Rule # 14: Cramp Your Style

One good thing about being pregnant (besides, you know, the impending immaculate pleasure of becoming a mother, that lovable job that's "like no other," as we're told by anyone who has raised a child) is that you don't have to put up with a period. No more tampons for this gal for awhile. No more tracking days or counting birth control pills. No more dumping out the purse in desperation to resort to that tampon you've had in there since 2004 with the bent applicator, or--worse yet--that applicator-less OB tampon your husband got the one time you trusted him with the task of picking some up. No more of it. So much less hassle.

And besides, that little present really is the monthly gift that keeps on giving, isn't it? Because not only do you have to deal with keeping your insides from leaking outside of your new khaki pants, you have to deal with feeling bloated, constipated, diarrhea-ated, migrained, and totally cramptastic. So since pregnancy has its own list of womanly wonders, we get to at least be excused from those former foes, right?

Wrong. Of course.

Welcome to PMS. Pregnancy Mania Shitdrome. And welcome to the crampiest you've ever been in your life.

You thought pre-menstrual cramps were bad? I bet you used to call off work sometimes, curl up on your little couch, pop some Midol, and try to nap them off. No can do with the baby-induced crampage. Because they last alllllll day long. For months' worth of days.

It's not so much one continuous cramp. They are definite, individual, singular-at-a-time cramps. Apparently Braxton-Hicks is the name docs like to call them (really? So the wonderful woman who got these named after her had to be some broad who wanted to hyphenate her last name in the honor of equal rights type shit? Good Lord. My husband's last name is definitely the only one I'm carrying, b/c it's his sperm that led to this uterus situation! He gets to carry full blame!). B-H basically means you're having contractions. But don't worry; just practice ones. So you mean I get a sneak preview of early labor? Oh, happy happy joy joy! Somehow, I like the kind of sneak previews you get at the movies better. Sue me.

But it's not so much the actual cramps that will annoy the piss out of you. And we both know you've got PLENTY of piss these days. It's more the feeling that you could majorly cramp up at any second, if you happen to move, pivot, cough, sneeze, breathe, laugh, blink, or exist the wrong way. Like that uterus is just poised for action in there, peering up at you past your lungs, peeking around the lip of your (continuously) enlargening and bumpy nipple, a little sneer on its uterus lining. Sleeping has become a game of samurai-like geniousness. I can't just easily twist and turn like I used to. (And, oh, God, how I do miss sleeping on my stomach!) Now I have to fully wake up, brace myself, flex my hip slightly to test for tightness and achiness--the result of resting on top of my other hip for an hour too long while I snoozed--clench my hands against the mattress, and try to shift my cannon barrel belly without using any ab muscles.

That's right. You try moving something that is attached to your abdomen w/out using your ab muscles to do it, for fear of everything inside deciding to clench up like a lion on the jugular of a juicy zebra.

And it's not just your uterus that wants to cramp all the time. It's other muscles too. Like your calves. Ooooh, yes. I run a daily stable full of charlie horses now. Especially at night time. Like if I'm concentrating too hard on my stomach situation, they get jealous and give a little pull as if to say, "Hey! We've been here longer. And you haven't walked us for two days. Pay attention, bitch, before we pop a cap o' cramp in your ass too!" And forget a morning stretch. Ah, I remember waking up and taking a moment to just yawn my hands far above my head and reach my toes ballerina-style toward the bottom edge of the bed, feeling the spaces open up nicely all along my back. If I even THINK about a toe extension of a downward variety now, it's bye-bye sanity, helloooo knife in my shin. Seriously. Because I'd rather stab a knife in my shin than have to feel another one of those cramps again.

But guess what? No one really cares, as usual, to hear about all of your cramp-ity doo dah days. So, I'm sure you know by now how to be a Good Pregnant Woman when it comes to anything like this: Just grin and bear it. Pretend that when you are rubbing a part of your bump, it's because you're bonding with baby, not because you're actually trying to shove her back up and over to relieve the pressure she just put on your back nerve, or kidney, or general sense of malaise.

And certainly not because you're secretly thinking she better knock it the hell off because she's getting god damned annoying already with the constant attention-seeking behavior. You know someday she's going to be a pain in your ass since she'll be a teenager.

Too bad you weren't warned sooner that she'd start off being a pain in your uterus. So cramp away, little one. Cramp away. Mama is a woman, after all, and she's already keeping score.