Amnesia and survival

I had lunch today with Irvin and Karen, which was fun and entertaining as it always is. Irvin and I haven't seen each other in a while, so we got caught up and he asked me the usual questions, like how I'm feeling and how the pregnancy is progressing. And then he asked, "Do you enjoy being pregnant?" And I had to stop for a moment to think about that, because no one really asks. And the short answer is, "not really." I've been really lucky thus far, in that I have had an easy pregnancy. On a scale of 1-10, 1 being a dream pregnancy and 10 being a nightmare pregnancy, I think mine has been around a 2 or 3. There have definitely been little problems here and there, but nothing that required medical attention or that proved to be more than a minor annoyance. And yet, I can't think of any reason I'd prefer to be pregnant than not be pregnant.

Over the years, I've gone back and forth on whether I wanted kids, but the one constant has been that I've wanted to experience pregnancy and birth. For a lot of women, I think it's the other way around: they want the kids, but don't want bother of pregnancy. For me, going through the physical experience of being pregnant was always an issue of intellectual curiosity. It's definitely one of those things that you can try to describe to someone who hasn't experienced it, but almost impossible, I think, to really convey the entire experience. The problem for me right now is that, well, I've experienced it! I know what it's like to feel nauseous and exhausted, to be unwieldy and yet still growing, to feel an active baby kicking and punching, to feel the physical aches and pains and the mental and emotional worries about the baby growing, to experience how pregnancy changes a simple act like turning over in bed or getting out of a low-slung chair...and now, I'm kind of ready for it to be over. Been there, done that, time to move on.

Which brings me to the amnesia part. You often hear women talk about how they forget what pregnancy and labor are like and how that obviously must be a genetic survival mechanism, because who in their right mind would want to go through that again? I can see now how absolutely true that is and again, I've had an easy time of it, so I can imagine that if I feel this way, women who have it much tougher must feel the entire 40 weeks dragging by. Being in the thick (ha) of it right now, I can honestly say that I'm glad I did this and got to see what it's like and I'm 100% excited about meeting the baby and watching her grow, but I don't know if I want to be pregnant again. And yet, Chris and I have always talked about having 2 kids. So unless we decide to adopt or use a surrogate, I will have to go through this whole thing again. And in order to do that, I'm going to have to forget the downsides of this pregnancy. And I have no doubt that I will, because even many of the women I know who had horrible first pregnancies (including my own mother) went on to do it again. They managed to forget, so I know I will too. (Either that or they are just mentally tougher than I am.) The survival of the human species depends on that amnesia.

That said, there is one thing that makes me a little sad when I think about giving birth and being done with the pregnancy itself. The baby and I, we are this little system right now. She's fully contained within me and fully dependent on me. In a way, it's the most private relationship possible. Chris can feel her kick when he's around and she's awake, and he has his own interpretations of her personality based on her actions. But I'm the only one who is with her every moment of the day. I feel every single little squirm, bump, and kick and I'm the only one who can. At this moment, I don't have to share her with anyone. A part of me is always tuned into her because she's always there. I feel like I know her intimately and I think I will miss that once she's born. Naturally, an entirely different and ultimately richer relationship will develop once she's on the outside, but for now, I still get to have this one little thing that's just mine.