Bumpaholics Anonymous

Hi, I'm Rebekah and I'm a . . . a bumpaholic. I've been pregnant or nursing since March 2002. Sometimes I was pregnant and nursing. I may have been clean for a few weeks in July or August of 2005, but I can't really be sure. It's that bad.

I'm really glad I found you guys because I knew I had a problem but I couldn't nail it down. I know you haven't actually been able to research this, but it makes so much sense I know you must be right. I mean, you're experts on psychiatry and everything so you know how to connect the dots. People who do things that are weird must be crazy. You don't need research to prove that.

You've already helped me so much. I can see now that I'm living a lie. People like me whose higher brain function doesn't work just don't get it. I thought the presents and the showers and the attention would keep rolling in if I were pregnant all the time, but they don't. I haven't had a shower since Baby 3, and that was only because we had just moved and my husband's new employer was nice enough to figure out we probably needed some stuff. In fact, I didn't even have a shower with Baby 2. Isn't there a name for that? . . . Diminishing returns! Hard to believe it applies even to a universally revered condition like pregnancy. No one saw that coming.

My friends and family have gotten bored with me being pregnant all the time, so they're not taking me shopping for new clothes any more or asking what the baby needs. And the thing is, the things we need now are so big that nobody could really help us with them. I mean, we can't expect Grandma to bankroll a bigger car or the triple bunk or an addition to our house. But I was so obsessed with being pregnant I couldn't see what it would really be like, because my brain doesn't work.

Wow, this is so hard. Does anyone have Kleenex?

Ok, thanks. Sorry. It was also really flawed of me to think that I'd keep getting all that special attention that pregnant women get. You know, like people holding doors for me and offering to load my groceries and stuff. That happened so often the first time I was pregnant, just all the time. I especially remember when I got a job toward the end of my second trimester--when my trainer realized I was pregnant she got really worked up about how I hadn't mentioned it in my interview. I could tell she cared so much.

But now I don't leave the house that much since I'm just here taking care of our other kids. I really miss all that attention and help I used to get from the general public, since people in our society are always noticing pregnant people and helping them.

I will say that having strangers and acquaintances rub my belly has an effect on me that makes me feel more like hitting that person than hugging her . . . but I'm sure I'm just weird. I probably have a problem with violence, too. Your research will prove how much most bumpaholics love being groped by people, when you get around to it.

This is going to be hard to explain to my husband. He thinks our having babies is, like, a religious conviction. But I guess all religious convictions suggest some kind of higher brain malfunction. It just doesn't make sense to do things that are hard for me and stretch our family's finances and strain the environment. I can see now that it's time for us to start thinking about all the stuff we could have and awesome things we could be doing and how great it would be to be skinny all the time. I really haven't thought about any of those things at all, I just love being pregnant so much. I mean, I hardly even notice how painful it is to walk after 20 weeks. I've just expected my husband to roll me out of bed in the morning and push the kids in the stroller for me when I can't do those things myself for four months.

Maybe we could start sleeping in on Sundays as a family, that would be a good place to start.

So I'm going to have to be pregnant until January. I guess until then if anyone says anything to me about it I'll just have to explain my problem. It will be hard, but I think it will help everybody, me included. Everyone needs to be aware of bumpaholism, that's the first step.

Thanks for understanding my situation so well and helping me. Thanks for giving us all a better life through speculative projectile psychiatry. Thank you! (Dissolves in irrational, pregnant tears.)