So, in two days I'll have made it to 33 weeks. Thus far, everything points to a completion of this pregnancy and a new baby coming home. Life has no such guarantees, as I am aware, but each day that moves forward makes me more and more hopeful that this pregnancy will have a successful end. And soon.
I am really hating life right now. Things could always be worse than they are, but my discomfort only increases as time goes on. Carpal tunnel pain in both hands, back aches, weird pressures in my abdominal muscles, swelling in legs and feet (fairly mild), terrible heartburn and indigestion, shortness of breath when I climb stairs - and just being damn hungry all day long. My trips to the bathroom haven't increased overly much, but I know that is coming soon. I'll trade that for being able to eat and breathe better, I guess.
Here's the thing though. Everybody asks me how I'm doing, and when I tell them, a lot of times I hear the ridiculous phrases, "It'll be worth it," or "It's so worth it." I feel this phrase is very demeaning to me as a person. Maybe it's just me - maybe I don't get it because I haven't had the kid yet. But right now, telling me I'll "be fine, it's so worth it" is like negating my personhood. "Yeah, you're miserable, but it's okay. We just really want to see that baby, cause babies are so cute, so suck it up already, you're pregnant, shit happens, too bad."
I know when a woman gives birth, especially naturally, she gets an incredible hit of hormones that is unlike anything else she will ever experience, hormones that create incredible sensations of love and joy that help to take away the pain of the pregnancy and birth. People tell me I'll "forget" and then they throw the "worth it" thing out there. As if this entire year of my life is invisible, as if once the baby gets here, it will have never happened, and I get no acknowledgement of this suffering. Maybe that's the effect of the hormones on the brain, but in my thoughts, it just doesn't sit with me quite right. I want to remember what happened to me. I want to know how I made it through this year. And most of all, I want it to be over soon, and I never, ever want to do it again. That is my choice, and remembering this year gives me the presence of mind to make that informed, rational choice. Being wrapped up in all those hormones threatens to take that away from me.
And what is the most crazy is that the unfairness of it all, the onslaught of irrationality, seems to be the thing that these 'worth it' women are championing. They want to forget. They want to be swept away on their hormonal cloud of gooby happy baby thoughts and crank out a couple more kids because they just keep forgetting how much pregnancy sucks. I don't want to live my life like that, as a slave to my reproductive drive. It's already happened once - I lost one and drove myself crazy trying to have another. Not that he replaces the one that was lost, but the completely irrational obsession I had with conceiving again is the reason that he's here. I know how powerful those hormones are, and I'd rather I could opt out of at least some of the craziness, thanks.
Don't get me wrong. That doesn't mean I won't be happy to see him, doesn't mean I won't love him, and doesn't mean I won't say that, given my newfound experiences, I would do it again and it was worth the pain. But after this baby is born, I would just like to have my brain back with less crazy chick hormones, please. I've had crazy chick hormones running around since last December and I am fed up and am tired of sobbing at stupid things all the time. I feel like I don't even know who I am anymore, or what I even used to think, or be like. A year is a long, long time to feel like a stranger in your own body or mind.
\I wonder if women ever recover from this, ever return to who they were before, or if they just adapt as best they can to the new normal, unable to hold on the person they once were. Are they less, or are they more? Does motherhood cause a person to lose herself, or to gain parts of self? I can't be the only person to have asked these questions, really.
