John's gone off to rehearsal. He's in tech this week, then previews, and opening night is in two weeks. After that, he's taking some time off so we can be together and enjoy those final few weeks of my pregnancy. I can't wait. Neither can he.
I want to get a shower in before Hannah wakes up. She usually wakes up around 9:30 or 10. I step in the bathroom and put the water on, then I remove my clothes. I have a particular love for tight-fitting workout clothes. I'm wearing a top and some shorts. They're just great all-purpose things to fart around inâalthough maybe not the best thing to wear at 8+ months pregnant. The top is a holdover from my first pregnancy and, well, we'll just say its elasticity is not holding up well. The shorts just get buried in the crease underneath my belly. Yes, that means my belly is mostly exposed. But when you have a husband that finds your peeking baby belly to be totally sexy, you don't feel quite so much urgency to cover it up.
There's a wall-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door and I pause for a moment and look at myself. I run my hand down over my breasts and hold it on my belly. The baby is still flopping around inside me so I shake my belly a little bit and talk to her some more.
"Hey...wanna calm down in there?" I say.
She doesn't stop. This girl, I fear, is going to be a troublemaker.
My focus goes back to the mirror. My mind drifts for a second, back to those times when I hated the way I looked. Now, I feel so sexy and powerful, full of life and warmth. But the best part is that I don't need to tell myself this in order to feel that way. It's one thing to have this pregnancy kink and go through the experience. I'm going through it-and I'm so lucky to be going through it a second time-with a man who constantly tells me how beautiful I am and how sexy pregnancy has made me. I'm very fortunate in that regard.
I hold that thought in my head as I get in the shower. Not washing my hair this morning. I just rinse it out a bit. It helps it not be quite so unruly. Curly hair problems, y'know? Then I start to soap myself up. This task has become increasingly more and more difficult as I grow larger. Hannah was a pretty big girlâ9lb, 9oz when she was bornâand I measured 41 weeks. She stretched me out good and proper and now this girl is finishing the job of destroying my abdominal muscles. Doesn't help that she's been growing straight out ever since I started showingâshort girl problems, y'know? Point is, showering is kind of hard for me right now. Sometimes, I wait for my husband to come home. It doesn't take much convincing to get him to help me out.
So I'm scrubbing down my boobs and my belly, and fortunately our shower has a little bench in the corner so I can kind of maneuver myself to wash my legs. But this is kind of exhausting for me. And I really can't do a good job of it. So I lean back against the wall to catch my breath for a second. I put my hands on my bellyâstill holding the washcloth. I look down and smile. Then I start thinking about John being in the shower and helping me.
John has always had this uncanny ability to touch me the right way. It goes all the way back to when we started dating. Like, he'd put his hand on my back and press in with one of his fingers in such a way that I'd absolutely get wet. Touch, for him, seems to be a nonverbal way of telling me he loves me. He still touches my back like that, or my neck. When he washes me, he starts by covering my arms, giving me a little extra scrub under my armpits. He covers my legs next. Then up over my back and my butt, which he always makes sure to squeeze. Then my breastsâoften giving my nipples his "special" wash with his mouth. He saves my belly for last because that's his favorite part. Even when I'm not pregnant, he loves my belly. I think it's because he imagines what it would look like all swollen up with our baby. He'll scrub it in circles, then up and down and all over. Usually he'll punctuate it by holding me tight and kissing me on the mouth or, if he really wants to get me going, on the back of my neck.
Whew! Just thinking about this is making me kind of horny. That's usually how this happens for me. This whole idea of my body growing and changing and swelling up so round...and I am soooo round...This is what I was meant to do. I know it and he knows it and we are totally primal with each other when I'm pregnant. That silent understanding between us...just gets me so fucking hot. I rub my belly a little more, inching my right hand lower and lower each time until I reach my vagina. Again, no easy task with this big belly in the way, but, you know, you always find a way. I think about John's hands on me. His breath on my neck and his hand starting to scrub in between my legs...in my vagina. He knows where I like it. I do too, obviously, but, again, I've got an obstruction. Still, I manage. I slide two fingers in and out of my vagina slowly at first, then I increase my tempo. I grab my right nipple with my left hand and start to slowly tweak it in between my thumb and my index finger. I'm still lactatingâlittle pearly white droplets of milk start to leak from me and I take my fingers and lick them off. Lactating isn't really a kink for me, but then again it's just another one of those fucking amazing things that pregnancy has done to me...like, I fucking make FOOD out of my body and OMG what an incredible sexy feeling oh fuck this would be so amazing if John were here right now he'd pin me up against the wall of the shower and finger me until I collapse in his arms and this one time he sat me down on the bench and put his hands on my belly and buried his face in my vagina fuck that was so fucking hot this is so fucking hot and OH MY FUCKING GOD IM GONNA CUM...FUUUUUCK...
...Oh fuck yeah.
I slump down on the bench, the shower still running, soap slowly dripping off me. I rub my belly some more. She hasn't stopped bouncing around in there. I take a few minutes to catch my breathâagain, it's hard doing most any normal task these daysâand then I heft myself up and finish rinsing off. And that's how my morning shower goes on most days.
***
I'm not going to say my relationship with John has been perfectâno relationship ever is-but it has always been very easy for both of us. That's probably why it's worked, because it's never truly felt like we had to force things or work on thingsâit always felt natural and correct for us to be together. We disagree, we argue, we talk and we figure things out. It helps, I think, that I'm very good at coaxing things out of himâI make him more relaxed and less taciturn. I think he dials me back a bit so I'm not quite so manic. But we have a rule, which is really important: We're not allowed to go to bed mad at each other. And we never have.
But it was a struggle for the first couple of years we were together. We were both working, and working constantly because that's just life in show business and we had to make ends meet. We were living together in a small apartmentâhoping some day we'd be able to live someplace where we could actually have a family. Then John's father died, suddenly. John and his father had a complicated relationshipâI didn't particularly get along with himâand John inherited a rather substantial amount of money. This was kind of a game-changer for us because it meant we'd be able to survive without burning our respective candles at both ends. We searched forâand boughtâa nice, big apartment with enough space for a couple of kids, then we got married...and a few months later I found out I was pregnant!
Yes, our mutual fetish for pregnancy is a big part of our relationship. It's hard for it not to be. I used to love to pretend I was pregnant for him, and that was really great, but nothing truly prepared us for the real thing.
I hadn't really noticed that I was lateâI was in the middle of the run of a show and one morning I was finishing up a prop run when I immediately felt nauseous, ran to the bathroom and puked my guts out. Then, I immediately felt better. The next day, it happened again twice, once during intermission. After it happened a third day, I called my doctor. She made an appointment for me to come in the next day but in the meantime, she asked if it was possible I might be pregnant. I paused, because I couldn't recall the last time I'd had my period and when I checked...It turned out to be 36 days. Time flies when you're working on a show. I took a test that night and when that plus sign came up I just started laughing until tears were streaming down my face. I was kind of stunned. It was finally true!
John was beyond overjoyed when I told him. He told me he couldn't wait for me to have a real belly. That night when we had sex, everything felt different. Maybe it was psychological but just knowing that it was now finally my turn to experience being pregnant just make everything feel deeper. More passionate.
The first few months were hard. I was sick a lot and generally just felt very disoriented. John did what he could to help me but we kind of just had to wait it out and let my body adjust. I could feel changes happening already. My breastsâwhich were already a healthy DDâshot up a cup size in the first few weeks and were super, super sensitive. I had big, childbearing hipsâJohn loved that about meâand they started to get a bit wider.
By about 14 weeks I started to get a bit rounder in the belly, and around the same time I got my bearings back, which was good because around the same time I got super duper horny. Like, constantly. Certain smells and touches would set me off. I started working on another show when I was 16 weeksâit was a 14-week gigâand I found out right away that Pregnancyâespecially when you're so into it like I amâand Stage Management are not quite a good mix. It's hard to tape out a stage when you have a belly in the way, and when you're working on a play with a big romantic kissing scene, well, let's just say I found myself getting a little damp downstairs. And at around 28 weeks I started to have a serious growth spurtâmy belly got really bigâand when your job involves watching a show, calling cues and sitting behind a hot dimmer board, it gets more than just a bit uncomfortable.
By the time that show finished, I realized I was toast. John told me I needed to stop and just relax and prepare for the babyâslow down and work on being an actual mom. And he was right. I needed to take more time for myself. Those last ten weeks, I spent them doing things like furniture shopping, doing prenatal yoga, reading up on taking care of baby, and mostly admiring just how big I'd become. Needless to say, John loved it too and we were constantly touching each other in a variety of naughty ways, even if we were in public.
My belly was also a total hand magnet, which I loved. It never bothered me when people would ask to rub my belly, at least so long as it was a friend. Strangers not so much. John would sometimes pretend to act like one of those weird, glommy dads and stand directly in front of me so nobody could see I was pregnant. It was kind of funny. Maybe you had to be there.
In reality, though, that third trimester of pregnancy was easily the most beautiful and sexual time of my life. After spending so many years feeling self-conscious and uncomfortable with my body and my appearance, I would look at myself in the mirror and just marvel over how amazing my body lookedâand how amazing my body isâand how sexy and feminine I felt.