The thing about this body is that it doesn’t feel like a body at all. It’s more of an apartment building
with an active tenant downstairs. There seems to be a combination of soccer, Irish step dancing, and
Tang Soo Do going on down there, frequently when I’m trying to go to sleep. I remember I was an
“innie” a month or two ago. I even had abs in my thirties. The “occupant” is also making push ups
more interesting since I can’t tighten my abs. If I get any rounder, I’ll have to dig a hole in the floor. I
feel a lot like a “weeble” with legs. Sometimes, the “tenant” feels like an angry old person banging a
broomstick against the ceiling. Is she mooning everybody through my clothes? It would help me to
remember this the next time I talk to my boss.
There are plenty of other changes I’ve noticed. (So many complaints, so little time.) I miss having
energy. At over six months pregnant, I am frequently bringing home a baby bumble bee just trying to
go to the store (when I’m not in the powder room). This body also changes quickly, or maybe I’m just
slow on the uptake. I’m frequently in need of pants. Last week I was fine, or at least ok, and this week
it’s ‘Merry Christmas!’ What’s with the belly? I don’t remember strapping on a watermelon. ‘Relax’,
my friend said, ‘you’re supposed to look like this, there’s a baby in there.’ This makes for a lot more of
me to haul around than I’m used to.
The blessing is, I really haven’t gained as much weight as some do. I am allegedly “carrying small”
in the sense that I am showing, but only to my friends, unless I’m wearing maternity clothes. The
problem is, I’m having a hard time seeing it. That’s the problem with eating disorders, you can
gain the weight back but the crap colored glasses never come off. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see
myself objectively as others do. Forget liking what I see. I frequently get the fun house mirror view,
and not in a good way.
I am still working at my job, in between doctor’s appointments. I haven’t told anyone there we are
pregnant. I find it baffling that no one has said a word to me since I’ve gained 20 pounds over the last
six months. Then again, I frequently feel like I could show up in swim fins and a tutu and no one
would notice. There’s the equal likelihood that no one cares, my office is not big on “warm fuzzies”.
I also miss having ankles. My mom grew up on a farm in Poland. One day recently, I took my
shoes off and I looked like the pigs feet in aspic she used to make, without the vinegar. This does not
look like a good summer for sandals. I called the doctor’s office to ask where my ankles went and they
said “More fluids.” More fluids??!! I thought I was peeing enough now! ‘Wasn’t I retaining water
like the Hoover Damn, hence the swelling?’, I asked. “Hormones”, they said. ‘O, Goody’, I said.
This brings me to another issue I have with this body, the ‘scrambled brain syndrome’ I keep
running into. I was never what I considered ‘normal’ before. I was however, able to eat lunch without
wearing it, not lose items I put back in the same place everyday, and I was able to have a conversation
with my spouse sans going from ok to furious or bawling nut job in 7.6 seconds. The hormone fairy
flipped open my cranium, put a stick in there and really stirred things up. ( I hate that b**ch.) I wish it
was possible to send my husband a bouquet of beer to his office. ‘You’ve got two and a half months
left to go’, my friend said, ‘better get him a keg.’ Thanks, love you too. We are decorating the nursery
with baby Looney Tunes. How fitting.
Post script: The evicted tensnt is now almost finished the first grade. I still don't have my body back. Oh and Happy Mother's Day!
