The end! My last post with the minnow on the inside. And I’ll keep it short and sweet, which is how this pregnancy seemed to go. Amazing.

Now that I am an expert on gestating – I have some final thoughts to share. Pregnancy is so weird and so amazing and so bizarre and so gross and so wonderful, I’m glad I got to experience every single part of it – the good, the bad, and the disgusting. A microscopic speck made up of 1 piece papa, 1 piece mama, and in our case 1 piece of 6 or 7 IPAs slowly grows into a humongous, chubby harbor seal that takes up all of the space in your insides and steals all of the snacks that you eat and all of the energy that you have and all of the views you used to have of your toes. People you know and people you don’t will pat you, pet you, stroke you, squeeze you, squeeee over you, and sigh, reminisce, ruminate, reflect, and project a litany of emotions on to you from the second they find out about the speck until the day it evacuates your real estate. And possibly for some time after that, because like it or not, recently unpregnant bellies don’t usually just spring back into pre-pregnancy shape for the vast majority of us skinnyfat ladies. And my game plan for that is to stroke my non-pregnant squishy blob whenever I’m in public and let the masses assume there is still a bun in that oven. No matter what you do, or how hard you try to fight it, or how fiercely you pray to the pregnancy gods – once you are pregnant, you have to give up any custody you once believed you had of your own body. And brain. Because that pregnancy brain stuff is no joke. Your body will literally grow and change in ways that make absolutely no sense to you or the laws of nature. You will Google things you won’t believe. You will stare at yourself in the mirror from so many angles and think to yourself… no, that cannot possibly be right… But eventually, you not only accept what you see but kinda grow fond of the weird stuff, for reasons you’ll never be able to explain. And as stuff gets even bigger, and bigger, and yes, even bigger, and you become more and more uncomfortable and squished, and pudgy, and out of breath, and exhausted, and everything hurts and stretches beyond comprehension and literally kicks you in the ribs and lungs and stomach and bladder, and you think to yourself how much longer can I possibly deal with this and how much worse can it possibly get… you also already realize with a little bit of sadness how much you are going to miss this when it is over.  And with that, with the countdown ticking down way too quickly and way too slowly all at once, I’m spending my last few moments with squid on the inside trying to seal every memory of this crazy, awesome, weird 10 months into the part of my brain that forms logical thoughts that I hope is still buried somewhere underneath the mush that currently occupies my skull. Come out whenever you’re ready squid… but also you can stay a little bit longer if you want. I have a feeling you’ll be calling the shots for the next few decades anyway, might as well start now.

My final words of wisdom for all of those currently cultivating their own little sea monster or contemplating it: cliché as it sounds, I swear to jeebs that a positive attitude is everything. There is no getting around the fact that pregnancy and all that it brings is going to affect your life and your day to day. As it should! Growing an entire human being from scratch obviously should take a little effort! But from day one I promised myself that I would see the good in every single ache, pain, liquid, solid, and nastiness, no matter how bad it seemed at the time, and not let how I was feeling limit my life or happiness. And it didn’t. I enjoyed every second of this, because even the uncomfortable parts were just little building blocks of what it takes to create a 7 pound (at least, hopefully!) bundle of joy out of microscopic pieces of genetic material. Give it a try! Be that annoyingly happy, glowing, joyous pregnant person that people love to hate. And you might discover that you are, in fact, actually that person. And were born to rock procreation. Godspeed!

We are all ready for you, little cheesehead! Paws to pet you, tongues to lick you, whiskers to tickle you, and loving hands to hold you!

And that’s a wrap!