The Creature

I'm pregnant. And I've thought of all sorts of big flashy ways to say so, but mostly I just need to say so, if only so I can start recording some of my thoughts in this space. It seems anti-climactic to report, since I'm 20 weeks along now, and I already announced to Facebook and I don't have a picture for you, and really 20 weeks is not that interesting, though I thought it would be, and I would have given my right arm to make it to 20 weeks last time.

Here's what no one told me: though people post cute pregnancy pictures at all sorts of early weeks, you can't really tell I'm pregnant yet unless you know you're looking for it. No one told me that I'd just look, well, increasingly chubby for over half my pregnancy. And there's this odd thing that happens, where I'm impatient for my body to announce it for me, impatient for the real evidence to proceed me in social situations and manifest with flashy glory all of the weird changes my body is undergoing. And at the same time, ugg, I miss my normal jeans. A few weeks ago at the dentist office the dentist said, "Oh, but you're not even showing yet!" and I wanted to tell her that wasn't really such a nice thing to say. I wanted to grab my girth and shout, "This is showing! This isn't normal!" But then, saying you can tell isn't all that nice either, so really no one can win.

I have a friend who says pregnancy is backwards: you want and need to tell people in the early months when it's new and when you're sick and miserable and need to be treated like a precious magnificent object. And when you can tell people, you actually feel better and don't need that much attention. This is so true. Sometimes now I even forget. One of my bosses asked me (very very delicately) if I was expecting at the end of a long conversation about something else entirely, and I realized I had meant to tell her I was, and had just completely and utterly forgot. I nearly smacked my forehead. Huh? Oh, yes! Yes, I am, come to think of it.

It's strange to tell people now, since I've been this way for 20 weeks and have said nothing, and really saying you're pregnant is always something very specifically about you, and ultimately so personal, and I don't always feel like saying something so personal. (Another pregnant friend pointed out this being weird. I have smart friends.) Sometimes I want it to be a secret still. I want to feel the little fish flip about in my stomach and wonder what she can hear/think/be at this point, and just savor that. It's rather lovely that it's still, no matter how many people know, just happening to me right now. It's so oddly mine, this pregnancy, in a way perhaps nothing else has been. Strange and disorienting, yes, yes, but so beautifully specific.