There are quite a few girls at my work right now who are expecting, or who very recently had babies. First and foremost, I'm super glad it's them and not me. But it did get me thinking about when I was having my little bundles of joy.
I was not one of those women who liked being pregnant. I like being a Mom, and love my kids beyond measure, but being pregnant sucked beyond words. And nobody told me it would. All I heard was how great it was. Your hair gets long and luxurious. You feel like more of a woman. You can eat whatever you want. The most dire warning was from my mother, who claimed things to get uncomfortable after about 10 centimeters.
First of all, my mother was hospitalized for weeks before she bore both of my brothers, which has to measure pretty darn high on the suck scale. Second, being the skeptic that I am, I found a damn ruler and looked at just how far 10 centimeters is. There is no way in fuck that is only "uncomfortable". I had no idea what I was in for.
I couldn't believe the bullshit that nobody tells you. While the result is undoubtedly the most wonderful, there is nothing about growing another human inside of you that doesn't suck. Nothing.
Yes, the prenatal vitamins do make your hair pretty great. Mostly what happens is that you stop losing your hair at the fairly rapid normal pace. Which, by the way, ceases the moment you give birth. Yes, that does mean that a bunch of your hair falls out. Sexy, huh? What's even better is that nobody tells you that all of your hair gets long and luxurious. All of it; leg hair, armpit hair... You even start growing hair where you didn't before, so you end up with long, beautiful belly hair. Nothing screams sexy like cornrows to cover your stretch marks.
I'm pretty sure my internal organs will never be the same. It's not as if there's a cavernous space in a woman's innards just waiting for occupancy from a little bundle of joy. Every little bit of room that the baby grows into displaces something. Your stomach can't hold much of anything without it coming back up in the form of heartburn. You can't breathe deeply anymore because your diaphragm can't get down very far. Your pelvis literally spreads out from the extra weight, which is every bit as uncomfortable as it sounds. And don't even get me started about the bladder.
Sleeping is a joke. You can't sleep on your back because your fetus will crush your kidneys. Seriously, that's what my doctor told me. Sleeping on your stomach is obviously out, unless channeling a high-centered turtle is relaxing to you. That leaves your side. But, you can't just roll over and doze off. Your fetus sticks out so much that the weight of it pulling down toward the mattress will actually strain your back muscles. And, don't forget that spread pelvis. So, what you end up having to do to avoid excruciating pain is to stuff pillows underneath your belly and in between your legs to support all of the extra weight. All of which must be repeated if you have to get up to pee, which you will about every two hours, or if you need to turn over, which you will. Then, right when you are drifting off, your little darling will start to kick you.
The first few times the baby kicks, it's magical. By the end, it's much less so. My doctor said that the reason they are much more likely to kick frequently at night is that during the day when mom is moving around, the walking motion rocks the baby to sleep. So, at night when you aren't moving around, it's soccer time for junior. If you are lucky, none of your organs will be close. Getting kicked in the bladder when you are trying to not get up for the sixth time that night to pee is awesome. By the end, it looks very much like one of the Alien movies. You can see a hand or foot move across your belly. Or walk around all day with a lopsided baby bump because the head is sticking out to one side. Not creepy at all.
Everything that you have come to know about your body is wrong. Your center of gravity is completely off. And it goes without saying, that you stick out further than you think. I was a classroom teacher during all three of my pregnancies, and I would occasionally misjudge my distance, take a corner a bit too sharply and whack a student with my fetus. There just isn't a good way to apologize for that, especially to a 14 year-old boy. Hopefully the therapy was limited.
Then there's the fun stuff unique to you. My oldest spent her entire time in my uterus with her feet cocked right near my sciatic nerve. So, every time she would kick it I would at best loose my balance and at worse pass out completely. Which happened twice in the bathroom at school. I also would puke at the taste of toothpaste. Think about that one for a second. I would get up, brush my teeth, puke, have to brush my teeth because I just puked, puke, and so on. Because starting your day pulling up your pants to the bottom of your boobs doesn't suck badly enough.
That was horrifying, when I learned how maternity pants worked. Yes, they actually go all the way over your belly. So does the underwear. It's hot. It is true that your boobs get big. But, between the belly hair, the complete loss of balance and the constant peeing it doesn't really matter. By that time you have come to the grim realization that your condition is completely the fault of the guy who is interested in your boobs, and you really aren't motivated to reward him at that point.
In fact, the only thing saving him is that you can't waddle fast enough to catch him to administer the beating he so clearly deserves. Sure honey, I don't mind if you have that beer with dinner. I don't miss it at all. In fact, I'd love to be the designated driver when you go out with your friends.
Oh, and by the way, after you give birth your boobs point down for the rest of your natural life. Sad little balled up sweat socks. With stretch marks. Goodbye Victoria's Secret bras forever.
The really crazy ones are those who want to do "natural" childbirth. These are batshit crazy women who plan to turn down drugs. I'm totally down with the natural lifestyle thing. But, as I said, I have looked up 10 centimeters and if there exists something to make that hurt less you should take it. Since we have the technology that we don't have to crouch in a hut and chew cocoa leaves I don't see why the fuck we would do that to ourselves. Yes, we women have been successfully birthing babies for millennia, and I'm willing to bet that any woman even 100 years ago would cut off an arm for a decent epidural.
As I said, it's all worth it. Really. But anyone who claims that being pregnant is a beautiful experience is on drugs. Literally very strong hallucinogens. And the bitch isn't telling any first-time moms why her world is really full of rainbows and unicorns.
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