Your Boobs Can Explode?

Note the slightly wide-eyed fear in my eyes (on the left)

Courtney's Take

So here's the thing. I get it. I'm 28, married for 7 months, and have been with Hubs for 9 years. When I tell people this, their eyes not so subtly migrate to my waistline, like they can X-ray me for fetal tissue with their eyes. I just want to yell, "Stop looking at my uterus!"

Every holiday is an endless barge of "When are you having kids?" or "Are you planning on starting a family soon?" We are a family, dammit. We have a dog. He's a lot of responsibility. We may get him a furry brother eventually; however in the eight years we have had him, he has been enough of a pain-in-the-ass that we haven't made the leap, thank you very much.

Like I said, I get it. Procreation is awesome. I applaud anyone who wants to continue the human species. But do you know what else is awesome? Wine. And cheese. And sushi. And reading a book uninterrupted. And sitting at a dinner table with Hubs without a screeching demon monkey howling in my ear. (I really do like kids.)

Please understand me. I'm not anti-kid, and I probably will have kids one day... eventually. What I dislike is the stigma tied to being married and immediately needing to spawn. I also take issue with people who dismiss my general fears of pregnancy saying, "You'll be fine once you are actually pregnant. It's not that scary." I beg to differ.

Pregnancy for me has always been this intriguing and frightening thing, both from a medical standpoint and from personal paranoia. I consider myself fairly well-versed in how bodies work, but I learned a couple of things from my pregnant friend and a television show in the last couple weeks... And it was horrifying and not at all likely to make me feel better about getting pregnant any time soon. I mean, people always say, "Stuff doesn't go back to the way it was." But did you know things TEAR?? Like down there TEARS! Your precious bundle of joy is being expelled from you and you have to take it like a woman and as this is happening it TEARS! "Oh, but you can't feel it." Um... no. You can feel it later when your epidural wears off. This child also takes the ability to hold your bladder away, even after it's born. Let's talk about embarrassing.

And then when you get your little bundle home and you are being used as a feeding machine (I'm sure this is a beautiful moment), you could have a different issue. Let's say you leave your kid for too long. Did you know your boobs could EXPLODE? Maybe I'm being dramatic here, but the movie Neighbors and the television show Outlander seem to uphold my fear here. THEN if you can't get to your kid, you have to milk yourself... like a cow. This is a thing. How do people ever leave their house? 

Way to go, mamas! Total props for living through this... Maybe one day I'll get over my fears of pregnancy, but in the meantime, can someone just give me a toddler? I won't even go into my issues with jam-hands... ;)