I love my baby and I hated being pregnant
I have been routinely complaining in my week notes about being pregnant. I am happy to report that I have exited the terminal stages of pregnancy and now in what many refer to as the “fourth trimester,” that is, taking care of a tiny creature that eats, sleeps, and poops on, at best, a two-hour cycle.
I love my baby even so. She is very cute and will, I hope, grow up to be a cool person despite my influence. You will need to trust me and take my word for this; I will not be sharing pictures of her here because I have been on the internet long enough to know better.
My loved ones and I celebrated my pregnancy as a prospect: we were excited for a new addition to the family and all the new adventures that would come along with that. The end result of a baby of course means the journey was worthwhile, but sometimes that adventure fucking blows and it is okay to say these things out loud. I am happy for all the people for whom pregnancy is a magical experience, where they feel connected to their body and their baby for nine months. I am not among this crowd. I have never seen Alien but I have seen Spaceballs and am therefore informed enough to compare the experience of being pregnant to that one scene where the wretched tiny alien baby bursts out of a person and performs a dance number. Pregnancy was like nine months of anticipating that, augmented by rotating and overlapping fits of nausea, insomnia, and exhaustion.
I am lucky that my pregnancy was relatively uncomplicated. I am somehow in acceptable health in spite of my efforts. I never had issues with blood pressure, never had preeclampsia or gestational diabetes or hypertension, though I certainly worried about all them. I did not struggle with fertility, and the pregnancy was planned and wanted. I have a great partner, a home, and stable income. By all conceptions, this was a best case scenario. And I still fucking hated it.
My friends who have been pregnant report how awed they were to witness their body take control and figure out how to grow a human. My friends, with love, are sickos. I instead felt totally disconnected from a body that no longer felt in my control or as though it belonged to me. Every function (and malfunction) were etched in horrific detail and I a specter, a ghost of an image, a fleeting glimpse of the before-person. I was in a constant cloud of anxiety and impatience. It was the longest nine months of my life.
I am changed for the experience. It’s hard to see through the fog and consider who I was before, let alone compare it to an infirm conception of who I am now. I imagine that will only come with time and hindsight. It’s all still settling — I tear up every time I try to think back to going into labor and my C-section. Call it hormonal, but while it’s all fresh, I feel it is important to document how I’m feeling now. Folks speak about a kind of memory loss that occurs postpartum where you forget just how awful it was to be pregnant; perhaps that happens because you’re distracted by the arrival of a new baby. Perhaps it’s because of the lack of sleep. Perhaps it’s our biologically determinate lizard brains because we would never do this a second time if we remembered just how grueling it was to get here. Right now my answer to the question of another kid is a resounding “fuck no.” I am open to that, too, changing with time, but consider this a natal postmortem, and something more women should say lest we drown in the chorus of others who describe pregnancy as something magical. This does not make me less of a woman or a person and, I hope, not less as a mother. Time will tell on that, too, but in case I ever allow myself to foolishly forget, here is my record of my momentary feelings: I hated being pregnant.