Now that I'm pregnant, I realize how crucial it is to have friends who have babies, or who will be having babies soon too. Now, I don't say this because your children-less friends won't like you anymore once you have the prego cooties, but because friends who currently have babies will understand a side of you that the other friends never can.
However, children-less friends are also crucial, because they will probably gladly keep up the normal course of gossip, witticisms, and work bitching that you so know and love. Since you'll desperately need breaks from all things baby, keep these ladies handy! FWC (Friends with Children, that is) can obviously talk about other things besides babies too, but it's so much harder, because babies are now something new and exotic and scary and cute and (insert adjective here) that you have in common AT THE SAME TIME. It is that "same time" thing that makes it necessary to have them. Your mama and mama-in-law and all other designated birthing female relatives are certainly helpful but too many years have blurred by them. They've selected the good times to remember only, kinda like you may do when you're sitting at home in hour three of a Hoarding: Buried Alive marathon with uterus cramps, and you daydream back to how much fun you used to have dancing on the bar and throwing back Jager in your carefree, selfish, irresponsible, pre-pregnancy days. You somehow glean over those nights that ended with tears by the toilet or the mornings-after of wide-eyed embarassment for what you may or may not have done the night before, God help you if you can remember. Older ladies who had children never think to tell you the real gritty details, the stuff that no one really wants to know...but actually really does want to know.
Like how it's going to feel like WWIII every time you have a bowel movement for weeks after birth. I, for one, hate knowing this but am thankful to know so I can prepare, both mentally and MiraLax-ally. Had I not had a friend who just went through this herself, I'd have never known and would have been blindsided because the mamas don't tell you this. They tell you about that instantaneous, overwhelming, unconditional love that nothing else compares to.
Which is sweet and I'm sure very true and, being the emotional lady I already am, will surely happen to me, but at this point in time, I really love the MiraLax advice. Sentimentality is already overflowing my hormone bank.
Another reason it's good to have friends with babies is so you can babysit. I'm doing it right now. And no, don't go thinking I plopped the kid somewhere so I could type. I actually already have him soundly snoozing for a morning nap. BOO-YEAH! Since from the moment you announce your pregnancy and happen to find yourself in the presence of someone else's infant, you'll be forced to pick the cute slobberbucket up and people will fall over themselves to say, "Ooooh, get some practice, Mama!!" so you might as well take advantage of that sentiment. I don't actually believe that any amount of infant-sitting can prepare you for what it's like to have your own 24/7 b-a-b-y, but at least it gives you an up-close-and-personal, hands-on sneak peek of what's to come. You'll freak sometimes, feel like an idiot other times, and feel like a rock star at the best times. And most of all, it'll let you know that if you can keep someone else's kid alive, you should be able to help your own survive just fine.
So thanks to all of my friends for being so important to me in so many different ways. I need you all...if for no other reason than to spare you! As long as I can spread my irritable mood swings out over all of you, hopefully I won't burn any of you too severely so that you'll continue being my friend until this too-many-cares, selfish (really when you think about it), overly-responsible pregnancy thing is over.
Not to mention I gotta keep good ties so I can bum babysitting duty for myself. Keep those thinkin' caps on, girls! The times they are a-changin'!
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