Pregnancy is a ridiculous state of being and that is all there is to it. We don’t let children handle delicate materials or play with our electronics, yet for some reason we have to give them full access to our internal organs for like ten months. I had a friend at work, whose wife is in a similar predicament as I am in, sum it up best, “I mean, you have rib cage to protect delicate things and babies live under it.”
I would not be such a complainer except that I had it so easy the first round. I was in my early twenties, I was strong, and so were my internal hip muscles, joints, belly and back muscles—at least they must have been because I don’t remember the agonizing pain that accompanies walking with a person in me that I am experiencing now. And I don’t remember Elsa being such a cruel occupying force. Little miss whose-it, as my grandmother refers to her, is a much less considerate tenant than her charming sister.
And I have two states of hunger: “No thanks I am fine and ingesting food may only lead to pain” and “Give me the cheese over something hot and buttered and maybe you will live”, the latter state also only leads to pain after though.
And I have the pleasure of being up blogging at three thirty am because I do not have side of my body on which I can currently lay that can take the pressure of the belly weight I would put on it, so I have to lean back sitting in the computer chair for a bit. This is becoming a nightly ritual. I don’t mind though, I needed to sit up to drink the gallon of water she has suddenly demanded. This happens frequently too, somewhere around midnight to 4 am, no matter how much fluid I consumed the day before, I NEED about 5-8 cups of water before I feel like a normally hydrated person again.
To add insult to injury, I just passed the bathroom mirror and I have a half-outie, which means by the time this is over, I am sure I will get to closely examine what is normally the floor of my belly button, as I am sure it will stick out a good 3 inches.
Ridiculous I tell you.
That said, now that the scary stuff is over, as over as scary stuff can get when you start to love a frail creature no one can promise you will be ok, I am sitting here thinking about 3:30 am a few months from now, when I am up and alone in the world with a ticking clock and angry, hungry, little beast against my skin, making my arms all sweaty with her heat.
I loved the deep night with Elsa, when I had adjusted to a state of unending sleep deprivation, and I had learned how to sooth her screaming and she, and I would recline on the couch and she would lay on my chest, and we’d breathe together and we were all that there was in the world. And I would try to imagine that little, tiny, red and yellow squirmy thing as a little girl, I would try to imagine her at 5, and think that that age was so, so, so far in to the future. I paused by Elsa’s door on the way from my bed to my desk a little bit ago, to confirm she is breathing (she is). Five seems so, so, so long ago.
I know that times are hard, and there are some horrible things going in it, but this world is so amazing to me. I can’t believe how amazingly lucky I am to have been given, for a little more effort this time than last, but it’s minimal compared to the gift at the end, another little creature that makes me feel this much love (and terror, and anxiety) again.
I would not be such a complainer except that I had it so easy the first round. I was in my early twenties, I was strong, and so were my internal hip muscles, joints, belly and back muscles—at least they must have been because I don’t remember the agonizing pain that accompanies walking with a person in me that I am experiencing now. And I don’t remember Elsa being such a cruel occupying force. Little miss whose-it, as my grandmother refers to her, is a much less considerate tenant than her charming sister.
And I have two states of hunger: “No thanks I am fine and ingesting food may only lead to pain” and “Give me the cheese over something hot and buttered and maybe you will live”, the latter state also only leads to pain after though.
And I have the pleasure of being up blogging at three thirty am because I do not have side of my body on which I can currently lay that can take the pressure of the belly weight I would put on it, so I have to lean back sitting in the computer chair for a bit. This is becoming a nightly ritual. I don’t mind though, I needed to sit up to drink the gallon of water she has suddenly demanded. This happens frequently too, somewhere around midnight to 4 am, no matter how much fluid I consumed the day before, I NEED about 5-8 cups of water before I feel like a normally hydrated person again.
To add insult to injury, I just passed the bathroom mirror and I have a half-outie, which means by the time this is over, I am sure I will get to closely examine what is normally the floor of my belly button, as I am sure it will stick out a good 3 inches.
Ridiculous I tell you.
That said, now that the scary stuff is over, as over as scary stuff can get when you start to love a frail creature no one can promise you will be ok, I am sitting here thinking about 3:30 am a few months from now, when I am up and alone in the world with a ticking clock and angry, hungry, little beast against my skin, making my arms all sweaty with her heat.
I loved the deep night with Elsa, when I had adjusted to a state of unending sleep deprivation, and I had learned how to sooth her screaming and she, and I would recline on the couch and she would lay on my chest, and we’d breathe together and we were all that there was in the world. And I would try to imagine that little, tiny, red and yellow squirmy thing as a little girl, I would try to imagine her at 5, and think that that age was so, so, so far in to the future. I paused by Elsa’s door on the way from my bed to my desk a little bit ago, to confirm she is breathing (she is). Five seems so, so, so long ago.
I know that times are hard, and there are some horrible things going in it, but this world is so amazing to me. I can’t believe how amazingly lucky I am to have been given, for a little more effort this time than last, but it’s minimal compared to the gift at the end, another little creature that makes me feel this much love (and terror, and anxiety) again.
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