Another reason why pregnancy is terrifying. As if you didn't already know.

When you waltz in to pregnancy (or crash - whatever your case might be), it's rare that a woman has pre read the What To Expect When You're Expecting series before the fact. Unless you're that goddamned woman. The one who pre plans everything perfectly that we all hate, because we want to be her and can't. There just aren't that many hours in any day.   So naturally you end up with a lot of surprises; ones that sometimes don't come in the pages of a book, or perhaps do show up but are far, far more pronounced than you read. 

What's worse is that you'll bring this up with your OB, and they'll just write it down and assure you you're some freakish percent of the norm and assure you nothing is wrong.  Like, for real, this is normal and calm yourself; you've got a long road ahead.

Once of these lovely and repulsive things is your belly when it pops out. This is towards the end, of course, so you're already at the end of a long road of ridiculous horse shit and this is just some more icing on the cake. Because fatasses love icing anyway, so eat up you fat bastard.

Most first pregnancies you gain more weight than any other. Mostly because you're fooled into believing that your body is going to bounce back. Because that's what we see on the internet. And Pinterest (fuck you Pinterest). You buy the requisite stretch mark shea butter and eat guacamole and ice cream and that extra bite or two of a second cheat chili dog.  No harm, right?  Well tubby, if you've never been pregnant before, you're on a honeymoon. You've got no obligations. No children to herd and wrangle. No one who will flip a table if dinner gets consumed at 4pm or at 9pm.  No one to answer to (unless your hubby/partner/boyfriend is hypoglycemic) to tell you to stick to any schedule.  You just want to rest and do what your body tells you to do.  Today, my body says that Berry Chantilly cake is a fucking AMAZING idea, and a 4"x4" slice is only $3.99.  I can make the round trip AND eat in the car in 30 minutes over my lunch.  Holy fucking shit; get in the car now, we're leaving.

Yes.  This is most of us.  The women who imagined ourselves to be Giselle Bundchen without the benefits of a personal pregnancy dietician, personal trainer, and chef.  The ones who, like the bulk of the world, don't want to be bothered with diet plans when it's 1:30pm and 12 mini carrots with 2T of peanut butter have got to be fucking kidding me, that wouldn't feed an 18 month old. 

So through the journey of your gestation, you're going to misjudge slightly the amount of food that you're cramming in your gob, and discover one of those days that your delightfully full and beautiful belly with be itching.  Itching like that time in college when your roommate caught crabs and you were utterly SURE that you caught them just from hearing about them.  When you peel back your floppy maternity top in a day or two, you're going to spot the faintest hints of angry, hateful squiggly lines that are now adorning your belly on either side, or underside, or crowning your flattening belly-button.  And you're going to think "Oh shit, how did this happen?!"  Your mind will recoil in horror as you tally up the times you've slathered your bouncing baby belly in weird creams you bought in Sprouts to combat stretching skin.  How many times did you use them?  Was it too little? 

These areas that weren't able to provide that little extra give without completely busting out will be permanently prone to things like random bouts of itching. Irritation when you wear something too tight for too long. Generally being sensitive, depending on how wide the stretch marks are.  It will be wonderful.

Around this time, which I'll refer to as the Point of No Return, you will likely experience what is called a "pop" with that enormous smuggled turkey you're hauling around. The one people keep rubbing everywhere you go, as though a fucking genie is going to pop out of.   This is where your baby has grown so large that your uterus simply flop out to the outside of your pelvic bone.  Mostly because, well, there's no room let IN you, otherwise you're going to have your spleen, gall bladder and large intestines popped like a water balloon that's grasp too tightly.  I'm fairly sure that Mother Nature, in all her wisdom, saw that horror show coming and simply elected to allow the design to have you carry this watermelon at your front, like a horrifyingly large reverse marsupial. 

Thanks mother nature. My spleen, unpopped, is very appreciative. 

This brings me to the point of this 12 year long diatribe: The FUPA, or "fatty upper pubic area".  This little overlooked area on your person is going to be holding the weight of this circus like Atlas is holding up the goddamned Earth on his shoulders.  This poor, poor bastard is saddled with the crushing mass of your baby, placenta, and whatever else has managed to float out into your new frontal pouch. Having at some point, completely vacated your upper pelvic region, you might have discovered will introduce you to a new and wonderful low in your pregnancy:  Panty line rash. 

Yes.  You read that right.  Your goddamned underwear are going to irritate the underside of your watermelon so badly that you're going to think you caught body lice from the local swimming pool. To the point where you are going to find yourself waking up in the middle of the night to scratch it all to hell.  And you'll probably justify getting up to pee while you're at it. 

So here you'll be; trying to slather more oily anti-stretch-whatever trying to slow this process down.  But, my friend, you'll be unable to stop it. Like a lonely goat standing in the way of a passing Amtrak train, you will be unable to halt the journey.

Here's where I think I have diverted from the tribe.  This is basically a long, strange way of explaining how the human body makes space for the little people we grow and sprout, which is basically insane. If you look at a slice of a pregnant woman's body, you'd be positively flummoxed at how in the sam hell it all fits together without causing the mother to be fully incapacitated.  

This last little cherry on top of my sundae was simply more than I could bear, to be honest.  I had to relinquish sleeping peacefully for psychotically realistic dreams, ladled on a hefty amount of anxiety, insomnia, paranoia, bad moods, then got stripped of my ability to do any yoga because of back pain, then walking because of sciatic pain.  Then walking at all because I am so mother fucking large I can't get anywhere.  And now; there's this little gem. The rag of itches that I so desire to scratch, but for fear of actually opening up my skin with my nails, I have to figure out a way to ignore the urges.  

And this, my friends, is how it came to pass that I quit wearing underwear.  

Gross, I know.  But hear me out:  If your ass somehow, magically manages NOT to expand during a pregnancy and you can get away with just wearing the older, less-attractive cotton underwear you've got hanging around, and essentially allowing them to be sacrificed to the odyssey of your pregnancy, you'll be in better shape than some. Depending on how you carry, what weight you gain, and what shape you generally are, you might have to succumb to the glory of the Hanes™ high brief 3 pack.  God help you if you do.  I mean, seriously: Who the fuck decided that you only get one pair of black, a pair of nude, and a pair of white underwear?  Why can't it be a 3 pack of black?  Who still wears any white underwear?  

These are all questions I need to put into a letter to Hanes customer service.  

If you, like me, are carrying so low that your legs have been unable to have a gambol since about 6 months ago, then you're going to have some issues with how your normal underwear sit.  Assuming you're like the general population, that is.  You wear bikini-height drawers. Or even low top drawers, and still; that belly is going to rub that sharp little band around your pelvic line like your insane aunt Esther who lost her mind and but her pinkie toe off with a nail file before she had to be checked into the memory ward at the local Manor Care. 

This is they point in which you additionally realize that the 6 adorable little sun dresses you own are no longer going to be wearable. This is because you're pulling a Kathleen Turner in the courtroom scene from Serial Mom.  Remember that lack of contact your legs have had?  Yeah.  Why don't we NOT wear that short knee-length dress.  Co-workers will be thrilled about this.  

My alternative here is to yeild to that Hanes 3 pack of parachute pants in the white, nude, and black.  Thusly allowing my underwater line to be displayed prominently about 1" below my belly button.  

If this alternative is sub-acceptable, then you - like me, will find yourself in the perpetual, but low-level state of paranoia and fear.  A fear that was instilled in you as a child by your parents when you attempted to go commando to 2nd grade because you didn't want to wear My Little Pony underwear, by your mom flat-out refused to allow you silk bikini's from JC Penney's.  Your revolt was crushed with her inevitable discovery, and the look of disappointment and terror that overtook her face in the spectacle of your independent and bold strides towards future defiance.  

The oppression of your discomfort will eventually cause you to break with this idea that your underwear-less choice will be revealed and mocked quietly within your office.  That somehow everyone will just know that you've thrown down the imaginary chastity belt of your decorum and opted for comfort in its stead.  Trust me; the only one who is going to know anything is amiss, is you.   And it's going to sneak up on you in the realization that your very bare ass and bits are touching something not your drawers.  It's going to freak you out so bad.

I like to party. And by party, I mean take naps.

I'm tired of negativity.  I'm tired of being covered in someone else's bad feelings about life and not feeling like I can share thoughts or ideas.  I feel smothered in crappy responses to normal day-to-day.  Giving everything and getting nothing buy open hands grasping, wanting more moremoremoremore.  Being blamed for shortcomings.  Always being at fault. Criticized. Flying by the seat of my pants all the time. 

I just want to stay at home today and cry this all away. Wash it away from me so I can wipe it out of my mind and just move forward.

Bees? BEES!!!!!

This morning was lots of fun.  My routine goes like this: wake up, make tea, vitamins, cereal. Consume said products. Do a little stretching (because exercise isn't possible. I'm simply too large) and then get everyone moving for the day.

Except, when I tried to get up, I found that I was having sciatic pain, the likes of which was making so that I could not move.  Not at all. 

I can't even describe this pain.  It was enough to make me burst into near-hysterical tears. I couldn't get up. I couldn't straighten my leg, stand on my leg, drag my leg behind me in a hobble. Nothing. It was awful. 

20 minutes of this later, I'm trying to push myself to start walking, thinking it will "de-kink" the nerve or something: No. I try to push my leg back, or straighten my back to improve my posture: No.   At this point, I was lucky enough to be near my phone, and my husband called.  Well, he called as I was bawling from the pain. I can only imagine the horror scene he thought was happening. 

He was able to come home and find me, hunkered over, tears dripping down my face, and unable to get anywhere but where I was at.  I felt so awful. 

To top it off; we had contractors scheduled to show up at 745 this morning to start installing a basement egress window for us, and make our downstairs bedroom a legal room.  This way when our little lady arrives, we're able to escape the house easily in an emergency. 

My darling husband massaged my back, and got me a bag of corn to sit on.  Somewhere in there, The Bear woke up, and though terrified that I was in so much pain, and crying my eyes out like a big wussy, he helped by hugging me, and petting my face, and telling me everything was going to be ok.

A call to our ask-a-nurse informed us that, as long as baby isn't coming, this isn't life threatening. No injury occurred to provoke this ridiculous, shitty pain.  This is just one of those joys of pregnancy.  It's the way she's sitting in my body, or how I've expanded as she's grown that's causing this awful, terrible, I-can't-move-it's-so-bad pain.

This kicker is that I felt so awful for needing my husband to come home to take care of me.  What a hot, awful, and absurd mess I am.  
 

Recurrence

In my first trimester, I was stunned by the onslaught of highly vivid dreams I ended up having. Very detailed and memorable, and very much like I wasn't sleeping. Rather living an entirely separate life when I should have been asleep.  The amount of information to take in was rather exhausting, and I'd awake tired, rather than rested.

My second and third trimester have proved much less active in this same regard, overall.  But in more recent nights, I've been having the same dream repeatedly.  Different participants, but the same concept.  My husband cheats on me. When I find out and confront him, he doesn't even care to hide it. He doesn't care at all.  I rant and rave, and threaten....  And yet he doesn't care.  He's un-phased.

I feel so sad and lonely in these dreams. Like I've been cast aside, and am no longer loved.  It's crushing.  So far, I've woken up from all three of these dreams to tears in the twilight hours of the morning.  Most have lasted a far reach into the regular day.  They've left me with a dark feeling around my shoulders that has lingered more than I felt it was welcomed to.

A normal human being would turn to their husband and ask for comfort and physical contact as reassurance.  I only bury my head and mention nothing.  An introspect into my psyche tells me that, on some level, I feel that these dreams are a reflection of the lack of involvement my husband has with me at this point in our marriage.  The eternal struggle of spouses who are raising small children; the dissipation of the connection of love and companionship. 

I am unsure if this is because somewhere buried deep, we don't want to work on the relationship we have, or that he's genuinely oblivious to the fact that we haven't worked on our relationship in a very, very long time.

In tumultuous times of our previous married years, we came up with ways to better communicate with each other. Suggestions for ourselves to be better at what we were doing badly.  We'd write lists. Notes. Charts. Letters.  And, thinking we had the problem licked just by talking about it, we simply never used any of the tools we came up with.  At one point we even saw a couples therapist, and spent time doing worksheets at home to discuss with each other and come up with ways to work on the overcoming these problems.  Needless to say, I filled out my portions, and he did not.  He just never went back to the therapist.  Out of shame and defeat, I didn't go back after that either.

Once it was evident that any work I was ever going to try to do in my marriage would not be met halfway, I think I gave up permanently. I've never tried that hard again, I've just let things that are wrong remain wrong and practice unhealthy tactics to deal with them. Like nagging, bullying, name-calling.  All the things I never thought I'd use against someone I "loved". 

I used to be very sure that I loved my husband, too.  But because I know that I am the only one who wanted to put in the work, that I am ultimately alone with a person who would never work as hard as I would to build a stronger relationship, I don't think I'll ever do it again.

I wish these were feelings that didn't bother me as much as they did. I guess in a way it's better that they do, because it means I care enough for them too.  How do I differentiate between feeling terrible that my spouse doesn't love me enough to move mountains for me, and just being on the shit end of the stick?  Does this mean we are only maintaining the farce that we love each other, and that all true vestiges of it are really gone? Are we just going through the motions?

Is this really what I'm thinking, or have I gone completely batshit insane, and I have no idea it's happened. Like in memento where the guy has no concept that it's just him running around insane in his own head.  That's another highly likely scenario for me at this point in life (and pregnancy). 

I'm such a mess.  I feel so lonely. 

Here's a funny story. One that I don't want to forget.

This story was told by my dad, to my 7 year old son.  Who, unsurprisingly, found it HILARIOUS.  He asks his grandpa to tell it all the time.


So as a child, I went to Nursery School.  I wasn't a latchkey kid or anything; quite the contrary, my parents wanted me everywhere they went. AND they ran their own business, so it was easy to pull the switcheroo with me when they needed to.  But alas, I was a active, and very high energy child. And, being 6 1/2 years younger than my next-oldest sister, I'm sure I needed more age-appropriate contact and some help with socializing correctly with kids my own age, as opposed to dealing with conflict throughout my life by biting people on their faces (sorry Caitlin).

Or they just wanted some free time. Which I absolutely get.

So anyway.....  Nursery School.  This is what we all refer to these days as "daycare", or "pre-school".  That sort of nonsense.  

Well, my father got a call from the Nursery School Director one day, who needed to have a very serious conversation with him, and as soon as possible.  Worried that I was, I'm sure, teaching the other children how to summon demons, or where most parents were likely to hide all the Easter Candy, or even more serious; I might have defaced something of genuine value, my dad prepared himself for the worst. 

There was a formal sit down with the Director and my father (I'm sure my mother wasn't present, because I've never heard HER recant this tale) and in a stern and serious face she begins; 

"We've got a very serious problem with your daughter, Mr Lovejoy".  My father listens intently.  "She's used inappropriate language today."
Thinking of all the unmentionable atrocities I might have blurted out, he asks; "Well, what did she say?"
The Director leans in across the table, and whispers " 'Shit', Mr Lovejoy."
My dad doesn't even skip a beat; "Well where the fuck did she learn that from?"

And this, my friends, is why the apple most certainly never falls far from the tree.