35 Weeks Preg­nant, Cana­dian Totem, Ottawa, Octo­ber 2012

Mark was born on Octo­ber 12, 2012. These arti­cles were writ­ten shortly before his birth (it was a great cathar­sis!) and doc­u­ment the nine months of preg­nant where I was def­i­nitely not glow­ing. Up-to-date sto­ries com­ing up as well!

Maybe I have been a bit too can­did about the whole preg­nancy thing. And maybe I have been too cyn­i­cal lately.

After all, I’m sup­posed to be that glowing-about-to-give-birth-woman.

Blame my sar­casms and tongue-in-cheek atti­tude and arti­cles on my French side—you know how much French like to com­plain about noth­ing and everything!

So let’s be appre­cia­tive a bit for a change. It’s good for my karma and I take my karma seri­ously these days (yes, being preg­nant makes you super­sti­tious, I find).

Here are ten perks of being preg­nant, aka “thank you flow­ers and bees”.

1. When­ever you feel bitchy for no rea­son, you can blame it on the hor­mones. Peo­ple will actu­ally take that excuse seriously—amazing, I know. Note to self: explore ways to blame bitch­i­ness on post-pregnancy hor­mones as well (me, milk­ing it? Non, pas du tout!).
2. Peo­ple who care about you will care extra (and to hell with the preg­nancy police and rude com­ments!). My fam­ily and friends truly amazed me this year and it is great to be able to count on them.
3. Your legs look really thin com­pared to your belly. And so does your butt if you turn side­ways (trust me, you will find that super flat­ter­ing angle in the mirror).
4. You can dis­cover new stores and shop for stuff you didn’t know existed—great for shopaholics!
5. You can get some free­bies. For instance, I signed up for the free Nes­tle Baby Pro­gram and I have just received a huge pack­age with plenty of sam­ples, a bot­tle, a nice dia­per bag with chang­ing pads and dia­pers. There are tons of other baby and tod­dlers free­bies around—yes, it’s a good mar­ket­ing oppor­tu­nity for these com­pa­nies but free­bies can be good to take when your bud­get is tight!
6. Preg­nancy is an amaz­ing adven­ture. I know it sounds cheesy to say but it’s a bit like traveling—you are work­ing towards a goal, there are obsta­cles on the way but it’s a reward­ing jour­ney if not an easy one!
7. You get to buy toys. I still like Win­nie the Pooh and I’m 29. Now I have an excuse to go “Win­nie shopping”!
8. Com­plete strangers like to strike up con­ver­sa­tions. And as long as they are not from the preg­nancy police, I love that. A lot of women  seem to like to remem­ber their own pregnancy—mostly the good sides of it!—when meet­ing other preg­nant women.
9.  You get a new appre­ci­a­tion for your body. It’s pretty amaz­ing (if slightly dis­turb­ing at times) to see how it adapts for baby-making and baby-baking!
10. These nine months are a chance to rede­fine your priorities—in a pos­i­tive way. For instance, right before I got preg­nant, I traded a full-time per­ma­nent posi­tion for a free­lanc­ing career. It was a scary move but look­ing back at this year, I don’t regret it because my new sched­ule allowed me to live a dif­fer­ent life and I think my preg­nancy expe­ri­ence would have been very dif­fer­ent if I had been work­ing 9–5 in an office.

Did you dis­cover any perks when you were preg­nant? Do these perks make you want to have a baby?

Related arti­cles:

1. 10 Things Not to Say to a Preg­nant Woman
2. 20 Rea­sons Why I’m Look­ing For­ward to The “Grand Finale”
3. 10 Things That Feel Great When You Are No Longer Pregnant
4. Bak­ing a Baby in Canada, or Why I Have Never Con­sid­ered Going Back To France
5. Being Preg­nant: What Does It Feel Like?
6. Post­par­tum