One of the most mind-blowing moments in the third trimester of pregnancy is when you see another real live newborn or infant and you realize that you are carrying something very similar inside of you at that very moment. Without that cooing visual in front of you - it’s difficult to grasp that the undulations and kicks inside your belly are coming from a human being the size of a large pineapple. It’s just too amazing to grasp most of the time – but when you see a little baby with its little hands and feet – it helps you understand that pregnancy is truly one of the most amazing aspects of the human condition.
Today I am 38 weeks pregnant and can’t help but be introspective about the past eight months carrying this child. Just two weeks after losing my job last November, I took a positive pregnancy test and so began this beautiful new chapter in my life. I am already so grateful to this child for bringing so many positive things into my life and I still have yet to hold the little Olive in my hands.
I don’t know how or why – but pregnancy has turned me into an optimist and has made me feel more like myself than I have felt in years. I wouldn’t have described myself as a complete pessimist before this – more like a healthy skeptic with a penchant for worry and self doubt. But this pregnancy has shifted my thought patterns considerably. It makes me think about what the legendary skeptic and pessimist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said: Everything about woman is a riddle, and everything about woman has a single solution: that is, pregnancy.
He’s right. The restlessness and frustration that has plagued me over the last several years has been wiped away by pregnancy. I know there are lots of women out there who choose not to get pregnant and I respect that – but there is something to be said about obvious solutions.
With the way I feel now, calmer - happier - and peaceful, the only logical conclusion I can come to is that my body desperately wanted to carry out this biological task and I just kept putting it off. I chased everything else, when I should have just gotten myself knocked up and let the pieces fall as they may.
I never viewed getting pregnant as an answer to my problems. It just seemed like the most natural thing to do with the person I loved most in life. When I lost my job, I had no idea I was pregnant – frankly, we weren’t technically trying to get pregnant that month, but it happened anyway. But when I was canned, I told Jay that we should put off having a child until I reestablish myself in a new job not knowing that I was already with child. I’m so glad he flatly denied that level of reasoning (it was too late anyway). At that point, Jay was all in and ready to make it work under any set of circumstances.
We were typical Gen Xers, waiting for just the right financial moment to have a child – but the bottom line just kept getting smaller and we finally both just threw up our hands and said – let’s have a baby and we will make it work.
So here I am on the cusp of parenthood – 38 weeks strong and ready to push through to the next phase. I saw her little mug on an ultrasound today and am now home drinking a green monster (blended spinach and fruit) or what I am hoping provides the kick to get me into labor and the strength to push this hammer through.
Sure I have made mistakes and I certainly have an uphill battle getting back to work postpartum -but as Amy sings in the video posted above, it's where you're at, not where you've been.
