Favorite things

There are definitely some unglamorous aspects to being pregnant. Stuff I could maybe do without. Besides a myriad of digestion-related issues (I'd expand on this, but people I work with read this blog), there's the frequent abdominal pain as one's belly pooches out more and more every day. There's the bone-crushing exhaustion, which leads to ass-expanding laziness. The absent-mindedness that serves little purpose other than to annoy M. And the strange acne that plagues me now, even though as a teenager I was smooth-skinned as could be.

But there are some really, really great things about being pregnant. Of course, there's the one BIG THING of knowing you're growing a baby human in there. That alone makes being pregnant just about the coolest thing I've done yet (although seeing REO Speedwagon in concert in 6th grade was pretty awesome). And it's not just that people are nice and really happy for you when they find out you're going to be a mother, or that you can get away with falling asleep in meetings or at your desk because, hey, you've got a lot going on in there, what with the gestating at all.

There are a lot of subtle things that I really enjoy about this experience, some meaningful, and some shallow. All true.

I love:
-- My growing pooch. This belly business is something else. Even though I'm carrying really high and tend to look puffy more than pregnant, when I lift up my shirt and see that definition of where my body becomes the temporary home for this baby I am amazed.
-- Feeling Weeble kick me, punch me, and roll around in there. It's occasionally disconcerting, especially since she's extremely active these days and I constantly feel rather pummeled. But there's nothing like it.
-- I hardly have to shave my legs anymore. Seriously, practically no hair grows on them anymore. It's the weirdest thing ever, and not a side-effect I'd ever heard of before. But it comes in handy since it's getting annoying to bend over to shave anyway.
-- Thinking about how this little kicker is "our daughter." It's something of a thrill to use those words. Daughter. It's potent; so much so that I can't bring myself to say it out loud. It's almost like a secret thrill.
-- Imagining what she'll be like, and what we'll teach her, where we'll take her, and what music we'll expose her to. It's even fun to think about the fact that at some point, she'll be listening to music that M and I think is utter crap, and we'll wonder who this freak is we brought into the world. Yep, even that's cool. Maybe more for me than M, since I'm well aware of the sh*t music I thought was just swell back in my pre-teen years and I turned out just fine. After all, M fell in love with me because of my music collection.
-- Thinking of how my husband will be as a father. I'm pretty sure he's just as nervous about this as I am about being a mother. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like he would be. But I think he'll be so good at it. And I can't wait for him and Weeble to be introduced.
-- Thinking about how my mother will be as a grandmother - and mother to a mother. She's not really a baby sort. She likes kids, but only once they get to an age where they can hold normal conversations. Babies are not her thing. Plus, for the first 20 years of my life, it's been her and me. Boys have come and gone (with the exception of M, who obviously stayed). But for her, I've always been it. And for me, she's always been it. So me having a baby changes our relationship completely - and in ways neither of us can possibly anticipate. It's going to be a new chapter for us, and I'm looking forward to it. Plus, my mom is the one person who will always be my mommy if I need her to be.
-- Singing to Weeble. I don't do it on purpose, really. I never set out to sing to my belly. But I sing all the time anyway, and whenever I do (usually during my commute to work) I catch myself and think, "She can hear me right now." And I smile.

There are many more things about this experience that I love. I guess most of it is the forward-looking stuff. The dreams and the hopes I already have for her, for her father, and for the three of us (six of us - including the cats and dog) as a family. I know we don't know what we're in for, and it won't be all tender moments. But she's making an impact on me (and not just with her little feet and fists) already, and I just can't wait to meet her.