Soooo turns out I have a baby inside of me. Either that or I have a soccer ball size tumor in my stomach, and if so I really really hope it’s the creepy kind that grows teeth and hair and stuff… word is still out on that.
Anyhow -I know I was all I’m not ready for kids and my house is a den of un-kid-friendly things like booze and sex and Evil Dead at 3 am when I was talking about it Here, but I’ve changed folks, I really have! Sometimes I cook things, that are not even from a box and I’m taking a 9 month hiatus from the booze, so umm… that’s gotta be worth something. And I work with kids. Like for a living. So I’m getting really good at translating into child-friendly. Which is not so easy when you are a “mad scientist” and all you want to say is “Hey kids, lets blow shit up!!” So anyways, I’m all, well let’s try because it could take months, it could take years! And then we will have to look into fertility treatments or adoption or stealing babies from ladies at supermarkets… Two weeks later, BAM! I’m knocked up. Rousing applause for Patrick’s sperm, who are apparently not all dead!
This is me at 8 weeks pregnant, pretty much when I found out. Look at that naive smile, that somewhat flat tummy, those pert and perky breasts (read small).
me at 8 weeks pregnant
8 weeks pregnant belly
Being the older sister to 4 brothers, 3 of whom were born while I was in high school, I thought I had a pretty good handle on what this whole being pregnant thing was about. I remember my mom complaining about aches and pains, but I was all Bring it on bitches, aches and pains I can handle! …
HOWEVER turns out there is a whole list of things that nobody tells you will happen to you except then it does and it sucks. I think it is a secret pact amongst mothers to shush the bad parts so more unsuspecting young women will join their ranks. SO here it is. Pact broken. All the things I didn’t know, I present for your consideration:
1.) FOOD – First, who knew there is this list of like a million things you are not allowed to eat. I mean here I was bemoaning that I can’t have a good beer or five and turns out giving up alcohol, just scratching the surface! And it just so happens that the things you are not allowed to eat are some of my favorite things: coffee (caffeine blocks absorption of vitamins), hot dogs (portillos anyone? Only if you want to give your baby AIDS and be the Worst. Mother. Ever.), sushi, lunch meat, blue cheese (which rules out cobb salad, AND buffalo wings), Caesar dressing (raw eggs), also, so long to the days of sinking your teeth into a bloody steak or burger, everything now has to be charred to a crisp. you know, for the baby. And while we’re at it, no sunny side up eggs, or over easy eggs, your eggs have to be over hard. Is that even a thing? Eggs over hard? I don’t even know because that is something I would never order. So I know it’s just food and you are all, get over it, but I really, really like food. Really. Like food might be the father of my child… and I like all of those things I’m not allowed to have. Being not allowed to have them makes me want them more. Pregnancy is not all ice cream and pickles like some people (MEN) always seem to think. NOW, I know some women continue to eat all those things and their babies are just fine. They are born without flippers or a unicorn horn, but I can’t. I get nervous. I was thinking about cheating but then I picked up a friends food safety book and read that the bacteria in blue cheese can cause, (and i am not even exaggerating here) “FORCEFUL EJECTION OF THE FETUS” WTF?!? That mental image is straight out of a horror movie. So yeah, if you like food, and don’t want to be stuck eating mac and cheese for the next nine months… you know, keep it in your pants… or have him.. or you know what I mean.
2.) MONEY – You will become obsessed with money. Even if you didn’t worry before. All of a sudden, it’s “do I really need this Cinnabon or should I save the money for the baby?” side note, the answer to the first part of that question is yes. always yes. But it’s never too early to start worrying about whether you can feed and clothe this child and buy him the latest video game so he will love me more than Patrick, and not have to scar him for life by taking him to the free public pool where he might see some guy crack another guy over the head with a bottle and then they have to empty the pool and you have to wait in the locker rooms for what seems like hours while the ambulance comes… anyone with me on this? Maybe that was just me. Moving on, yeah, money has always been a bitch, but now it’s worse. Like “I can’t buy these shoes or my child won’t be able to go to college and it will ruin his life” kind of worse. So I know you are all, take a pill, woman, but I can’t because that sounds like it would cost money, and why do you hate my kid so much anyways?
3.) YOUR BODY – Ok, so I could go on and on about all the gross things that happen to your body, but why would you want to read that? I mean there’s the digestion issues… which I will just leave at that (look at me, showing restraint!). But I do need to share one thing. Whenever I wake up in the morning I look about 5 months pregnant. By the end of the day I look like this baby is going to pop out of me at any moment. No one but me has figured this out yet, so I will let you in on a little secret… the reason I am huge (like really really huge) by the end of the day is a fun little game known as bloating. If you’ve ever wondered why pregnant women get so crabby when you try to touch their belly, it might be because it is a hot air balloon in there and they are worried (legitimately) that if you keep poking it, they might pop and expel a giant gust of wind. poke. fart. poke. fart. We are trying to be ladylike here so if you could just refrain from the poking, that would be ever so appreciated.
4.) THE PEEING – so you already know pregnant women have to pee. a lot. but no one ever told me that although the frequency of your peeing is going to increase, and oh boy, will it, the amount doesn’t actually change all that much. So imagine how much you pee now, and then break that up into about 12 potty breaks during the day. This means you feel like your bladder is going to explode, pee your pants kind of urgency only to sit down to a trickle. Is it just me or is that a major let down?
5.) OH MY GOD the LEG CRAMPS – as I talk to other people who have been pregnant, everyone is like, oh yeah, I got those, they were a bitch. But no one thought it might be nice to give a little heads up to a future sufferer of said leg cramps. This is how it goes: I fall asleep crabbily laying on my left side because supposedly otherwise my uterus will crush the vena cava and kill the baby, and I finally start to drift in and out of sleep. 3am rolls around only to find me clutching for my leg screaming “HOLY SHIT GOD DAMN MOTHERFUCKING BITCH WHORE” and Pat is all, “oh is it monday again already?” No but seriously, it’s the most painful thing ever, I fall asleep in terror of waking up to one. and no one thought I might want to know. Seriously, people? Seriously?
So next time you want to get knocked up, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Oh, and if your baby has a unicorn horn, can I please please meet him because that is awesome!
nothing ever happens to me 