Pregnancy as Art Project

I have only been pregnant once before. I was a teenager. A few weeks after I found out, I had a $50 abortion my boyfriend covered. The clinic gave me boxed cookies after the procedure which didn't taste like cookies in a body full of morphine. There was never any consideration what carrying a baby means. Lucky enough, I never had to consider it. I was on birth control for most of my life after that—always ready for sex and hostile to procreation. I wanted children, many children, by many men, but not in my 20s. When I got pregnant again this spring—willfully—it happened quickly, immediately, easily. Anything seemingly effortless is suspicious, especially art. So, in my hypochondria, when I followed along with the daily miscarriage rate graph, I was sure my baby was nestled between these percentages. Even 2% is a possibility of failure. The uncomfortable ‘don’t reveal’ period of the first trimester is a consequence of these high miscarriage rates. Some women reveal immediately, as some did from the birth club forums/groups I joined. But many of them also had stories of revealing “too early”. That is, revealing and then not having a “viable” pregnancy. (I put all these damn words in quotations because they are horrible and perpetuate a stigmatized and pathologized pregnancy but they are the discourse I was learning).

I knew immediately that I wanted to make art with this excessive body. I should say, I was already planning on being pregnant as an art project and had told some people of my ambitions. They asked me things like if I knew the implications of such a solipsistic and shortsighted statement, but I was already high on my desire. Artists, writers, and especially inventors call their great works of art their baby, so why couldn't I have the baby as the great work of art?