Yes, I am LOVING pregnancy and no, I'm not sorry

Every day I am asked how I'm feeling. My response is, normally, "great!" plus a smile and a thank-you for asking. However, I typically get the following reactions:

"Wow. Every pregnant woman in the world probably hates you."

"Oh you must have a high threshold for misery." 

Or, my personal favorite, "Ooooh you better not let so-and-so hear you say that. She'll want to kill you." 

I get that every pregnancy and every woman is different. And some women probably are miserable. You hear about the common pregnancy symptoms: morning sickness (which isn't confined to just the morning OR the first trimester for that matter), sore boobs (some women claim they become so sore that the water hitting them in the shower feels more like knives stabbing them) and fatigue. At least these are the symptoms that I had been expecting. To be honest, none of them sounded pleasant and my husband kept our house stocked with cases of ginger ale and boxes of saltine crackers for months while I waited for them to start. Only, they never did. 

I turned into a wreck: anticipating that the ultrasounds would show nothing on the screen or that I was bound to start bleeding any day. I mean, you have to have some symptoms when you're pregnant, right? RIGHT!? 

Well, as it turns out, the answer is no. Symptoms do not mean that you will have a healthy (or unhealthy) pregnancy. Once I realized this, I almost started feeling guilty about my "easy" pregnancy. And then I got over it. 

I've dealt with more hardship over the past five years than I'd ever wish on anyone else. Over the course of five years, I have lost my grandmother, dad, and friend - all of whom were indescribably important to me. Often times, their absence is still palpable. And I'm sure it will be even more so once our daughter is born and it hits that she will never be able to meet these people who are so important to me. All the while coming to terms and dealing with infertility. In short, the last five years have been anything but happy and or easy. 

Then came this pregnancy. For the most part, it has been absolutely perfect (minus the GD that just reared its ugly head a few weeks ago). I mean, sure. There are a few things that are, at best, annoying: my nose is constantly stuffy, I haven't slept through the night in God only knows how long, I almost always feel like I fell on and bruised my tailbone, sitting on my couch for more than an hour becomes painful, and as of this week, I will no longer be wearing socks because I simply cannot get them on. Oh, and I forgot to mention the snissing. 

Maybe this all sounds bad, but it's really not. Inconvenient? Sure. But not enough for me to say that I hate being pregnant. In fact, I love it. 95% of the time, I do feel great, and I am so beyond excited to meet our daughter. With everything I've been through over the last five years, I deserve this perfect pregnancy. And for that, I just can't apologize.