Eighteen Weeks Pregnant

Dear World,

Nothing can prepare a person for having a baby. No matter how planned a pregnancy is, no matter how many things you have for your baby, no matter how much you already love your child, nothing can prepare you for it.

Pregnancy, quite frankly, stinks. Some women love the feeling and I cannot for the life of me see why. You feel bloated, unnecessarily emotional, hungry, achy, tired, swollen, absentminded, unbalanced, your face breaks out, your stomach itches, and every part of you feels like your stretching. I am 18 weeks pregnant today and I read that my uterus is the size of a cantaloupe. I do not want my uterus to be the size of a cantaloupe!

Oh sure, women say, "you'll look back on your pregnancy with fondness." Pun intended here: fat chance.

Are there benefits to being pregnant? With stipulations, yes. You can eat as much as you want and people don't look at you funny, but don't eat too much fish. Heaven forbid you give your baby accidental mercury poisoning. (Those poor people in Japan.) You can laze around all day but let's face it, the actual feeling of being lazy and not doing anything is not as fun when it's actually happening. You feel more like a blob that way. Not to mention all these articles and such that I'm reading say to "stay active." What happened to everyone telling pregnant women to just relax?

So aside from those two benefits, I can't really think of any others. Who wants to gain weight? Who wants to feel like they're losing their mind? Who wants to be given unneeded advice all the time? AHH!

And here you all are. Reading my blog and probably thinking, "crybaby. This is all for the good of your child! This will all be over before you know it." Here's what I have to say about that: WHO LOOKS FORWARD TO CHILDBIRTH?

I have come to realize the internet is not your friend when it comes to pregnancy. Birth stories. What a cruel thing to do to a person. Even worse: birth VIDEOS. When my friend was pregnant, she had placenta previa, a condition where the placenta, instead of laying behind the baby, laid underneath, preventing her from giving birth except by c-section. So she became fascinated by natural childbirth, considering she couldn't have it. What better way to learn about birth than to watch a video? I became like a hostage victim, trapped in a room with her while she watched video after video about childbirth, torturing me to no end. I swore I would never have children.

Now, five years or so later, here I am. Almost halfway through with my pregnancy.

My fiance is actually quite excited about the baby. For me, it's hard to feel excited when you feel so uncomfortable and nervous. That's normal you say? I have read up on some lists of top phobias. Public speaking or glossophobia, death or thanatophobia, and snakes or ophidiophobia are probably the three most common (though I was surprised to find dogs usually in the top ten lists). Well, I have tokophobia, the fear of childbirth. Here's what I hear all the time: "oh, you forget about the pain after the baby is born." You think it's pain that I fear? No. I do not fear the pain. It's going to hurt, that's for sure. So, what do I fear then? The entire process. The pushing. Water breaking. Complications. Recovery. Getting a child out of my body. It gives me chills just thinking about it. Ugh.

Say something positive Holly! Okay, fine then.

I do love children. Despite my genuine fear of childbirth I love kids. I'm a crafty, game oriented, kids book reading, go out and enjoy the day kind of person. Having a baby enables me to do all the things I love to do with someone who can't say no. HA!

I love my fiance. He is fantastic and has been there with me every step of the way. I think it's neat and weird that our DNA has been fused to create some sort of new being. You always here about couples sometimes looking a bit like each other. That is no where near true with me and my fiance, other than the fact that we're both white, though he can tan whereas I burn. Brown hair/blonde hair, brown eyes/blue eyes, etc, etc. I feel like I should prepare a Punnett square for possible combinations. (Ha, ha. Biology joke.)

I'm surrounded by people who care very much about my fiance and I, which is a wonderful thing. I know that this baby will be the most loved being in the world no matter what and I am very grateful for that.

I get to bestow my organic philosophy on the child. Who then in turn may do more organic and eco-friendly things. Then maybe we all will save our air from being so thick with smog that we suffocate. Hooray healthy living!

Feminists around the world will hate this statement, but quite a large part of me really does enjoy being a stay-at-home mom. I don't mind cleaning, I love to cook, I love our cats (not in the top phobia lists I'll have you all know!), and I love being able to feel useful and keep everything nice for someone I love. While I will probably find something work-oriented to do at home to make some extra money, I would like to be with my children as much as possible.

So yes, after the child has been removed from my body, things are not so nerve-wracking for me. I know that's really the reverse of what it should be but that's just how I feel!

On a different note all together, I hope everyone enjoys the new design! I spent an unnecessary amount of time on it. I think it looks... classier.

After I do a bit of cleaning today I will be working on my idea for updating my mascots. It should look nice.

Below I do have pictures of my cats. The kitten is hard to take a picture of because he's a complete spazz. I hope you enjoy them anyway!

Enjoy the rest of your week, more updates and things to come!

This is Luna. You may remember her from my post last year when we adopted her. She has really blossomed into quite the cat. She's super sweet and we love her so much. She's a seven-year-old black Turkish Angora and she's hiding in the giant teddy bear because I had been vacuuming. None of the cats like the vacuum.

I mentioned in my blog post last year that Luna had several teeth removed due to rotting before we got her and so as a result sometimes her tongue sticks out. As you can see above, it really does stick out!

This is Isa. She's probably around nine years old and was given up by her owner, who was very old from what I understand, and originally from Kentucky. She's a Himalayan which means she is a cross between a Persian and a Siamese. Which means everything is a personal affront to her. We were told she did not get along well with other cats. That's true, however, she is not violent or aggressive unless she's really, really scared... which is really never anymore because she's gotten used to us. She just runs away from the other two cats. She is a real sweetheart though. Every time we hold her for more than about 30 seconds she starts to give us a displeased growl. Her tail will also start to shake like a rattlesnake's would. We love her grumpiness!

Isa loves, loves, loves paper bags and boxes. I think she has the most beautiful eyes. She's actually quite a large cat but since she's still nervous sometimes she hides it the best she can. My fiance and I think she may have been abused or neglected because of how scared she was of us at first. She also still has some issues with us petting her, she'll run away or shrink back. She really loves my fiance though and when she wants affection it is really adorable. We love her so much.

Okay all together now: awwww!! This is Vader. My fiance likes to say "like Darth Vader" and I like to say "like invader." Either way this no longer so little kitten is a part of our life now. He was about nine weeks old when we got him and he was found somewhere with his sister. My fiance picked him up and Vader instantly started purring. My fiance was hooked. He's probably about four and a half months old right now and seriously loves trouble. He is completely unfazed by yelling, fears nothing, and loves to play with/torture Luna. (It's actually cute how he and Luna are buds!) His ears, which you can't really see here, are HUGE compared to his body, and is already about as long as Luna. He'll be a pretty big cat! While he'd be classified as a domestic shorthair tabby, seeing his personality and size makes me think that he is probably part Maine Coon and Siamese. He's definitely a mix of many cats and is not a purebreed, unlike our other cats, but it would be safe to say he's got some defining traits.

Vader has no fear or tact. He will walk all over you in your sleep, use your pregnant belly as a launch pad, or in this case, climb onto your fiance's friend's head and just sit there wondering why you're looking at him. He's cute, and you can see his giant ears a little better here, but he is a handful.