Prenatal advice…
For, what I imagine, is no better reason than the fact I’ve successfully produced four children, I’m often queried about what is and isn’t normal during pregnancy. I don’t know if I can blame it on the fact that I really am getting old (as my kids would have me believe), or the fact that the mind has a way of kindly allowing past unpleasantness to fade into obscurity. The truth is, I’ve all but forgotten most of my experiences with the prenatal condition, and in answer to those past and future requests for advice, I had to delve deep into my mind to come up with the following list…a list I call:
The Only Meaningful Advice I Can Give On Being Preggers…
Things that will make you worry:
- Your bathroom scale.
- Reading the book, What To Expect When You’re Expecting.
- Horror stories from experienced mothers
Things that will make you throw up:
- Eating an entire 13 x 9 inch pan of brownies in less than an hour…no matter how much you crave them
- Cleaning up a living room full of beer cans on the Tuesday morning following a Monday night football game
- Your husband telling you that he wants to name your pending daughter after his mother…Lu Lu
Things you should ask for from your baby shower guests:
- Cloth diapers
- Disposable diapers
- More diapers…of any kind
Things that will make you cry:
- Everything
Things that will make you cranky:
- Realizing that it isn’t your bed that’s suddenly grown lumpy, it’s you
- The fact that you can’t even drink water without getting heartburn
- Your husband gawking at your swollen, painful breasts and his subsequent look of disappointment when you inform him that the condition isn’t permanent
I’m truly sorry that, unlike some veteran mothers, I am not a wealth of prenatal information. I admit that I never kept a pregnancy journal for the sake of posterity. I’ve thrown away all pictures of me cruelly taken at a time when my girth could barely fit into the frame of a camera, and I don’t wax and wane sentimentally about what a joy it was to push my kids screaming into the world, despite the 11 stitches.
I guess pregnancy is one of those life events that women all see in different light.
As for me, I choose to stay in the dark.