“Pregnant women are just beautiful.”
“Oh, look at your belly! It’s adorable!”
“You have that baby glow.”
“You have that baby glow.”
These are things people say to pregnant women all the time. While I definitely appreciate the compliments (I really need the ego boost these days), I don’t feel particularly beautiful, adorable or glowing.
I already feel humongous, and I still have four more months to go. Not only is my belly protruding well past my feet, my rib cage and hips are also expanding to make more room for LBK. I think my liver is trying to pop out of my right side every time I sit down. I have stretched all my yoga pants to their limits, and I feel as big as the side of a barn. My sweet, wonderful husband tells me that you can’t even tell I’m pregnant from the back, and that I look like I just have a beach ball under my shirt. I love this man. Even if he’s lying.
This growing belly has made at-home pedicures impossible, and I haven’t had time to get to the nail salon. So I’m forced to choose between having the ability to breathe and having cute toes. Luckily it’s closed-toed shoe season.
Don’t get me wrong. Some days, I look in the mirror and I love to see my round tummy as proof of LBK’s progression. I wear my tight maternity tops with pride, and I’m honored to be the place where my baby is kept safe and warm. I’m amazed at what a woman’s body can do, how it knows what to do when I don’t. How it moves, shifts and changes automatically, naturally, doing exactly what it needs to do to nurture a baby. My anticipation grows with my belly, and it makes me smile. On those days, I do feel beautiful.
But most days, I just feel like a beached whale.
If my belly is getting bigger, my brain must be getting smaller. My preggo brain, to which I already dedicated an entire post, is getting worse. I drop things, lose things, forget things, remember things, then forget them again. It’s frustrating. Maybe I need to learn patience for when the baby comes, so this is how I get to practice patience with myself first. Ah, wise universe, you got me again.
Then there’s my face. Now that everyone’s furnaces are kicked on, my allergies have kicked in. I can’t take my usual turbo, allergy-busting prescriptions, and that over-the-counter crap is useless. So my eyes are red, puffy and goopy. Yes, goopy. Also, my nose is big and red from constantly sneezing, blowing and wiping. Gross.
My skin is a wreck, too. Even my treasured ProActiv solution is no match for the hormone-induced acne that has taken over my chin and jaw line, and preggos can’t use the heavy-duty stuff. I’m too cheap to buy department store make-up, and the camouflaging effects of my drug store concealer are short-lived. I’m considering wearing one of those white surgical masks that germophobic travelers wear on airplanes. Then people will just think I’m a paranoid preggo who doesn’t want to get sick, when all I’m really doing is trying to hide my Rudolf reindeer nose and Mount Killa-Melissa* that’s erupting on my chin.
Notice there is no photo with this post. You’re welcome.
First, pregnancy took my body, then my brain, and now my cute. If this kid takes my funny, I’m screwed.
*I borrowed this line from my dear friend, Whitney. Once, she referred to a hill that she hiked as Mount Killama-Whitney. Ha! Works on multiple levels …
