The "Glow" of Pregnancy

I have a lot of friends and family that are expecting little bundles of joy right now.  In fact I have two cousins that were like sisters to me growing up that are both expecting their first child.  It’s pretty amazing and wonderful that they are getting to go through the experience together.  In talking to them, I have remembered a lot of what pregnancy was like for me, and what it was like for some people I know. 

Everyone talks about pregnancy like it is the most beautiful miraculous time of your entire life, and I’m just going to go ahead and call bull-shit on the whole thing.  It is just bull-shit, yes pregnancy is a miracle, and the way a tiny little person is growing inside your body is pretty freaking awesome, but it is far from the beautiful journey that it is made out to be.  For me pregnancy was HELL, and I don’t mean I was just a little uncomfortable, I mean that I was so uncomfortable that I would have done absolutely ANYTHING to get that baby out of me, just so that I could actually sleep at night.  In fact I remember throwing some pretty harsh words and my OB towards the end of my pregnancy, something to the effect of “if you don’t get this damn baby out of me, I’m going to go find someone that will”, he knew I was full of it, but I was SO done being pregnant at that point, I just wanted it to be over.  And forget about eating, everything made me want to throw up, I swear the only thing I could keep down were Tums, I should have bought stock in them, because I’m pretty sure I bought enough of them to allow some senior exec to buy that multi-million dollar beach house they were wanting. 

Everyone talks about that beautiful glow that pregnant women have, well here’s a secret for you, that glow, is not what you think it is, it is a mixture of vomit and sweat that for some strange reason leaves a remarkable shimmer on your skin, however, if you had witnessed that pregnant chick in the bathroom puking her brains out a few minutes earlier, you would understand a little better about how that “glow” got there.  I stayed sick during my pregnancy, everything made me vomit, from the way a restaurant smelled, to one of my kids, or husband ripping one in the car (yeah that really happened, had to pull over and throw up on the side of the road). 

Pregnancy SUCKS.  Between the constant peeing, nausea, indigestion that would kill a fire breathing dragon, back pain, lack of being able to take a real breath, constipation, horrible gas (yeah I said it), acne, and the crushing pressure on your who-ha, pregnancy is just not pretty.  And then there is the almost uncontrollable urge to punch people in the throat, whether it be your husband, children, mother, or some complete stranger that gets in your way in the grocery store. They don’t really have to do anything either, just the sound of my husband breathing made me want to kill him in his sleep.  Then there are the ass holes that insist on making remarks about your growing belly, it’s almost like they just don’t know what to say, so they say whatever comes to mind, like “oh wow look how big you are, is it twins?” or “wow you are getting huge”, these kind of remarks are like fuel for an already burning forest fire, these comments are enraging, and quite frankly it is a miracle that I didn’t punch some people in the throat during my pregnancies.

                                                 This is me towards the end of my last pregnancy, 

                                                                 you can almost see the misery on my face

One of the only good things about being pregnant is being able to eat what you want, and blame it on the baby, and when people make big eyes at how high you have managed to stack the food on your plate at family holidays, you can just smile and say I’m eating for two, and they don’t judge you anymore.  I learned the hard way that doing things this way only sticks you with a fat ass and cellulite for days in the end. 

The thing that I enjoyed most about pregnancy didn’t happen during my pregnancies, it happened after I had the babies.  I had to have C-sections with each of my pregnancies, and afterward I was given a morphine drip for about 8-12 hours, those were the best hours I had had in months, I could breathe again, and rest and I did not want to kill anyone anymore.  That time spent in the hospital was the best for me, to be able to rest, and lay in the bed and have my husband go down to the cafeteria and get me a grilled cheese, and have the nurses bring me medication that took all the pain away every four hours, and if the baby wasn't sleeping, the nurses would come and get him for a few hours so that I could rest, that time was better than any part of my pregnancies, and that is the only thing that I will miss about having more babies.  I am happy to be at the end of my baby having journey, to not be faced with the possibility of having more children in the future, because if I had to do it again, someone would die!  And if for some reason my tubes being tied does not work and I do wind up pregnant, someone is going down!!