My Changing Body

I've been feeling little sharp pings and pains on the lower sides of my abdomen for almost a week now. I'm familiar with "round ligament pain," which happens as your pelvis starts to loosen up and shift to make room for baby, and I was expecting it as I entered my second trimester two weeks ago. So at least it wasn't concerning or scary.

I started showing at 12.5 weeks, which is very typical since that's when your uterus first starts to rise above your pelvis. But I swear in the past day or two, at 16 weeks, I popped completely. Two different people at work remarked on it today, and then so did my wife when I came home from work. I looked down and held my shirt against me to frame it better and was shocked to see how big it was. (But I've only gained a pound in the past week or two.) When I lay down a couple hours ago, I noticed that my belly kept its shape instead of flattening out a bit. That was a freaky moment too! Seeing such a dramatic change gave me that "holy crap, I'm really pregnant!" moment all over again.

I am loving my pregnant body. I feel at my most beautiful, and kind of wish I could stay in this state for longer! Everything I am most self conscious about with my body has improved with pregnancy. My barely B breasts are becoming rounder and fuller, growing into what I kept patiently waiting for them to be when I was an adolescent. I stare at them and hold them almost every time I undress, and sometimes even when I'm dressed. I'm just amazed that my body can change like that, and I also know it will be short-lived so I'm reveling in the awe of it all. My already round belly (I've always carried my weight in a way that has sometimes led people to think I'm pregnant) is finally round for a reason, and I can actually wear shirts that flatter this shape, shirts I could not wear when I wanted to DE-emphasize the pregnant look while not pregnant. I can now emphasize it, flatter it, embrace it. I don't have to worry about sucking it in or hiding it. I don't have to worry about how skinny my legs look in comparison to my round belly, because for just these few months, it's SUPPOSED to be like that. And because my stomach has more shape and my breasts are filling out, my broad back/shoulders don't look quite as broad since they're in context with everything else.

My blood pressure is lower (for now), my blood sugar is lower, my hair is thicker, my mood is sensitive and emotional in a way that might be inconvenient at times but feels awfully damn authentic and in the moment. I feel lighter, more graceful, more careful, calmer.

I can't wait to meet baby. I often get 5-year-old-on-Christmas-Eve giddy thinking about it, feeling impatient even as I tell myself to enjoy this time and these last moments of peace and solitude and "just us." But even so, I kind of don't ever want to be not-pregnant again.