Thursday, July 31, 2014

The Top Ten Things (for me) About Being Pregnant

Yes, it's summer. Yes, it's warm. I don't feel like it's "more" warm because I'm ripening with child (poetic, right?). I was miserable last summer, too. It's Austin, and it's just hot and humid and disgusting.

As I've mentioned, people often ask me about "feeling" this pregnancy more than I did when I was expecting Daphne, but, honestly, I'm probably in better physical shape now, and I've had a blessed lack of ambient stress for the most part, so it's all pretty good.

In fact, I'm feeling so great, I think I might have missed my calling as a surrogate mother, helping couples' dreams come true... And now I'm too old.

So, lest I retain a stone of water in a couple of weeks like I did with D and forget how awesome this whole thing has been, I will count down for you my ten favorite things about being pregnant. These are not in any kind of order. Just ten things.

10) An excuse to indulge in chiropractic. Man, I love getting adjustments. In a world where I'm not too cheap to do it, I'd go to the chiropractor regularly. As it is, I only go when there's a "problem" or something to be treated. Pregnancy is the best "nothing's wrong, but this makes it even better" excuse for that!

9) An excuse to indulge. We know I love the junk food and fancy foodie-type stuff. I typically eat fairly healthily, anyway, but when I'm pregnant, I'm SUPER mindful of getting the vitamins and minerals and balance that I need, so I feel extra entitled to indulge in stuff I might otherwise avoid, including "liquid calories" like shakes and Slurpees and chocolate almond milk and even some fruit juices. And I don't feel guilty later. Just really happy.

8) Confidence in my appearance. I don't obsess over my looks much; I'm pretty low maintenance. I can be in bed, turn off the alarm, and be ready to leave the house in 15 minutes But of course, I like to look nice, and sometimes I'm taken aback when I catch a surprise glimpse of myself in the mirror or a picture of me taken from an angle I don't view on a regular basis (and since we only have a face-height, face-sized mirror in the house, that's a lot of territory). But right now, seeing pictures of myself shockingly huge is just all kinds of precious. Every day after I wave James down the street when he leaves for work, I catch my profile in the window on the porch, and it makes me smile. I don't try to suck it in at all! I can't!

7) My sebaceous glands take it easy for a few months. Ever since I've been an adult, I've had a difficult time growing out my hair. James and I saw a girl filling up her car at 7-11 the other day, and she had this beautiful, healthy, past-booty-length blonde hair. When I commented on it, James tried to make me feel better by saying, "I'll bet it's a pain to maintain." Well. I'd gladly do it if that were an option for me. But it's not.

I know that not washing your hair and therefore not stripping it of its natural oils is supposed to be really good for its health, but my hair does not cooperate with this kind of thing. Normally, I wash my hair every other day. I don't wash it every day because I don't want to, but very often, by the middle of Day Two, it's annoying me like crazy as it looks like I slept in a hot oil treatment. My roots get all sticky and stringy, and I feel very self-conscious about how "dirty" it looks.

When I'm pregnant, though, that doesn't happen. In fact, I'll confess something to you: It's Wednesday evening right now and the last time I washed my hair was Sunday morning. I did put some dry shampoo in it last night before I went to bed because I thought I might go swimming today and didn't want to waste a wash when I'd just need to wash it again after. I ended up not swimming, so I won't be washing my hair until tomorrow morning. Check it out:


Um... I probably need to get to my roots, but that's a whole other thing. Also, I curled my hair with hot rollers on Monday morning, and it still has some cool wave to it. This I chalk up to having avoided the humidity most of the week.

Anyway, my hair grew out a LOT when I was expecting Daphne. A lot of people think that's because of the prenatal vitamins, but I don't take those because they're disgusting. My hair has grown out a bit during this pregnancy, but I recently got a really good hair cut (read: Not the $12 SuperCuts one) and it's certainly more healthy than usual. So I'll take the break in the "every other day mandatory wash" regimen!

6) My husband is especially attracted to pregnant women. He tells the story of trying to chat up and getting shot down by a lady in a bar once, and his friends all ragging on him for hitting on a pregnant lady. He hadn't realized she was pregnant until they pointed it out to him; he just thought she was beautiful.

James is always good about letting me know he appreciates my unique set of aesthetics, but he's particularly mesmerized by me right now. You know, because of "the glow." (Daphne rolled her eyes at that last night and said, "That's exactly what my friend said." She's not quite as taken in by the whole thing.) Sometimes he'll just be staring vacantly at me, and it's sweet and mildly creepy but I suppose he owes me for all of the times I do that to him, anyway.

5) I feel great! Sure, I've had some nausea and some heartburn, and have slept a lot, but overall, pregnancy hormones make me feel amazing. My bike rides are getting more difficult because of the excess weight, but that's a good thing! It's increasing resistance and forcing me to work harder, which is also good for me. I do have some meralgia parasthetica in my left leg, but that just means I have to sit down between "things," and you know what? That's probably good for me, too. It's easy for me to get caught up in the momentum of "doing" until I'm exhausted. Right now, my body is forcing me to empty the dishwasher, then sit down. Make dinner, then sit down. Vacuum, then sit down. And it still all gets done.

Bike riding is still my favorite because 1) it's hot; with biking, there's at least a breeze, and it doesn't take as long to get places and 2) the nerve pressure and stomach stress (and subsequent need for the belly belt) don't happen when I'm sitting on a bike. I am told that my center of gravity has changed, but I haven't found biking to feel weird. I'm hoping this activity is improving my postnatal health, too!

4) People are super gracious. When I'm pregnant, people who'd normally just look at me and look away will look at me and smile. They strike up conversations. In some cases, they might cross physical boundaries, but I apparently put out a strong enough "don't touch" vibe that I don't get that. Oh, they give me extra samples at the grocery store! They seem more cheerful about holding the door.

Also, being pregnant is about a 5-month pass from tons of things (it lasts all 9 months at home, but only as long as people "out there" know about the pregnancy). Group outing to clean up the park on a hot summer day? Oh, no! Not you, Laura! You don't need to be bending over and straining yourself in this heat. Heavy lifting, strenuous activity, no one wants to let me do it (and, honestly, I am perfectly able)!

James never lets me clean litter boxes, anyway, because he says the cats are his and Daphne's. But if it were a shared chore, I'd get nine months off of that.

Whereas someone might get annoyed if I flaked out or forgot something, during this time, they laugh and chalk it up to "pregnancy brain." Whether I neglect to pay a bill or miss an event to which I'd committed... People are more than willing to excuse me. It might help that I have some goodwill in the bank because I rarely do flake out in "real" life, but it's refreshing not to be made to feel guilty when I accidentally goof something up.

3) Buying stuff. I'm not a huge "hobby" shopper, but it's been a lot of fun finding cool baby stuff, then stalking it until the price drops, and using coupons and sales and codes and that kind of thing. Also, I bought a bunch of maternity stuff because I did start showing/feeling pregnant earlier than I did with Daphne, and I didn't have a lot of forgiving clothes to wear. With everything, I do research first, then position myself to be ready to buy when it's most advantageous. I do this with vacation plans, groceries, and pretty much anything. I'm kind of a geek that way. But it's nice to have an excuse to be able to "play." Plus, there is some uber-cool baby clothing and amazing products that have come out in the past decade!

One difference this time around is that we're going to try cloth diapering, so that was a lot of research before investment. Should save us more than a thousand dollars, though, in the long run. Also, James' mom made us diaper wipes out of felt, so we won't have to buy a bunch of wipes, either. I've gotten tons of samples and "free" (shipping only) items intended to seduce me into purchasing more... but I can milk a loss leader with absolutely no shame.

2) All the sleeps. I know some women have difficulty sleeping when they're expecting. Not this girl! Although I was absolutely wiped at first, by now, I tend to take a short nap during the day and sleep a good solid 8 hours at night. When I'm not pregnant, I am a light sleeper. I can't go to sleep because Taco Cabana's outdoor music is too loud. I get waken up by cats chasing each other through the house. Not right now! In fact, I've slept through James' alarm a couple of times, and I'm the one who is supposed to be up to wake James up because HE routinely sleeps through his alarm.

1) Mystery and weird body stuff. It's a little scary, but mostly exciting. The "scary" part is mostly, this time around, from having experienced a previous loss. With Daphne, I sort of expected that the pregnancy would lead to having a baby; I didn't make that assumption for a long time this time around. But still, there's that element of the unknown. What will the baby be like? How will the baby decide to make its appearance? What's going to happen next?

Also, my body is a source of amusement as it often operates independently of my brain. I'll be sitting here on my laptop, and it will try to pitch itself into the floor because of a well-placed kick. Or suddenly a restaurant where we've eaten several times has to sit us at a table instead of a booth because I can no longer fit into the confines.

I was having very obnoxious edema for a while, then I started chiropractic treatments and realized after a few adjustments that I wasn't swelling anymore. Why is that? What was going on that the alignments fixed? I probably never would have worked that out if I weren't pregnant. (And I did sometimes experience swelling, anyway; I assumed this was left over from my ruptured disc.)

Also, if not for the heartburn, I might never have tried and realized that I like very much almond milk. Or have found all of the protein-added products it'd probably do me good to incorporate into my normal diet because I don't gravitate toward natural protein sources, for some reason.

Finally, this isn't a general benefit of being pregnant, but this time around, I know a BUNCH of couples who are expecting. It's been a lot of fun to feel like I'm going through it with friends and family, some of whom are quite far-flung. But it's a nice sense of connection.

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