I realize I haven’t written much about the actual experience of being pregnant. At least, not publicly. It’s very easy to tell people about back aches and sore hips when they ask how the pregnancy is going. The truth is, there are physical discomforts and I sometimes let them detract from this experience, but on the whole, I love being pregnant. It is cliché to describe it as such, but I feel like a walking miracle. There is something completely fantastic and almost mythic going on in my belly, and I feel very honoured and lucky.
It amazes me to think about how minute the very possibility of conception is, how the circumstances have to be just perfect. And it happened. And then as cells divided and she attached to my womb and her parts fused and formed, she thrived. She kept growing and my body, my actual body, fed her and fostered her as she survived the first trimester.
For those of you who’ve never been pregnant, the first trimester is a whole lot of hesitation. It is tentative. I never knew if the pregnancy would last until I got to the end of it. I couldn’t quite celebrate it until week 13, and yet I had to succumb to a body that needed more food, more water and made me feel permanently seasick. I was making a big commitment, physically, to a baby you don’t yet know will survive.
Of course I gave it my all, took my naps, drank my water and obeyed my cravings for moose meat, cheeseburgers and lemonade. And I made it to week 13 with the first hints of a baby bump.
Since then I have fully embraced pregnancy. I am an incubator, an oven. I live my life but my body belongs to the little girl inside me.
I am so glad we decided to find out the baby’s sex. I was so sure it would be a boy, I’m not sure why. Just maternal instinct (gone wrong!) I guess. I envisioned taking him to hockey practice and had already bought little blue onesies. Then I lay on the ultrasound bed in September with the cold goopy stuff on my abdomen and watched the technician examine the baby’s features, measuring parts to make sure it was healthy. Then he got to the lower half, pointed out bent legs, shins, and then of course I noticed what was between them. It was very clear we were having a little girl, and I started to cry as he continued measuring her abdomen, her brain and her heart. My girl.
Now I can feel her moving around in me, kicking her arms and legs against the walls of my stomach skin. It feels just like someone poking or flicking me, only the sensations come from inside. I love waking up with a smile to her little kicks, and settling down with a good book on the couch only to burst out laughing at the hyper baby conducting a 3-ring circus in my belly.
I am surprised at my swollen belly when I catch sight of my reflection and love rubbing my hands over the skin as it stretches further and further. I love feeling what side the baby is lying on, and I am full of anticipation to meet her. I can’t wait to find out what she looks like, what her personality is, how she’ll smell and what she’ll sound like. I have a little less than 4 months to go, and I am full ready to get growing, be round, eat more and put my feet up in lieu of being busy.
My pregnancy is like being a front-row audience member at the world’s greatest show: watching this baby’s growth through the veil of my belly, waiting for the moment when she is revealed to the world.

Labels: baby