On Being Pregnant
A ramble + reading recommendations
Kylie Kelce’s new podcast, Not Gonna Lie, recently shared a clip that went as viral as her other content (whoever does her PR, bravo!).
“When I tell you that I cannot stand being pregnant,” said the soon-to-be mom of four.
The comments! The applause for her honesty! The sheer gratitude for someone willing to not lie about pregnancy.
If someone had told me that all I had to do to get famous was go on Instagram and share a truth that most women already know, I’d live in my dream cottage in Greece, a queen amongst peasants.
I have never, and I do mean never, heard a woman say that she loves being pregnant. Not even the old ladies at church, who one would think would be the most guilty of this. Mostly, when I was at my largest and most uncomfortable with Luka, I heard a lot of commiseration from women around me. You must be so hot! Hopefully he comes soon. You can come float in my pool anytime! (Thank you to all the kind women who offered their pool during my last summer pregnancy.) Maybe the odd social media influencer is glorifying a clearly not-awesome time. Still, not a real-life woman friend or acquaintance has ever made me feel like I need to be eternally grateful to be experiencing pregnancy. Mostly, we put up with it because we want the babies, the motherhood, the family. Or sometimes, he didn’t pull out in time, and well, what’s another baby?
So anyway, I’m pregnant.
Again. Sooner than I thought I’d be.
It’s okay. We’re building excitement for this baby; we really are. Was I excited when I first suspected I was pregnant? No. Was I anxious and terrified when I knew for sure without taking the test? Yes. Did the strong positive elicit the same joyous laughter that Luka’s positive did? Not really.
But around six weeks, we decided not to say another negative word about this pregnancy or baby so as not to give them a downer of an origin story. (And also, a little superstition mixed in there. I don’t want this baby to come out all ferocious, bred by their mother’s anger and anxiety.)
Now I’m imagining our morning cuddles +1. The cute little newborn mewls. The four-month-old giggles. The six-month chunk.
It will be beautiful and hard.
I digress. Here’s the truth: I am a shell of myself when I am pregnant. Usually, I am brimming with opinions. When a topic catches my attention, frequently, the words pour out quickly. I’m eager and anxious and ready to share a well-formed thought, spurred by finding just the right combination of words to convey a point.
But pregnant me doesn’t care. I can’t find the energy to care that Trump basically mounted a Hitler-esque level coup last week by essentially overtaking our country’s financial systems, the ones that funnel trillions of dollars to various important programs, departments and employees. It’s really of little importance to me, emotionally, that our strong democracy is floundering under the weight of greedy oligarchy. That Guantanamo Bay has now been designated a detention center for immigrants, a promise of worse things to come. That a large percentage of our population, and an essential part of our economy, were labeled “criminals” by the press secretary only days ago.
I consume the news and have these thoughts as through a veil. I know it should be important, but what is a threat to democracy in light of a new baby.
I’m not saying it’s logical or correct or true; it just is.
It’s one of the reasons I don’t like being pregnant. I miss my fire and eloquence. I find myself struggling for the right words. My writing, which I like to think is generally at least palatable, suddenly feels juvenile.
As I enter the second trimester, I feel some of my fire returning. But I know it will fade and likely be only a shadow in the early newborn weeks. When I gave birth to Luka, it took me about seven months to find my voice again. Will it take me another seven months after this little one comes out?
It’s a scary reality women face when they become pregnant. Our brains change; this was confirmed in a 2024 Nature Neuroscience study where they imaged women’s brains before, during, and after pregnancy. There’s a lot of science there that my pregnant brain isn’t ready to discuss. Still, things change in our brain, having to do with grey matter and white matter and other matters, and the theory is that it makes mothers more capable of bonding with their new babies and learning all the things that come with caring for a brand-new human. Seemingly, it does little for our intellectual prowess. I recently told my mom on the phone that I can feel my brain cells dying and that soon I’ll be dumb as a doornail. We laughed, you’re so funny, she said. But I wasn’t really being funny, I was mourning myself.
As promised, this is a ramble.
In its hormonal glory, my brain vacillates between uncaring bliss and absolute panic at where our country is headed. I’m the daughter of immigrants, of people who fled their own country under duress, and I find myself questioning whether I will find myself making the hard decisions my grandparents made only 40 years ago. Doug and I have late-night whispered conversations about what we would do with our house, what signs we would look for in the news that it’s time to plan a shift, and what that would mean for our children and our families who may not make the same moves as us. At the same time, we plan our future here, discussing schooling options and looking at houses locally that might accommodate our family better. We plan for a Murphy bed in our third bedroom to make that room more usable. We discuss adding a vent hood above our gas stove. We installed solar.
I give Doug presentations on the different options for double strollers, the pros and cons, and the pricing range, all the while news pours in about the KKK mounting public displays in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and ICE threatening to enter churches and schools.
It’s life as usual, yet not at all.
That’s our reality right now, and I navigate it all through the haze of pregnancy brain, wondering if any of the decisions I make are logical and if my emotions make any sense.
Maybe it’s the world that doesn’t make any sense.
What I’m reading lately:
The Nuclear family was a mistake. David Brooks makes a strong case for extended families and strong community.
Trump is doing exactly what he said he would. Are we surprised? We shouldn’t be, because if there’s one thing about Trump: No one takes him seriously, but he always follows through.
Or the Emilia Perez hype. (Also this one.)
Mark Zuckerberg’s chain sucks. (Not the title, but an alternative option to this witty and insightful piece on masculinity, what it is, what it’s not.)
This is your horror read for the day. How Hitler dismantled a democracy (by using democracy) in 53 days.
And, in light of the disastrous DNC, a humbly suggest my own piece on why the democrats will just keep losing.
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Even your “pregnant rambles” are so relevant and direct!