Normal

How in the hell is the end of July already?! I think I misplaced the month in the midst of all this heat. Ugh.

For most of my life, ok some of my life, I have owned my uniqueness and lack of ability to feel like I fit in. But being pregnant is really messing with that. I worry that my belly isn't normal. That its not big enough. My natural waist doesn't appear to want to give up the good fight yet, so its holding strong and dividing my belly into two. Which makes me mad that I didn't lose more weight before getting pregnant. But that's a whole other counseling session. So one of the things I always tell people to scrapbook is their pregnant belly. However, I feel too self-conscious about my not-normal baby belly to take any pics - and here I am at 6 months. If I were someone I was helping with scrapbooking, I would coach her to do it anyway, but I am fighting it because I don't feel normal.

Normal. Something I try to avoid for the most part. But being pregnant makes me desire to be normal, and its kinda freaking me out.

Besides the baby belly, I am also worried that I am not enjoying my pregnancy like "normal" people do. Now, I know I have gotten some great feedback from friends that they didn't enjoy being pregnant either, so I know there is a wide variety of "normal", but that doesn't stop me from worrying. Why don't I enjoy the kicking? Why don't I enjoy the growing belly? Why am I not in awe of the growing fetus?

I know the answer, I am still nervous that me reproducing was a bad idea. (Which probably explains the dream about a giant squirrel chasing me while I protected someone else's child. My counselor thinks I was the squirrel.) I am still nervous that parenting will not be something I enjoy, and I will screw up another's life. Messing up my own life, I know how to do that, but as a general rule, I try not to mess up someone else's. Well except for Jim's, but he signed up for that.

I do enjoy that being pregnant gives me all the excuse I need to sleep. So there is that.

But apparently the desire to conform to the physical norms of the world do not cease because one is pregnant. Its just a different set of rules.