Pregnancy = "fun": who knew?

Today a coworker asked if I was sick of being pregnant. Without even thinking about it I said "Nope. I actually think it's really fun."

This is interesting because it means that either (a) my instinct is to tell big fat lies when this person asks me questions. or (b) I enjoy pain, puking and exhaustion (which makes me a masochist) when lined with a big fat miracle.

Knowing myself as well as I do (probably about as well as the back of my own hand* or something....) I'm betting that I'm more apt to "naturally lie" than enjoy pain and exhaustion.....but I don't lie to other people about this whole experience.

Anytime a woman asks how I'm feeling I'm brutally honest usually launching into some big whine-fest about how hard it is. As if these women don't already know how hard it is. The only women who care enough to ask are those who have been through it and know very well how hard it is and more importantly how hard it's going to become.

So I'm very confused by my response.

Am I ready to be done being pregnant? Absolutely not. Not even close. Because when pregnancy is over, this baby will be OUT of me....did you hear me? OUT. OF. ME. And that's when I lose all control. I'm not ready for that.

Am I sick and tired and growing more and more uncomfortable each day? Yes. Absolutely. I'm terrified for what the next 3 months bring.

Do I want to spend the rest of my life measuring how good my week is based on how many minutes I spent with my head in the toilet? No. Not really.

Do I wake up to kicking/punching thinking "that is the coolest thing on the planet" pretty much every day? Yes. Because it is the coolest thing on the planet.

Do I think it's a miracle that (1) I got pregnant (2) I stayed pregnant and (3) My baby is growing exactly as he should? Absolutely! Because it is a miracle.

So, while there are really cool aspects to pregnancy, I don't think that "fun" is the word I'd naturally use to describe this experience. It's amazing, I'm thankful for it, I love it, I enjoy the developments, I have an appreciation for my body I've never had before, I like to look at (and touch) my baby belly, but it's not like "hey what are you doing this weekend? being pregnant? oh you're so lucky! I wanna do that too! Then we can go to Disneyland and eat popsicles and paint rainbows!" It's more like "wow. I'm pregnant."

Things are hard and exhausting and stressful and scary and tiring and overwhelming and......sigh.....

Then again, it rocks to think my enormous stomach is cool. It's fun to learn about what my body is doing. It's interesting to learn about the thing growing inside me. I like being in the "pregnant ladies" club. I like having a built in (quite literally) conversation piece. I like that the guys at work come check on me regularly just to "make sure everything is going OK." I truly do enjoy being pregnant. So maybe it wasn't a lie. And maybe I'm not a masochist. Maybe it really is fun.

Who knew?


*In case you were wondering the back of my hand is actually pretty cool. I used to have 3 scars in my knuckle-valleys (is there a technical term for that area?) now there are only 1.5, but I still claim they are "my Wolverine scars from when my blades come out" every time Josh whispers in Sacrament Meeting "Where'd you get those scars?"