In Which the Best Is Yet to Come (We Hope)

Folks, it's official: As of today there is more pregnancy behind me than before me. Which I call a reason for rejoicing. Although if the Advice Ladies at work are to be believed, I've got plenty of agony left to go. 

"Ohhh, get ready, it's the most excruciating pain you've ever experienced," say the Advice Ladies. "They'll need to stick you with the epidural like eight times and then the baby will get stuck and then you'll have an emergency C-section and the anesthesiologist will screw up and..."

"I'm not having an epidural," say I.

And then they look at me like I look at the people who dance on street corners without enough clothes on--with pity and with concern and with hope that the craziness isn't catching. 

But I'm not going to freak out about labor. If it's the price of a child, I'll pay it. No, more than that--if it's the price of getting my normal body back, I'll pay it. The first twenty weeks of pregnancy have been an accelerated journey back through the best of puberty--the greasy hair (they told me prenatal vitamins would make it thick and glossy), the acne (is this what they mean by "glowing"?), the moods...oh, the moods...

My husband has been a prince about the moods. And they're a lot better than they used to be. There were a few nights when I burst into tears while making dinner, wept that I couldn't handle the responsibility of heating up leftover soup, flung myself into bed, and cried myself to sleep. And then there was the horrible day when he told me, so, so gently, that maybe we needed to start budgeting for all the steak I was suddenly eating. 

Here is the lesson of the second trimester: Not being nauseous is a great mood improver. 

Which is all to say--poor Princess Kate. The benefits of a diamond tiara don't nearly outweigh the awfulness of vomiting. I hope they plunk that dear woman at an estate somewhere in Scotland, give her nice stretchy sweatpants, and then leave her alone for nine months. And then I hope--I really, really hope--she'll be willing to share her Royal Pregnancy Hair Tips. Because my hair just cannot handle another pregnancy like this.