They say that a baby is considered full-term from 37 weeks on. So, naturally, the day I hit week 37, I was more than ready for the baby to emerge.
Worried about labor pains? Nope.
What about all those strangers looking at my wahoo? Couldn't care less.
And the fact that it all meant a real live screaming crying helpless baby would be dropped in my arms and I would be expected to care for its survival?
Bring it out of my body and then we'll worry about that part.
Many people like to tell you how pregnancy is Mother Nature's way of prepping you for a baby: the months of waiting, the sleepless nights...and perhaps they are right. Because all of those things that used to worry you or completely freak you out back around month 5, maybe even into month 7, vanish like the tub of ice cream you skillfully avoided for a few weeks until your last doctor's appointment confirmed enough weight gain to justify not giving a flying fahoo anymore. You become so sick and tired of hearing:
--how the baby has/has not "dropped"
--whether or not you are dilated yet
--if you are excited or nervous or anxious or ___________ (insert Mad Lib emotion here)
--the length and stride of your waddle
--how HUGE you are
and you are so tired of feeling uncomfortable, achy, stretched out, puffed up, and generally an exaggerated cartoon version of your former self that you really do not care what it takes, you just want the baby out...as long as he/she is healthy, of course.
So why does Tom Petty know best?
Because, my friends, "the waiting is the hardest part."
Try what you want, it won't make that baby get here any quicker. I tried deep knee bends and lunges down the entire length of my work hallway. I skipped from room to room. I ate spicy Mexican and Chinese for three straight days. I tackled the traditional list of labor-inducing tips...and I got nothin'.
Except a breech baby discovered during my 39th week and a C-section three days later.
People ask how I feel about having had a C-section. My answer?
Baby is out. So, I LOVE that I had a C-section, because she's here, she's beautiful...
And I no longer have to wear pants that use stretch polyester bands to stay around my waist.
So life is good, with baby and I facing the "great wide open, under the skies of blue." We're learning all kinds of things, like how boob milk can apparently be as addictive as crack, how a clean diaper can be the world's best laxative, how a baby's squeaky half-cry can be the cutest sound in the world, and how life can feel as if it couldn't possibly have ever been anything before she arrived.
Love in a life is what is born. So the waiting? It really is the hardest part. Don't listen to everyone telling you about how "horrific" those first nights and weeks will be. It won't matter, because all you'll think is..."here comes my girl, here comes my girl. Yeah, and she looks so fine; she's all I need tonight."
And when she won't stop crying, just crank some Tom, sit back, and enjoy while life and love happen all around and in front and within you.
**The journey continues at "Becoming the 'M' Word," (www.becomingm.blogspot.com) if you care to follow along as I bid goodbye to pregnancy and say hello to the "m" word...motherhood.**
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Rule # 17: Stay Classy
So everyone has little stereotypes about pregnancy. You know, asking about the due date, the sex, the name, commenting on the size of your bump, the stride of your waddle. When you start coming into the homestretch, people like to breathe at you.
Lamaze-style breathe at you. Because suddenly, when you're in the last month of pregnancy, everyone seems to become an obstetrician. They'll be able to tell if you've "dropped," and will be sure to let you know whether or not you have. In case you couldn't tell yourself after carrying the Mexican jumping basketball right beneath your areolas for nine months. They'll tell you how much you're expanding with every sighting. As if you couldn't tell from the increasing strain on the thin skin of the area of your stomach formerly known as a belly button. And they'll ask if you went to baby class and learned to breathe.
Give 'em a hee-hee-hoo for some kicks and giggles.
It's obviously highly encouraged that you take baby classes when you are pregnant, and they want you to sign up for them somewhere around week 28. I had that all set up. Then I went in the hospital during week 28. So we took baby classes later, around weeks 31-33ish. And my advice? Take them.
Not so much for the information, because honestly, it seemed to me mostly like an auditory version of what you've read in your pregnancy bibles and labor binders, complete with old posters and DVDs full of some graphic footage set to calming Native American spirit music.
Don't take them so much for the breathing, either, unless you are taking a straight-up Lamaze class. We did not; we took a regular three-week childbirthing class. And, yes, we did get some breathing exercises, but nothing like you are picturing. I wasn't breathing through my teeth with bulging eyes. It was a much quieter, subdued affair.
And while there were some nice little sessions of practicing labor positions that involve my husband giving me back massages with soda cans or tennis balls (which, as weird as it sounds, really DOES feel good), that's not really why you should take classes either.
Take them for the other people. If you're into building a little community of support and womanly festiveness, you can find it in a class. If you're like me and have no interest in forming bonds with strange women just because you've all got life inside of an increasingly huge yet seemingly too-small-for-baby uterus, then you get to sit back and observe the wonders of procreation.
For example, I learned the following from my baby class:
1. My instructor can work the phrases "Mmkay?" and "In addition" into a three hour class over 160 times. No exaggeration, because I kept a tally.
2. Opposites really do attract--one couple consisted of a self-proclaimed starving artist and a mathematician.
3. Sometimes, people entirely fit stereotypes. The starving artist wore sweatpants tucked into Uggs every class while asking a million questions about how to avoid all things medically advanced to ensure completely natural childbirth while her mathematician husband wore brown blazers with too short pants and wire-rimmed glasses. Another couple looked like young models. The guy was Russian and the girl was Scandanavian. She wore heeled boots with tights even though she was in her third trimester.
4. Eye patches are not birth control. A woman in my class was wearing an eye patch. And I have no idea why because she never explained it. And it still bothers me today.
5. Eye patches just may be an aphrodisiac. Her Steelers-obsessed and scrawny hubby constantly had his arm around her to rub her shoulder. He couldn't keep off of her. And I couldn't stop staring.
6. The older and uglier the guy, the more into his pregnant wife he acts. Our class ran the gamut from Russian hottie to Chunky Monkey. One of them mentioned hospital food as a perk to labor. Guess which one.
7. The older the couple, the more seriously they take the practice labor positions. And some of them you don't ever want to witness in person. Like accidentally seeing how they conceived in the first place.
So you see? Childbirth class can prepare you for birth not only by giving you every tidbit of info on the process of labor and the different types of delivery (although I still don't know where I pick up my woman who will soothingly recite an empowering poem over Enya chants) but by giving you plenty to picture and laugh about with your husband while writhing through those earlier labor pains.
Oh, and one other thing I learned that is immeasurably important: women want epidurals. Including me. So, thank you, childbirth class, for giving me such important lessons...mmkay? In addition, I hope you all find that little eyepatch of wonder in your worlds while you control your breathing to focus and relax.
Or just scream like hell if you want. At this point, you've earned it, right?
Lamaze-style breathe at you. Because suddenly, when you're in the last month of pregnancy, everyone seems to become an obstetrician. They'll be able to tell if you've "dropped," and will be sure to let you know whether or not you have. In case you couldn't tell yourself after carrying the Mexican jumping basketball right beneath your areolas for nine months. They'll tell you how much you're expanding with every sighting. As if you couldn't tell from the increasing strain on the thin skin of the area of your stomach formerly known as a belly button. And they'll ask if you went to baby class and learned to breathe.
Give 'em a hee-hee-hoo for some kicks and giggles.
It's obviously highly encouraged that you take baby classes when you are pregnant, and they want you to sign up for them somewhere around week 28. I had that all set up. Then I went in the hospital during week 28. So we took baby classes later, around weeks 31-33ish. And my advice? Take them.
Not so much for the information, because honestly, it seemed to me mostly like an auditory version of what you've read in your pregnancy bibles and labor binders, complete with old posters and DVDs full of some graphic footage set to calming Native American spirit music.
Don't take them so much for the breathing, either, unless you are taking a straight-up Lamaze class. We did not; we took a regular three-week childbirthing class. And, yes, we did get some breathing exercises, but nothing like you are picturing. I wasn't breathing through my teeth with bulging eyes. It was a much quieter, subdued affair.
And while there were some nice little sessions of practicing labor positions that involve my husband giving me back massages with soda cans or tennis balls (which, as weird as it sounds, really DOES feel good), that's not really why you should take classes either.
Take them for the other people. If you're into building a little community of support and womanly festiveness, you can find it in a class. If you're like me and have no interest in forming bonds with strange women just because you've all got life inside of an increasingly huge yet seemingly too-small-for-baby uterus, then you get to sit back and observe the wonders of procreation.
For example, I learned the following from my baby class:
1. My instructor can work the phrases "Mmkay?" and "In addition" into a three hour class over 160 times. No exaggeration, because I kept a tally.
2. Opposites really do attract--one couple consisted of a self-proclaimed starving artist and a mathematician.
3. Sometimes, people entirely fit stereotypes. The starving artist wore sweatpants tucked into Uggs every class while asking a million questions about how to avoid all things medically advanced to ensure completely natural childbirth while her mathematician husband wore brown blazers with too short pants and wire-rimmed glasses. Another couple looked like young models. The guy was Russian and the girl was Scandanavian. She wore heeled boots with tights even though she was in her third trimester.
4. Eye patches are not birth control. A woman in my class was wearing an eye patch. And I have no idea why because she never explained it. And it still bothers me today.
5. Eye patches just may be an aphrodisiac. Her Steelers-obsessed and scrawny hubby constantly had his arm around her to rub her shoulder. He couldn't keep off of her. And I couldn't stop staring.
6. The older and uglier the guy, the more into his pregnant wife he acts. Our class ran the gamut from Russian hottie to Chunky Monkey. One of them mentioned hospital food as a perk to labor. Guess which one.
7. The older the couple, the more seriously they take the practice labor positions. And some of them you don't ever want to witness in person. Like accidentally seeing how they conceived in the first place.
So you see? Childbirth class can prepare you for birth not only by giving you every tidbit of info on the process of labor and the different types of delivery (although I still don't know where I pick up my woman who will soothingly recite an empowering poem over Enya chants) but by giving you plenty to picture and laugh about with your husband while writhing through those earlier labor pains.
Oh, and one other thing I learned that is immeasurably important: women want epidurals. Including me. So, thank you, childbirth class, for giving me such important lessons...mmkay? In addition, I hope you all find that little eyepatch of wonder in your worlds while you control your breathing to focus and relax.
Or just scream like hell if you want. At this point, you've earned it, right?
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Rule # 16: Read Up...Calm Down
After being in the hospital for what the doctors are calling a minor placental abruption and finding out that has increased my chances of going early (I'm hoping!), not to mention realizing I'm currently at 32 weeks (that's 8 months, non-preggers), I decided it was time to get back to reading all those wonderfully HUGE books I have on pregnancy.
Get back, you say? What do you mean get back? You mean you haven't been fiendishly devouring every piece of information you possibly can over the last 5,000 hours of pregnancy? Bad Pregnant Woman! Bad!
Answer is: no, I haven't. Like most women who find themselves brand-spankin' pregnant, I did at first feel obligated to read a lot. I'm an educated person, and we live in an age where you can be a homebound expert on anything with just the click of a button, so I felt I had no excuse for not reading the brochures, booklets, binders, novels, and encyclopedias which found their way into my home eight weeks into fetus incubation like so many stinkbugs sneaking around my ceilings during the month of October. But I was finding that a lot of what I read was redundant, still kinda vague, or downright inapplicable. Why, at eight weeks pregnant, would I want to read about effacing and dilation and the intricate convulsing of the body when labor time arrives? Hell, no, I don't wanna know! Not yet anyway. So I put the books away--well, I did decoratively arrange them atop the baby dresser when organizing the nursery--and just went about my life. And that was working great.
Until the whole hospital and oh-shit-that-due-date-is-getting-close thing. I decided to read again, because now, understanding labor was relevant.
Lots of people like to ask you if you're scared when you look ready to pop. I had been telling people that no, I really wasn't scared of labor. And I hadn't been lying. I figured that nature would know what it was doing so my body was going to do its thang whether I was hyperventilating or Lamaze-ing, and I was going to be surrounded by medical professionals in a sterile hospital environment whose sole jobs it would be to ensure my and the baby's health. The baby would come out, just like millions of unsuspecting little souls before had, so why be scared? I have maintained that I'm way more scared at the thought of bringing her home, away from medical people who deal with these itty bitty beings every day, leaving the poor thing with just her father and me and a crazy little puppy to keep her alive after only three days in this godforsaken place we call Out of the Womb. That, my friends, is the true psychotic nature of making a baby: the fact that you have to maintain its survival without having earned a Masters degree in Parental Implementation and Supplemental Infant Psychology.
But then, I read the books.
And now, I already know more about labor than I ever really wanted to, and I didn't even finish the chapter. I think it caused instant acid reflux and eye spasms. I wasn't scared before I read all of the stuff that is supposed to make me feel prepared, but after reading all the information that is meant to make me feel comforted by educating me on the inner workings of ceaseran section versus vaginal delivery and positioning and all-around vagina-ness, I think I'd rather fall asleep and have to face off with Freddie Krueger. So thanks for keeping me informed, books.
Knowledge may be power, but ignorance is bliss.
So my advice? Read stuff if you want to. Stop if you break out into hives...and avoid anything that discusses ALL risks and possibilities. Chances are, your labor and delivery will be routine, and you'll feel freaked out for no reason. And if anything does occur, you'll be way calmer if you don't really know, which will probably just give better results in the end since you won't be clenching up in parts that are rather vital to whipping a baby out of your body. Be a Good Pregnant Woman by preparing yourself the way that makes you most comfortable. And just tell everyone you read everything. Maybe throw in a few medical terms for good effect. And go back to flipping through the pages of Cosmopolitan for awhile.
After all, your cooch loves magazine articles on the act of baby-making way more than she could ever enjoy the novel chapters on baby-pushing. So let her just enjoy these last weeks of normalcy. She'll hate you soon enough.
Get back, you say? What do you mean get back? You mean you haven't been fiendishly devouring every piece of information you possibly can over the last 5,000 hours of pregnancy? Bad Pregnant Woman! Bad!
Answer is: no, I haven't. Like most women who find themselves brand-spankin' pregnant, I did at first feel obligated to read a lot. I'm an educated person, and we live in an age where you can be a homebound expert on anything with just the click of a button, so I felt I had no excuse for not reading the brochures, booklets, binders, novels, and encyclopedias which found their way into my home eight weeks into fetus incubation like so many stinkbugs sneaking around my ceilings during the month of October. But I was finding that a lot of what I read was redundant, still kinda vague, or downright inapplicable. Why, at eight weeks pregnant, would I want to read about effacing and dilation and the intricate convulsing of the body when labor time arrives? Hell, no, I don't wanna know! Not yet anyway. So I put the books away--well, I did decoratively arrange them atop the baby dresser when organizing the nursery--and just went about my life. And that was working great.
Until the whole hospital and oh-shit-that-due-date-is-getting-close thing. I decided to read again, because now, understanding labor was relevant.
Lots of people like to ask you if you're scared when you look ready to pop. I had been telling people that no, I really wasn't scared of labor. And I hadn't been lying. I figured that nature would know what it was doing so my body was going to do its thang whether I was hyperventilating or Lamaze-ing, and I was going to be surrounded by medical professionals in a sterile hospital environment whose sole jobs it would be to ensure my and the baby's health. The baby would come out, just like millions of unsuspecting little souls before had, so why be scared? I have maintained that I'm way more scared at the thought of bringing her home, away from medical people who deal with these itty bitty beings every day, leaving the poor thing with just her father and me and a crazy little puppy to keep her alive after only three days in this godforsaken place we call Out of the Womb. That, my friends, is the true psychotic nature of making a baby: the fact that you have to maintain its survival without having earned a Masters degree in Parental Implementation and Supplemental Infant Psychology.
But then, I read the books.
And now, I already know more about labor than I ever really wanted to, and I didn't even finish the chapter. I think it caused instant acid reflux and eye spasms. I wasn't scared before I read all of the stuff that is supposed to make me feel prepared, but after reading all the information that is meant to make me feel comforted by educating me on the inner workings of ceaseran section versus vaginal delivery and positioning and all-around vagina-ness, I think I'd rather fall asleep and have to face off with Freddie Krueger. So thanks for keeping me informed, books.
Knowledge may be power, but ignorance is bliss.
So my advice? Read stuff if you want to. Stop if you break out into hives...and avoid anything that discusses ALL risks and possibilities. Chances are, your labor and delivery will be routine, and you'll feel freaked out for no reason. And if anything does occur, you'll be way calmer if you don't really know, which will probably just give better results in the end since you won't be clenching up in parts that are rather vital to whipping a baby out of your body. Be a Good Pregnant Woman by preparing yourself the way that makes you most comfortable. And just tell everyone you read everything. Maybe throw in a few medical terms for good effect. And go back to flipping through the pages of Cosmopolitan for awhile.
After all, your cooch loves magazine articles on the act of baby-making way more than she could ever enjoy the novel chapters on baby-pushing. So let her just enjoy these last weeks of normalcy. She'll hate you soon enough.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Rule # 15: Stay on the Sunny Side (of Shitty)
Like most things in life, just when we think it’s smooth sailing, we find ourselves partway up shit creek. (Ah, I love using my beautiful local colloquialisms sometimes.) I had been having no problems with my pregnancy outside of the normal whining and complaining you’ve born witness to through these writings, and so I cruised right into week 28 (that’s seven months for you non-preggers out there) like the world was as it should be.
And then, there was blood.
Gross, I know. And completely out of place. I had just been going for a routine pee, and when I pulled down the undies, I found what looked like the very beginning of a period. Now, it had been some time since I’d seen the beginning of a period, so the sight of that brownish but bright red spot on my pantiliner doubly shocked me. Then sent me into Holy Shit Mode.
Obviously, whether you’re pregnant, have been pregnant, or can’t stand the thought of cells ever congealing together in your uterus, you can figure out that you shouldn’t have blood leaking through your sweatpants like a newly-blessed sixth grader when you’re seven months down the road. So I called the doctor, had the hubby drive me to the hospital, where I was admitted and poked and prodded and monitored, and where I sat perched upon my little bedcage for three whole days.
In case you’re curious: speculums inserted into your recently bleeding wahoo are super uncomfortable. Of course, so is sitting in a hospital for two days waiting to be told everything is fine, just a fluke, go home and be normal again, please.
So far, I’ve only had that one small instance of bleeding, and nothing since. Far as they can tell, something probably happened with my placenta. The doctor was telling me something about an indentation and a possible “abruption” and more things that I heard but only listened to long enough to gather that the wee one and I are okay and they just need to track us for a bit to make sure we stay okay. Since then, I’ve been allowed to return home and continue bed-arrest for another week from the comforts of my own couch and toilet, and—of course—computer, so I’ve done a little research of my own, and it seems as if I lucked out in the placental abruption market, at least for now. So things could be worse, as they always could, right?
I mean, how bad can being doctor-ordered to sit around and do next to nothing be? If you’re anything like me, it can be torturous, since your brain has a lot of time to run through the gazillion things you could be completing in the time it takes to run through a day from Regis and Kelly to Oprah. Not to mention missing so much work unexpectedly. Oh, my uterus is going to contract just thinking about it!
But here’s the lesson: to be a Good Pregnant Woman, you need to remember you are not Super Woman and you cannot, indeed, do everything just as you had before getting pregnant, or even as you did when newly pregnant. This third trimester kicks your ass, even when you don’t know it is, as I quickly discovered. So prescribe yourself some relaxation and laziness before your placenta says enough is enough and springs a leak. Trust me.
And if you do spring a leak or have contractions before you should be or have your water break and need netting shoved up there and find yourself talking sweet nothings into a standard-issue hospital pillow, look on the sunny side of the shitty situation: you get to preview the people and place where you’ll be delivering, you get to show your husband just how much you really do around the house by giving him the list of chores you are no longer allowed to do, and you get to catch up on some of those guilty pleasure TV shows and stacks of novels that everyone is very quick to tell you you’ll have no time for once little one officially arrives.
Who knew? Good Pregnant Women can find the silver (panty)-lining in anything.
And then, there was blood.
Gross, I know. And completely out of place. I had just been going for a routine pee, and when I pulled down the undies, I found what looked like the very beginning of a period. Now, it had been some time since I’d seen the beginning of a period, so the sight of that brownish but bright red spot on my pantiliner doubly shocked me. Then sent me into Holy Shit Mode.
Obviously, whether you’re pregnant, have been pregnant, or can’t stand the thought of cells ever congealing together in your uterus, you can figure out that you shouldn’t have blood leaking through your sweatpants like a newly-blessed sixth grader when you’re seven months down the road. So I called the doctor, had the hubby drive me to the hospital, where I was admitted and poked and prodded and monitored, and where I sat perched upon my little bedcage for three whole days.
In case you’re curious: speculums inserted into your recently bleeding wahoo are super uncomfortable. Of course, so is sitting in a hospital for two days waiting to be told everything is fine, just a fluke, go home and be normal again, please.
So far, I’ve only had that one small instance of bleeding, and nothing since. Far as they can tell, something probably happened with my placenta. The doctor was telling me something about an indentation and a possible “abruption” and more things that I heard but only listened to long enough to gather that the wee one and I are okay and they just need to track us for a bit to make sure we stay okay. Since then, I’ve been allowed to return home and continue bed-arrest for another week from the comforts of my own couch and toilet, and—of course—computer, so I’ve done a little research of my own, and it seems as if I lucked out in the placental abruption market, at least for now. So things could be worse, as they always could, right?
I mean, how bad can being doctor-ordered to sit around and do next to nothing be? If you’re anything like me, it can be torturous, since your brain has a lot of time to run through the gazillion things you could be completing in the time it takes to run through a day from Regis and Kelly to Oprah. Not to mention missing so much work unexpectedly. Oh, my uterus is going to contract just thinking about it!
But here’s the lesson: to be a Good Pregnant Woman, you need to remember you are not Super Woman and you cannot, indeed, do everything just as you had before getting pregnant, or even as you did when newly pregnant. This third trimester kicks your ass, even when you don’t know it is, as I quickly discovered. So prescribe yourself some relaxation and laziness before your placenta says enough is enough and springs a leak. Trust me.
And if you do spring a leak or have contractions before you should be or have your water break and need netting shoved up there and find yourself talking sweet nothings into a standard-issue hospital pillow, look on the sunny side of the shitty situation: you get to preview the people and place where you’ll be delivering, you get to show your husband just how much you really do around the house by giving him the list of chores you are no longer allowed to do, and you get to catch up on some of those guilty pleasure TV shows and stacks of novels that everyone is very quick to tell you you’ll have no time for once little one officially arrives.
Who knew? Good Pregnant Women can find the silver (panty)-lining in anything.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Rule # 13: It's Strong Enough for a Man, But Made for a Woman's Thighs
I love when people tell me that, from behind, you can't even tell I'm pregnant. That I definitely only look like I've gained weight in my belly.
Then when I think about it, who does look pregnant from behind? What's that even mean? That I don't have a round hump appearing below my tramp stamp, stretching out its Chinese characters to look like a toddler's attempts at coloring on the living room wall? Thank God for that.
And if I look like I haven't gained weight anywhere other than my belly, Criss Angel should be asking me for trick tips. I mean, obviously the belly gets bigger. And rounder. And feels like a soccer ball has been shoved up your wahoo to rest right below your lungs, so that any normal bending requires the focus of a deep sea diver with low levels of oxygen. Not to mention that, almost 26 weeks in, I'm beginning to notice the feeling that my skin is stretching. Like, I can literally feel it as its happening (or so my Mego Prego brain imagines). It's like a balloon that's been blown up just a tad too far...that's been shoved up your wahoo to rest under your damn lungs. Or like you just ate the largest burrito in your life and all of the gas exhaled by those beans is rolling around inside and refusing to come out. I feel puffy.
I'm that kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that ate a blueberry she shouldn't have and bloated up into a rolly-polly ball.
That's not the only part of me that has expanded, however. Sadly, the thighs are a-thundering.
Now, in my previous life, I used to say that my thighs were chafing. But it wasn't until I actually began procreating life that I discovered the true meaning of the burning, itching, aching, rash-like phenomenon that transpires when sweaty thigh rubs against sweaty thigh for far too long underneath a maternity dress on a hot summer day.
While breaking Good Pregnant Woman form and whining to a friend about this problem, I was given a tip. And I consider this friend of mine to be a savior.
Want to know the secret to stopping the childbearing chafe?
Secret.
That's right. Rub some good ol' deoderant on your inside thighs and waddle away, ladies. No rash. No irritated bumpy pores. Just clean, fresh smelling, glide-worthy legs at your service.
Don't necessarily take to heart everything you are told to rub your body down in, though. I've also been told to lather myself up every night with Crisco shortening to prevent stretch marks.
Takes the phrase "a bun in the oven" to a whole new baking level if you ask me.
So I'm going to stay out of the kitchen shelves and stick to raiding the bathroom medicine cabinet for remedies awhile. Now if only something could pop the pressure in my bloated bump. Even my belly button can't handle it anymore...
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Rule # 12: Namely, Mystery Beats Sarcasm
You have survived the years worth of badgering over when you were going to ever have children and provide your family with the all-important grandchildren & heirs to the family-name throne (for however much or little that really is worth). You've battled through the barrage of stereo-typical questions(and by stereo dash typical I mean the questions everyone asks you so many times you think you're listening to a CD on your stereo on "Repeat One" mode for eternity)involving your gestation, due date, and sexxxxxxx, baby. Oops, sorry. I meant sex of the baby. My bad.
And you found out the sex because a) it's the 21st century and that's pretty easy info to come by these days, b) you felt as if you could be better prepared for the little one and c) you just wanted to shut everyone the hell up for a change (circa Rule # 6). If you're like me, you found out you're having a girl. And you were surprised because for the last eight years of your life, the trustworthy necklace tests have told you nothing but boys boys boys. And boys and boys.
Filthy lyin' necklace test. Threw me off. Good thing I did find out now because I was NOT ready to have a daughter! But no worries, because I am honestly excited. At least for years 1 through pre-tween. ;)
Anyways, I'm sure you've figured out that the questions aren't over. People are prepared for this one, too, you know. Next one up their sleeve?
Oh, how sweet. Have any names picked out yet?
Damnit.
Here's the thing about names: everyone's got different tastes. That's why I've got a baby book with over 100,000 names, about five of which I really truly like enough to mull over. Naming someone is a HUGE responsibility. I mean, you're in charge of assigning a word to someone that will be used to refer to her for the REST OF HER LIFE. When that word is said, it will represent her. So it better be damn cool, unique, beautiful, intelligent, radiant, creative, passionate, and awe-inspiring...because it has to fit her. And she will be all of those things. At least that I am certain about.
So I feel enough pressure--as delivered by myself--to choose a flippin' fantastic word to call my daughter after I deliver her. I do not need every living person who crosses my path to ask about my choices in the hopes of throwing in their two cents.
Perhaps I should charge. If you want to know my choices, that will be two cents, please. All proceeds benefit the Unnamed Reeder Child College & Future Wedding Foundation.
My Good Pregnant Woman advice: play confused, frustrated, overwhelmed, or mysterious. Whatever you do, do NOT divulge your REAL choices. And if you do actually have one name picked out, guard it like a horny dog guards that stuffed animal he has made his hump slave.
If you tell people your choice or possible choices, they will ruin them for you. They'll know someone who knows someone who knows someone by that name who turned out to be a serial killer. Or psychotic schizophrenic bipolar multiple personality. Or different species, like a hairless chihuahua. Then they'll also feel the need to offer you MORE possibilities to consider, and THEN you'll have to pretend you like what they say, even if you don't, and even if they tsk-tsked over your favorite when you told them. Don't do this to yourself. Because you won't have patience to pretend, and you'll hurt their feelings, and then you have to take precious pregnant minutes to feel guilty about being bitchy, and you'll waste enough time on that every time you go to Babies R Us and a sixteen-year-old trainee can't figure out how to ring up your crib purchase for a half hour. (Wow, what a specific example, you may be thinking. Real life, people. Real life.)
If you don't just pretend to not have it narrowed down yet or to like so many names you couldn't possibly share them all anyway, you'll end up being sarcastic. People will ask you what you're considering and you'll say, "Noname," or "Abba," or "Shithead," with the most serious and loving tone you can muster. By the way, I know for a fact two out of three of those have appeared on birth certificates here in America. And they aren't dancing queens, either.
While sarcasm will amuse you and your friends endlessly, it's Bad Pregnant Woman form to really do this to good-intentioned albeit annoying aquaintances. So get used to squeezing those shoulders up toward your neck in that helpless signal kind of way. And keep a pen and paper handy.
You'll want to keep track of all of the names people offer you, since they'll be on your Epic Failure list forever.
And you found out the sex because a) it's the 21st century and that's pretty easy info to come by these days, b) you felt as if you could be better prepared for the little one and c) you just wanted to shut everyone the hell up for a change (circa Rule # 6). If you're like me, you found out you're having a girl. And you were surprised because for the last eight years of your life, the trustworthy necklace tests have told you nothing but boys boys boys. And boys and boys.
Filthy lyin' necklace test. Threw me off. Good thing I did find out now because I was NOT ready to have a daughter! But no worries, because I am honestly excited. At least for years 1 through pre-tween. ;)
Anyways, I'm sure you've figured out that the questions aren't over. People are prepared for this one, too, you know. Next one up their sleeve?
Oh, how sweet. Have any names picked out yet?
Damnit.
Here's the thing about names: everyone's got different tastes. That's why I've got a baby book with over 100,000 names, about five of which I really truly like enough to mull over. Naming someone is a HUGE responsibility. I mean, you're in charge of assigning a word to someone that will be used to refer to her for the REST OF HER LIFE. When that word is said, it will represent her. So it better be damn cool, unique, beautiful, intelligent, radiant, creative, passionate, and awe-inspiring...because it has to fit her. And she will be all of those things. At least that I am certain about.
So I feel enough pressure--as delivered by myself--to choose a flippin' fantastic word to call my daughter after I deliver her. I do not need every living person who crosses my path to ask about my choices in the hopes of throwing in their two cents.
Perhaps I should charge. If you want to know my choices, that will be two cents, please. All proceeds benefit the Unnamed Reeder Child College & Future Wedding Foundation.
My Good Pregnant Woman advice: play confused, frustrated, overwhelmed, or mysterious. Whatever you do, do NOT divulge your REAL choices. And if you do actually have one name picked out, guard it like a horny dog guards that stuffed animal he has made his hump slave.
If you tell people your choice or possible choices, they will ruin them for you. They'll know someone who knows someone who knows someone by that name who turned out to be a serial killer. Or psychotic schizophrenic bipolar multiple personality. Or different species, like a hairless chihuahua. Then they'll also feel the need to offer you MORE possibilities to consider, and THEN you'll have to pretend you like what they say, even if you don't, and even if they tsk-tsked over your favorite when you told them. Don't do this to yourself. Because you won't have patience to pretend, and you'll hurt their feelings, and then you have to take precious pregnant minutes to feel guilty about being bitchy, and you'll waste enough time on that every time you go to Babies R Us and a sixteen-year-old trainee can't figure out how to ring up your crib purchase for a half hour. (Wow, what a specific example, you may be thinking. Real life, people. Real life.)
If you don't just pretend to not have it narrowed down yet or to like so many names you couldn't possibly share them all anyway, you'll end up being sarcastic. People will ask you what you're considering and you'll say, "Noname," or "Abba," or "Shithead," with the most serious and loving tone you can muster. By the way, I know for a fact two out of three of those have appeared on birth certificates here in America. And they aren't dancing queens, either.
While sarcasm will amuse you and your friends endlessly, it's Bad Pregnant Woman form to really do this to good-intentioned albeit annoying aquaintances. So get used to squeezing those shoulders up toward your neck in that helpless signal kind of way. And keep a pen and paper handy.
You'll want to keep track of all of the names people offer you, since they'll be on your Epic Failure list forever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)