Whoops I'm pregnant

Reflections from the past 9ish months

What the hell?

I never imagined I’d have one of these stories.

I definitely did not think I’d be here, at my kitchen table in Fort Lauderdale, legs spread wide on the chair so that my gigantic low hanging belly could fit between my legs.

This past summer I got pregnant and then got married and then moved across the country.

I did not intend to do these things in this order or in this truncated amount of time, but here I am, just a few weeks before the day the app says we’ll have a baby.

It feels like forever ago I took the test.

Like some crazy fever dream that made me confront all of my biggest fears and hopes for the future at once. After the first two tests we ran back to CVS for more tests, terrified and manic, slingshotted into another dimension where the clock started ticking down to a date that didn’t seem far enough away.

I never thought about having an abortion. I was already with the person I wanted to have babies with, which was extremely comforting, but I’d be lying if I didn’t acknowledge the sense of relief I fantasied about if I’d had a miscarriage.

Sheesh, this suddenly feels very risky to share.

I feel the need to explain that I’m not even sure this was ever a fully formed thought in my mind because it is so completely inappropriate and slightly sickening.

These aren’t the thoughts you’re supposed to share.
Too taboo for this world and this moment.
But it is as true as any other very desperately private thought.

Because being pregnant before I wanted to be pregnant threatened parts of my self image that had become important to my identity.

This isn’t how it was supposed to go.

Being pregnant before I wanted to be pregnant meant I had to confront a lot of fears and questions I wasn’t ready to confront, all while having the craziest shit ever happening inside my body.

Would I feel the inevitable divide with my non-baby-having friends? Would my new marriage lose all romance and be held together by logistics? Would I become the kind of parent who forgets how to say something interesting?

I spent so much time and energy worrying about how this new chapter would swallow up the life I hadn’t lived yet.

But the thing you always forget about watching your fears play out is that it feels much different than you think it will because it’s mixed around with the stuff you didn’t think about.

I didn’t think about how being pregnant before I wanted to be pregnant would make our lives a whole lot more interesting and funny. I didn’t expect I’d be so open to giving my body the care and respect I’d never been able to give it before.

Gaining a pound every week feels shockingly liberating.

Seeing that positive test, Matt and I got to experience the rare gift of being truly ‘oh-shit’ surprised, together in the exact same second. We got to watch our families experience it too– some of the greatest shared moments we’ve had.

We started to read books and hear stories about what was coming our way and laugh in terror. What do you mean I could split the place between my vagina and asshole?? What do you mean my belly button might “never be the same?”

We used AI for what it was really built for and put our faces together so that we could see what our baby would look like. Hilarious.

And yet I still cannot picture it. Choosing not to find out the gender has been cool in that way. Even though there is like a fully formed infant in there, I still can’t really imagine anything other than what we see through the ultrasound— a static-y little alien surrounded by my intestines.

I’ve been looking “really pregnant” for a while now.

Like the kind of pregnant where I can feel the way society has moved me in their minds from one category to another. No longer a subtly hot young woman, but a sort of sweet, waddling, lady that automatically makes your lip pout and eyebrows soften. “Aww” an expectant mother.

It’s tough because on the one hand I really hate that it feels like I’ve aged 10 years overnight, but on the other hand I reaaaallllly like being congratulated at the grocery store.

Now I almost don’t remember life before I started counting time in gestational weeks, grouped together and separated in thirds.

There is something satisfying about being on this very regimented, set journey, with a definitive beginning, middle and end, so wholly common and intensely unique.

How will I continue on without knowing how many weeks and days I am?

How will I cope when my hormones death drop and everyone shifts their energy to the main character at the end of this story, which is in fact not me but the baby?

There is this living mystery that is about to change my life and I’m just walking around with it.

I’ve come to terms with, and am mostly delighted by, the fact that my body is not my own anymore but I still look in the mirror and think, how the hell did I get here?

I know now that I’ve entered into the twilight zone. The time when it could spontaneously happen–today, tomorrow, a month–and then everything is changed forever.

I’ve been dreading writing this because it is almost as uncomfortable and miraculous to describe as it is to experience.

How could I possibly capture it?
But also how could I not?

I guess that's really what a document of a life-changing time in your life is though… it can never accurately describe the intensity you feel in the moment or account for everything that comes afterwards.

thank you to our insanely talented friend Geethu James for making me feel like the most beautiful almost-mommy in the world.

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p.s. thank you to

Haley Nahman

for inspiring this post and to

Sasha Chapin

and

Claire Coley

for helping me bring something much more real and slightly scary to it.