If I could just be honest for a moment...

I am asked how I am feeling all the time. At least someone, my grandma, my neighbor or the lady in front of me in line at the drug store, asks me nearly everyday. Generally, my answer is the same, "Pretty good. You know, tired, but good." I suppose my answer is not a lie; considering all I went through to get here, I am feeling pretty good. While I may not be lying, I am also not being entirely honest either. Mostly, it is not worth it to me (or them) to be totally honest to the random stranger who is just trying to be nice and conversational while we wait for our items to be rung up. But even more than that, the truth of how I am really feeling, riddles me with guilt. All the time, money and tears that were spent getting me to this place? I should feel nothing by joy and thankfulness for this wonderful blessing that is growing inside my loving womb.

But you know what? Screw guilt. I deserve to say how I am really feeling. For me, being pregnant....kinda sucks.

I'm uncomfortable and everything hurts. I can't bend over to tie my shoes or clip my toenails. My already bad back is all, "Um, what the hell is this bowling ball you have now decided you need to carry around all day long? Also, why did you stop doing your exercises? Can you just take something and be done with...wait what? WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO ADVIL??" I'm starving most of the time but everything gives me wretched heartburn. Some days I think I should just skip the cereal and pour milk over a bowl of TUMS since that is probably how many I am going to have to eat that day anyway.

I am moody and my patience is essentially nonexistent.  With the inability to self medicate with booze, my husband and son get the brunt of this exciting new development in my personality. Incidentally, I think booze has become his coping mechanism of choice to deal with all these evil hormones coursing though my baby-growing veins. Grant, not Charlie. At least as far as we know.

I kinda hate the way I look. I know, I know, I know. I am not fat, I am pregnant. But the body image issues I had before do not just magically disappear the second you start gestating life My belly is not the only thing that is growing. In addition to that my thighs, face and ass are generously spreading across my couch at a rate visible to the naked eye. Sure, I could get off the couch and do something about it but I am pretty much too exhausted most days to brush my own teeth, let alone exercise. Instead, I just look at my ever expanding body and cry.

Oh, also, I cry ALL THE TIME.

And can I just say one more thing about all this lovely changes to my body? Calling them "tiger stripes" does not make me hate them any less and curse their very existence. That's right, you stupid, purplish, squiggly lines winding their way across my belly like a mid-western road map! It's because of you little assholes that I will NEVER WEAR A BIKINI AGAIN!!!!

So why do we do it? Just recently when I was lamenting to a friend about my pregnancy woes she said so wisely, "I wouldn't feel bad about it. You don't do it for the pregnancy." This is so very true. I got pregnant to have a baby, raise a family and give a sibling to Charlie. I didn't get pregnant to be pregnant. Another friend of our told us about a cousin of theirs. During her pregnancies she suffered from paralyzing migraines, immobilizing back pain and "morning sickness" that basically lasts all day and all nine months. And you know what else? She has three children. THREE. She put herself through all of that three separate times, willingly.

And that is why women are so amazing to me. Not because of our "tiger stripes" or the the fact that we can grow another human life inside our own bodies. It's the fact that we are willing to do it all in the first place. And not only that, we will do it again and again, as many times as we have to or as many times as we want too. We knowingly put our bodies through hell for children that don't even exist yet. It's remarkable, really.

I don't know if I will have another child after this one. When I say "I don't know" it really means two things: I don't know if I want to and and literally don't know if I can. But what I do know is that IF I wanted to and IF I could, I would do it all again. Despite everything I just bitched about above, I really would. I'd do anything for them, whoever they maybe. And that, I suppose, is really what being a mama is about.