self portraits

One thing that has changed a lot with my pregnancy is my body image. Not my body, I mean, no shit my body, it's insane, it's doing things I never thought of it doing and it feels weird, looks weird and doesn't act the way it used to, but today I'm more interested in the way I see my body and the relationship I have with it.
In the months before I got pregnant I was experiencing the best body I'd ever had. Our relationship was great. It was the kind of give and take where no one feels like they are giving or taking and every moment is a shared joy in breathing, moving, working. It was actually a lot like how I feel about Judy. The kinds of things that might be considered maintenance chores, like exercise or eating healthy were as happily undertaken as the kinds of things that might be considered rewards for such tasks, like sleeping like a rock the instant I went to bed, eating as much as I wanted all the time and having really excellent sex. It is hard for me to say what the basic feeling I had about my physical form was. It was like a supreme lack of concern or anxiety. But I wasn't taking it for granted, I felt great and I knew it and loved it. I just wasn't worried about it. Like Judy, I just don't worry about her; I know she's great and I know why because I did it and I trust her implicitly. I never had thoughts about whether or not I should do something out of concern for my body. Not things that would supposedly be good or potentially bad. I just did what was right at all times and it was easy and never let me down. We had fun together and when I accidentally ripped my knee open falling off my bike, it healed up just like skin does.
Now, however, is a different story. I try hard not to resent this body, since we're carrying precious cargo and all. For the most part I don't really feel like it is mine. Especially the middle part, which essentially isn't. I am so aware that the baby lives there and that she is there all of the time, curled up with her feet under my right ribs and her back along my left side. But it is just so heavy, this body. It is the opposite of my old body, which could do anything and go anywhere and jump and climb and ride bikes forever. This body hurts and doesn't manuever too hot through somewhat narrow walkways. My feet are always swollen and sore, from the time I wake up in the morning until I'm laying awake and uncomfortable in bed. Nearly everything I do is tinged with concern for my body, which is basically a concern for the baby. Should I be lifting this, or trying to climb over this. Before there were a lot of things that I probably shouldn't do that I did without a second thought, drinking, smoking, (like a chimney! unfiltered cheap tobacco!) ice cream every day, riding in cars without seatbelts. Now I can barely climb the stairs without collapsing and my nipples have gotten really huge and really dark and i haven't seen the space from my belly button to the middle of my thighs in months. There are things going on that I don't understand that make sex really pretty uncomfortable, aside from the obvious positioning difficulties. I want to not make it sound as though this is all terrible though. It is magic. A separate person, a new person, growing and living inside of me. Inside like right next to my organs and my back; not an undefined sort of spiritual inside, but like there are her feet. This feeling is the feeling of her head on my bladder and when she stretches, I need to pee. I can see her writhing around in there under a relatively thin layer of my skin. She is so big and real. Except, of course, when I try to picture her on the outside. Then it isn't very real at all and I don't know what to expect or what she'll look like or really how this transformation is supposed to take place.