Big

It's official: I'm Big. A startling number of my maternity clothes are now too small (honestly, who were they designed to fit?) and I find myself not only unwilling but physically unable to do some of the bendier, twistier tasks that motherhood asks of me. I've started favoring slip-on shoes. I can no longer classify my main nighttime activity as sleeping, but rather as trying to get comfortable.

Buuuuuut.....

I am grateful! My baby is wiggly-- shockingly, even painfully wiggly-- and I never find myself worrying if she's still healthy and safe, since I know she'll bludgeon me in the ribs again in five minutes to let me know all is well. I don't know if I'll ever get to carry another little one, and that knowledge is helping me to keep all of the discomfort in perspective and just enjoy my "alone time" with the fetus, relishing each hiccup and knowing that right now I know her better than anyone else possibly could. And finally, finally, I feel like I no longer have to apologize to the world for my exhaustion and generally scatterbrained demeanor. My body speaks for itself. It used to be that I couldn't enter the grocery store without some bossy old lady (me in forty years?) coming up and telling me that either Maya or Geneva needed a nose wipe or had dropped a goldfish cracker or something. Nowadays, however, people just leave me the hell alone. No more questioning looks when I go strangely blank in the eyes, seeming not to notice that Geneva is shaking milk from her sippy cup into her shoe. I think everyone who sees me now knows exactly what is going on: I am trying, in that blank-eyed moment, not to pee my pants as a Braxton-Hicks contraction smashes the baby's head forcefully into my bladder. At least, anyone who has ever been pregnant knows. Honestly, it's a huge relief.