Guilt-Trippin'

Here it is, boys and girls.  We're in the home stretch.  According to the cute little app on my phone, baby should be arriving in (give or take) 42 days.

And I'm feeling all the expected emotions: excitement, anxiety, impatience, fear, joy, concern, delight, marvel, worry...

...and guilt.

When my track record included nothing but miscarriages, I remember telling pretty much anyone who would listen (including God) that I would prefer the most painful, complicated pregnancy - so long as it produced a healthy, full-term baby - to remaining childless.  When my friends suffered through their pregnancies (ending up dehydrated, bed-ridden and/or fatigued to the point of hospitalization), I considered that preferable to having my children die within my womb.  That's not to say I was flippant and disregarded my friends' pain.  It was just something that, in a strange way, I envied.  It was a pain I hadn't been able to experience.  With that pain came a promise that I'd been denied this far.  It was like I was more than willing to trudge through the desert to get to the Promised Land; I just hadn't been liberated from Egypt yet.  (I wanted to make a Charlton Heston reference and a Moses one seemed appropriate.)

So why am I feeling guilty?

Because, other than the very scary subchorionic hematoma that haunted my first trimester, I've had a relatively easy pregnancy.  Instead of the acne explosion I was dreading, my face actually cleared up and became less sensitive.  Instead of day-long morning sickness, I had maybe a dozen bouts with mild nausea - I never threw up.  Instead of being battered all night long by tiny legs kicking nonstop, I've found that the baby actually has "quiet time" when I'm sleeping and is rarely active after 11:00 PM.  In fact, other than my weight gain (which has admittedly been a little excessive, although my doctor is not concerned), I've had practically zero issues.  Some back pain here, minor swelling there, and an insatiable desire for peanut butter in all forms, but really - nothing to write home about.

But...I'm done.  I'm tired of being a human incubator.  I want my figure back.  I want to wear cute clothes again.  I want to wear my impractical, beautiful four-inch snakeskin-print heels!  I want to hold my baby in my arms and not my belly.  I want to be able to sleep on my back again.  AND OH MY GOSH I WANT TO EAT SUSHI AGAIN!

So, I'm feeling guilty because I'm also feeling like I don't have the right to be totally over being pregnant.

These thoughts are probably not so different from any other lady's, six weeks from her due date, and yet they make me feel selfish.  I'm the one who swore a hellish pregnancy was still better than a lifetime of miscarriages, and I'm STILL complaining about my fairly symptom-less eight-month stretch.

I still have friends who cannot have children, or who struggle to get pregnant.  Even in these past few months, I've been contacted by friends who recently miscarried and wanted to tell me even before their own families, simply because they knew I'd been there and wanted my take on things.  It broke my heart to see them go through loss - sometimes more than once - but I was truly honored that they trusted me with their grief.

Which seems to complicate my frustration with this pregnancy.  I'm so very torn between keeping my mouth shut about the discomfort because I feel guilty sharing it, knowing there are people who would do quite a lot to be in my position - and being swept, via my experience, into the ranks of fierce, fabulous women who wear their stretch-marks like tiger stripes and who have no shame in being mothers.

Of course, worrying adds neither days to my life nor health to my baby.  I'm just going to have to go with what I know - keep things honest - and diplomatic - and public.  That seems to work for me.  

So, to summarize: it's the Final Countdown and, even if I'm not emotionally ready for baby - my body most definitely is.  Let's do this, Baby Godlove.  Not too early, but please don't be tardy, either!  Making people wait for you is soooooo rude!