About As Much As I Enjoy Tax Day

Sara from Miller Moments and I have had an interesting and fun e-mail exchange the last few days that got me thinking.

I do not enjoy being pregnant. I love the end result, I love being part of a miracle, I love epidurals. But the gestation part? Not so much. I dislike the fact that I'm usually sick and tired for the better part of two months. (TWO MONTHS! That's like having the flu for 60 days in a row.) I hate the fact that I can't be a good mom to my kids during this time because I have no energy or creativity. (And since my husband currently works 100+ miles away from our on-the-market home, I'm doing this alone most nights. Which means they have little sparkle in their day other than copious hours of Noggin and occasional outings to McDonald's for a McChicken to make mom feel better.) I don't like feeling like a physical slug, but since I barely have the energy to take a shower most days, I know better than to attempt something resembling fitness. I don't like the fact that my clothes don't fit already, and I worry that I won't be able to get back into them after this baby arrives since I'll be 36 at that point and who knows what will have happened to my metabolism by then?

But most of all, I hate the fact that I'm usually on a negative tear for the first half (or so) of my pregnancies. Usually, I'm a glass-half-full kind of girl. And if the glass is half full with water, why not add a teabag, some Splenda and a lemon wedge for good measure?

But now? As you might be able to tell from reading this completely uplifting post, I'm not so into seeing the positives of life.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I was teaching at a Christian high school. A fellow teacher (and a young man, barely 21) shared an office with me, and after weeks of me complaining and sighing and laying my head on my desk for 20 minutes at a time in the middle of the day, he got up the nerve to ask me what was wrong.

I got up, marched to our office door, slammed it shut, wheeled around and practically snarled at him, "I'm pregnant!"

You can imagine his reaction. Poor lad, I wonder to this day if he'll ever permit his wife to carry a child.

But. But. I have friends -- many friends, many good friends -- who treasure every moment of pregnancy no matter how they feel. My friend Lisa actually said she would rejoice every time she threw up during her pregnancies because it was somehow an omen that things were progressing well. And my friend Sonjia, who recently gave birth to little Ahnnalie and who gets horrible, painful varicose veins with each pregnancy, actually spent the first few weeks after Ahnnalie's birth weeping over the fact that she'll never be pregnant again. (At least, that's the plan right now.) She was nearly despondent because she simply loves being pregnant that much.

So I'm curious. Where do you fall? Am I alone here in my (half-joking) wish that babies could be extricated from the womb at 2 weeks past ovulation to grow in a tube in a hospital where we could visit them and watch their progress? Or do you, like my friends, wish you could be pregnant forever?