Let me forewarn all readers that what follows may be considered TMI by some people. I don't often hesitate about speaking my mind and to me, often times, nothing is off limits - and at the end of the day this is my blog and these are things that are happening in my life right now and it's all so new to me that I have to share it somehow. Also, just because I'm listing the stupid things, don't think that I'm not excited and totally in love with the idea of giving birth - just not always in love with all the changes going on in my body.
There's your warning so if you continue reading you may be doing so at your own risk.
As most of you know by now, I'm expecting my first baby. This is a long-awaited event for me and I'll be 37 by the time baby comes along but Nate (who will be 39 and it'll be his first as well) are both very excited about this event. In preparation for baby to arrive I, being of the digital age, have joined an online support group for women who are due in September and are over the age of 35 (that being the age when a woman becomes an "elderly pregnancy" lol - who knew I would be elderly already?)
Anyway, on this board to which I belong the women have been compiling a list of "Stupid Things About Being Pregnant". We're all just entering our second tri-mester so this is a list thus far in our pregnancies - I'm sure it'll expand as the months carry on.
1. Strangers will, unprovoked, tell you ridiculously personal things (“With my second child, I needed 16 stitches to sew my perineum back up!”). Labor horror stories and unsolicited parenting advice come a close second.
2. Strangers will, unprovoked, ask you ridiculously personal things (“Was this one planned? Were you trying?”). Your sex life becomes fair WikiLeaks fodder.
3. Get used to the “Is-she-pregnant-or-just-fat?” stare. If the observer decides "pregnant," you become an object of fascination.
4. If you tell someone you're pregnant, they will look at your belly. They will not be able to tear their eyes away; they must stare at your belly.
5. For you, it’s a miracle. For the ultrasound tech, it’s a yawn. Don’t be surprised if she is busy texting while you listen to your child’s heartbeat for the first time. True story.
6. When a husband goes to obstetrics, he might be treated like a wife at a car dealership: i.e. ignored, patronized, and excluded.
7. You become part of a weird club that measures everything in weeks when normal people would count in months. (After birth, you’ll be marking time in months while normal people are counting in years.)
8. Innocuous things will now seem more dire than they really are. For example, if you are enjoying a nice long bath and the pipes run out of hot water and you call out for your husband to please boil some water and fetch some clean towels—well, he might take it the wrong way.
9. Everything smells disgusting. You will smell weirdly specific things like shredded lettuce from a few hundred feet away. You can tell what brand deodorant other people use.
10. If you get morning sickness after eating something, you will never want to look at that food ever again. (Sorry, chicken.)
11. Exactly at the time when food seems most disgusting, pregnancy books will keep reminding you of it: “Your baby is now the size of an olive/strawberry/kumquat (what exactly IS a kumquat?).” “Aren’t you excited about your little butterbean/nugget/peanut?”
12. Cravings are for real. You will send your husband out with specific instructions to buy you a waffle cone. (“What do you mean what flavor ice cream? I want my waffle cone raw.”)
13. Any food or drink that ever brought you joy is now forbidden. A “wine and cheese party” is now just a “… party.”
14. You will narrow your eyes at your husband and wish he was a male seahorse. That would be awesome.
15. You will also feel jealous of marsupials. And birds (you’re good at sitting).
16. Toxic Gas! Need I say more?
17. You will buy a body pillow to help you sleep at night. You will name it Salma Hayek so neither you nor your husband will want to kick it out of bed.
18. You will feel a strange excitement when your embryo officially becomes a fetus, because that means that if some deranged lunatic killed you, he would legally be charged with TWO homicides, and you shall be doubly avenged.
19. Pregnancy message boards mean learning all new acronyms--forget any you thought you knew before. Otherwise, you'll read: "I'm a Female-To-Male and my Designated Hitter is ecxited about our new Designated Driver!"
20. Never offer an opinion or commentary on anyone’s choice of baby name. It doesn’t matter if they’re planning to spell “Mary” with 2 Ys and a silent K, or if they tell you they like “Effluvia” for a girl and “Midden” for a boy, they’re probably going to go ahead with it no matter what you say.
21. As soon as you finish dinner, you start thinking about breakfast. As soon as you finish breakfast, it's "hmm wonder what's for lunch?" and so on.
22. It is the only time in your life when I think you spend as much time in the bathroom to pee as you do sleeping.
23. Strangers, or anyone for that matter, think it's ok to touch or rub your pregnant belly! It's like cute belly=invitation to touch. My obgyn said this idea always amazes him how personal space is invaded...I mean, you wouldn't walk up to someone and grab their crotch "How you doin'?"...and we're not dogs...we don't need to sniff heineys...so rubbing bellies without permission? No thank you.
24. Sleeping does not make you less tired – you can sleep all day long and still be exhausted at 8:00 pm.
25. You have the attention span of a … oooo….what’s that? – Shiny!
26. The reason pregnant women "glow" is because all of those hormones surging through the body make every inch of our bodies and hair oily oily oily. It's not a glow you're seeing - it's the inability to decrease the amt of oil our bodies are producing.
27. You know you're going to be violently ill - you can feel it - but you also know that if you don't empty your bladder first there's going to be an even bigger mess to clean up afterward.
This is the list so far - have you been pregnant? What would YOU add?
To go along with the food issue. When I was pregnant with Zac I craved fish and I hated the smell of cooking meat. Brandon had a hard time dealing with that. "You want halibut? You don't like fish!" "Honey can you start dinner and I'll finish it? What do you mean the sight of raw hamburger and the smell of it cooking makes you sick? Okay I guess I'll finish dinner while you're in the bathroom throwing up. Are you going to eat this with me?" Fun times, lol.
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