When you hate what you love

I hated being pregnant…the whole thing…every day…I hated it. It was a horrible miserable experience that felt like some evil combination of the flu and pneumonia and towards the end, just to make things even better, my entire self swelled up to the point I was seriously concerned I would burst out of my own skin…it was awful…pure awful.

At one point [pretty early on] I became bitter – I felt lied to, betrayed, deceived by all of those women [including my wife] who had told me how much they loved being pregnant. Who loves feeling like they have the flu for 9 long, puffy, nauseas months? They had tricked me and I fell for it. I often wondered through my pregnancy how the human race had sustained itself…why did people keep having children – sure the kids were great, I love the two that came from my wife’s womb – but why would anyone have more than one! When faced with my questions [usually in the form of a rant] Amy would just respond casually “oh, I didn’t find it to be that bad, I liked it”. Yet, whenever I would complain about something like, waking up every hour to go pee, she would get this wicked smile on her face and say “yah, I didn’t like that part”…really? Who would?!?! Then she would add something extra like “hey, have you peed on yourself while you sneezed yet? No? Well, make sure you cross your legs when you sneeze” and she was right… I DID pee on myself..A LOT…

My wife had described childbirth as invigorating, empowering, liberating all the wonderful ing’s you could imagine. Maybe, just maybe, childbirth would be the reward for pregnancy…I anxiously awaited her arrival. I waited for my due date to come, then I waited daily for her to decide today was the day…she didn’t want to come out…she would have to be forced out…day 1 of induction, no problem…this I could do…with my wife next to me, I did feel a bit empowered, then day 2 came – most of day two is a blur – after contractions so horrible [not invigorating] that I was naked throwing up on the floor, I gave in to the temptation of drugs. The nurse decided I needed an anti-nausea medicine to stop the vomiting – apparently the drug works by putting you into a deep coma, therefore preventing any body fluids from coming up [not a literal coma, of course]. Well I hardly remember any of the events leading up to my c-section… but what I do remember is that my c-section was NOT invigorating, or any other ing’s…

But Kahlo was.

And suddenly when I look back, pregnancy wasn’t so bad. My wife was always amazing. Every morning she kissed my stomach and talked to our baby. She paid attention to my every need. She loved me when I was unlovable. Feeling Kahlo kick inside of me was incredible. Watching our baby grow [and grow and grow and grow] inside of my stomach was truly amazing.

Having her here, on the outside, melts my heart.

I want another. I want to do it all over again. But not yet…

Right now is my best friends turn! She just found out her wife is pregnant! I cant wait...
I hope for my best friend, her wife is better at being pregnant than I was…