Missing: My Body

I seem to have lost my body to My Little Parasites (and I mean that in the most affectionate way possible). I'm just a co-tenant in this baby-making-and-soothing icubator and my lease isn't coming up anytime soon. I still nurse A a few times a week. My arms are for lifting and cuddling him, my legs are for carrying him, my hands are for helping him up and down stairs and cleaning poops and messy jelly faces. My belly belongs to his brother right now. I told G recently that he could have my body back in a couple of years, but right now it's taken, and I have to get it back before I can give it again freely. I'm amazed by the way it knows how to grow and feed a little human, but I miss feeling like it's mine, too.

At 5 months pregnant, I'm looking more pregnant and less like I had too many Krispy Kremes. I love looking pregnant - this huge change is happening in my life and I can easily share it with the world (a total blogger mindset). As I got bigger and bigger with A, two years ago, people seemed to get nicer and nicer, too. People smiled more, were more likely to hold doors for me, let me go first in the grocery line, etc. I remember one exchange where the grocery clerk insisted that Bag Boy Timmy assist me with my groceries even though I'd declined the offer. "We don't want you go to into labor!" Well, as a matter of fact, I was 2 weeks overdue and we DID want me to go into labor. If hoisting a couple of 12-packs (soda, although beer was looking pretty good to me at that point) into the trunk would do it, fine by me. Timmy, get back to bagging - I'm handling it.

But I digress. While I like looking pregnant, I'm not so crazy about feeling pregnant. Feeling the baby kick is cool if you can get past imagining that scene in Alien where the monster bursts out of the tummy. But, as I was preparing for A, when I read about "what to expect," I read about the symptoms, i.e. indigestion, constipation, etc., but what they should have said was, "You're growing something the size of a watermelon in your belly. What do you THINK is going to happen to all your internal organs?" It's more descriptive to explain that they all get smushed. To the top, to the bottom, to the sides, especially if you're only 5 feet tall. And, because my pelvic joints are getting a tiny bit old they don't like being pulled and stretched. They rebel and refuse to work anymore. So when I have to get up in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom, as I am apt to do even when I don't have a watermelon sitting on my bladder, I can't walk for a couple of seconds until my hips unfreeze and decide to move. Even then, I have to use my dresser and the walls to support me - I move absolutely like a 90-year-old lady too stubborn to call the nurse. My inner thighs, quads, hamstrings and glutes feel like I run an uphill marathon daily. It makes rolling over in bed quite difficult - and I'm not even at the stage where I need a crane to lift the belly.

I can see why women are made to have babies in their 20's. Now, I know quite a few younger women who have had more difficult pregnancies than I. I'm not gestationally diabetic, my blood pressure is fine, placenta and cervix seem to be working OK. I'm beyond grateful that my body gets pregnant easily and seems to grow babies without serious complications. Really. Still, I think my body would have handled this better 10 years ago.

Which reminds me, how 'bout that 59-year-old woman unexpectedly pregnant with twins after having her tubes tied? I saw the story on the TV monitor in my OB-GYNs office, and you should have seen the horrified faces of the women in the waiting room. I think the guys were kind of scared too.