Let’s face it: pregnancy is not all it’s cracked up to be. Sure, hearing the heartbeat and feeling the little fetus move are great sensations that can’t be duplicated anywhere else in life, but gaining weight, feeling hungry all the time, having swollen ankles, watching your nose spread, and witnessing reddish spots appear all over your body can make a woman feel as unattractive as a chili dog in the trash. It’s even worse when you lose the ability to properly groom yourself ‘down there,’ and life becomes a humiliating sequence of everyone in the world wanting to see you naked.
The Challenges of Pregnancy
For some unknown reason, the bigger you get, the more freedom perfect strangers find to touch you. Unusual people will start stroking your belly (which only makes it itch more) and tell you all about their ‘pregnant’ days (as if you care). Many will attempt—complete with the kind of grins you’d give a puppy—to tell you how beautiful you look. It honestly makes you want to sit on them. Of course, there are the occasional women who look perfectly beautiful in their pregnant splendor, but for most of us, it’s the exact opposite of what you see in magazines. Other non-pregnant women will make you green with envy as you wonder how they can live with themselves being so slim and in shape. You’ll start to notice your husband’s wandering eye, spotting every pretty, attractive woman around, but no worries—it’s you he loves!
Pregnancy for a large part of the population doesn’t even start out well. We either feel like we’re going to puke all the time, fall asleep at random moments, or deal with the ups and downs of wildly fluctuating hormone levels that make it hard to concentrate or even feel sane. You’ll worry endlessly, deal with heartburn and cramps, and have an extremely hard time finding clothes that not only fit but are comfortable. Your feet constantly grow, making shoes unmanageable unless they’re slippers, and your thighs begin to rub together. All you need is a pair of maternity corduroys, so you can not only feel the friction but hear it too.
The Unspoken Struggles
The man responsible for this condition becomes a non-understanding, selfish, and hideous person who only has to live without sex for 9 short months yet still complains as though he is being punished too. Speaking of that man, he’s too afraid to have an annual colonoscopy but is fine escorting you to the doctor so some physician can try to find your cervix, which you swear keeps creeping closer to your neck. The cold, metal spoon they use for the procedure doesn’t even kiss you first, and few doctors have the decency to warm it up for you. When a tear rolls down your face because of the pain, he offers you a hand off the table and little more. He may even witness this and think that if the doctor can do that, sex during pregnancy should be fine (which it is, but there’s no use in telling men that).
Being pregnant is sometimes as good as being knocked out. Actually, if you could be knocked out for the nine months it takes to create this little life, people would probably have more children. Most things in life are a means to an end, but pregnancy quite simply has a mean end. Damn that Adam & Eve! As anticipation grows and the day gets closer, those perfect strangers who used to stroke your belly will begin trying to scare the hell out of you by telling horror stories about their dry births, water breaking in a store, the epidural running out halfway through, the baby getting stuck and requiring a c-section, or even about not going into labor at all—an even bigger nightmare. Why do so many people feel the need to share so much with pregnant women?
People will start buying things for your baby that you don’t like, telling you how to raise your infant, what to expect when the baby comes, and even discussing your breastfeeding options as if it’s any of their business. Don’t forget that the man in your life will stare at you as you polish off two steaks and the onion rings left on his plate, as if he is sure there’s no way you can get any bigger. And then, you do! Your moods will swing between weepy, really happy, or asleep, and the people you love the most will be afraid to say anything, unsure of which version of you they’ll be facing that day. That’s probably best, because the only thing people seem to find to talk to you about is the baby, and quite frankly, you’ve had just about all you can handle of the baby! That’s when you know you’re about to go into labor.
Labor is a whole different beast. There will never be another time in your life when so many people will not only see—but want to film—you completely naked, looking your worst. Even if you tried to put on makeup or shower before the big event, it won’t matter. By the time you’re through, you’ll look like a sloppy, wet, still-fat, tired but happy (and in love) woman. Not with the man in your life, of course, but with the little life in your arms. Suddenly, you forget it all—except for the person who got you into this mess. He is doomed forever, but you dig deep and find gratitude, peace, and total joy in what you now have. The roller coaster ends, but the ride is just beginning. The only thing you can do is hang on tight, close your eyes when you’re afraid, and remember what a beautiful thing it is that a woman is able to do.
