Un-Preggers

I just realized that a year ago this past week was when I found out I was pregnant.  How did 9 months of pregnancy feel like an eternity but yet it feels like it was just yesterday we were finding out I was pregnant?  Craziness!   Pregnancy… ain’t that something!… it’s not for the weak.  But I am so blessed to have gone thru the process, many out there struggle with pregnancy and that is something I’m fortunate enough to say I can’t relate to.  Getting back to my un-pregnant normal self has been nice change of pace though.  Hence my top 10 list of why being un-pregnant is great again:   

1      I can enjoy a glass of wine again.   Well sort of… nursing a baby means that everything has to be timed.  I’ve had to dump pumped milk because it tested positive for alcohol, it only takes one time of that happening for me pass on the drinks.  I now know where the phrase “crying over spilled milk” comes from.   I’m now to the point where I’m only pumping every 5 hours which gives me a good buffer of of time to clear one glass or two out of my system.   Dinner with drinks are now back on the table!

2        I can sleep on my back, hallelujah!  I learned a lot about myself during pregnancy that I never really had acknowledged much before.  Such as how much of a back sleeper I really am.  I could not stand sleeping on my side and my shoulder would always fall asleep.   Most women say it’s their bladder that keeps them up at night, not so much me; it was side sleeping that kept me up all night long. 

3

      The pillow fortress has been brought down.  To attempt to sleep comfortably at night, I had 9 pillows in bed surrounding me.  Aaron barely had room in the bed amongst all my pillows.  Every night I would peek over my huge pillow wall to check if he was alright over there.  I was pillow overboard.  Even at the hospital I had supposedly every pillow the maternity floor had on hand, which I seriously question if they just started to decline me pillows at a certain point in which I had to send Aaron home to get me more pillows.  I think we had 20 pillows in the room, not an exaggeration.  When the nurses would come in to check on me they thought my pillow fortress was pretty serious stuff.  I’m back to being a normal person who requires only one pillow now.  

4      I am allowed to buy toilet paper, the ban has been lifted!   True story.  I ‘nested’ like crazy and by 6 months, I had nothing more to nest.  So what does a pregnant woman do that loves to plan and prepare?  Well I spent the last trimester stocking up on all kinds of stuff, such as toilet paper.  It got to the point where Aaron was getting really annoyed because we had packs of toilet paper in every nook and cranny of our house.  I was buying TP as if doomsday was coming.  Then one day, the doorbell rang.  Aaron answered to find a UPS man with a box as tall as me and almost too wide for our door.   Yes, I ordered a whole bunch of toilet paper from Amazon.com.   Aaron FLIPPED out on me.  A TP ban was placed in our household.  Yes folks, I was told I was not allowed to buy any more toilet paper.  Recently I asked Aaron if I could buy TP, I had to give him our current inventory count and apparently I’m in the clear now to buy TP again.  HA!

       I no longer feel like an illegitimate pregnant woman.  During the last month of pregnancy, I swelled just enough to make my wedding band not fit anymore.  I hated being in public sans wedding ring.  I would stand at the checkout lines at Target thinking I was being judged, I just wanted to tell the cashier, no worries, this is a legitimate child I’m carrying, I AM married to the baby’s daddy.  I’m sure I completely over thought it and no one really noticed but I was so self-conscious of it and thought everyone was looking at me thinking I was an illegitimate pregnant unmarried woman. 

        I can put socks on (by myself!)  I would sit on the floor and would practically do circles around myself trying to reach for my feet to get my socks on.  The only way I could really get socks on was sitting down and leaning to the side and basically throwing my sock out like a fishing pool and catching my big toe to get them pulled on.   There were even times where I had to decide how badly I really needed to go to the grocery store because I just didn’t want to deal with putting socks on.  Luckily, Aaron is a great husband and put my socks on for me many of those times.

      Back to attending hot yoga classes.  Not that I love working out really but it is nice to get back to the workouts I actually slightly enjoy.  Hot yoga being one of them.   The regular yoga classes for pregnant woman just weren’t my style at all!

       Pants with real buttons.  When I bought my first maternity pants with elastic waist band that came clear up to under my bosoms I was like “This is awesome, I’m NEVER going back to regular pants again!”  I was loving them!  Seriously, I had every intention of wearing maternity pants for the rest of my life.  But after giving birth, I wore my maternity pants a few times and it was a scary, frumpy site.  I now have a deeper appreciation for my pants that button and sit at my waist.

        Back to washing dishes at the sink.  I’m short.  Therefore I don’t have long arms.  This in turn meant when I was very pregnant, my belly stuck out so far, I could hardly stand at the sink and reach the dishes.  Not that I love being able to wash dishes but it’s pretty disabling to not be able to wash your coffee mug in the 2 seconds it took in my pre-prego state.

         No more kong-fu fights.   I’m convinced Annie is stronger than your typical baby.  Feeling my baby kick inside is an awesome feeling.  But having kong-fu fights going down in your belly constantly and feeling like you are black and blue inside has its trying moments.  There were even times where you could visibly see a heel or a fist pushing out.  My stomach would have lumps and at times, her little kong-fu fights hurt!  Although I do miss them a bit, it’s far more fun to watch her kick, stretch and be on the move outside of me now!

All this being said… I now see pregnant woman and feel almost jealous!  Like ‘awh, look at that pregnant woman!’  How I can say I miss pregnancy is beyond me but a part of me does!  It’s an amazing process us woman get to experience that’s for sure.