Keep It To Yourself

OK, so here it is....I'm just gonna come right out and ask. Why do strangers feel the need to come and touch my belly? or unload their stories of child bearing on you? or better yet, tell you what you're having ? OK, not all total stangers, but people I am by no means close to. People like co-workers and clients, ok, and the ramdom slaes girl at the mall. When people see that you are preggo does that give people the green light to invade your personal space and impose thier "knowledge" of pregnancy on you?

Now, I really don't mind when my friends ask to touch my belly when the baby moves, I'm happy that they are happy for me and want to share in my joy or tells me about their expiriances of child birth, since they have had childerne within the last 3-5 years or so. Plus, they are my friends, I actually like them and respect their thoughts and opinions. It's poeple who were last pregnent 30 some-odd years ago or never at all who annoy me. Medical practices have come a long way thank you, and when they give me a shocked look when they find out I've cut out caffeine from my diet or opt not to wear a moo-moo when I'm at home accompanied with the comment "when I was pregnant this is what we did" That irritates me most of all; considering the fact that last time she gave birth was almost 30 years ago.

Take for example the other day, I was at the office going about my business when a co-worker came up to me and started baby talking to my belly. I looked at her like she had 2 heads, "Um...what are you doing?" I had asked. "You know he can hear you when you talk to it" she said; I thought to myself....I know the baby can hear me when I talk to it, but why is my baby hearing you talk to it? and how wonderful of you to automatically assign it a gender without me telling you. You see, I like to separate my work life with my private life as much as possible, so I didn't tell anyone I work with what the gender is or what the name will be. These people don't even make it on my Christmas card list so why would I share this information with them. But back to my point. Completely out of nowhere she gets into my personal space and starts to baby talk to my belly saying what a cute little baby boy my baby is and all that. I'm not talking from a distance. I mean face to belly people!

I have also had clients come into my office and give me thier "thoughts" on my pregnancy. Comments like "I think it's a boy because your belly is low" hmmm....ever think it's because I'm 35 weeks pregnent and ready to give birth in less then a month? Of course not. My favorite reason for why I'm having a boy is because I haven't gained a lot of weight....WTF?! The fact that I've been eating healthier has nothing to do with it I guess. I didn't know there were so many medical experts walking amongst us. The best is when I was shopping with DH and the sales girl asked me when I was due. At the time I said I was 6months along. She gave me this look like "What? really" and then proceeded to ask "are you having twins?" WTF? who says that to someone? What I really wanted to say was "no, I'm just fat and pregnant, whats your excuse?" but I didn't... I just smiled and said no.

Now, I understand this is just people being happy for me, and women (older women) tend share all their opinions with everyone. But really touching me without my consent, judging me for my choices in food and dress, assigning my baby a gender and invading my personal space just rubs me the wrong way at times. Am I being too sensitive and hormonal here or are these people deserving of my signature "WTF" face?

Things You Can't Learn From a Book (This may get graphic)

A few nights ago I headed back home to Toronto to see my girlfriends. They were throwing me a baby shower and it was so good to catch up. It's amazing how in just a few years many of us have become wives and mothers. It seems like just yesterday we were all hanging out on out high school spare at the local Chinese restaurant buying illegal Marlboro and complaining about calculus. My oh my how have times changed. Instead, now our conversations turned to child birth and child rearing (after all this was a baby shower) and all the ugly, not so lovely things people don't usually like to talk about when discussing the miracle of pregnancy and child birth. Obviously, I'm gonna talk about some of these things here. These are just some things I found interesting (yet scary). Things baby books just don't tell you, but maybe they should.

1. You should line your bed in case your water breaks while you sleep.

I always thought that when your water breaks you already felt contractions, I didn't know this was not always the case. Plus, I figured most first time pregnancies were usually late and often had to be induced. Imagine my shock to know that 2 of the 4 mothers at my shower were early AND their water broke while sleeping.

I also didn't know that if your water does break while in bed your mattress is toast, you can't get that stuff out. So mental note so you can save yourself a new mattress line the thing with some sort of plastic (shower liner) under your sheet; and a towel wouldn't hurt either.

2. You will grow more body hair in places that have a lot of friction.

During these 3 trimesters I wont lie, I've gotten hairier. Now I learn that it;s not over? Places like your belly are gonna get worse? How fantastic! (insert sarcasm)

3. Breast milk does not just come out of the nipple.

Apparently breast milk will come out of the Areola (area around the nipple) as well. Thats why it's important for baby to latch on properly. My friend says "when you pump it's like a sprinkler of milk" (wow, thats graphic and freaky) Oh, did I mention that blocked milk ducts can be super painful too? the beauty of becoming a human cow.

4. You may very well poop on your baby.

Thats right people, I went there. There is a chance you may poo on your baby. Your pushing him/her out and as you do that you may push out something else too. Welcome to the world baby!

5. Depends are not just for old people with weak bladders.

While recovering in the hospital use Depends to help with bleeding more so then a regular pad. It's cleaner will be much more comfortable. Yes, I stood in line with my pack of Depends already; so weird and embarrassing at the same time.

6. Olive oil, not just for salads.

Apparently, midwives commonly use olive oil to massage the perineum, this may help prevent tearing and the need for a Episiotomy. I say if you have a midwife willing to help you out and save you the pain of tearing or being cut, do it! Not sure if the hospital would do that for me.

At the end of the night I left my shower feeling better educated then I did walking in. These were words of wisdom from solders who experienced things first hand, they had children and experienced on their side, who was I to argue. I just took the info as gospel and filed it away in my mommy to be brain bank.

I was happy to see old friends and family and happy to have so many people support me in this new adventure, I felt like people were there to help me as much as they could. I did however feel sorry for another friend of mine, who after hearing all these things about pregnancy, is now convinced she wants to adopt rather then go through all olive oil rubbing, Depends wearing, body hair growing baby pooing pains of child birth. We'll see.

Whining rant #1

This is more me whining then anything else...be warned.

In the beginning I thought that if I literally doused myself in coca butter and Bio oil I could escape the dreaded battle scar of pregnancy, stretch marks. Sadly, this is one war I am slowly losing. Now, I will say this, I don't think it's as bad as some other women, but then again I am only going to to week 30. For those of you who don't know common areas for preggo stretch marks are on your hips, ass , breasts, thighs and of course the belly. I have them on the my lower belly. It looks like Freddy Kruger made his way to my belly and had a party. It sucks! They say that if your mom had stretch marks you will likely have them too...so I guess I was doomed from the start.

I'm hoping that with continued massage and many more bottles of Bio oil they will fad away.

Fingers crossed.

That it all.