neither here nor there

I wrote this in response to Katy’s fantastic post about the myths of pregnancy and am posting it on her blog as a guest post.  This is not meant to be a rebuttal of anything she wrote, I think of it as a man’s perspective on pregnancy. I haven’t focused on myths; rather I’ve focused on “highlights” of having a baby on the way.

The Pillow

Sometime after your partner starts to show she will want to buy a pillow to make it easier to sleep. No matter how much you cuddled before baby, that all comes to a halt. Your partner’s new bedmate is a pillow the size of a small person, with folds and bends meant to make it impossible to touch your partner while you are in bed together. This pillow is like the Maginot Line, its best to just go around it.

Nesting

One day your partner will announce that she wants to clean, at first you’ll think she is just doing her usual complaining about your shoes in the living room or the dirty socks next to bed.  All the compromises you’ve made about your stuff when you moved in together and every time you moved will be revisited, and your precious outdoor gear will end up underneath the stairs, outside. Next you’ll be making trip after trip to the hardware store and painting everything within reach of the new baby.  What I didn’t realize is that men get a nesting instinct as well, you’ll enjoy the painting, building, and shopping. If you are like me you’ll spend your weekends creating and babying a new vegetable garden.

Books

You are going to read a lot. Baby books come in all sizes and shapes for every type of future parent out there. Here are just a few of the books we have: Happiest Baby on the Block, Expectant Father, Your Pregnancy Week by Week, Your Baby’s First Year, and A is for Atticus (baby name book). Even though you feel like you were just handed your required reading for a college class, enjoy it. All the reading will help inform all the crazy decisions you will have to make, and will help you not freak out during the hospital tour. I recommend reading books before your partner. You don’t want to look too excited when you ask her if she has the baby’s take home outfit for the hospital and you won’t want to react negatively when she shares what happens to her body during labor and postpartum. Interesting factoids we learned from reading: during one phase of development, babies actually have tails; at 32 weeks your baby is the size of a jicama; your baby actually breathes in its own pee and poop-also known as amniotic fluid.

DD

The first gift your new baby will give you is the gift of a designated driver.  Before baby you probably did most of the driving when you went out. Now you’ll be able to get that extra glass of wine or finally order that Highland Scotch you’ve coveted instead of cake for desert at fancy restaurants. The time to take advantage of your new taxi driver is early in the pregnancy; after a couple of months she’ll want to go quicker than it’s socially acceptable to get tipsy.

Selfishness

Pregnant women are selfish, as they should be. What might surprise you though is how selfish you will be. As baby day gets closer you will start to count down the last days of a quiet house with the two of you. If you are married you may have thought that your freedom was curtailed on your wedding day, the reality is freedom ends when you knowingly or unknowingly created a mini. Embrace your last days of true freedom like it’s the first warm sunny week in Davis right before winter quarter finals but do it at your own peril.

Walking

In your pre-baby time you and your partner were probably pretty active. Marathons, all day bike rides, and intense yoga classes kept you trim and fit. Walking will be your new physical activity. Your partner will crave the day she slipped out of the house for a quick ten miler; she may even want to buy new workout clothes or magazines reminding her of her long gone slim pre-baby self. Walking to and from the car late in pregnancy for her is like the middle mile in a 5k, hard but not impossible. For you it’s more like a walk to and from the car with your grandma, it’s slow and sometimes you have to give her a hand to keep her upright.

Cravings

I am the rare guy that would actually want my picky eater partner to develop some weird cravings. It makes it that much easier to blame my newborn’s facial hair on my partner’s ability to brew the baby rather than my questionable southern genes. I think most pregnant ladies hide their secret eating habits. For instance, their weird desire to put ketchup on fries (I know this isn’t weird to most people but I find it disgusting). My partner, however, has never had any delusions to hide her eating habits. She knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to let other people see her devour a milkshake per day from Bittersweet or an entire box of Trader Joe’s Mac n’ Cheese.

Baby Names

My family grew up breeding and raising beagles, so I feel like I have more experience than the average person when it comes to naming things. Unfortunately, it’s not really acceptable to name your new baby Speckels, Speckels the Second, Sparky, or Muttly (all actual dog names.)

My partner and I discussed baby names years ago. We both agreed that our overwhelming favorite was Harper, from Harper Lee the author of one of our favorite books, To Kill a Mockingbird. We were like George Costanza in Seinfeld, we didn’t tell anyone our great name lest someone steal it from us. Turns out people stealing your name isn’t the issue, it’s the face.  Everyone has different reaction to every name. Why do you think there are still babies with names like Eunice, Gertrude, and Bertha? Like minded friends will smile and tell you how awesome your name is, while others will squint, frown, and reply with some 5 year old bastardization of your name such as Dale the Whale. For the record, despite my current height and increasing girth, I was often one of the smallest kids in my class. Don’t tell anyone your potential names until you are 100 percent confident in the name you picked. If they don’t like the name just look at them and smile, you know that their child will probably be named Unique.

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This week marks the 8-month mark of my first (and the plan is, last) pregnancy.  This pregnancy wasn’t an accident and my husband and I are incredibly excited about the impending arrival of our homemade little person.  But, the last 8 months have taught me a lot (understatement of the year here) and if watching 3 episodes of Glee gives Glenn Beck the expertise to comment on gay people, then I believe the past 32 weeks have certainly qualified me to write about pregnancy.

And now I will share my findings with you. I realize the show isn’t over, but I’ll probably feel like a bad mother if I write all this once we have our little bundle of joy. More likely than that, I will be too busy scrubbing sticky yellow poo out of the couch cushions to sit down and write such a blathering essay as this.

Because I have yet to experience labor, and haven’t pooped on a table since I was a baby, I still have a morsel of modesty left. So please keep in mind these are my slightly censored opinions, and if you really and truly want the real story, you’ll need to wait for a less public opportunity than this blog. Without further ado, here are 10 things I didn’t know about pregnancy (and am willing to share on the internet):

1. 9 Months

Let’s start with the fact that I’m 8 months pregnant and have two more months before the due date.   Pregnancy is 40 weeks, and for those of you who made it past 4^th grade, 40 divided by 4 is 10. Therefore, pregnancy is 10 months long, not 9.*

*I have been corrected on this one. Some wise friends pointed out that most months are longer than 4 weeks.  True, but the point is the same: this ride is longer than the one you thought you were getting on.  When the pregnancy book tells you that you are 8 months pregnant, people will congratulate you on having just one more month and it’s all a big lie. I once picked up a pregnancy book that tracked the woman’s pregnancy by the stages of the moon. I scoffed at it in then, but perhaps the hippies are on to something. Maybe the lunar cycle helps time to move a bit faster than the Western calendar.

Pregnancy Tip: If you plan on becoming impregnated anytime soon, it’s best for your mental health that you start internalizing this fact NOW.

2. “Morning” Sickness

Now, unless “morning” includes every hour I’m awake (about 6 am – 10pm), then this is a misnomer.  My favorite highlight of morning sickness was the morning I went to get my first blood test, followed erroneous directions to find myself at a funeral home and then, since it was 7:15 and I needed to get to work, I gave up on the blood test and headed to school.  A few blocks from school, the “morning” sickness came to a boiling point and I had to pull over by an East Oakland park where I then puked into an old paper bag I found in my car. The bag then proceeded to leak everywhere so I ducked out into the rainy morning with my bag of vomit. While snot dripped down my face (I prioritize puke over snot) I ran to the bus stop trash can leaving a trail of bag drippings behind me to wash away in the rain. While this experience makes a lovely story, it is important to know that the nausea, vomiting and general feelings of wanting to die were not limited to the morning hours. During my several months of “all day” sickness, I lovingly bestowed our child with his first moniker: the white demon.

Pregnancy Tip: Keep plastic bags in your car. Sturdy plastic bags. Also, if you have wood or tile floors at home, wear socks. Sliding across the floor in socks can save quite a mess by upping your overall travel speed when everything starts moving up and you need to reach a trashcan or toilet.

3. Cookie Dough

Apparently pregnant women are highly susceptible to food poisoning since your immune system goes into hibernation in efforts to not fight off your child as some sort of virus. Because of this, you aren’t supposed to eat cookie dough, which of course has raw eggs.  Well, I’ve tested this one on more than one occasion and all was just fine. I’m eating cookie dough while writing this.

Life Tip: Adding a little chili powder to your chocolate chip cookie dough brings out the flavor of the chocolate but adds no spice, I promise!

4. Food Cravings

I’ve yet to experience food cravings. You may cite the fact that I just admitted to eating cookie dough as I write this.  Well I should point out that that is not unusual behavior for me, with or without a fetus. I definitely experienced a disgust for nearly all foods during my “all day” sickness and have a fond memory of crying over my Mexican food as my husband tried to convince me to eat something (yes, at a restaurant, in public.) I continue to have aversions to some wonderful foods such as Zachary’s pizza, but I haven’t added any cravings to the list.

5. Heartburn

Who knew I would spend such a significant portion of my salary on Tums and Zantac before age 65?  I don’t think I even knew what heartburn was prior to pregnancy. Imagine lying in bed and suddenly having the feeling that a box of chalk is rising up in your throat, slowly choking you. That’s fun.  At first I was able to control this with changes to my diet and eating times, but that is a thing of the past. Heartburn is now as unavoidable for me as the loss of my bellybutton.

Pregnancy Tip: If you’re like me, you may think that the small container of antacids will be sufficient. Don’t kid yourself. Hit up Costco.

6. The Finger

I was warned of this one by a good friend before my first prenatal appointment. I appreciated the warning, but it didn’t really take the shock factor out of the actual moment. During our first appointment, the OB confirmed the pregnancy by putting some giant electronic “wand” up somewhere that might not surprise you, but then followed this by sticking her finger up somewhere that will surprise you.  “Now, I’m about to stick my finger up your anus, if you can just take a breath and relax…” I do not know how those “Sixteen and Pregnant” girls go through these exams in front of their boyfriends of 2 ½ months. Maybe they don’t.  The boyfriends are probably at t-ball practice or something.

Pregnancy Tip: Years down the road, have a little laugh to yourself every time your husband goes in for a prostate exam.

7. The Husband’s Role

I was told that I would rely on my husband for jobs such as household chores, back massages, and foot rubs. While I’ve called on him for the first two items, and wish I could have more of the third thing, there are some more basic needs I require of him. Here’s a request I make more frequently: “Can you tie my shoes?” Yep, humble yourself now. Nothing like admitting that you can’t really reach your own shoes to rob you of any dignity you might have clung to after that first doctor’s appointment.

Pregnancy Tip: Wear flats. Not just for comfort, but so you can enjoy the satisfaction of dressing yourself without assistance.

8. The First Ultrasound

…did not make me cry. To be honest, it took quite a while to figure out that the little blinking white light was my child’s beating heart, not an electronic blip. This looks nothing like a baby. I was more awed by the fact that my uterus was shaped like a banana.

Pregnancy Tip: When the ultrasound tech offers you a printed out copy, eagerly thank her even though it looks like nothing to you. I think they call CPS if you refuse ultrasound pictures.

9. The Second Trimester Myth

Mothers and pregnancy books alike will try to distract you from the “all-day” sickness in the first trimester by telling you that you will “feel great” in the second trimester. Um, no. This would be analogous to saying that if you had swine flu last week and now you just have food poisoning, you must feel great! I’m fairly certain that a lot of women enjoy the second trimester more than I did, but I didn’t start feeling normal-ish until the third trimester. And by then, I was peeing 25 times a day, complaining incessantly about back pain and unable to shave my legs. So far, first trimester was horrific, second trimester was really uncomfortable and the third trimester has been a great improvement, but definitely…awkward.

Pregnancy Tip: Book a leg waxing today.

10. Pregnancy is Sexy

Pregnancy is sexy in the same way that watching Biggest Loser is a turn-on.  Because I’m censoring myself, I am unable to really detail all the ways pregnancy is not sexy. Now my husband might be lying, but either way, he tells me that he still finds me attractive. I’m just not feeling it.  Today as I drove home from work, I realized that I could feel my stomach resting on my thighs. To me, this is not sexy. I’m fairly certain that my regular belching is also not that sexy to my husband.

Pregnancy Tip: Since you’ve already given up on feeling sexy, go buy a maternity bra and move on with your life. You can be sexy next year.

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