Before we decided to proceed down this perilous little path called parenthood, I read all about pregnancy and parenthood until my eyeballs bled. About how my uterus would expand exponentially and my back would hurt and I might vomit. My sleep would permanently be altered during the first trimester and never really change back, my hair would thicken and then fall out. I expected to be on insulin at the start of the 2nd trimester, my diabetes run ragged because of the elevated hormones in my blood, and so on and so forth.

I’m about 2/3s of the way through this pregnancy and it’s nothing of what I expected. I felt physically ill during the first trimester, but I never threw up. I never got that crazy fatigue that most women get when they are pregnant, and I swear, once the second trimester hit, like on the dot, my cranky nausea went away. And amazingly enough, the further along I progress in my pregnancy, the more it seems like I won’t even have to switch to insulin at all - I feel like I’m one of the only people in the world in which pregnancy improves freakin’ diabetes. For about a month I’ve gotten nearly nightly charley horses. My hair is looking pretty great, except right now it’s grown out a bit faster than it normally does, and it normally grows fast and is really thick. My fingernails are growing like crazy.

And I am loving every minute of it.

I am a pessimist by nature, and very skeptical of… everything. Everything. I was happy for about a split second when we found out I was pregnant, and then commenced the worry - I worried about everything and still do, and I doubt that much will change after the baby is born. And no matter what people say, having a moving, writhing and kicking human being inside you is really, really fucking weird.

Someone asked me recently how I was feeling about the pregnancy and this process and I had to think about it. I’ve had an easy ride of it physically thus far, a fact I’m very grateful for, believe me. But I wasn’t prepared for how it would change my view of myself. Pregnancy has been one of the most empowering and enriching experiences I have ever had. Just seeing my body change on a weekly basis to accommodate this new life inside of me has been amazing.

I have always considered myself a feminist, and having grown up in a household of strong women (my mother and grandmother), I have never once thought to myself that there was anything that I couldn’t do or accomplish in my life. And now, I am in the middle of life creation, and it feels like my body is exploding with power I never knew I had, even though I’ve always known all along that I am a strong woman and can do everything I set my mind to and more.

Wow.