A Pregnant Athlete

You never heard of a mind as perverted as mine--Eminem

There was a time in my life when I wasn’t interested in having kids but was absolutely obsessed with the pregnant belly. I thought/think they are incredibly beautiful, plus the whole thing seemed to be a tremendous athletic feat. I secretly wanted to be a surrogate just to experience the workout. One friend asked, “Do you just like sex without the orgasm?”

Well, now that I am with pregnant belly and experiencing the joys of pregnancy, I wonder, “What the F*** was I thinking?”(not about having the kid...) You know how some women love being pregnant and wish they could be this way their entire lives? Well I am not one of them. While the pregnancy has not been difficult (Dear God, please no bed rest!), this experience has been pretty tough for me. But I remind myself that billions of women have done this before and it is the most ordinary thing.

Here are the joys I had to contend with: all day worrying, all day nausea without vomiting, all day nausea with vomiting, insane fatigue, exaggerated disrupted sleep, itchy skin—hives all over my legs and back. There are more, but so far, this is the stuff that felt unbearable. So this next one just hurts the ego. I feel as if I am on a battlefield being attacked my mortars and grenades of cellulite .The enemy is targeting my legs so as to maim me.  The last time my legs were this “smiley” I was eating the one-pound bag of peanut m&m’s and the large bag of nacho Doritos and reading Moby Dick. I’d be so disgusted w/ my nutrition that I’d toss both half eaten bags in the garbage, only to fish it out and finish it. (Wasn’t there a Seinfeld episode about this?) As the snacks/meals were still in their respective containers, I reasoned they were not contaminated. I wish I could say this is an exaggeration, but no. This really happened. And this is why I no longer read great works of literature. It gives me cellulite.

In terms of working out, I am lucky enough to still be able to do most activities. I work out 5-6 days a week, but there is NO intensity to it. Every now and then I do a check (I won’t call it time trial anymore because it upsets the husband) just to see where I am. Of course it means nothing. But I am so fascinated with the increased level of effort when nothing else has changed (other than the fetus in my uterus sucking out all the life and energy out of me). Don’t I sound like a wonderful mom?

Here are the things I miss: the commiseration of tough workouts, racing, feeling like I could scale a mountain any day of the week.

Here are the things I don’t miss: the anxiety of racing, the packed schedule of training (then again, it is summer break).

Here are the things I have embraced: having boobs, having it not be about me (My husband begs to differ. He says it’s about me in a different way now), having boobs, and finally, having a miracle in my belly.