Pregnancy Reflections
Now in my 35th week, I can consider myself a full term mommy to be, therefore an expert. My kid could come at any time now, although I have a feeling that I’ll be waiting for a few more weeks. Considering how normal this pregnancy has been, I can’t imagine anything out of the ordinary happening at this point. Although the weird stuff always happens when you least expect it, right?
Here are some of the highlights of what I’ve learned about pregnancy and about myself during the last 35 weeks:
It doesn’t matter if you’re not as big as other women who are also pregnant, people will still comment on how big you are. They’ll even tell you that you’re having a big baby, or possibly even twins, even though you know it’s impossible, since every single time you go to the doctor you’ve only heard one heartbeat. You can tell people this over and over again, but they’ll refuse to hear you.
Your life becomes something you would have never recognized pre-pregnancy. 9 months ago if you would have told me that I would sit home every Friday and Saturday night and be in bed by 11 pm, I would have laughed at you as I puffed on a cigarette and guzzled a beer. Now, the old me seems like some kind of pathetic stranger. I struggled for a long time with letting the old carefree E-Lo slip into the void, but now I’m totally ok with who I am. In fact, I really like myself a lot better. I’m still me, only a more responsible version of me. A new, improved version of myself. E-Lo 2.0.
Your relationships with people inevitable change. I’ve read article after article about how your single friends will slowly slip away and you’ll seek out mommy and daddy friends, or people who are on the same level as you. Although my single friends haven’t deserted me (thankfully), we don’t hang out nearly as much. But it’s not because they’ve changed, it’s because Ryan and I have changed. We’re tired, we’re busy, and we’re building a whole new human. That takes a lot out of you. There’s a lot of stress involved, and as much as you’d like to go have fun with your carefree, unmarried, childless friends, sometimes life gets in the way. I haven’t hung out with my best friend from high school since May. I just can’t relate with her, because we’re at totally different stages in life. She’s just getting married, but I’ve been there with the married stuff. In 23 days I’ll celebrate my third wedding anniversary, which is cool, but I’m totally focused on my kid at the moment. And I know I’ll be totally focused on my kid for the rest of my life. And if you don’t have a kid, you really can’t understand. Until my friends start having kids, we’re going to be on different levels. Single people don’t really want to hear about your kid every single time you talk. I know I didn’t. One article I read about this phenomenon summed it up great: you look at your childless friends with a mixture of pity and envy. Pity because you feel that your life has a deeper meaning, and envy because you know how it felt to be on their level and not have to worry about the needs of a tiny helpless human before your own needs.
It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve heard the same questions, you’ll hear them over and over again 27 gazillion times before it’s all over. And you know what? You will become a robot when you answer them. You’ll answer the same way every time, you’ll even throw a chuckle in there from time to time, just to spice it up. You’ll pass the point of being sick of answering the questions, you won’t even think about it. The answer will just fall out of your mouth like you’re drooling.
When you go to buy a travel system, the one you want will be out of stock at every single Target store within a 50 mile radius. And because you have 300 dollars in Target giftcards, you really won’t want to actually spend money out of your pocket elsewhere, mainly because you’re having a kid and need that money.
Just when you thought your feet couldn’t swell any more, they’ll swell to double the size that they originally swelled to.
When your kid drops, that’s when you’ll get stretch marks on your stomach. You can go your whole pregnancy with not one single belly stretch mark and be totally proud (although I have stretch marks on every other part of my body). But when that kid wants to move down into your pelvis, they’ll suddenly appear. You can also expect to pee every 30 seconds or feel like your bladder will burst.
Once you hit the 30 week mark, it will take you at least 5 minutes just to roll yourself over in bed. Sometimes you’ll have to ask for help. For each week that you’re still pregnant, you can tack at least another minute on to that. Right now it takes me 9 minutes to roll over. It also takes extra effort to get out of any seat.
There’s a lot more, but this will do for now. Maybe I’ll do some pregnancy reflections every week until Fuzzball decides to show up.
I have to send a big thank you to Pup, who sent me this. Ryan almost crapped when he saw it. We found it on the Hot Topic site months ago and he really, really wanted it, so thanks!!! You’re awesome. Fuzzball is going to be such a rocker kid.
This week is going to be a busy week, because I’m training a new person at work. So I may not find a lot of time to visit everyone, but I’ll be lurking around when I can.
Here are some of the highlights of what I’ve learned about pregnancy and about myself during the last 35 weeks:
It doesn’t matter if you’re not as big as other women who are also pregnant, people will still comment on how big you are. They’ll even tell you that you’re having a big baby, or possibly even twins, even though you know it’s impossible, since every single time you go to the doctor you’ve only heard one heartbeat. You can tell people this over and over again, but they’ll refuse to hear you.
Your life becomes something you would have never recognized pre-pregnancy. 9 months ago if you would have told me that I would sit home every Friday and Saturday night and be in bed by 11 pm, I would have laughed at you as I puffed on a cigarette and guzzled a beer. Now, the old me seems like some kind of pathetic stranger. I struggled for a long time with letting the old carefree E-Lo slip into the void, but now I’m totally ok with who I am. In fact, I really like myself a lot better. I’m still me, only a more responsible version of me. A new, improved version of myself. E-Lo 2.0.
Your relationships with people inevitable change. I’ve read article after article about how your single friends will slowly slip away and you’ll seek out mommy and daddy friends, or people who are on the same level as you. Although my single friends haven’t deserted me (thankfully), we don’t hang out nearly as much. But it’s not because they’ve changed, it’s because Ryan and I have changed. We’re tired, we’re busy, and we’re building a whole new human. That takes a lot out of you. There’s a lot of stress involved, and as much as you’d like to go have fun with your carefree, unmarried, childless friends, sometimes life gets in the way. I haven’t hung out with my best friend from high school since May. I just can’t relate with her, because we’re at totally different stages in life. She’s just getting married, but I’ve been there with the married stuff. In 23 days I’ll celebrate my third wedding anniversary, which is cool, but I’m totally focused on my kid at the moment. And I know I’ll be totally focused on my kid for the rest of my life. And if you don’t have a kid, you really can’t understand. Until my friends start having kids, we’re going to be on different levels. Single people don’t really want to hear about your kid every single time you talk. I know I didn’t. One article I read about this phenomenon summed it up great: you look at your childless friends with a mixture of pity and envy. Pity because you feel that your life has a deeper meaning, and envy because you know how it felt to be on their level and not have to worry about the needs of a tiny helpless human before your own needs.
It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve heard the same questions, you’ll hear them over and over again 27 gazillion times before it’s all over. And you know what? You will become a robot when you answer them. You’ll answer the same way every time, you’ll even throw a chuckle in there from time to time, just to spice it up. You’ll pass the point of being sick of answering the questions, you won’t even think about it. The answer will just fall out of your mouth like you’re drooling.
When you go to buy a travel system, the one you want will be out of stock at every single Target store within a 50 mile radius. And because you have 300 dollars in Target giftcards, you really won’t want to actually spend money out of your pocket elsewhere, mainly because you’re having a kid and need that money.
Just when you thought your feet couldn’t swell any more, they’ll swell to double the size that they originally swelled to.
When your kid drops, that’s when you’ll get stretch marks on your stomach. You can go your whole pregnancy with not one single belly stretch mark and be totally proud (although I have stretch marks on every other part of my body). But when that kid wants to move down into your pelvis, they’ll suddenly appear. You can also expect to pee every 30 seconds or feel like your bladder will burst.
Once you hit the 30 week mark, it will take you at least 5 minutes just to roll yourself over in bed. Sometimes you’ll have to ask for help. For each week that you’re still pregnant, you can tack at least another minute on to that. Right now it takes me 9 minutes to roll over. It also takes extra effort to get out of any seat.
There’s a lot more, but this will do for now. Maybe I’ll do some pregnancy reflections every week until Fuzzball decides to show up.
I have to send a big thank you to Pup, who sent me this. Ryan almost crapped when he saw it. We found it on the Hot Topic site months ago and he really, really wanted it, so thanks!!! You’re awesome. Fuzzball is going to be such a rocker kid.
This week is going to be a busy week, because I’m training a new person at work. So I may not find a lot of time to visit everyone, but I’ll be lurking around when I can.
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