I’m pregnant.

And I don’t like babies.

I never thought I’d get married, much less have a kid. I’m not one of those girly women who love weddings and babies. I’ve always been somewhat of a tomboy, but more importantly, I’m a pragmatic sort of person who realized early on that it would be nearly impossible for me to find anyone that I could be happily married to. But then the impossible happened. I did meet that impossible match, the conditions were right, and we eventually married. And now, after four blissful years of married life, I’m pregnant.

Most people go through sure-footed and excited about the things that they anticipated life would bring them. I knew I would have a career, so I proceeded confidently and enthusiastically with that. But since the idea of having a kid is a recent concept in my life, I haven’t been super excited about being pregnant like most other first-time mothers. I’m not one of those baby-crazy women who bask in the attention their pregnancy brings, and as such I feel that I need much more room to find myself as a mother. It’s no surprise, then, that I do not like being pregnant. It’s not magical, and it’s not spiritual; it’s just a big pain in the ass. From people thinking that your pregnancy is public property to the annoying physical aspect of carrying around a weirdly dense mass in front of you that you are constantly aware of to this wild expectation people have that you should be glowing with happiness — it’s all just a big pain in the ass. I am almost ready to say that I’d rather just have the baby now and take care of it now than go on being pregnant for another four months.

Over the last few months, I’ve started to get used to the idea of having a kid and now wonder about what my kid’s personality is going to be like, whether it’ll be a baby who likes to be burped mid-feeding, whether it’ll be a baby who likes to be swaddled, or whether it’ll be a baby who isn’t bothered by a wet diaper. I’m a pragmatic person and as such I like to think about these things, but even more, I like to execute. For me, I think the main joy of having a kid is not having a cute baby to dress up or talk to or exercise your ideologies. I think of parenting as the practical task of raising another human being to go onto to become their own person with their own life adventures, and I think the best pathway to this is to pay attention to the kind of person your kid is and adapt your parenting accordingly. And I think this will be my main joy as a parent: the time when my kid becomes self-reliant, moves out of my house, starts calling me less frequently, and just goes on to experience life on his/her own terms.