I want my body back!!!

Pregnancy is a beautiful thing. People admire that twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for 9.5 months your body is hard at work growing a tiny human. People love to see pictures about how big you are getting, and how shiny your hair has become. They can admire your weight gain and talk about how big you are without it "really" being negative. For nine long months everything about your body is fair game for a topic of conversation.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love being pregnant when Little Man is kicking around. When my husband puts his face up to my stomach and talks to the baby, only to be rewarded with a swift kick to the jaw. When my girls climb all over me and say things like "Wake up brother, we loooove you!" When in the quiet of the night it's just me and him awake while the rest of the house is sleeping.

But I do not love that he keeps his head in my right rib almost always. I do not love that he frequently finds himself pushing onto a nerve in either my back or my hip, or even flairs up my sciatica. I do not love heartburn. I do not love missing out on sleep because I can't get comfortable. I do not love being blazing hot ninety percent of the time. I do not love that being pregnant stops me from walking too much, playing with my girls, or even cleaning my house properly.

The thing I do no love most is that I have to start all over at getting my body back.

You never appreciate how your skin was a nice golden tan because you could go to the tanning bed every day.

That your hair was growing out to a nice long length until holding it back out of your face while you throw up got too annoying and you chopped it all off.

That you fit into the jeans you wore in high school again.

That your stomach was flat flat flat even if it wasn't firmed up yet. 

That you weighed almost what you did when you got married.

That the stretch marks you have endured having were fading to a barely there silver instead of bright pink.

I want to work out. I have the urge to work out and lose weight and to get my body back.

I am ready to have this baby and have my tubes tied. No more pregnancy for me. I can accept that it will probably take awhile to get back to where I want to be. Because I know that once I start getting there, I can go all the way because I won't be having any more children. It's a delightful goal that I'm eager to get started on.

Of course, I'll probably forget all about this dream of mine until I'm approximately a year postpartum from Little Man. Something tells me the weight will slide right off once I'm chasing after three children full time.