Being a woman is punishment.

God is a man. He must be. Because why in the hell did he make women’s bodies like this? A woman would never.1

I’m reporting to you live from my dark sunroom at 5:25am. I’ve been awake and stirring since 4am, and I finally decided to put Alex out of the misery of tolerating my restlessness and just get up. It turns out one melatonin gummy works exactly half as well as two melatonin gummies. I only took one because I’m on a progesterone supplement that makes me drowsy, so I’m trying to balance out my sedation dosage. This was not the ideal combo.

While I was rolling around, trying to stop itching, I realized I wanted to write a piece just complaining about being a woman. Yup! That’s all this is. It’s an airing of the grievances, but I promise I won’t end on a sour note. I also apologize in advance for the reductive nature of my language, but for the sake of continuity when I refer to men and women I’m referring to their reproductive systems, not their gender identity, honestly because I don’t want to speak for trans and non-binary folks. Gender identity is so important. I try to only write what I know, and I can’t possibly know how that feels. I hope at least some of this resonates.

I have two close friends who are pregnant, due later this year. One is riding high on finally fulfilling her lifelong dream of becoming a housewife who bakes all day (I’m half-kidding; she already owns her own thriving cake baking business), but the other friend is reliving my pregnancy experience. Rebecca’s was similar. It’s the one where every day is its own form of torture, you hate any woman who tells you to “enjoy it” or talks about how much she loved pregnancy (not girls’ girl behavior), your body feels like a prison, and the idea of this all resulting in a newborn sounds so terrifying you feel like you’re drowning in existential dread.

Childbirth is different for everyone. I was in labor for 15 hours, pushed for 25 minutes and had a healthy boy, six pounds one ounce at 36 weeks and two days. Rebecca’s experience was…very different. Even the easiest labors are literal trauma to the body. You spent nine months (or in my case eight) growing a human from nothing, and when you get done, you look around like, “did you guys just see that? I made life.” And everyone’s like aww, baby, but you’re like, “where the hell is my parade? DID YOU SEE THAT???” Such is the punishing paradox of being a woman. Time to change the baby.