Being pregnant

I loved being pregnant. Really. It was an experience that i wish I could do over again, and will, but not for a while.I loved the feeling of the unexpected…never really knowing wht was going to happen next. When will I get this dreaded ‘morning sickness’ (I never did, ha ha!!) When would I feel the baby move? When could I hear the hartbeat? What will the ultrasound look like? Will it be a boy or girl? Who will it look like? What will it be like? How big will my belly get? Will my body ever be the same as it was before?All those questions and all the answers were so amazing to experience. My belly was so big, I look at pictures and am amazed at it. It was gigantic! One of my friends who recently found out she was pregnant told me “I’m scared of the birth…I am scared to actually HAVE the baby!” Giving birth to a 9 1/2 pound baby is something that people raise their eyebrows at and say “was it natural? how did you do it??” and I say, “Yeah, he just came out.” Of course there was pushing, and there was help, but it really wasn’t that bad. Maybe there really is a thing in our brains that makes us forget how bad it was, but I even have a video, and watching it really doesn’t seem so bad. I wanted to do it without an epidural, but I am not as tough as I thought I was. After that first real big contraction, I knew there was no way I could do it without one! However, I do think I am going to do some research and take some classes on pain management classes that I can do it without one next time.We didn’t take and classes at all. I asked friends and family about things they did, and if it really helped or whatever. Anthony lived in Circleville most of the time, while I stayed in Cedar City because I was afraid of going into labor while I was on the other side of a snowy mountain. If I had gone to classes, I probably woudl not have had him there to go through them with me. I think I would have liked to have taken classes on breathing and pain management, so I would have been able to do it without an epidural, but I don’t think there is anything else I needed or would have liked a class for.The one thing, possibly the only thing, that I don’t like about my pregnancy is my belly now. With that huge baby stretching my belly past its limits, I now have a saggy pouch of skin on my belly. I get self conscious of it, so I wear a girdle type thing sometimes. Girdle sounds stupid, so I’ll call it a really elastic bodysuit thing. Ha. Like that’s any better. But I am self conscious about it most of the time. Anthony still says I’m hot, though, and that makes me feel amazing. I wish I could see it his way. I wish I could feel on my own as great as he makes me feel, without him having to tell me. Even with him telling me, I say “no, I’m not” and I refuse to agree. I wouldn’t mind having only the stretch marks, rreally. I never planned on being a a model or anything. I can handle ugly lines on my skin. But obviouusly those lines are there because my belly surpassed its limits and now has nothing else to do but just hang out. And I do mean hang. I may be making it sound awful…I don’t mean to make anyone feel bad about their bodies, or to have anyone retort with any snide comments. I grew an amazing child in my body, one who happened to grow extremely large and extend my body far, far outwards. He is amazing…so wonderful and so special. I know that he is more important than the way my body looks, but I also know that having a healthy self-image is good for a child to be raised around. What do I do??tI did love my belly when it was growing. It was so strange to see it get bigger and bigger all the time. To feel thumps inside it, and to see (and feel!) kicks outside it. I love seeing pregnant girls, and seeing how they carry themselves, to notice how they feel about themselves. I hope they are all happy with the magic they have growing inside their bodies, and I hope they realize it is something they never regret experiencing.People also make you feel special when you are pregnant. They comment on your ‘glow’ and on what they think the gender will be. They tell you how big and how cute your belly is, and maybe that you even look like ‘a straw with a bean in it’ or like you swallowed a watermelon. That’s sure what I felt like!Another thing I liked about being pregnant, is that we didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant. That made things more fun, I think, more interesting and more thought-provoking. Ha!