I'm So Excited To Never Be Pregnant Again

If you’ve ever been on “The Facebook” before, then you may have the impression that pregnancy is a magical, mystical, momentous occasion where you celebrate your blossoming womanly figure in all of its glory.

I try to keep it real in my Facebook pregnancy over-shares, but I think it’s time to put it bluntly: I didn’t enjoy being pregnant. At all. Pregnancy sucks, and I’m happy to never do it again.

As a quick disclaimer, I didn’t have any physical problems during my pregnancy, and I know pregnancy is hard for so many women. I also know it’s heartbreaking for women that can’t get and stay pregnant and desperately want children. So consider this the #firstworldproblems of pregnancy.

That doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t love my pregnancy experience. I wasn’t glowing, unless you count dripping buckets of sweat. I didn’t feel beautiful and expectant. I felt more like a hormone-fueled, rage-monster, if you want to know the truth.

Here were my two main issues with pregnancy:

How I was feeling.
People that asked how I was feeling.

If I had a nickel for every time someone said, “How are you feeling?””¦ Well, you get the picture. I absolutely hated that question because I had nothing interesting to say. I also felt pretty uncomfortable with being pregnant for the first time because I felt out of control of my body. So even the nicest question that everyone is supposed to ask felt like an invasion of privacy.

I would think to myself, “What’s it to you?” But I would say, “Fine!” (With a forced smile on my face.) Of course, the great paradox that any irrational pregnant woman can understand is that, while these questions were totally predictable and annoying, I’d be pissed if people in my life didn’t ask me.

So what are family members and friends of a pregnant monster to do? Um, I wish I could tell you. Shake the Magic Eight Ball and tread lightly?

The perfect example of ever-so-irritating pregnancy questions came from my father-in-law, someone who is very sincere and well-meaning. But, BUT! He’s also a little absent-minded and proceeded to ask me the exact same question about breast-feeding no less than four times at family dinners.

Yes, I felt weird about the changes in my body while I was pregnant, and I also felt totally freaked about breast-feeding for the first time. So when my FIL would nicely ask in conversation, “Are you going to breast-feed?”, I felt like a deer in front of headlights mixed with a preteen girl. (Oh my God, stop saying breast!)

Now I’m totally cool with breast-feeding, but pre-baby, pregnancy-related questions like that freaked me out.

Which circles me back to how I was feeling throughout both of my pregnancies. Let’s play a game: I’m going to throw out a bunch of words, and you tell me which best describe my then-pregnant state: irritable, exhausted, irrational, emotional, anxious, frustrated, lethargic, unreasonable, ragey.

If you guessed all of the above, you’d be right. It was pretty interesting because, more than anything, I felt crazy frustration and rage while I was pregnant – unlike anything I’ve ever felt in my life. My midwife posed a theory that since I was carrying boys both times, it could have been related to a testosterone surge; she had nine kids and felt she was more emotional with girls and more irritable with boys.

So, enduring a whirlwind of emotions for 10 months is exhausting. And I didn’t even factor in the part about growing a human life.

All that being said, the end result of pregnancy is absolutely worthwhile, even if life may be sucktastic for the better part of a year. But I’m still throwing in the towel after two kids.

If you can identify with my experience, I will tell you one thing that will instantly improve your outlook on life. I don’t want to get into too many dirty deets here, but let’s just say that I recently convinced myself I could possibly be pregnant with #3 before my husband’s vasectomy was 100% approved. In all actuality, it was 99.9% impossible, but I still felt tired, lethargic, and all-around crappy (probably more to do with having a toddler and a baby at the same time).

I decided to buck up and take a pregnancy test. I got myself all worked up and was convinced that the baby years in our house were never going to end. And what do you know, it was a big fat negative! Suddenly, birds were singing, the sky was bluer, the air smelled fresher, and the world was spinning again.

To all the ladies out there embarking on your pregnancy journey for the first time, don’t be scurred. Pregnancy may not have been my favorite time in life, but it does pass in a flash. If you start hating your life somewhere in those 10 long months, take comfort in knowing that you’re not alone.

(Image: Dasha Petrenko/shutterstock)