The Not-So-Empathetic Belly

They told us to touch bellies. I know this is hard to believe, but that requires a little maneuvering when one person is 6’6″ and the other is 5’0″ (I am! Honest! Check the driver’s license!)

At birthing class last night, Justin got to wear the Empathy Belly! Except he, being the conniving person he is, timed it so that he would wear it while we were just sitting around in class and not while walking around touring the birthing center. So instead of being empathetic afterward, he just kind of shrugged and asked, “What’s the big deal?” 

And to that, I must now recount a conversation I just had with my father. I feel it sums up my reaction quite well.

Me: Warning. I may be pregnant and bitchy.

Dad: I may not be used to pregnant but you’ve always been bitchy so we should be ok.

Me: Except now I can use sharp objects during my violent fits and juries just smile and laugh at the stupid man who f*cked with a preggo.

I really thought I was doing well with the pregnancy bitchiness, but yesterday I may have had a bit of an overreaction toward a drunk guy on a bicycle who decided he and his bike could control the road. In my defense, I have a bit of a predisposition toward road rage. I don’t enjoy being cut off, and while I may be too much of a chicken to let the other driver know, I get some pretty inventive language going in the privacy of my car. Except yesterday. Apparently I’m not a chicken when the guy is on a bicycle. A bicycle going 20 mph slower than me. I’m not a physics guru, but it seems to me that when an object with my car’s mass meets an object of his bicycle’s mass and the bicycle is going that much slower, things don’t end well for Bicycle Man, no matter how awesome his hair is. Even his awesome combination of fat plumber’s crack and 80s rocker hair, a combination that usually soothes all anger, couldn’t quell my rage toward him for cutting me off on a bicycle. Twice. Hence my feeling that it may have been an overreaction. Oh, and the Facebook rant may have also been a tad bit over-the-top.

Whoa. Getting carried away again. Back to the original subject.

So Justin didn’t really see the big deal of the belly. Granted, I haven’t been very miserable yet, just some back pain and night sweats (which are like WHOA). But I foresee myself being very miserable, and his “eh, it’s not that bad” attitude may cause some friction. Now, I’m not guaranteeing that sharp objects will come into play. I’m not even hoping that sharp objects will come into play. I’m just saying, you shouldn’t push your luck with preggos. It could get dangerous.

So, I did what I can only imagine any reasonable pregnant woman would do in this situation: I did my best to make the belly miserable for him. I pushed on it and told him it was the baby kicking. I poked him in the ribs and told him it was the baby. I tried to get his bladder, but I don’t think I ever could reach it. Sad.

In the end, I think he’s still a little “eh, what’s the big deal?” about the belly, but he sure the hell learned his lesson about expressing his opinion. And isn’t that the most important lesson of all?

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day! I hope everyone called their mother and said hello. 

Even though Justin has been complaining about my sugar intake, he proved just how sweet he is by buying me a snow cone maker for Mother’s Day. I’m going to use it every day! Now I’m spending my evening watching birth stories. I’ve been warned that only the most dramatic stories make it on the show, which I sincerely hope, because every single natural birth they’ve shown has come up against some sort of crisis and needed emergency interventions. 

I’m 24 weeks along. I’ll be in my third trimester on May 28th according to Babycenter. I have such mixed feelings about being so far along. On the one hand, I’m very excited to meet my little guy. But on the other hand, I absolutely love being pregnant. That’s right, I’m one of those annoying women who loves this. I never thought I’d be one of these people, but every time he kicks, I just love it. When I wake up in the middle of the night because he’s kicking, I love it. When I feel the ripple of him moving across my belly, I love it. I just love everything about it. There have been minor annoyances, of course, but just nothing compared to how awesome it is that I have a baby – my baby – inside of me.

Now, I will say that I’m really hoping that this pregnancy brain doesn’t make me forget something vitally important. It’s getting very interesting around here. Justin has to piece together my sentences because I switch so many words. The other day he found money outside my car (which he claimed as his since I’d dropped it). Why I would have had money out in my yard, I have no idea. I’ve been known to circle the block several times because I keep missing my turn. I put full soda cans into the dishwasher. I tried to leave for my sister’s graduation reception, which I was catering, without a single bit of food from the fridge. I lock my dogs outside a few times a week (luckily they’re quite spoiled and make themselves known). Justin’s decided that he’s going to be following me around after the baby comes until he’s sure I won’t leave the baby in the car or something. So, until little Baby M is driving himself around, I guess.

Speaking of Justin, he finally felt Baby M move today! The opportunity has been there for probably a month now, but the timing was never right. M is most active in the mornings and afternoons, and I’m always either at work or around lots of people. It was just never feasible for Justin to sit with his hand on my belly waiting for, as he called it, a “stomach ripple.” I guess when you can’t feel it from the inside at the same time, it’s just not that exciting. Luckily I can now let other people try to feel him move. I’d been guarding my belly when he’s kicking because I wanted to make sure Justin was the very first person to feel him kick. 

Do I Have Mono?

You know, there’s nothing good about exhaustion. Even the word itself looks mean. I think it’s the x. I don’t know of any word with an x in it that doesn’t look mean. X-ray. Xylophone. Some other random x word (my x word vocabulary is apparently terrible). They all look menacing.

I’ve decided I have mono. I’m so completely exhausted I don’t even have the energy to eat some nights. I just go straight to bed.

In my defense, I’ve been running around with not even an evening to myself for a few weeks now, and it’s starting to wear on me. Monday and Tuesday I thought I was coming down with the flu. I was sore, exhausted, and just plain miserable, so Tuesday night I went to bed as soon as I got home at 6:30. Lo and behold, my flu-like symptoms disappeared Wednesday morning. Of course, they were back again that evening and I fell asleep on the couch after grocery shopping (poor Justin may get tired of putting me to bed). Today I thought I would just lay my head on my desk for a minute and completely dozed off. I’ve never done that before!

So, if I ever made fun of you for having mono, I sincerely apologize. I now know that exhaustion is no laughing matter.

On the agenda for tonight: second birthing class! This is the really fun one where we get to watch two videos: a c-section and an episiotomy! I cringed just typing that word. Truly the most horrible word in the English language. Even worse than exhaustion. Now that I think about it, maybe it isn’t the x that makes a word terrible, maybe it’s the e. Justin keeps saying he’s going to call in sick. I keep telling him I’ll…well…putting what I threaten him with would probably come back to haunt me someday if, heaven forbid, I’m ever in the middle of a police investigation. I make it very clear that whatever he suffers from watching these videos is much preferred to what he would suffer for NOT watching these videos. Besides, I’ll need someone to stare at during the episiotomy video so I don’t have to watch it! Ew, ew, ew. It’s unnatural.

Boobs & Belly Buttons

Boobs & belly buttons. Not two body parts you’d think would have a whole lot in common, eh? But for me, they represent the two most scary aspects of my pregnancy: the future of my boobs and belly button.

I’ll start with the less obvious one, my belly button. When I was 18, I was overcome with a fit of rebellion. I chopped off my long hair and got my belly button pierced. My dad said it looked terrible, which, of course, solidified just how cool I thought it looked. I continued thinking it looked cool for a couple years, I think mostly out of sheer defiance. Pretty soon, though, as more and more people got their belly buttons pierced, I realized just how silly it looked. The silliness only increased as my weight did. I haven’t worn a ring in it since I was probably about 21, and have looked for miracle piercing-closing things, but alas, it turns out these things are permanent (yes, Dad, I know that’s exactly what you said). Now, fast forward a few years, and I am watching my belly button get shallower and shallower. It’s collapsing inward, too. I’ve always thought popped belly buttons are just adorable, but have you ever seen a picture of a popped belly button with an unused piercing hole? Not the most attractive thing. In some of the pictures, the piercing hole pokes all the way up on top of your popped belly button, and it looks like a poor kindergartener’s attempt at a clay rhinoceros. This is one of my greatest fears: an ugly popped belly button. What if it doesn’t go back? All because I thought being a rebel was just the coolest thing since sliced bread. Thank goodness I never let my rebellion spread all the way to a tattoo.

My second fear of pregnancy is probably a pretty normal one, but the fact that it’s a normal fear doesn’t make it any less of a fear. My poop ta-tas. I’ve always been well-endowed. They joined my body my freshman year and have plagued my back ever since. I’m a true big-busted woman: I hate them. Always have, always will. No clothes fit right, they make me look 20 pounds heavier, I have indentations on my shoulders from my bra straps, etc. So it’s not like I’m bemoaning the loss of a great friend. But still, they’re my totters, and, for better or worse, we’ve been through a lot together. They’re not the best, but they’re not the worst, either. Unfortunately, they can very easily become the worst. Since they’re so big, I may soon have to pick them up off my ugly popped belly button to say hello, which is not a reality I’m ready to accept. What if they start to say hello to my feet instead of the world?

Of course, most people say that once Baby M enters the picture, I’ll forget all about my body and just care about him. Well, I just really doubt that. It’s a nice thought, me not caring about myself because I’m too busy expending all my love on my little bundle of joy, but, call me selfish, I think I’ll still care what the ladies look like.

No other aspect of my pregnancy scares me as much as these two. Talking about giving birth (with all my friends’ gory details) doesn’t scare me as much as the future of my boobs and belly button. The prospect of never again getting a full night’s sleep doesn’t scare me as much.

Happy May Day!

Guess how my baby boy celebrated May Day Eve? By expressing his approval for my favorite song! While running an errand for work yesterday, I cranked up the music to LMFAO’s I’m Sexy & I Know It and Baby M went crazy! It felt like he was rocking out in there. Of course, it could’ve been because I giggle uncontrollably whenever that song come on, even when I’m the only person in the car with no cell phone stuck to my ear, so I know everyone driving by thinks I’m crazy. I’m pretty sure Baby M just loves LMFAO though. I wanted to test it out again last night, but for some reason Justin and my dad didn’t approve of blasting LMFAO. Party poopers.

My birthday came and went and I was so surprised that only two people bought things for Baby M! I guess not everybody is as obsessed with buying things for my baby as I am. 

Write it onto your calendars now: baby shower will be July 7!