Thursday, February 26, 2009

6 months, more or less

I don't know what it is, but people don't like to see a cheerful, pregnant woman. It is, apparently, irksome. I get asked, "How are you feeling?" and when I reply, "Great!", everybody says the same thing: "Just wait!" Wait until next month, the next trimester, labor, birth, parenthood. Nobody ever seems to say, "That's wonderful!" or "How nice." Why try to bring me down? Does my feeling good somehow, in their eyes, make me so deluded as to think that I will always feel good, and so they must warn me otherwise? It's too hard (and private) to explain that "great" is short-hand for, "After everything that I've been through to get to this point, after four miscarriages and six months of specialists, after thinking that I would never get to have a healthy pregnancy, how could this be anything BUT great? Sure, I'm not sleeping at night, my hips and back have been killing me for months, and I've peed on myself twice, at work, with no idea how it happened. But I DON'T CARE because there is a BABY INSIDE OF ME and s/he is ALIVE. That, people, is GREAT. Period."


Similarly, someone that comes to where I work has been commenting on the fact that I'm "getting big!" Well, yeah, that's kind of supposed to happen, you know? I'm six months pregnant, and pretty much right on-track for weight gain, fetus size, and overall "look"-- that is, I look about six months along, not much more or much less. Am I supposed to be upset over getting bigger? There is a baby growing in there, after all. I guess I don't get it... I just say, "I sure am! Can't wait to see what I look like in May!" which so far has shut her up.


Two wonderful things happened yesterday. The first is that I discovered this movement that relieves almost all of the pain in my hips. You stand with legs a bit apart and knees bent, and then move your hips around in a huge circle several times, and then the other way. Then the first way again. Etc. I figured this out by accident in the shower, trying to get the hot water to land on my back the right way. It's awesome. I wouldn't recommend doing it in public, though, because it looks like something half-way between hula-hooping and what a cat does right before it hacks up a hairball. I did this so much last night that I have that post-work-out burn in my thighs today-- but my hips don't hurt. The other thing was that, somehow, I slept almost all night long. I woke up this morning and remembered, this is what it feels like to be rested. I'd forgotten.

5 comments:

cara lou said...

Yeah -- I don't understand why everyone has to always have a negative comment about pregnancy. What I'd get all the time is "Oh, we'll see!" if someone found out that I was planning a drug-free birth. No encouragement, just an eye-roll, basically. So annoying.

Anonymous said...

It's human nature, really, that anytime they see someone in a happy/blissful state, and they themselves are not, of course they want to bring you to their current moment.

Never mind how great it can be to bring yourself up to the joy that another person is feeling.

So, to you, beautiful Mara, at 6 months pregnant - that is FUCKING AWESOME. You aren't as sick as I was, you feel good and if I'm not mistaken, have a glow about you that is maddening! How happy I am for you and with you. I can't wait to hear about your next trimester of explorations and discoveries, the joy you'll get to experience in the adventure that is holding your new little one. And I most certainly can't wait to laugh with you and shake my head in agreement as you throw yourself headfirst into the roll of a mom - just you wait, you'll love it.

By the way - I fucking laughed to cried reading the description in the shower... I typically looked more like a water buffalo that was stuck in the mud and needed to pee when I was trying to ease the pain in my hips... LOL

Bex said...

Lots of people are a pretty much unhappy with their life so they continue to bring out that high school behavior of passive aggressive bullying. Since they aren't happy, you can't be either. I like to ignore these people. Maybe one day they will figure out their own happiness and stop relying on others to do it for them.

On that note. Maybe you should tell them you are on a diet. Your goal weight is 250lbs by May. "Do you think I can make it if I eat a real lot?"

ayla said...

I think we need a picture to judge whether you are, in fact, "big".


As for the rest, I LOVED being pregnant. Loved loved loved. I can't wait to be pregnant again. There were aches and pains, to be sure, but I loved every minute of it. Except the rash. I hated the rash.

Anyways, you can always tell people you have cancer, and it's a large tumor that's slowly killing you. LOL. I did that a couple of times to mess with people.

Unknown said...

I know, right? Where's the belly shot?

I think people just want something to say. Swapping pregnancy "war" stories is like bonding in the fox hole.

I adored my ginormous belly. The bigger and huger I got, the happier I was! I found this to be particularly true with my boy pregnancies because I was allllll out front and low. It was hysterical.