! If you think you aren't sleeping now..." The same goes for the mention of any other symptoms. Like if I mention that I'm getting more uncomfortable, I would get responses along the lines of "Oh, just wait; you don't know what uncomfortable is yet!" & other super helpful comments of that nature.

Because I have had such a relatively easy pregnancy, I feel like I'm not allowed to have bad days, or to really complain at all. I should just be grateful all the time that I don't have it worse.

So yeah, turns out I am not, in fact, a pregnancy unicorn. But, even when I'm uncomfortably wedged into the loveseat, popping Tums like breath mints to squelch the fire climbing up my esophagus, my painfully-swollen feet propped on a pillow, endlessly shifting & leaning to & fro in hopes of dislodging Baby Boy's foot from under my ribs, before ultimately getting up to pee for the third time in an hour, I would turn around & do another nine months in a heartbeat. Being pregnant is still, by far, the weirdest & best thing that has ever happened to me.