A mostly non-sentimental list of baby/pregnancy-relat​ed stuff.

Things I love about being pregnant:

 

Never before in my life has a stranger called me sexy and it not been absurdly creepy. (Note, this is not a common occurrence and I'm not even positive it's ever happened to me) Last week a Gap employee told me I was sexy and looked great and I was having a baby how soon? She then proceeded to compare the size of our bellies (mine pregnant, hers not so much). It wasn't creepy at all and I kind of wanted to hug her and cry over how nice she was. The whole not getting enough exercise and constantly craving carbs thing isn't really doing wonders for my physique, if you know what I mean.  Yeah, there's baby weight, but then there's failure to go to the gym and eat enough salad weight, too. Future Anna hates Present Anna.

 

We've entered a whole new fun stage where we can see the baby moving around in my stomach. It's like watching a sea monster right below the surface of a lake. Or maybe those freaky worm things from Dune going through the desert. I like to be able to take a little break at my desk and watch this boy roll around under my shirt. Like Nessie.

 

I am not likely to freeze to death, thanks to my giant watermelon-sized internal heater.

 

Knowing that this is real quality time with my perfect little happy baby. He will never be this quiet or content again.

 

Nesting. The energy that comes from knowing that in less than two months (Lord willing) I will have no more free time until I'm in my 40s. I've got a list of things to get done and it's very reasonable. They just need to all get done in the next couple weekends or I might have a meltdown. It's little things, like finishing off the baby's room, cleaning up our office and laundry rooms (they're currently storing all the random stuff that's been displaced with the whole baby room thing), and finally organizing our kitchen. We've been in our house for nine months, so I think it's time to bring a little order to the chaos that is our cupboards. Everything is exactly where I put it when we moved in and my only goal was to get things in cupboards and off counters. We need to make room for bottles and, more importantly, my new ice cream maker.

 

 

Things I do not love about being pregnant:

 

I can still sleep like a champ, but if I wake up and get up (which, thankfully, I very rarely do) I'm going to be awake for an hour, no questions asked. And sometimes, when I'm really tired, I'll wake up earlier than I'd like and not be able to fall back asleep. This is usually only on weekends, though.

 

If I don't get enough sleep my body hates me and I feel ill and get headaches. Anything less than seven hours falls under that category. Anything less than 10 hours is not ideal.

 

I overheat easier than ever before, thanks to my giant watermelon-sized internal heater.

 

The feelings. All of the feelings and how they all want to be expressed through my tear ducts.

 

Buying all the baby stuff. It's nice to get good deals on things and already we've gotten a ton of used and hand me down stuff, but there's still stuff that needs to be bought. And they're all really expensive. We were planning on getting a used Phil and Ted's stroller because we've heard such great things about them and we are definitely word of mouth people. Four people I know have them and love them and want to buried with them when they die? Good enough for me. I know nothing about strollers except that some are for jogging and they're only for children, otherwise they're called wheel chairs. After finding one used for $300 in less than ideal shape and hearing from people that spent $450 on their used ones, we bit the bullet and bought a new one. We saved $150 on it and we got to pick the colour. And now we don't need to worry about finding the perfect one anymore. My kid is going to have a nicer ride than me and he doesn't even know how to breathe yet. Are you judging me? I kind of am.

 

 

Things I am not looking forward to after baby's born:

 

My body. Not the rollie pollie bits, but the broken and painful bits. I just pray that if I listen very very carefully to my doctor everything will stay nicely intact and my recovery will be like a walk in the park. And that my baby and I will be naturals at everything.

 

 

Things I am looking forward to after baby's born:

 

Having a wider selection of clothing to wear. I know that some things may never fit again, but I'm going to embrace my changing shape this summer and just wear it all. I imagine that will include normal people clothes, some maternity wear, and a generous helping of my belly band.

 

Exercise. Trips to the gym are very unsatisfying these days and I haven't been to my yoga class since January. Again, I'm anticipating it's going to be depressing and painful and full of awkwardly placed rolls but I miss being able to spend some time on the elliptical or treadmill and feel accomplished (like I'm not going to kill anyone).

 

Not working. I know that parenting won't be a walk in the park, but a change of pace will be really nice. My goal is to go for a walk with my boy every day until the snow comes. Then we'll be stuck inside for six months, which might wreck me, but I'm going to embrace the lack of snow while I can. And I'm going to introduce him to the ways of the force at a very young age. I might even be itching to go back to work come next June (ha!). It's not quite my dream of being a stay at home Anna, but it's the closest I'll ever get (for a year).

 

A margarita.

 

​And, um, having my baby. But I feel like that goes without saying. He doesn't actually rank below margaritas. At least not today.