I whine, again...
10 Things I Hate About Being Pregnant
Thanks Nik.
It is nice for some people that they manage to romanticize the gestation, birth and infant-care process. I'm so glad they are capable of finding something lovely and transcendent in: being horrifyingly bloated and ill for nearly a year, hours and hours of agonizing pain combined with bloodshed and much that is too gruesome to describe in mixed company followed by months and months of feeding cleaning the bodily emissions of a squalling but incredibly delicate and vulnerable creature who is incapable of human communication.
More power to you, I say. If only I could share your illusion.
I'd have to steal her #10: The fact I actually become a parent. Permanently. And will never be cool again.
#9: Being a mommy. All the ideological stuff that goes along with being a mommy. The Freudian shit. The fact I'm supposed to change and become saintly and self-sacrificing...As if! Or else I'm evil. There's just no in between for mommies. Mediocrity is failure. And failure when you are a mommy=you are evil.
There is no perfecting this task. You will be inadequate. The whole question is how.
#8: Going to the doctor. The doctor is so happy for me it gets embarrassing. She chirps. "This is great! All your tests are normal!!! Everything seems just great!" I just kind of say 'yeah.' I smile wanly. But out-enthusing her would be a superhuman task. So I seem like I could not care less. Then I feel evil. See #9.
#7: Sensory overload. Bizarre obsession with food and smells and anything icky. The other day on the subway there was a throw up car. It wasn't just me. It was virtually impossible to breathe. People fled from it at the next stop. I can't even imagine a natural explanation for that smell--it was unholy. It was supernaturally horrible. But then I was haunted by it. For days. And days. And this happens. You eat something that tastes bad and you remember it. For weeks, sometimes months. And then you eat something delicious. And you are obsessed. You will travel 45 miles to repeat the experience. You lay awake thinking about it. The bad and icky far outnumbers the good and delicious though. This is perhaps why I haven't gained any weight since last month. I went from being able to eat out of communal bowls in third world countries to being unable to eat anything touched by human hands.
Will I ever be able to forget the range of smells I've unwillingly experienced?
#6: Total personality transformation. I used to be a loner and needed long times by myself. Now I need to be around my husband all the time. OK, I was always a complainer of sorts. But I've broken some kind of record. Never in my life did I imagine that there could be so many bodily things one could complain about. I've had moods that seem outside the realm of normal moods--but I've given my moods nicknames.
E.g., the amnesia: Imagine that something awful is about to happen. But then you get amnesia. The only thing you remember is this terrible feeling of dread. However, you can't remember why you have this feeling.
The extreme annoyance for no reason: Imagine that an invisible imp is sticking its fingers in your mouth or batting your elbow away when you put it down on something (didn't you hate it when people did that?) or tweaking your nose. You'd be annoyed wouldn't you--you'd go nearly insane with annoyance. Now imagine that you are even more annoyed than this but for no reason.
#5: The nightmares (not the sex dreams--those are sometimes quite enjoyable)....The baby shrinks and I can't find it. It becomes invisible, etc. Or I move to the Midwest.
The move to the Midwest was the strangest dream. In the dream I realized: There isn't any place I want to live. Northern California has too many flaky people, New York is too crowded and costs too much, everywhere else is full of Republicans. Where can I live? The dream was really a terrifying nightmare about being forced to live in Iowa.
I'm scared to go on.
10 Things I Hate About Being Pregnant
Thanks Nik.
It is nice for some people that they manage to romanticize the gestation, birth and infant-care process. I'm so glad they are capable of finding something lovely and transcendent in: being horrifyingly bloated and ill for nearly a year, hours and hours of agonizing pain combined with bloodshed and much that is too gruesome to describe in mixed company followed by months and months of feeding cleaning the bodily emissions of a squalling but incredibly delicate and vulnerable creature who is incapable of human communication.
More power to you, I say. If only I could share your illusion.
I'd have to steal her #10: The fact I actually become a parent. Permanently. And will never be cool again.
#9: Being a mommy. All the ideological stuff that goes along with being a mommy. The Freudian shit. The fact I'm supposed to change and become saintly and self-sacrificing...As if! Or else I'm evil. There's just no in between for mommies. Mediocrity is failure. And failure when you are a mommy=you are evil.
There is no perfecting this task. You will be inadequate. The whole question is how.
#8: Going to the doctor. The doctor is so happy for me it gets embarrassing. She chirps. "This is great! All your tests are normal!!! Everything seems just great!" I just kind of say 'yeah.' I smile wanly. But out-enthusing her would be a superhuman task. So I seem like I could not care less. Then I feel evil. See #9.
#7: Sensory overload. Bizarre obsession with food and smells and anything icky. The other day on the subway there was a throw up car. It wasn't just me. It was virtually impossible to breathe. People fled from it at the next stop. I can't even imagine a natural explanation for that smell--it was unholy. It was supernaturally horrible. But then I was haunted by it. For days. And days. And this happens. You eat something that tastes bad and you remember it. For weeks, sometimes months. And then you eat something delicious. And you are obsessed. You will travel 45 miles to repeat the experience. You lay awake thinking about it. The bad and icky far outnumbers the good and delicious though. This is perhaps why I haven't gained any weight since last month. I went from being able to eat out of communal bowls in third world countries to being unable to eat anything touched by human hands.
Will I ever be able to forget the range of smells I've unwillingly experienced?
#6: Total personality transformation. I used to be a loner and needed long times by myself. Now I need to be around my husband all the time. OK, I was always a complainer of sorts. But I've broken some kind of record. Never in my life did I imagine that there could be so many bodily things one could complain about. I've had moods that seem outside the realm of normal moods--but I've given my moods nicknames.
E.g., the amnesia: Imagine that something awful is about to happen. But then you get amnesia. The only thing you remember is this terrible feeling of dread. However, you can't remember why you have this feeling.
The extreme annoyance for no reason: Imagine that an invisible imp is sticking its fingers in your mouth or batting your elbow away when you put it down on something (didn't you hate it when people did that?) or tweaking your nose. You'd be annoyed wouldn't you--you'd go nearly insane with annoyance. Now imagine that you are even more annoyed than this but for no reason.
#5: The nightmares (not the sex dreams--those are sometimes quite enjoyable)....The baby shrinks and I can't find it. It becomes invisible, etc. Or I move to the Midwest.
The move to the Midwest was the strangest dream. In the dream I realized: There isn't any place I want to live. Northern California has too many flaky people, New York is too crowded and costs too much, everywhere else is full of Republicans. Where can I live? The dream was really a terrifying nightmare about being forced to live in Iowa.
I'm scared to go on.
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