More Pregnancy Perplexers

I never ask other moms, “So how was your labor? Was it long and painful? Could you pretty please give me a step-by-step account of it?”

I don’t have to. They always offer it up.

The birth stories perplex me because it’s almost as if the moms of the world have this “misery loves company” attitude. “If I suffered, you should also suffer. And you should all know about my suffering.” And if you don’t flinch (or it’s via phone and they can’t tell if you’re flinching), they try to add in more graphic imagery. They want to see you cringe. They want to see you squirm. I think they get extra points if their stories induce vomiting.

Here’s what I like to say after a particularly gruesome account: “Well it couldn’t have been that bad. I mean, you did it again. And again. (And in some cases) and again.”

My doctor asked me if people have been sharing their gross birth stories with me and when I told him yes, he had this funny analogy:

“If you said, ‘I’m having surgery for ovarian cancer’ that same person wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, my mother had ovarian cancer surgery and it was horrible! It was so painful! Here are the gory details.’”

And it is impossible for a mom to tell a birth story without using this one awful word, even if unsaid word didn’t play a part in their labor. They still have to work it into the story. I’ve refrained from using the word on my blog even though someone utters it to me just about every other day. I was going to use it here but you know what? If I subject you to it I’m just as bad as them. So I won’t use it. I’ll just tell you that it rhymes with this fruit and let you figure it out:

Bye-bye, Bug

Sure, I could have kept the Beetle. I mean, a two-door convertible with a tiny backseat and an even tinier trunk wouldn’t be that terrible for a baby, right? BS probably would have liked the wind in his/her hair. Britney’s kids seem to enjoy it.

But I kept imagining people saying, “A BABY? In a BUG?” I knew that these people, however hypothetical and imaginary they were, were right.

I tried to convince Frank to just trade me cars:

“I’ll drive the Accord and you can drive the Bug.”

“The Bug is a girl’s car. It has a flower in it,” he said.

“But we can take out the flower.”

“But then I would be driving the Bug and you wouldn’t be…and you’re the one who wants to drive it so what’s the point of keeping it?”

He was right. And how could I be the Super Mom to his Super Dad if I didn’t mommy up and get an appropriate vehicle?

Yesterday we went car shopping. I told the Bug before we left, “Don’t worry. We’re not giving you up just yet. You’ve still got a few more weeks.”

But then there was this car we liked and rumblings of a good deal on our trade-in and the next thing I knew, we were back at home, rounding up the Bug.

The Bug looked totally betrayed. In fact, if it could talk, it would have said, “Et tu, Writinggal?” And then as we drove back to the dealership that really awesome Taylor Swift song, “Tears on my Guitar” was playing. It made me have tears on my Bug. It’s just like when we test drove the Bug and my fave song of the moment, “Pieces of Me” by Ashlee Simpson was on.

The tears would have been heavier had it been a sunny day and we had been driving with the top down. I was grateful for the gloom.

I was sad for me but mostly I was sad for the Bug. We just left it there at this car dealership. It was Toyota so there weren’t even other Bugs there for it to hang out with. When they moved it from the customer parking lot, I asked the guy where they were going to take it. He said, “To the back.” I said, “With the dented and totaled cars??!!” tears forming again.

And here I am crying again as I write this blog. We’re going to blame it on hormones. Cut to the blog slideshow!

Parents Say the Darndest Things

Between the two of us, Frank and I have a lot of parental clichés we’ve accumulated from our own upbringings. We are excited to share these with BS:

Well who told you life was fair?

If you’re bored, you’re boring.

If I find it, can I hit you?

Does your face hurt? Cause it’s killing me.

Because I’m the mommy, that’s why.

Don’t sit around in your bathing suit. You’ll get a bladder infection.

I just want you to try it.

Eat it. It’ll put hair on your chest.

I wish you’d eat something green.

You can’t wear that. It will look like we don’t know how to dress you.

Ladies don’t sit like that.

You’re cold? Well put some clothes on!

If you lie down with dogs, you come up with fleas.

Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about.

Conversations with BS:

BS: Me and my friend went to this park and…
Me: My friend and I…
BS: You weren’t there, mom!

BS: But Sally has one!
Frank: If Sally jumped off a bridge, would you?

BS: Can I have this toy? It’s only $40.
Me: Sure. Do you have $40?

BS: Can we go shopping for new school clothes?
Me: What’s wrong with the clothes you wore last year?

BS: I need this video game.
Frank: Do you need it or do you just want it?


BS: I got all A’s…how much money do I get?
Us: Money? You’re supposed to get good grades!
BS: But Sally gets $20 for As, $10 for Bs…
Frank: If Sally jumped-
BS: I know, I know. If Sally jumped off a bridge…

I have a dream

I’ve heard it all when it comes to guessing the baby’s sex: the way you’re carrying, the way your back looks, how sick you are during pregnancy, whether or not you have heartburn, the way a ring swings when it’s held in front of your belly on a string and some trick involving pee and Drano.

I don’t buy any of those.

But then my neighbor told me about dreams. She said that she heard that the mother’s dreams are 90% accurate. It happened to her. She dreamt she was having a girl and she did. Another neighbor said she dreamt that she had the baby and everyone was saying, “It’s a boy!” and she kept insisting that it was girl. And in real life she had a girl.

So even though I don’t want to know what BS is, I’ve been hoping to have one of these dreams. A couple of weeks ago I had one that went like this:

Me: “Hey, there’s my baby and it’s a girl!”
Random dream person: “No, that’s not your baby.”
Me: “Oh, then there’s my baby and it’s a boy!”
Random dream person: “That’s not your baby either.”

Confusing.

I told my friend Jaime about my dream. She said, “I’ve always heard that you dream the opposite of what you’re having.” She dreamed about boys and had three girls.

Well, at this rate I might as well get out the Drano.

But then last night I had an interesting dream. I’ll detail it here and let you decide what to make of it:

Me: “Oh, look, a box came in the mail.”
Enter some girl who said she was my neighbor in my dream but I’ve never seen her before. She said she used to be a nurse so she knows a lot about babies. Oh, and she wore her pants up really high. So this stranger/neighbor/nurse/high-waisted-girl says, “That’s your baby. It’s not exactly born yet but it’s what you get in the mail right before the baby is born.”

So I open the box and there’s a baby in there! But it’s more like a doll. She said, “You don’t have to feed it yet but you probably should change it.”

“But I don’t want to know the sex,” I insisted.

“The hospital knows if you don’t want to know so they will have covered all that up with a blue paste.” She then checked the baby and said, “Yep, it’s got the blue paste.”

I remember distinctly saying this in the dream: “So that blue paste could potentially cover up a baby penis?”

“Yes,” she assured me.

I looked down at the baby and it was wrapped in a pink blanket. I said, “This baby totally looks like a boy to me. I’m almost positive it’s a boy.”

Then Frank got home and I had put the baby back in the box. I told him the situation and the stranger/neighbor/nurse girl backed me up.

He said, “I don’t think we should look at the baby before it’s born. Let’s keep it in the box.”

And that’s what we did.

So this dream could mean that BS is a boy since I was very certain about it. Or is Jaime’s theory right and the mom dreams the opposite of what she’s having? And what’s up with that pink blanket?

I’m pretty sure none of it means anything since BS also had a full head of black hair.

Better than a manger

We got our nursery furniture on Saturday and Frank put it together Saturday night ("I should not have started doing this after a few beers") and continued into Sunday.

Here is my first attempt at posting a video to my blog. As you will see in this short film, the furniture is all put together and all we need now are curtains, bedding, a glider and stuff to hang on the walls. Oh, and a baby.

Which is weirder?

A card from a pet or a card from a fetus?

The Big 3-0

They may both be milestones but I'm quickly learning that 30 weeks of pregnancy...

is very different from a 30th birthday:

Ice cream craving (minus the pickles)

I thought I had experienced pregnancy cravings before (like with the pancakes on a Thursday morning) but on Saturday I found out what a real craving was all about.

It started with a picture of ice cream at Chick Fil-la. Next we passed a McDonald's and I thought about their soft serve cones. I said to Frank, "I kinda feel like ice cream." He said, "Really? I don't."

Darn.

After that, I couldn't get that ice cream out of my head:


Yummmm....ice cream.

Ice cream with chocolate chunks.

Ice cream with chocolate syrup.

Stop it. Stop thinking about ice cream. Think about something else like...umbrellas...I need a new umbrella for when it rains...lately we've had some ice...yummm...ice cream.

If I could just have a little taste of ice cream. That's all I need. Maybe one of those little pints. We're going right by a store. Would Frank stop? Would he think I was crazy?

Yes, that's crazy. You've got good-tasting things at home. What about that peanut butter cookie? Will that work? Peanut butter cookie crumbled up in ice cream...yum.

MUST HAVE ICE CREAM!!

"Um, Frank...I really feel like ice cream. Could we stop somewhere and get some?"

"We could stop at Wendy's and get a Frosty."

"That's not ice cream!"

Soon we were pulling into the grocery store. I got mint chocolate chip.

"There. You got your ice cream. Feeling better?" Frank asked.

"Not until I eat it. Can I open it in the car?"

Finally we got home where my ice cream and I could be together. It was heavenly:

Luckily, we got a half gallon so the next day I crumbled up the peanut butter cookie in my ice cream. Dreams really do come true (if you whine enough).

BS and the Boys

These are my fellow pregnant neighbors. Claire (left) is having a boy in May. Debbie is having a boy in March. The last four women to give birth in our neighborhood had boys. In fact, Debbie’s daughter was the last girl to be born and that was almost three years ago.

So does that mean we’re having a boy since that seems to be the trend in the neighborhood? Or does it mean we’re having a girl because too many other people are having boys?

This is how I calculate statistics. Frank explained to me, though, that whatever happens in the neighborhood has nothing to do with the sex of our baby, statistically. “It’s still a 50/50 chance,” he told me for the 427th time.

But we women like to think there’s more than statistics that goes into all this. Like when Claire told me on the phone that she was having a boy and BS kicked me, she said maybe BS was telling her baby, “I’m your girlfriend!” But then I speculated that BS might have just been saying, “Cool! I’m a boy too!” Frank chimed in again with his statistical savviness.

Really, the sex of BS could change the dynamic of the whole neighborhood:

If BS is a girl, she’ll have no built in girlfriends. But maybe she’ll play with all the boys and be into boy-stuff like climbing trees and going to the emergency room. And come prom time, she could have her pick of dates.

If BS is a boy then I guess he’ll just be one of the boys. But Frank and I aren’t all that athletic so I fear for BS in this department. Plus, the other pregnant girls have probably already registered their sons for tee ball! We might be too late.

But for the first time here on Writinggal-Expanding I see that the vote has shifted to favor BS as a girl. What could this mean? Will BS be the hottie on the block? The current vote is 52% girl, 47% boy. But as Frank reminded me, “That’s still basically 50/50.”

Cabbage Patch Kid

Remember when BS was just a little avocado?

They grow up so fast, don't they?

To me, though, this Chinese cabbage looks bigger than a newborn.