BIG

On Tuesday Alex and I celebrated our first anniversary (a day early - work schedules don't care about such occasions), and he took me on a helicopter tour! Exciting!

And a little scary. They tell you all about how once you have a child (or one on the way) your perspective on life changes, your priorities change, blahblahblah. Obviously. They don't tell you about the details of what this really means. For most of my adult life, I've lived with the general philosophy, when it comes to risk taking, of "What's the worst that could happen?" And even the worst, death, didn't scare me too much. I suppose the worst would be debilitating injury, but I figured I could deal with that if it happened. Now, the worst that could happen is still death or debilitating injury, but I guess my point is that actually matters now, a LOT (and add a third "worst" - the baby could get hurt). If I die, I won't be around for Bean. If I'm injured forever, I won't be the same kind of mom for Bean I want to be. If Bean gets hurt, I'll never forgive myself. So now I - a person who gladly walked to the edges of cliffs to see what's down there, a person who was never afraid of flying, or afraid of thugs walking down the street acting dumb - stood in front of this chopper, my heart pounding. Who am I?! I wondered.

The tour was (obviously) safe and successful, and it was pretty damn cool. So I was just working on uploading our photos to Facebook, when I came across the one of me and Alex standing in front of the helicopter. "Oh my God," I muttered. I spent a good, full, five minutes debating whether to even upload that one. I. Am. Puffy. I'm not just belly-pregnant. I'm...bigger. Rounder. Fluffier. Dough-ier. Even in my face. That's how you know it's not just my imagination.

I already have been feeling enormous, as you know. But seeing it. Confirming it with more than a funkified mirror (I don't trust mirrors, really, because I've learned that in general my view of my mirror image doesn't really apply to reality). Staring at it in digital high resolution. This was more than I was prepared for. Which prompted me to search online for other blogs or articles by women who feel this way. (A good one here.) Clearly from all the literature out there, every single woman who gets pregnant has at least some of these thoughts. Maybe some or most other women don't obsess over it like I do, or are more positive about it. But if you meet someone who is in love with her body the whole time she's pregnant - tell her she's a liar.

It's also great when people see me and say, "Wow!" and then ask how far along I am. And then say things like, "Wow your baby is growing fast!" or "Mmmm..you got a long ways to go - and grow!" Uhuh. Thanks. Now shut up and hand me that cookie.