Where's a monkey when you need one?

Today I was asked by a stranger on an elevator what it feels like to be pregnant.

I looked at her for a moment and replied, "Um... what part?"

How can you put words to something that changes so much from day to day and has so many different elements to it? Do you start by describing what it feels like to have a small human wriggling around inside you? (Like you've been hollowed out and stuffed with a live chicken, minus beak and claws.)

Or do you try to explain what pregnancy does to your body - how it relaxes your ligaments and swells your extremities and (if you're lucky enough to work at a computer all day long like me) causes carpal tunnel syndrome, which makes you feel as if you've got tiny elastic bands wrapped around all the joints in your fingers? Or how it feels when your belly - at its fullest possible capacity - is forced to streeeeetch even more to provide a little extra elbow room for your ever-growing stowaway?

Or do you talk about the emotional impact - how the surge of hormones rushing through your body can lift you up to the greatest heights of giddiness one moment then hurl you down into the deepest chasms of grief the next? (Fortunately, I've been lucky enough to experience way more highs than lows, but I'm embarrassed to admit that I did spend an hour and a half one evening sobbing uncontrollably while watching a stupid Disney movie. Damn that Lilo and Stitch.)

To paraphrase a common parable, if you have a thousand monkeys pounding away on a thousand typewriters ad infinitum, eventually they'll produce a comprehensive and accurate description of what it feels like to be pregnant. Otherwise, if you really want to know, you're just going to experience it for yourself.

Either that or hollow yourself out and sew a live chicken in your belly. Your call.

Image taken from: http://www.cineclub.de/images/2000/chicken_run_5.jpg