This post was so true, so relatable, and so hilarious! Thanks, Kristen!

By Kristen Mae of “Abandoning Pretense”

“Pregnancy is a gift from God.”

“I just love the feeling of knowing a tiny human is doing laps in my uterus!”

“I ran a half marathon when I was eleven months pregnant – it was transcendent!”

“I was hornier than a two-headed triceratops the entire time I was pregnant. My husband hardly knew what to do with me!!!”

Okay, I may be paraphrasing some of these quotes. But you get the point. There are women who are so effing jubilated to be pregnant they practically have a nine-month orgasm.

Not that I’m resentful or anything. I was nauseated from the instant the second line appeared on the stick, but I was totally fine with eating four Panera bagels a day to curb that nausea. I didn’t mind at all that I suddenly hated yogurt—previously one of my favorite foods—with the burning passion of a thousand suns, and that I inexplicably wanted to squirt an entire bottle of relish into my mouth. Considering the only way I could feel remotely non-pukey in my body was to eat constantly, it’s no wonder I gained fifteen pounds the first trimester alone in spite of my sincere intentions of being a skinny pregnant woman.

But pregnancy is a gift. Far be it for me to complain about my inability to walk more than ten feet without my thigh bones slipping out of my hip sockets. Since my womb was replete with burgeoning life, I endeavored to make peace with my new walking gait, which made me look like I was trying not to fall off a balance beam no matter what type of surface I was walking on. I convinced myself I was happy to give up my dream of being a pregnancy yogi like Madonna in The Next Best Thing.

Yep, happy as a clam.

If I had tried this during pregnancy, it would have literally killed me.

Ummm… speaking of clams… for those women who non-sarcastically enjoy pregnancy so gosh darn much, can we discuss the smells? Why does no one discuss the smells? I am not talking about food. I know there’s some sort of alkaline something-or-other shift that happens to make our body chemicals go all haywire during pregnancy, and I just want to say for the record that ohmygod I did not enjoy the new odors emanating from my person. There was no time in my pregnancy at which I could not smell myself. I was sure I was engulfed in a cloud of pregnancy vapor, like Linus from Peanuts except I smelled like I was hiding cupcakes in my vagina.

And all that nonsense about glowing. Who are these people that “glow”? I sure as hell did not glow. Until the very last few weeks, I was pale and pasty and all my big fat veins showed right through my skin. I got weird pigment discolorations on my face (which still have not gone away completely) and that big-ass line down my stomach, which took a not-so-artistic detour around my ginormous inside-out belly button. I had sausage ankles, fat fingers, a giant nose, and hair that was suddenly growing over my forehead, right next to my eyebrows. I don’t understand how any of this equates to “glowing.”

And where is this elusive unicorn who enjoys pregnant sex? The first trimester I was nauseous, the second trimester I felt fat-but-not-quite-pregnant a.k.a. super unattractive, and the last trimester… well, the logistics of the operation were really quite complicated. Good thing my husband is an engineer. I mean, there were positions in which sex was possible, but not… you know… fulfilling. I mean, okay, maybe if I tried hard enough… but for God’s sake, who wants to work that hard when you’re nine months pregnant???

Peeing. The constant peeing would have been enough on its own to make me dislike pregnancy. Do the pregnancy-lovers not have this problem? Or do they just not mind waddling to the bathroom every five minutes? Never mind, don’t tell me. Optimism makes me angry.

Yeah, so in case you didn’t already infer from my cryptic, thinly-veiled sarcasm, I was not so much a fan of pregnancy. It’s been a while, and I had almost forgotten how awful it was. But a friend of mine recently messaged me: “Why do I feel like I’m doing something wrong? It seems like everyone loves being pregnant and I’m the only one who hates it!” She wanted me to ask my readers about it. She needed to know she wasn’t alone. That’s kind of a big thing, right? To know you’re not alone when you big-time feel like you are? I want her to know there are other pregnancy-haters out there besides her.

So if you are a fellow pregnancy-hater, now’s your chance to vent! What was the thing you hated most about pregnancy? (If you loved pregnancy more than newborn puppies and hot fudge sundaes, please kindly keep your opinions to yourself on this one, but do forward this post to your hairy pregnant friend with the cankles. She’ll thank you.)

*Disclaimer: I do actually realize pregnancy is a gift not to be taken lightly. But I am taking it lightly, at least for today, because there are parts of pregnancy (lots of parts) that really truthfully suck giant donkey balls. And it’s okay to own up to that and not feel guilty for having not-so-positive feelings about pregnancy. =)

**I forgot to mention that my second baby also kicked the inside of my vagina until I cried, my feet grew a whole size and never shrunk back to normal, and my nipples are now the size of small plates. So just add that to the pile.