Though the last seven months have been filled with both anxiety and wonder, I know they cannot compare to the day this summer when I will finally meet my
daughter for the first time. Sure, Carlos and I have made an event of every move she makes in utero (only first-time
parents can make cross country calls at peak hours to tell first-time grandparents, “She hiccups!”), but we both know there is no preparing for when we actually experience Alanna in person. We do not want Alanna to be an only child, and therefore have taken the lessons we learned during this first
pregnancy VERY seriously. And I have made it my mission to pass on these lesser known facts to unsuspecting parents-to-be. So without further delay: WHAT EVERY EXPECTANT MOTHER NEEDS TO KNOW TO COPE:
You will grow everywhere. And I mean everywhere. I am not talking just boobs and belly here, although that will be significant--and if my experience is anything to use as a marker, it will be boobs before belly. True story: I found out I was pregnant over the December holidays, but waited until the end of my first trimester (the end of January) to make my big announcement. Unbeknownst to me, who was too busy trying to hide morning sickness, my
pregnancy was announcing itself. People were grinning at me and nodding encouragingly, telling me how great I looked. It wasn’t until much later that a friend explained that no one knew I was pregnant…instead, they thought that I’d had a breast augmentation during the time I spent out of town celebrating the holidays. But that’s somewhat to be expected. What you may not expect is that your feet will go up as much as a shoe size. That your nose will start a steady spread across your face. That your thighs will not only widen, but grow a nasty lumpy substance called cellulite that you previously only saw in paid ads in women’s magazines. That your ass will literally become a caboose. When I confronted my mother on these issues, she tried to console me by telling me that everything returns to its proper proportions post-pregnancy. But I’ve cornered others on this subject, and the only thing that seems to pop back is your nose. So Mom is lying. Really, it’s just like the great Santa Claus debacle.
Many people will be happy for you. Many will not. Blame
movies and television, because I don’t know what else could have given me the impression that I would get unanimously joyful responses when I told everyone I knew that I was expecting. Because I was dead wrong on that account. I assume there are a multitude of reasons that people won’t be ecstatic at your news. I’ve heard some of them The most popular seem to be as follows: jealousy that you are having a baby; fear that your friendship will change; a general lack of interest in children. Here’s the thing: you won’t
care about WHY they aren’t happy for you, you will just
care that they aren’t. And you will most likely be angry about it. You’ve probably anticipated the day when you can finally shout out your great news, only to be met with “Oh, that’s nice,” or “Hmmm. Is there any sugar in the break room?” In fact, I’ve had strangers in salon lobbies react with more excitement to my news than I’ve had telling
friends I’ve known for years. I had one friend explain to me, “Well, I don’t know what to say when someone tells me she’s pregnant.” My response to her was this: if this
woman announces her
pregnancy in front of a big group, if the person sounds happy, or the person’s phrasing isn’t flat out “Oh-my-God-I’m-pregnant-what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do?” it’s probably fairly good news. However, take
heart in the fact that while this may be the greatest news of your life, some people really are clueless. And some other people really just suck. Don’t let it get you down.
You will itch. And itch. And itch. Supposedly this is caused by the stretching your
skin will endure while your
body is expanding for the baby. You may also develop a rash under your (newly enhanced) breasts due to the sweat that will gather around the band of your mammoth bra. Let me once again say that you will not
care why this is happening. You will curse various lotions for not soothing the itch (although fragrance free/sensitive
skin formulas might help) while buying talcum powder by the case in a valiant attempt to alleviate the rash. You will consistently claw at yourself while your significant other nicely suggests that this is gross. Which leads me to the next challenge:
Your partner may seem (and may genuinely be) ambivalent about the baby. From the time that we made a commitment to each other, there was never any question that we wanted to be not just a couple, but eventually a family, complete with several children. And the moment that we found out I was pregnant, Carlos expressed interest in being a father. He was not interested in any alternatives to us having a
child and raising a family. After all, it was a discussion we’d had many times pre-conception, and again once we found out that the bun was in full bake mode. This, however, did not immediately translate into excitement about the baby. This can be difficult for a pregnant
woman to understand; I know it was very hard for me. But I tried to look at it from his point of view. While Carlos may have felt some anxiety, he didn’t feel physically different. He wasn’t walking around, bodily responsible for another human being’s growth (not yet, anyway!). He wasn’t nauseated by
new smells and headache-y and endlessly itchy and mortifyingly flatulent and jealous of people who were downing cocktails at dinner. To be ambivalent means to be of two minds. This is genuinely what some partners are when you are pregnant. To them, they have 9 months to get used to the idea of being someone’s parent, whereas for you it begins the moment you get two lines on your
pregnancy test (or decide to embrace the two lines…it happens in a different order for all women). Therefore, they are faced with the
woman the
love sometimes, and a
woman who can be a sickly, cranky she-beast the rest of the time…THIS, they didn’t sign up for. Most of the time, Carlos was patient, or tried to be. However, the idea that there was a person in me didn’t become real to him for a while. The ultrasounds were “cool,” but I believe the full
reality didn’t hit him until he felt her move for the first time. And I tell you, that was a MIGHTY kick, as if Alanna was saying, “Here I am, Daddy!” This resulted in an immediate change of pace. Now everywhere we go, I am exhorted not to stay on my feet too long, forced to drink water until I feel like I may explode, asked loudly if I’m constipated, and woken in the night to inquire if she’s moving and can he feel it. On the upside, I get shoulder and foot massages any time I ask (and sometimes when I don’t). I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the same for any other pregnant woman.
You will be happy about the baby. You will not always be happy about being pregnant. This feeling will probably carry through your pregnancy, but will settle in at the third trimester. What does it mean? It means that during early
pregnancy you’ll be sick and tired of being sick and tired. You’ll miss having a glass of
wine with
dinner or a champagne toast at a friend’s wedding. Inconvenient, sure, but you can live through it.
However. Towards the end of your pregnancy, you will long to
sleep on your back again, or even (gasp) your stomach. There will be hot flashes, and if you weren‘t pregnant you‘d swear you must be menopausal. If you are expecting in August (like I am) you will long for an ice
cold beer to chase away said hot flashes. You will become impatient with people asking you about nothing but the
baby (remember how upset you were when people WEREN‘T excited for you?).
God forbid you stop into a liquor store to
buy margarita fixings for
dinner guests--you ARE the Anti-Christ. You may grow sick of talking to your OB more often than you talk to your best friend...although, if your doctor is particularly attractive, perhaps this won’t be a problem. Maternity bathing suits aren’t
easy to come by, and you would give anything to wear the one-piece you found so unflattering last Fourth of July. But you can’t, because you are frighteningly large, unable to paint your toenails or even shave your legs (had you ever been partial to these activities), and you will be supremely pissed off with anyone who notices that you haven‘t done either of these for a while. You will be, in short, bored with pregnancy. I guiltily expressed this to my mother, who over the past several months I have referred to in my head as “Crazy Granny.” I expected this woman, who has become so fanatical on the subject of her first grandchild that I would not be shocked to have her jump up on the delivery room table and pantomime delivering Alanna herself, to disown me. Imagine my shock when she sympathized. My mother is an incredibly intelligent and honest
woman (although she didn’t tell me about the nose spreading…damn her!), and she explained to me her theory that the boredom sets in to push aside the fear of
labor and delivery. In her mind, you spend six months terrified of the unknown, unexperienced
pain of childbirth, with the last three months so uncomfortable that you think to yourself, “I don’t
care HOW this kid gets out of me, just get him/her out.” Since she had four
children of her own and now is studying to be a nurse in a maternity ward, I think she may be onto something. In the end, though, I assume that this will all be worth it. After all, whenever I think of how tiresome I find the above, I rub my belly and feel the way my
body has become a fortress for my daughter. Isn’t the beginning of any relationship fraught with not only excitement, but a touch of frustration and even discomfort? My relationship with my
child is no different; these prenatal bumps have simply eliminated the uneasiness I might ordinarily feel when we finally meet face to face. To me, all this and more is an
easy trade for the joy I get from imagining my future with Alanna.
