I Should Write a Book About the Glorious Time in a Woman's Life Known as Pregnancy

Some of you may know that I want nothing more than to write a book or few. My problems are that I am terrified to write because a professor who scarred me for life and that I have 15 million ideas in my head and only one of them actually made it to paper.  However, that one is a children's book and it turns out I draw with less skill than I write. 

Although I dreaded the thought of being on bed rest from June until two days from now, I had big plans to get a book going and see what happened. I can tell you what didn't happen: bed rest and a completed novel. One of those I am thankful for and the other haunts my nights when the thoughts of a C-Section take a vacation. 

As I am sure you know I am full of charm and grace so I expected nothing less during this surprise of a pregnancy.  I stayed away from "What to Expect When You're  Expecting" and other books like that because I knew I'd have more than enough biddies chirping in my ear of what to do and what not to do while a little human was using my body as a dorm during his freshman year of existence. And it dawned on me this evening as the thoughts of the looming C-Section went out for her ten minute smoke break that I should write a book on pregnancy. The problem is that the book would never be long enough or short enough or complete enough. So I'll give you the gist of it in the rest of this work...

Ahem...

The Joke of a Beautiful Nine Months 

Misconceptions After Conception 

(Working Title)   

Why in the world do people say "good job" or "well done" to father?  What did he do to deserve a "well done?"

I mean we all know what he did and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to make that happen. How about the mother, who most likely, is exhausted and feeling sick for a good ten weeks? What about a well done for her? How about a good job for not killing her baby daddy in those early weeks or actually at any time during the pregnancy? 

And whose bright idea was it to have a calendar to track the baby's growth while in the womb? (Like on strongmoms.com.) Yes, I followed along for quite sometime but then the doctors told me  that my baby was tiny and was not on track with that calendar at all. Why even have those cute little things when your experience could be completely different? 

Experience.  Pft. Pregnancy, naturally, is a completely different experience for every woman and also for everyone in involved in said woman's life.  (STEFANIE, DO NOT READ THIS PART!) For example, as I was throwing up my cereal for the third night in a row, my hair was all matted, my face all sweaty, and my nerves completely shot as I was cuddling up to the filthiest garbage can I've ever seen (which was a better alternative to the toilet in the disgusting apartment I was renting), Dann takes a moment to tell me he loves me.  I know his intentions were in the right place but honestly I'm puking into a bin tell me you love me at a more attractive time. (STEF, COME BACK.) He probably will never love me like he has in these last nine months and like he will the moment he sees our son for the first time but goodness save the emotional stuff for a time when I can speak!  Some people are just so excited when their friend or loved one is pregnant that they forget or may not consider how difficult it is to be pregnant- like all I want to do is put my darn shoes on without help! Or maybe load paper in the printer or slip into a booth without bumping my ginormous stomach three billion times. 

And you know what, you will be hungry.  Don't let anyone tell you any different  or make you feel bad for eating, with that being said try to eat healthy for most of the day.  So I'll tell you this:  EAT! EAT! EAT! It's the only time when no one will judge you for having six slices of pizza and a bag of chips. (P.S. I'd eat like that even if I wasn't pregnant.) Your significant other will gain weight. Relish in that fact. He got you into this mess; he should get some stretch marks too! 

You're most likely not doing anything wrong. For a while I felt like every move I made was a sure way of doing things wrong.  I think I was too hard on myself for most of it. With the exception of smoking, doing drugs, and drinking (do not do any of that crap)  I think that women need to lighten up during pregnancy.  I still get upset when I think about the time I passed out in the shower. Not because I passed out but because I didn't wait for Dann to get home to shower.  Now I'm convinced that Lennon will have a funny nose due to my fall even though doctor after doctor assured me that his nose was hardly a nose at that point.  But go easy on yourself, you're growing a human and that's hard work. I'd rather go back to grad school than do this again, it's that hard.  I gave up a lot of what I used to eat and I stay home more now than I ever have before but I still think I'm doing everything wrong - even right now I should be sleeping. 

Sleep. People will tell you to sleep when you can and obviously this is true. But my two cents, the most valuable two cents at least, is to invest in a Boppy pregnancy body pillow. My mother got me one as soon as I came home from England and I don't think I would be able to sleep without it.  Put it between your knees and behind your back in the first and second trimesters.  As your belly grows put it under the baby to hold his weight as your stomach feels like it might fall off in the third trimester.  And I would also recommend establishing "Tootsie Tuesday" and "Foot Rub Friday" early on so that your mate knows he's definitely rubbing your feet at least two days a week, as he should since you're growing his human anyway. Foot rubs are the best and even better when you're carrying an extra 20 - 30 pounds.  

 

You are not fat. You are pregnant.  This is a hard one for me to get through my head. I see no difference when it comes to size. You will gain weight.  Your face will get rounder and your legs and arms will probably get bigger.  I try to remind myself that this is just a temporary weight and that I'll be close to old self by Thanksgiving, but since my boobs have blown up a few band and cup sizes and my badinski has passed the audition to be the star in the 2013 remix of Sir-Mix-Alot's "I Like Big Butts" video it's hard to accept that my body will be close to normal ever again. In some aspects I did get lucky. My shirts and pants are just getting too small on me within the last week but with two days left I'm definitely not going out and spending cash on overpriced maternity clothes that make me feel bigger than I want to feel anyway. 

Whales.  I love whales. But not feeling like one.  Dann, the sweetheart he is, loves to watch me fall asleep at night and I will ask him "What are you looking at?" Or "Why are you being a creep?" And he will just respond with "You're beautiful."  Well I try to tell him that there is nothing beautiful about a beached whale in your bed.   Never mind the fact that my belly takes up more bed space than he and I together but my breathing is also comparable to that of a 1,000 pound woman who chained smoked all of her life. For real, my breathing is so heavy now that I wake myself up because of it most nights.   There is little self pride in pregnancy. 

My friend told me that I won't have any dignity by the time this is over and that it will take much more to embarrass me once this is said and done.  I didn't believe her at first but I sure do now. All I can say is that no matter how unprepared you are to have your junk exposed and your business shown to the world, you are not the worst that the doctors have seen. There will be an appointment or two where they catch off guard and tell you to get in a gown, only then in that moment will you wish your big, fat, pregnant arse shaved in the last four days. But then that same sweet guy who tells you that you're beautiful and that he loves you while you're puking will remind you that the doctors do this all day, and if you think he's going to remember that you didn't shave your legs by the end of this day then you are quite full of yourself and you should probably stop prancing around with a crown on your head.  

And you will master the art of peeing in a cup and by week 33 you will no longer care that you are carrying it around with you like a medal you won for most popular chick in the breastfeeding class. I think the whole peeing in a cup thing prepares you for the first time your son pees on you. The Universe helps us out like that.  And bring snacks to your appointments!  You most likely won't be waiting long, but let me tell you if your OB office plays General Hospital every time you're in the waiting room then you're going to get bored quickly.  

Do not let anyone else make you feel like you aren't a good mom.  You are a good mom.  You haven't had a real chance to mess it up yet. I've realize that when it comes to breastfeeding or formula feeding, the choice to circumcise or not, and vaccinate or not, they are all YOUR choices as parents.  Not anyone else's and do not let anyone else judge you or make you feel craptastic for the choices that you think best fit for your child.  We are all trying to do our best and I've decided that those choices should be treated like religion and politics at the dinner table - just don't talk about them.  And if you do talk about them do not judge others on their choices. 

You cannot do it all.  I consider myself to be a very independent person.  I hate asking people for help and lately it's all I've been doing. By week 28 you might have a hard time bending over to pick something  up.  Learn the art of picking things up with your toes or learn to say please and thank you over and over again. Bending over will be a thing of the past.  So will sitting Indian-Style or "Criss-Cross Applesauce."  You'll need help getting up from the couch and sometimes you just need someone to reach something in the back of the fridge. Don't try to carry things that were too heavy for you before you were  even pregnant. And pee before you leave the house.  Don't worry, you'll have to pee two seconds after pulling out of the driveway anyway. 

Thankfully, I'm starting to get sleepy and my breathing doesn't seem too bad at the moment so I will end my first gist of my book with this : 

Never ever,  under any circumstance, should you tell your significant other that you have a crush on your OB, even if it is just because he has a Dave Matthews Band ringtone set on his phone. It will make that appointment when you're told to drop your pants a bit awkward, regardless of whether or not you shaved. 

And remember it's supposed to be one of the most beautiful times of your life so be sure to grab some rose-colored glasses when you're picking up that pregnancy test! :-) 

10 Days Until Baby

It's scary to think that you're going to be responsible for another human being for the rest of your life.  As if my life hasn't already changed dramatically, in ten days it's about to get real.  I'm sure he'll be a cool baby and that, once the initial fear wears off, it won't be that complicated and not very different than spending summers with Jacob or hanging out with Levi, except for it being 24/7, 365 days a year. But that calm and collected attitude is not my most worn game face these days.  In fact, friends, I have never ever been so scared in my entire life. And, I mean, I've been through some crap in my time. But Debbie's wrath, Corey's lectures, moving to a foreign country on my own, and my most feared horror movie all seem a bit easier and more inviting than the thought of being sliced open in ten days, even if it is to give birth. 

Pip doesn't scare me and death doesn't scare me. To be honest, I've always considered myself being okay with dying at any moment. I always believed I lived a good life and when your time is up then there isn't much you can do about it. I've always thought of it as an old friend waiting to have a nice long chat and catch up with me. With that being said, Pip dying scares me and Pip growing up without his mama scares me. Now, there's still so much that I want to do. Now, I want to control when my time is up. I want to see this baby that I've been growing and housing for the last nine months.  Also, if I am not around who will make sure that he gets my taste in music and not his father's? If the fact that Pip might grow up thinking 80's music is fantastic doesn't scare you then you need to get your courage cloned for me, for reals. 

And, I mean, there is really no reason, other than the doctors admitting they have no idea what to do with me, for me to think that I wouldn't survive. With lawsuits and bad press these days, I have to believe that if the doctors really believed that they couldn't get me through this successfully that they would wash their hands of me to avoid a death on their record.   I'm morbid, I know. 

The thing is that I've been a science project for so long, my whole life actually. It's all I know.  I've grown accustomed to, and quite fond of the response, "I don't know," from doctors that it's kind of what I expect at all times.  But lately, I'm not okay with being a science project. I would love to just have ten days of normalcy and go about this like every other expecting  mom and be excited about this baby getting out of my belly and being able to have my body back, but excited is just not there. Fear is.  Anxiety is. Doubt is. Excited must have hitched a ride to someone else's due date. 

I met with the anesthesiologist two weeks ago and he's quite confident that the team at Moses Taylor are competent enough to make this work and the doctor assisting my OB during the section is actually the head of the department (because I am a medical mystery? In the name of science? Or coincidence?) so that's comforting. But there is also the reality that they may not have any idea of what they're getting themselves into, like when I hopped on a plane to England two years ago. They could be thinking that they're going to have a barrel of monkeys on the 12th and it could end  up to be a cage full of hungry tigers! 

So I have my "Just In Cases" ready to go. Of course, I try to be as humorous as possible when telling my mother that she better not have my funeral in west side and if they decide to cremate me to at least play "Girl on Fire" while it's happening. I have an utterly adorable notebook to write silly, unnecessary things/wishes in - it's called my "Just In Cases" book. I will get around to writing stuff in there, I also purchased fancy colored Sharpie pens to add some pizazz should people have to actually read through it.  Thoughtful, I know. 

But, then I start to think of after.  This is always a blurred line for me because I don't believe in a lot of mumbo jumbo. (Science project, remember?) This is where I contradict myself the most and where I am probably the biggest hypocrite going.  I believe in good and evil. I think I believe in some sort of Divine Being, maybe it's just the Universe that really has a bigger plan set up for everyone but then I get annoyed because I am not cool with something or someone controlling my life. I don't think I believe in a God that the Bible speaks of. Maybe because too many fools take it and analyze it and push it down other people's throats, I can't be sure.  I do not believe in Hell, or maybe that people actually go there, but I do believe that there is such thing as a Devil and that is because of all of the evil I see in the world.  However, there is much good in the world so surely there should be an equal and opposite entity to balance all of this crap out. The  Universe is big and maybe I'm a bit more for recycling than I originally thought but who's to say where we go from here?  Surely it would be easier to send our souls to another place than to just have them linger around here. But, then again, I don't really believe in ghosts (I say this as my feet must be covered so that I am protected from any ghost that may want to drag me under the bed) and, as we all know, the body is what takes up the space not our souls. So what happens next?  My great grandma always told me that I would be rewarded in Heaven for the seemingly hard life that she knew I'd have but I didn't yet understand.  I was young, like four or five, but I think even then I thought it was a load of bull. Heaven doesn't help me now. But then again if Heaven is for eternity, surely this temporary home is the worst of the two. And I'll take the challenges now rather than prance around in Heaven with all of this crap holding me down.  

Now, Heaven that is what I really think about often. If it exists at all, what it is like?  Does it change for everyone? How does that work when you meet up with old friends and family members who passed away before you? Surely there is someone up there who thinks a forever filled with 80's music is a great way to go about it and that would absolutely stink for me!  Dann's Heaven would probably be full of Star Wars, Marvel/DC and superiffic geek-like things, and I'm just too cool for that so what happens then? This is surely where Heaven can get tricky. Don't even get me started on the whole idea of what happens if your spouse dies and then you remarry. You have two partners in Heaven then? I'd be furious if I spent 56 years waiting for my husband to get to Heaven only to learn he married some chick after I croaked and I have to share him for eternity.

But if there is a Heaven I can tell you what I think it's like. Dann and I talk about it often. Obviously, if there is such a place, Heaven would be like Candy Land. Yes, the board game.  Not the new version either, that stuff is too politically correct for my liking. I'm talking about Candy Land pre-2000s when you still had to worry about getting tossed back down to Plumpy and his sugar plums, but I always thought he was a nice looking guy. If anyone is going to meet you at the gates of Heaven, why not that happy looking green guy? Imagine how fun it would be to just prance around in candy for eternity.  I'd hardly mind being sent down to Plumpy because I'd get to go on those rainbow slides, which is probably made of  regenerating Skittles anyway.  The only beef I might have is with Lord Licorice. I never really enjoyed licorice before because I have a terrible underbite which prevents me from chewing many things, and licorice tastes like butt.  But maybe in Heaven I wouldn't have an underbite and licorice would not taste like butt.  Who knows?! Anyway, I'd definitely enjoy that Peppermint section. I googled the characters and apparently he's called Mr. Mint, I can't recall if that is what he was called back in the day.   Debbie probably still has our VHS hanging around somewhere. I'll let you know if I find it. But, Mr. Mint, reminds me of Christmastime and that is always joyous.  We have Grandma Nutt who would always be waiting with hot chocolate.  Gloppy would eventually give up the molasses deal and let all of that be chocolate which is just delicious. Queen Frostine and King Kandy would also be nice to hangout with from time to time. But I'll fill you in, I'm too much of a feminist to prance around with a king and Frostine always seemed too prissy for me.  All in all, I think my idea of Heaven is an okay idea. I could be wrong (and right at the same time) and once I croak that's the end of the story but at least I have it out there that I'm not nervous about the death part or what comes after because it's only Candy Land anyway. And let's face it I'll end up spending a good chunk of time waiting for Princess Lolly to get there anyway so I'll wait around there for her to arrive, in another hundred years :) 

So that's what I tell myself, "It's Candy Land anyway."  Sure I don't want Pip to not know me but if the last nine months have taught me anything they've taught me this: Some things are just out of my hands.  He will be taken care of. He has people on both sides of the world who love him already. And since he's my son, he might inherit my sense of humor which will help him bunches, along with my sense of adventure and determination which I hope he gets. 

Some people sleep at night, other people are rudely awakened by little feet kicking on their bladders. I'm one of those people and this blog was brought to you in part by the letter P.