32 weeks pregnant.

   Not for nothin, but things are really happening over here. A new person is using my body to make it's own. Super sci-fi, super ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. Happens all the time. It's  the second time it's happened to me. I wasn't sure there'd be a second time. The first time left me speechless.
   For some, it's nothing but miraculous and delightful and wonder filled. That's lovely. But it's not so for everyone. I checked. Lots of women have a hard time being pregnant. There's so much going on in your body when someone else's body starts to grow inside of yours. Physical things, hormonal things, emotional and mental things, spiritual things, all the things. Ultimately it is grand, when it's over and you get your baby, your new person to love and to raise. I know this now because like I said, I've done this once before. But before you get to that baby part, there's a whole lot of mysterious, mystical, radical, confounding things happening to you.
   My belly has stretched to hold my new person. Like someone has attached a tire pump to my belly button and has filled me with too much air. My body feels heavy, like I am wearing soaking wet clothes, extra pounds to carry.  When I move, things pull and when I am still, things push. My breath leaves me and I have to stop to catch it, like I have been running after a cab, flailing my arms wildly, stopping to catch my breath, still trying to waive it down. Come back, breath. Even though I have not been running, maybe I just carried a pair of shoes upstairs, or maybe I just walked from the dining room into the kitchen.
   I am itchy. My breasts and belly are itchy, the varicose veins that have sprouted all along the back of my left leg like the trail left by a manic slug, itch and are hot to the touch. They ache and pulse and I place a hand on them to sooth them. I have a compression stocking to wear too, when I have enough breath and flexibility to put it on. I have two small spots of poison ivy that I shouldn't scratch, not pregnancy related, but there they are. I should not mention the hemorrhoids.
   I cannot see what is below my waist. I cannot reach the kitchen faucet unless I turn sideways and stretch over. I cannot lean close to the bathroom mirror to see my face, I can only look from a distance. I cannot sit on the floor for long, or bend over easily. Getting dressed is difficult, balancing and getting my feet into my shorts, so uncomfortable to stand this way. My hips ache and my back is unhappy with me.
   When I sit, I feel a great upward and downward pressure, compacting what, I don't know. When I lie down, there is pulling and then there is movement from inside, adjusting, shuddering, rolling, pushing with hands and feet, head and rump. Sometimes I gasp and have to push back, afraid something will break free, will tear, will fall apart if I don't hold down the rising tide of baby that swells so suddenly.
    I am tired, slowed down to meander through my days, stopping to sit, stopping to breathe, stopping to close my eyes, stopping to look for a moment at something I can't do that I'd like to.
    I am self conscious. When I go out to run errands, cashiers ask me when I am due. They think I am due in a couple of weeks, but I am due in a couple of months. Their eyes grow wide and they say, "You must be having twins!" This adds to my anxiety, wondering how much bigger and uncomfortable I will become, how much less I will be able to do, how much more difficult it will become to navigate my body around my days and nights. And I feel shamed. I am "too big", my  belly is "too fat" for how pregnant I am. And it is so obvious and it is so shameful, that it is acceptable for a stranger to tell me they think so.
    And I am lucky. Of course I am. I am blessed. This is my second baby. I am 40 years old. I needed no fertility treatments, no shots, no drugs, no big expense. It took only a few months of trying, not even feeling 100% sure that I should have another baby, to do it all again, for me to get pregnant.
   Some women want desperately to get pregnant and can't. Some women get pregnant and don't want to be. And some try even though they are not exactly sure they want to be and then they are. Along with so many other jumping off places in between. There is no perfect formula or moment or way to get pregnant. It happens. Or it doesn't.
   I am grateful. I am amazed. I am in awe. I am excited. I am pregnant. I already love the little boy that is growing inside of me. More than I had the first time I was pregnant, I understand who this baby will be to me. Even though I haven't met him yet, now I know how it feels to care for a baby, to watch him grow, see him smile and laugh, crawl, walk, talk, and turn into the little alien full of questions about Earth, guiding him through everything, loving him, and him loving me back.
   All of the good, the very, very big goodness of it, the miraculous being, growing, becoming, bringing forth into the worldness of it, does not make it simple. Or easy. Or comfortable. And for me, that is real. That is my experience. This is wonderful and it is uncomfortable. One does not negate the other. Both things exist.
   The discomfort and the great and demanding physical changing that leaves me feeling awkward in the way I move around, the way I feel about myself, the way people react to me, is a lonely thing. A baby adds to a family, to a community, to the world. This baby is my husband's son, my son's brother. He'll be a grandson and a nephew and loved by lots of people. But the experience of carrying him as he grows and becomes able to enter the world, is mine. If something happens to him and he does not make it, he would still be mine to birth. He is every one's baby but this part of his life, is so entwined with mine, he and I journey along together. He is silent and invisible. I am more visible than ever.
   I wish I had pregnant friends. Remembering pregnancy is quite different than being pregnant. Every pregnancy is different. This pregnancy is different from my first. Although my memories of being pregnant are fuzzy now. I remember being surprised by how much work it was, physically. How demanding it felt and how it sort of took over. If I had pregnant friends, we could talk easily about how it feels, all of the truth of it, without the guilt or worry. I stay up late reading pregnancy forums to make sure I am not crazy. To read what other women have written about the same symptoms I have. The same frustrations and fears. Every time I go out and someone comments on me being too big, I come home and do a Google image search of whatever number of weeks pregnant I am, to be sure I am not a freak of nature. I think I look the right size, but it is hard for me to know what I look like.
   With the heaviness of the extra physical weight I am carrying, I have been carrying an emotional weight lately. Feeling uncomfortable and wanting to talk about it and being met with criticism, is painful.
   I am just a human. I am having a human experience, a pretty common one at that. I am not perfect. I am not trying to be. I am certainly not looking to offend anyone by talking about my discomfort. Admitting to being uncomfortable while pregnant does not mean I am not also grateful.
   I think, when we are in pain, it is helpful to share it with the people in our lives who care about us and to feel supported. Empathy is a beautiful thing. Being real and vulnerable has brought me a lot of strength and healing in my life. The quieter I am with my sorrows, the bigger they become.
   I am scared. I am scared that I will get too big to leave the house. I am scared that I will get too big to get out of bed at night to pee. I am scared that I will be in increasing amounts of pain for the next 8 weeks.  I want to spin a cocoon and hide until the baby is born. Come back out when I can move again. When I can reach my toes and run around the block.
   And  I am sad. I am sad that I am being critiqued and judged while I am struggling.
   Maybe this is a pathetic post. Let us keep in mind, I am full of extra hormones, and that my brain is not working as well as it does when I am singular in my body and also there does not seem to be enough oxygen in my blood.
   I'll cast this out there. Because maybe, someone reading this is pregnant and uncomfortable. Or maybe you have a friend who is. And if you do have a friend who is, might I recommend you tell your friend that they look wonderful, that they are doing a great job, that it IS a lot of work and ask them how they feel and listen to what they have to say and have empathy for them. And maybe buy them some organic fruit.