Wednesday, December 1, 2010

You Know You're Pregnant When...

even though you just peed 5 minutes ago at the store, you stop in the middle of your neighborhood to relieve yourself on a pile of leaves because you just. can't. make. it. 45 more seconds to your house.

And the garbage truck drove by mid-stream.  Oh yes, I'm classy.

Monday, November 29, 2010

"You're Getting Fat!" and "I Never Got Sick"

Today, I ran into an acquaintance at the grocery store who proclaimed, "You're getting fat!"

This is this 5th or 6th time since I started showing that someone has told me that I'm "getting fat."

I've never been overweight, I'm not overweight now, and I don't have any intentions of being overweight after my precious parasite starts living outside my body.

I'm can't figure out why folks think it's okay to tell an obviously pregnant girl that she's getting "fat."  I am growing a human.  I am supposed to gain weight.  I am having a hard enough time with this concept, and I don't need random people reminding me that I am, in fact, carrying around a few more pounds than I used to.  Plus, I've gained 16 lbs in 26.5 weeks.  My weight gain thus far is not excessive.

If you want to remark on how a pregnant girl is now showing more than she was before, you should say:

"Wow!  You're really showing now!  I can definitely tell you're pregnant!"
"Your baby bump is so cute!"
or something along those lines.

NEVER use the word "fat," unless you want my response to be, "Yeah, well, you've always been ugly, and I'm still hotter than you."

I'm also very annoyed at the women who find out that I'm going on my 27th week of throwing up but tell me, "Oh, I never got sick when I was pregnant."

To me, that's like the following conversation:

"I have brain cancer."
"Oh.  I just ran the NYC marathon, and my doctor says I've never been better."

No, I'm not comparing my friend hyperemesis to brain cancer, but really?  When someone tells you their house is being foreclosed on, it's not a good time to tell them you won the freaking $35 million jackpot.

Pregnant women are hormonal and emotional.  We cry each and every time you tell us we're fat instead of cute and pregnant.  We cry when we throw up and wet our pants for the 6th time that day because we remember you and your perfect pregnancy.  My husband is tired of listening to me cry, so please, for his sake, tell me that I'm a beautiful pregnant girl, that you gained 75 lbs, and that you threw up in public often.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

I'm Not Nervous

A few years ago, I did the worst thing a non-mom could do.  Twice.  I watched my cousin give birth.  I did take a quick peek long stare at the business end, but I honestly can't remember what her vagina looks like.  I can, however, remember the exact size of the garden sheers that were used for the episiotomy, and I vividly remember being yelled cussed at because I was administering ice chips in increments of three, not two.  She was in pain, and a lot of it.  Quite frankly, it didn't look like fun, and I don't like to do stuff that's not fun.

Fast forward a couple years.  Michael and I decide we're ready to have babies/children/teenagers/monsters/aliens/whatever they happen to be.  It crosses my mind that if the fertility drugs actually work and I get pregnant, I'll have to do that birth thing.  Surely by the time I am due, those doctors will will come up with a way to get that baby out of me that doesn't involve a c-section or pushing.

I get pregnant.  WOOOOO HOOOOO!

8 months to go:  Well, I guess they have 8 months to figure out how to get this thing out of me.  I'm not giving birth, and I'm damn sure not having surgery.

7 months to go:  Michael, do you remember that movie with the Governator?  He was pregnant.  Can we take the baby, put it in your belly, and you can do it for me?  You're such a big strong man.  You'd do great!  Please?!?!  Ahh-nold did it!

6 months to go:  Shit.  I'm past the scary first trimester when miscarriages are likely to occur.  That's good because it means I'm still pregnant, but bad because it means he's growing, and eventually, he's going to have to come out.

5 months to go:  I research the largest baby ever born (23 lbs).  I convince myself that I'll be able to talk my doctor into sewing my goods shut and stopping my contractions for a few more months.  If some lady in Canada (eh?) can hold a 23 pounder, so can I.

4 months to go:  Doctor said no.  Perhaps I should start looking into this labor and delivery stuff.  It appears that's the only way out of this predicament.  That, and driving my car off a cliff.

3 months to go:  I've been reading some books.  (Side note:  all of these books have wonderful pictures and diagrams in them.  I choose to read at places like the dentist's office waiting room.  I make sure to hold my books up so that everyone can see what I'm looking at.  I figure, if I have to do this, they can be a little uncomfortable too).  Michael and I are working on a birth plan.  I've accepted the fact that this is going to hurt like the dickens.  Michael has accepted the fact that on D-day, I will tell him no less than 100 times that I want a divorce because it's all his fault.  We both know that after a few hours of pain (for me) and hard work (for Michael.  I'm sure it's not easy to stop yourself from smothering your wife with a pillow when she just won't shut up.), we'll have a baby.  Our first son.  The little human who makes us a family of three.  With our help, he'll grow up to be a hard-working, self-sufficient, intelligent man, and with any luck, a Republican.  Whatever he does, we'll be proud.

When Michael and I are in our 60s, we'll sit on our porch after lunch on Thanksgiving watching our kids play with our grandkids in the front yard.  I'll look down at Atticus, beaming with pride at the man he's become, but I won't remember how much it hurt to have him.  Or maybe I will, but I won't care.  He is, and always will be, worth it.

No, I'm not nervous.  Not anymore.

I'm ready.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

My Thoughts on Life and Pregnancy - Week 25

1) The gestation period for a human is NOT 10 months.  I cannot understand why this little gem of information keeps making its way to me.

Let's do a little math.  The gestation period is 40 weeks, although it's really not.  It's really 38 weeks because the egg is not fertilized until two weeks after the LMP, which is the so-called "starting date" for pregnancy.  Let's just use 40 weeks, okay?

And let's assume, because February is the only asshat with 28 days (or 29, 25% of the time), that each month is 4.33 weeks long (52 weeks/12 months = 4.33).

Finally, 40 weeks of gestation divided by 4.33 weeks in a month = 9.24 months!  Not 10.

It's 2nd grade math, really.

2) There are a few things in life that should, by default, come one way or another.  First, ice water at a restaurant.  It should always come without lemon unless specifically requested.  It's easier to add a lemon to a glass of water than it is to remove all lemony taste from the rim or water.

Second, you should, by default, assume that a pregnant woman does not want you to touch her belly.  When I find the pregnant witch who sent out the memo that said all pregnant women love having their belly rubbed, I'm going to clobber her.  For the life of me, I can't figure out why folks are so eager to feel me up.  I feel like a jerk every time I have to swat away yet another person's hands.

3) "OMG, you're due on March 4?  My birthday is March 12!"

Wow, that's totally awesome, and I really don't give a rat's butt.  If, for some stupid reason, my child decides he wants to live inside my belly for an additional 8 days and I give birth on March 12, do you think I'm going to remember, "today is so-and-so's birthday!" Absolutely not.

I also don't understand the birthday celebrations.  I mean, everyone has one.  Everyone. I don't celebrate pants because, well, everyone wears them.  Don't get me wrong, yesterday was my birthday, and I'm thankful for the well-wishes I received, but to be honest, I'd be perfectly content to receive well-wishes from only my husband and parents.  If I won the Nobel Prize, not everyone does that, so obviously I would expect some sort of congratulations from my entire Facebook friends list.

4) "You're going to name him Atticus?  Um.  Okay.  Where did you come up with that?"

If you really don't know where Atticus comes from, you have terrible literary tastes, and you probably watch crappy movies too.  Furthermore, this is our baby, and if we want to name him Sir Longfellow Pencilpenis, that's our prerogative.  If you want to select a name, have a baby.  Get a dog.  Or a parakeet.  This is my turn.

15 more weeks.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Traditional household roles + Elvira's bubble bath

At our house, we typically keep traditional household roles.  For example, I break things; Michael fixes them.  He makes messes; I pick them up.  I grocery shop, cook, do laundry, and bathe the dog.  Michael handles all the maintenance, heavy lifting, and well, he brings home the bacon (figuratively, of course.  He wouldn't know that he prefers Black Label bacon if his life depended on it).

All of this was in the era of B.P.  (before pregnancy).  It's been a while since I bought groceries, cooked dinner, washed clothes, or gave Elvira the beagle a bath.  Michael has done his best to pick up the slack, but let's face it, a man who knows how to re-build an engine probably isn't going to dominate the laundry.

Fast forward to tonight.  Have a look at this sweet dog:



Oh yes, she looks sweet, but she rolled in some STINKY crap.  It was so stinky that I couldn't be around her without vomiting.  Of course, I would never fake a need to vomit to get Michael to give her a bath while I sat on my butt and read the internet.  No, I'm totally above behavior like that.

So I'm sitting in the den while Michael is upstairs in the bathroom with the stinky beast.  "ASHLEY!!!!!!! HELP!!!!"

After I chuckled to myself, "Figures," I walked up to the bathroom to see what the problem was.  Michael apparently didn't feel like looking very hard for the dog shampoo in the bathroom closet, so he grabbed....

Bubble bath.  Oh, yes.  He.  Did.

And rather than a cup to rinse her with, he had a 5-gallon bucket.  Of course.  That's logical.

Obviously, he was unable to rinse the suds, hold the dog, and dump the 5-gallon bucket of water by himself.

This is why I act like the woman, and Michael acts like the man.  We suck at each other's job.

Friday, September 24, 2010

But Michael, I don't want to go to the doctor!



This past Saturday night, I ate mashed potatoes for supper.  If I had known they were to be my last meal, I would have also asked for macaroni and cheese, my mom's lasagna, pizza, and a 3 liter of high-test coke.

Sunday.  I ate.  I vomited.

Monday.  I ate.  And then I vomited.

Tuesday.  I ate.  I vomited.  And then I projectile vomited into the lake in front of my husband.  (Hey baby, how you doin'?)

So Wednesday, Michael was not pleased with the fact that I'd lost 4 more lbs.  He thought that pregnancy and weight gain were synonymous.  I did too, but hello?  I was not going to complain if God wanted me to be a thin pregnant girl.  No weight gain = no weight to lose.  Then Mr. Super Husband asked me how long it'd been since I kept any food or liquid down.  Oh, um.. Saturday.  "WHAT?!?!?  Call the doctor right now!"

So I call my OB.  His voicemail says he's in surgery on Wednesdays.  Score.  Maybe I won't have to go to the doctor.  I decide to text our friend Stephanie (an OB RN), hoping that she'll be like, "totally nothing to worry about.  Pregnant girls throw up all the time!"  Err... no cigar.  She said, "Call the front desk and ask for an appointment.  Now."

So off we three kings of orient... I mean we two adults and one fetus go to the doctor.  I am, in fact, down 4 lbs from my visit there the previous week.  They want me to pee in a cup.  Pee in a cup?  With what?  All the water I threw up?  Please try.  Ok, whatever.  I didn't even pee enough to coat the bottom of the cup.  They said it was enough.  Good, 'cause that was my best effort.

They run my pee, and it comes back that I am very dehydrated.  Doctor says I have hyperemesis. They are sending me to the hospital.

I cry.

I cry some more.  I consider the fact that something seriously might be wrong with my doctor because what man wants to deal with hormonal women all day long?  Whatever.  I don't want to go to the hospital.  I didn't even want to go to the doctor.  And now, they're going to put needles in me!  I hate being pregnant.

The nurse in the hospital tells me that when you're dehydrated, your veins constrict, which makes it more difficult to put in an IV.  Well, that's just fan-freaking-tastic.  I would hate needles if my veins were big enough to shop at Lane Bryant.  I get poked a total of three times due to my small veins, and if my face wasn't green before she started, it sure as heck was by the time she was done.

I got three bags of fluid with Reglan, and I was there for about 6 hours.  I was bored.  I complained a lot.  Most importantly, I did not annoy Michael to the point that he doesn't want to be married to me anymore.  That's always good.

So far, I'm giving pregnancy a D-.

Are you trying to tell me I look like sh!t?

The following is a conversation I had earlier this week with an overly-friendly cashier at Publix:

Girl at Publix: "Aww honey, are you ok? You look like you don't feel good."

Me: "I haven't kept any food down since Sunday (true), I just threw up all over the parking lot (true), I have a hemorrhoid the size of a golf ball (false, but funny to say), and my baby daddy left me for a cross dressing man named Spike (also false)."

Girl: "I think we have some preparation H on clearance."

Well done, girl, well done. How many people could keep their customer service skills in check after that? She deserves a raise for having to deal with people like me.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

This Old Boat

If you can't tell from the url of my blog, we have a boat.  Or two.

The boat, named the MISSRED, is both the highlight and bane of my existence.  We spend a lot of time having fun on her, but we Michael spends a lot of time working on varnish or oil changes or electrical or whatever may be broken on that particular day.

When we bought the boat, my parents went to Michigan with us to pick her up.  Being 27 years old, she needed some work before we could make the trip.  As you can see from the picture below, my dad thought everything was going swell.  He was not frustrated at all.  :)  Such is life on a boat.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Fertility Treatments? What's up with that? You're like, young!

Wow, people are nosy.  We really have nothing to hide, so here are the answers to some of the questions we've been asked so far.

Fertility treatments?  What's wrong with you?
Actually, nothing is wrong with either of us.  We're both perfect.  Oh, you meant in terms of fertility. Hubbs is healthy, and I am not.  I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).  My ovaries, in their normal state, have over 50 cysts between the two of them.  These cysts are caused by follicles that never matured into eggs.  If you'll think back to 7th grade health class, you'll remember that in order to make a baby, you need sperm and an egg.  Sperm = check!  Egg = no cigar.  No egg = no baby.  No baby = no sibling for Elvira the beagle.

What fertility treatment did you do?
We did one round of IUI (intrauterine insemination) with Clomid.  Even though my super-powered ovaries produced seven (7, SEVEN) eggs, the pee stick said "No way Jose."  I actually got knocked up the old fashioned way (don't tell my mom) on a cycle planned for IUI.  The doctor cancelled the IUI because my one egg was "poor quality."  He wished us luck, told us my body needed a break from the drugs, and said he'd see us in two months.  The pee stick said "OMG!  It totally worked!  Your body didn't fail you again! Don't freak out!  Why don't you sit down?"  You had no idea all of those words fit in that little box, did you?  Since I was heavily medicated on Clomid until my IUI was cancelled, our baby is still the product of fertility treatments.

Why didn't you tell me?
Um.  Would you have been invited to be a part of the act if we hadn't used fertility treatments?  NO.  Why should this be any different?  We also didn't want to have to answer the phone after each unsuccessful cycle and tell people that once again, my body had failed us.  It's nothing personal, but it's something we wanted to do privately.  We didn't even tell our families.

How long did it take?
A while.  Over a year.  Too long.

What doctor did you go to?
We went to The Fertility Center.  Dr. Donesky was our doctor, but we also saw Dr. Byrd.  I 100% recommend both of them.  The rest of the staff at The Fertility Center is top notch as well.

Do you want a boy or a girl?
I think Michael would prefer a boy.  I would prefer any baby.  Truly, I have no preference.

Monday, August 2, 2010

We're Having a Baby!

Yes, I'm pregnant.  With a baby.  Yes, it was intentional.  Yes, we used fertility treatments because we suck at making a baby on our own.  Yes, it's only one baby.  Yes, I'm sure.

I'm due March 4, 2011, which is, ironically, our 5th wedding anniversary.

We are so excited!

Monday, June 21, 2010

A Trip to the Garden

To celebrate Father's Day with my Daddy, Michael and I went to the mountain to have breakfast with my family.  It was a wonderful meal, but it definitely wasn't the highlight of the day.

After breakfast, Daddy was going to go down to the garden to dig some potatoes for me to take home.  Intrigued, Michael said, "Dig?"

Apparently, my husband thought that potatoes grow on a tree.  Or a vine.  Or a freaking flowered bush.

Since it was Michael's first time working in the garden, we let him do all the work.  He dug enough potatoes for my sister and me to get some to take home, and then he started walking around the rest of the garden.

"Hey Juggs!  What's this?" (Michael calls me Juggs).

"Uhmmm.  That'd be cabbage."

In case you didn't know, cabbage LOOKS like cabbage when it's growing.  It's not hidden under pesky leaves or growing under the ground.  I do not know how he did not know it was cabbage.

Yeah.

"Michael, do you want to get some fresh green beans for dinner tonight?"

"There are green beans?  Where?"

"You're standing by them."

"Oh this?  That doesn't look like green beans."

I picked a bean, broke off the ends a la Grandma Jewell circa 1992, and made sure there were no strings.  I handed the results to Michael.

"Well, how about that!"

My. husband. did. not. know. that. green. beans. grow. whole.

Michael is so dadgum smart.  He knows how to fix everything.  He knows the stuff I learned in 7th grade but promptly forgot.  You know, like the Byzantine Empire.  Michael knows all about them.  Or it.  Whatever.

So to know something (other than the names of Brad and Angie's kids) that Michael didn't... well, it felt weird.

I hope it never happens again.  I like thinking that he's smarter than me.