The Dichotomies of Pregnancy

Just about 1,000 thoughts I've had swirling around the weird and wild experience of preparing for a life you can't quite conceptualize.

I’ve asked a few men throughout my life if they would get pregnant if they had the ability to do so. Some said yes, but most say they would never want to do it. Sometimes I get the age-old, put-the-woman-on-the-pedastal answer of something like, “I could never do what you do.” And then, you know, they seemingly don’t think of it ever again.

When I asked my husband why there seems to be this need for what I believe is false flattery, he remarked that the question can put men in a weird situation. How else could they answer other than offering some sort of support and awe for a reality they will never fully understand? I guess I look at the question a little more practically than that. I’m literally asking them to consider what it would be like to be a woman. To consider what it would be like to grow up—at least in my case—being told that my literal purpose in living is to be a mother. Can the answer really ever be as simple as “I never want to do it” when the human race relies on someone doing the hard work of creating life? Or when you’ve been trained your entire life to see yourself as a caretaker?

I don’t know many women who have simple answers to whether or not they want to have children. Whether they’ve decided yes or no, their reasoning comes with a long list of caveats and questions, and ruminations on life and their purpose. That’s why I called my podcasts on this platform “The Baby Question,” because it feels like this universal consideration even for my friends who have known intrinsically that they don’t want kids since they were very young. They’re still considering the meaning of it all.

And no wonder because pregnancy itself is really weird. It’s this ubiquitous experience that’s also totally and completely unique. And so complicated that I think it enters the realm where empathy can only go so far. I can’t imagine the pain other women have gone through—I didn’t have morning sickness or other horrendous side effects—and so even my pregnant brain kind of wants to stop thinking about what that would be like. It is easier to look at women who experienced that in complete awe. But that also doesn’t mean pregnancy is, or has been, easy for me in my own tiny experience.

I could whine about what I’ve been going through (hello, major back pain culminating in weekly physical therapy), but really what I want to get at is this quote I’ve been thinking about from Cece Xie: “Even though I want to have children, my own assigned significance to being pregnant will differ from the societal significance of being pregnant. I will see being pregnant as a taxing experience that I nonetheless wish to have in my large tapestry of life experiences, while society will see me as a Pregnant Woman—a woman fulfilling her biological and social imperative, eclipsing all other accomplishments she may have.”

I remember when I first got pregnant, I wanted to write a note to…the world, basically. I had it all drafted in my phone and I think I used some version of it on the podcast where I announced my pregnancy. Something like, “I am pregnant. But this pregnancy is not the pinnacle of my life. I have done a lot of cool things before, and I’ll do a lot of cool things after. It’s just one part of me.”

No matter how I feel about it, I still clock the way people look at me when I’m out in public. All the eyes on my stomach, the double takes. Who knows what these people are actually thinking, but I just picture myself reduced, reduced, reduced in their minds as yet another pregnant woman. I don’t know if they’re wondering what I do for work, what my hobbies are, what I feel about bringing a child into this insane period of time (not great!). I get kind of riled up about public perception of pregnancy and motherhood, if you hadn’t noticed. I’m annoyed that talking about pregnancy feels somewhat annoying. I’m annoyed that writing about motherhood feels somewhat cliche. I’m annoyed that pregnancy and motherhood has been something I’ve felt somewhat forced to consider, picture, conceptualize throughout my life in order to make a decision about whether I’d do it before my time “runs out.” Even though I declared in my notes app that it was just one part of me, it’s always been there—in the back of my mind, in the front of my mind…a feeling, a mission, a question, a purpose, a force.

This whole pregnancy has flown by, honestly. And now, one week out from my due date, I’m faced with all these huge decisions about how to live a life that makes sense to me with a new, small child in tow. A friend asked me the other day if I was planning on moving to the ‘burbs, which I found funny. That’s just what pregnant people do, right? Suddenly, we become mother robots, leave the city, buy a house, start a domestic life. And of course I’ve considered that life, especially because my examples of motherhood largely do take place in the suburbs. It’s been weirdly hard for me to conceptualize a life with a baby in a city, even though I see people doing it every single day in my neighborhood. But ultimately, I don’t want to do what I’m “supposed to” in this phase of life. I know myself. I would not be happy right now in the suburbs, isolated from the community I’ve worked so hard to foster in DC.

Photo by my amazing sister over at Madeline Casey Photography.

In turn, I’ve already felt the way that pregnancy can eclipse all my other accomplishments. Leaving DC would be a really odd choice for the rest of my career. A lot of what I do requires showing up to in-person events, and living in such a walkable place allows for networking and co-working experiences that keep me sane and connected to the world. Not to mention I still have all these ideas about what I want to do and who I want to be, career and otherwise. In many ways life is still just beginning for me, baby or not.

I saw an Instagram post from a creator I really like in which she announced her second pregnancy. I found it interesting that even though she’s creating fascinating content almost daily, her pregnancy announcement was basically the only thing her friends—also creators with large followings—have reposted about her. There’s so much to celebrate, so much to honor, about each other. I guess I just hope that I can remember to cherish it all.

Last thing, in this semi-organized train of thought: I think because of all these ruminations, I’ve distanced myself a bit emotionally from this baby growing inside of me. I’m afraid to lose myself to her—to love her too much. But what does that even mean? That’s operating on the idea that my love is limited, when I really imagine expanding my family will also equal expanding my heart. “You love babies,” my husband has told me repeatedly. He’s reminded me over and over about how much my relationships with my nieces and nephews have changed me, morphed my views of the world, opened up chambers of my heart I didn’t even know existed. What’s with the closed-off feeling right now?

So now, as I’m existing in the birth window, shuffling through time, trying to hold onto these last moments of just me and my husband while also anticipating how everything will change, I’m also working on opening myself up to the ways I’ll change and morph and evolve. I’ll check back in, I assume, when I feel I’ve made any sort of progress.

To wrap up: one time Kit Harrington was on Jimmy Fallon’s late-night show, and he performed “Drops of Jupiter” while playing—or pretending to play—the piano. He was…not great. A little tone deaf. And afterwards, Jimmy asked him why he agreed to sing on national television when he’s not a trained singer. Kit said that he almost said no, but then he thought to himself, “But what if it’s brilliant?”

I’m going to copy him here. Right now is scary and exciting and limiting and expanding and ugly and beautiful all at once. But what if it’s brilliant?