Stork's School for the Knocked Up

It. Is. Thursday.

I am nursing an obnoxious, not-going-away headache at home and playing everyone's favorite solitary game of 'hormones, allergies or brain tumor?'  And I'm too afraid to take more than just one Tylenol because of that whole new pesky Tylenol-may-give-ADHD study.

...I ammmmm however exposing my unborn child to the Anna Nicole story as seen through the lens of the Lifetime television for 'no seriously some awful shit happens to' women network. And yes, it is absolutely everything that you are picturing it to be. (Also, every time a pill is mentioned in this movie I am overwhelmed with the desire to be able to take one, which is probably not the message they're shooting for).

Anyhoo.

I feel as though we have some catching up to do... So I'm going to do a bit of info dumping for awhile until we're all caught up.  Just, you know, observations about pregnancy I will likely forget and shit I should have told you months ago.

Requisite disclaimer: I'm happy despite my complaints. I'm also not a scientist or any ist of any kind, I don't think. And blah blah blah every pregnancy is a magical individual snowflake that is as incomparable as leprechauns are to unicorn farts blah blah.

So in no rational, helpful or scientific order - lesson 1 from Storks School for Pregnancy:



Poo vs. Pooh

Naturally, upon finding out that you are pregnant, one of your first obsessions will be spotting your well deserved bump.  You will gleefully start to notice something somewhere between 4 and 10 weeks, depending on your level of insanity because gawdamit you deserve a bump and you can totally see one starting to form! Your clothes even are starting to feel a little bit snug!

Except no. Your bump is shit.

I don't mean shit bump as in inadequate. I mean that literally what you are seeing is a bump made out of shit.

Pooping is a recreational activity that will be going bye-bye fairly early on. You aren't housing a baby so much as a tiny, pea-sized poop-hoarder.  Just like the show Hoarders, really, if your torso was the house,  your baby was the hoarder, and your poop was the giant pile of garbage engulfing everything in smell and stank and awfulness.

You should absolutely take pictures of your tummy-progress because you deserve it.. but yes ma'am, for a long while what we are documenting is your constipation.

I'm a chubster to begin with but I thought for sure by the time I hit, say, 18-20 weeks I would look pregnant. Not so. Between 12 and 22 weeks I just looked like a beer drinker who had hit rock bottom.

And then BOOM - overnight.  BOOOOOOM. One day I wake up - fat fat water rat.  It is so great don't get me wrong, but also disconcerting because clearly you are growing a monster baby. One day I am a chubby girl with a secret, the next I am wedged Pooh-style in a supermarket turnstile and unable to get up off the floor without Bubba channeling his inner crane.

Raise Your Hand if You have ever been Personally Victimized by Regina George.

There's just no way of getting around it - you're going to be pretty mean. Particularly to your significant other. I did not see this coming.

I'm an infertile - I've had hormones up the wazoo for chrissakes and aside from a couple of eventually hilarious meltdowns on said hormones, I was reasonably nice. And any breakdowns were more sad than they were mean.

Enter pregnancy.

I spent the better part of the first three months pathetically mushy and climbing Bubba like a koala bear, and then he'd do something like eat the last bit of fruit I didn't know I wanted and I would want to murder him in the face.

You're being Bugged

Okay I really didn't think about this before I got pregnant - but at some point, she starts to hear. Like a real person. She's like the NSA - she may not have the interest or wherewithal to sort through my information but damnit, she has it.

She started responding to Bub's voice in particular, and suddenly I'm very aware of what a screechy harpy shrew with a megaphone I must sound like from in there... And holy fucking shit balls I'm suddenly aware of how much cursing she must be hearing.

And yes, I know that's a ludicrous concern because it's not like she's really processing what she's hearing... but did you know that babies, once they're born, can recognize and be comforted by lullabies they heard their mother sing while they were still in utero?

Would you like to know what I, no-exaggeration, ask-my-husband, wake up inexplicably singing 3-4 times a week?

WOULD YOU?!  Fine.

(I also give you the super classy Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman version  that I could not figure out how to embed.)

So for those of you keeping score - MY CHILD WILL BE COMFORTED BY RISKAY'S LET ME SMELL YO DICK.


Uterus = Stupid

I live in a weird little Los Angelian world where the fact that a lot of women have drank the fashion koolaid is hella apparent. There are rich women who gleefully brag about spending $300 for jeans (that don't like... clean your house or anything).  Hell, on Melrose there are thriving businesses exclusively dedicated to selling thrift store t-shirt finds for $50+. Due to what I can only assume is a combo of fashion magazines and salon fumes, we are the leaders in idealizing the type of rich where you can afford to be a total fucking moron (goop is a good example of this. I, seriously, want to meet the woman who shops at goop.)

So I should be used to this sort of thing but I still found it shocking - 90% of 'maternity' clothes is an overpriced rip off.  Seriously. They know you're fat and miserable and look increasingly like the actual Mr. Koolaid so they think you'll be desperate enough to drink it.

I'm not falling for it, assholes! I found a couple of dresses I like but I will otherwise gleefully run around naked this summer if I have to! You brought this on yourselves!!!

... I can, however, be talked into an overpriced onesie.

(Source.)

(Source.)

And yes those are absolutely on their way.

WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE ME?!

Okay pencils down, class.  More soon.