3/23/2006

Why live in the world when you can live in your head

Since I spend most of my blogging life apologising anyway, I'm sorry. I'm totally going to make this post into my own little IFer version of the painfully skinny girl who moans that she's fat all the time when you want to slap the bitch and tell her how lucky she really is. Just don't do what I did in that situation in high school and tell her that yes, she really is a fat cow. Then she'll go and need to be hospitalised for anorexia and blame you for it. She will swear to cut off your eyelashes when she's all better too, just to spite you. True story, but I digress.

So being pregnant...yeah. I'm not digging it. Obviously given the option of being pregnant after all this time versus not being pregnant after all this time, I would choose pregnancy. However, no one warned me how freaky the whole process is. I can't remember a blog post written by anyone saying anything along the lines of, "My soul has been removed by beings unknown and placed in the warped body that I have no control over". This is how I feel at the moment. In the past few weeks my body has magically turned into something meant to house and nuture this Enid, and it's starting to look like that is its purpose as well.

I know this seems like such a stupid, obvious claim to make. Wait, you mean when you're pregnant your body...changes? You don't say? It goes beyond that though. I had a panic attack in bed the other night whilst I was laying there running my hands over my newly rounded, firm stomach (Note: This was a purely scientific touching up. There was no gleeful belly rubbing, I swear). The stomach I was touching was surely not my own. All of this is happening so quickly, and it's difficult to come to terms with the fact that it is beyond my control. In just a few weeks I have gone from "possibly just fat" to "pregnant belly forward ho!" and it's all rather overwhelming. Don't even get me started on the bellybutton-nearly-popping thing either, because I may just cry.

This isn't about not fitting into my clothes. It's not a vanity thing, it's a "what the fuck is happening to me?" thing. I can cope with thinking about there possibly being an Enid based in the spare bedroom come August, because a baby I can handle, she says naively. However, a thing that makes your belly and boobs grow at alarming rates and pokes you throughout your work day is just...disconcerting. I do feel as if I have ceased to be me, as this whole experience is foreign. This body isn't mine, and this reality isn't either.

I had my are-you-pregnant cherry popped the other day and I felt sick after it happened. I should have known that the ex-coworker casting the odd glance at my stomach was arriving at her own conclusions, but to have to say it definitively to an acquaintance was bizarre. I had a total pod person moment when I felt as if I had just astrally hopped into this pregnant person's body and assumed her identity. Pregnant? Me? Really?

I've had some time to think about the whole pregnancy thing. About 3 1/2 years in fact. I should have known that if it did happen, that I would be thrown into some existential crisis whereby I would start to question who I really am and what I want. The same thing happened when The Dude and I got engaged, and later when we got married. After the engagement, I hesitated to tell people the news. I didn't feel old enough to be engaged, and couldn't bear the thought of using the word "fiance". That was for grown-ups, and surely I was just out of high school? Marriage was even more traumatic in that sense, as it took me months to cough up the word "husband" in conversation. Again, I pictured myself as a child bride, not ready for the level of maturity and commitment that marriage brings.

So here we are again. The ::ahem:: damage is done, and here I am questioning it all after the fact. I'm now old enough to be married and I can cope with that, but shit...being pregnant? I have to carry it in my body? It's all getting a bit serious now and I hope I can sort out my head before Enid reaches puberty. It's crazy in there.

9 comments:

Bittermama said...

Yeah. Pregnancy sucks. As I said to H. the other night (I'm currently on my fifth cold of this pregnancy, this one accompanied by the added bonus of raging pink eye in both eyes), babies are nice, but pregnancy sucks ass. And those women who coast through pregnancy without puking and hacking up mucous and spraining muscles they didn't even know they had make me sick.

Anonymous said...

Showing in public! Feeling baby movements! Wow, it's so real now!

Sorry your body has been replaced by that of an alien. Glad it's not this guy's:

http://tinyurl.com/f22mr

Anonymous said...

I have similar thoughts nearly every day. Who was I trying to kid thinking I could handle this? And I feel like I'm wearing a false belly like the witch's nose in the Holy Grail. It can't be mine. It's too weird. I laughed today when the nurse gave us our preadmission forms to fill out. When she left I confided to my husband, she thinks we're having a baby hahaha!

Anonymous said...

Oh, I'm sure that I'd be the same way. It's got to be weird to just hand your body over to an alien host for 9 months and worry about all the shit that will change.

Anonymous said...

Alien! ExACTly. I've ALWAYS thought that the way mammals procreate is just... well... kind of creepy. I've always thought that laying an egg seems MUCH more civilized and human.

Unknown said...

Not only do you have to carry it in your body but...now here's the REALLY freaky part...it has to COME OUT of your body too.

That was never mentioned in the brochure. They kinda just concentrated on how to get it in there in the first place.

Personally, I'd much prefer the marsupial way of doing things. Then at least you could open your pouch to check how they're coming along.

Oh, and even though I am the size of the side of a barn and about to have a baby's head poking out any day now, I still forget I'm pregnant occasionally.

Perhaps we'll both get it together before they hit puberty.

Anonymous said...

It has been POKING you? Like there is really a live baby-thing in there? I would think it is comepletely normal to be freaked out by all of this, but what do I know.
I am sorry you are having such a hard time, but don't beat yourself up about it. You are under absolutely no obligation to enjoy pregnancy, nor are you expected to get through it without having all of the mini-breakdowns that other women have. I think you are doing excellently. Mwah.

Eggs Akimbo said...

I got married when I was nearly 26 and thought I was too you. Now all my closest girlfriends are getting married and/or having babies. Your age is a great one to be preggers. Enjoy the kicking - it gets freakier and you can see your stomach actually move.

cat said...

Those second thoughts are pretty normal. Nice to have some right and proper "normal" worries now ain't it? Pregnancy does suck a lot of ass. Fortunately it is temporary and the end products is mostly pretty wonderful.