Previously I wrote about how being pregnant is mostly physically fine, and comes with a big upside.
Third trimester is getting pretty weird though.
A lot of the weight you gain during pregnancy is water, if you’re gaining the recommended amount of weight. You fully double your quantity of blood. Double! What the fuck! You gain about as much again in just tissue fluids, and half as much again in amniotic fluid.
Partially this has made me significantly less upset about all the bleeding1 that I’ll be doing postpartum. Like—yeah, I sure hope I bleed for a while. I need to get this shit out of me. I feel like a goddamn water balloon.
Some days I wear compression socks if I wake up with particularly swollen feet, or if I know I’ll be walking around a significant amount of time that day. You know what happens then? My hands swell up instead.
Something a little on the nose here. Sure, kids keep a marriage together. For one thing my fingers are so fat there’s no way I’d be able to take off my wedding ring even if I wanted to.
The other day my husband put his hands on my shoulders and went, “Hmm…you feel. Denser than normal.” Reader, it was the Fluids.
Pregnancy is pretty disabling. Weirdly, I am okay with this, which I wouldn’t have predicted. Partially it is the Fluids, partially the extra weight making being on my feet more painful, and partially it is the Shape.
The Shape is very inconvenient. There are not really any comfortable ways to sleep while experiencing the Shape, and rolling over is an entire goddamn clowncar production. I basically live inside this thing 24/7:
This is not what is distressing about the Shape. If the Shape were merely physically inconvenient, it would be annoying, but also kind of silly and ridiculous and fun. Haha, I’m an egg!
But what seems to have happened is that my internal bodymap has not actually updated to accommodate the recent renovations, so anytime I catch sight of myself in the mirror, my brain goes AAAAAAAA!!! WRONG SHAPE!!!!
Curiously it does not seem to be a gender thing.2 It feels much more like a bodily integrity thing, which is connected to but not the same thing as gender dysphoria. I generally put a high premium on bodily integrity—I find the idea of so much as getting a piercing to be viscerally repugnant—so it makes sense that I am having this reaction. I just wasn’t expecting it to be so strong.
It’s also coming with a whole sidecar of related psychological experiences that I don’t much care for either. I think they are called “Body Image Issues”???
I totally missed the memo in middle school that I was supposed to be ashamed of my body and insecure about my desirability. I guess I was behind the door when they were handing those out. And because I skipped that experience I now have zero antibodies to it. I’m having deranged, sick, crazy person thoughts like “Do I look old? I should pick up a skincare habit” and “Maybe if I started shaving my legs and grew my hair out I would be worthy of love again.”
I do not like the Shape.
Before this pregnancy I was your typical rootless cosmopolitan educated liberal millennial, practicing a traditional religion culturally at best, profoundly disconnected from the viscerality of childbearing and rearing. My conceptualization of pregnancy was closest to the pro-choice narrative—it’s going to be like a clump of cells right up until nearly the due date, right? Or at least some kind of weird alien thing?
But actually around 5 months I went in for an ultrasound and huh, wow, yeah, that is full on regular human baby. There is a Human Baby inside of me.
My son already has a face and a full head of hair and has for months. If he slid out of me today he’d probably survive. Not without consequences but he would.
He seems to sleep sometimes. Apparently they can swallow while still in the womb? The little suckers just reflexively drink amniotic fluid in there? And practice breathing?
He probably has some level of conscious awareness and is probably forming at least short-term memories. When he comes out he will probably remember what it was like to be inside me, at least for a while.
What the fuck.
Recently an acquaintance3 remarked to me that he couldn’t possibly imagine what it is like to be pregnant. But actually being pregnant is pretty similar to a lot of other things. Ever suddenly gained a lot of weight? Gotten really bloated or had heartburn? Been on a long hike and had your feet swell up? Worn a hoodie with slightly too much stuff stashed awkwardly in the front pocket? Gone off a GLP-1? Quit drinking? Very few pregnancy experiences are specific to pregnancy. You can probably imagine it just fine.
Except this part. This part seems pretty unique.4
