on not being special

i like being pregnant. i like not having to use my ab muscles all day and every once in a while i get a funny belly touch from a stranger or an awkward colleague which really makes me laugh. since i got pregnant, i haven't vomited once and i don't feel inconvenienced by the little nugget kicking my bladder. 

to me, finding out i was pregnant was like falling asleep comfortably in my bed and waking up in a small boat in the middle of the ocean. how did i get here? where am i? how do i catch a fish? is that a spider? it's like going from a comfortable normal situation to one in which everything is a big giant question mark. why am i sneezing so much? is my hair getting lighter? why can't i poop? is my skin getting drier? did i come from lizard ancestry? what is labour going to feel like? when i finally poop will it be on a hospital bed in front of my midwife? and don't even get me started on my fear regarding actually raising a human being. do they really just let you take home the baby you deliver? in my brain, bathing a newborn baby is like trying to hold on to one of these toys: http://bit.ly/SjGWsD. 

the day i found out i was pregnant i called my sisters and my mom. we had fun exciting phone parties and then i got down to business asking my mom questions. she gave birth to three cute little girl babies naturally and she talks about it like it was no biggie. this might annoy some people, but to me it's very reassuring. my mom says things like "labour is work! that's why they call it labour, but by no means is it the worst thing in the world." and "billions of women have done it! it's no biggie!" basically what she's saying (whether she'd admit to this or not) is that i'm not special. i'm not the first girl to get knocked up and i won't be the last. my fears are not unique and my labour pain won't be unique either. i'm not the only one wondering if at some point i might pee my pants when i sneeze and i'm not the only one finding out that pants really do have a limit. 

not being special makes me feel better. it's like when i was learning how to drive, anxiously clutching the steering wheel and darting my eyes around like a crazy person. sandy said to me "jenessa, look at all of these people around you driving around like they own the place. at one time they didn't know how to drive either. but people do it every day." duh, i'm not the first person to be a beginner at this!

i am excited and i am terrified and i am blessed, but i am definitely not special. yahoo!