A Story That I Will Never Ever Tell Anyone, Except Perhaps the Entire Internet

I just left a comment on a friend's blog -- seriously, like five minutes ago -- and the comment involved one of Those Stories. Those Stories are the stories that are too embarrassing to tell on my own blog. Obviously, I don't have many of Those Stories, because I don't have much shame. It's been well-established that I am a thumping idiot who regularly assaults the very idea of human dignity, so why hold back further evidence to the blog's thesis? That's just not how I do things around here. I am way scientific.

Occasionally I meet people and realize that wow, it IS kind of awkward when I'm all, "So what's your dog's name?" and they're all, "I remember the time your dog jumped into your toilet! That was hilarious!" But I usually get over that, and chances are even if you DON'T read my blog you've heard the toilet dog story, because I like to tell that one at fancy dinner parties.

But! Anyway! My point is, at one time in my life I had standards and would not stoop to completely humiliating myself just for the sake of a blog entry, and 1) that time is past, having ended sometime around the whole "pooping on the delivery table", and 2) I had a really, really boring weekend.

So. Flashback! I'm about 30-odd weeks pregnant with Noah. I am sitting innocently in my office, tapping away on my computer for totally-for-sure work-related reasons, when a coworker stops by to chat. She says something funny. Not like, HAW HAW HAW stop-I-can't-breathe funny, but funny.

And I laugh.

And I pee my pants.

And I don't mean a little achoo! related leakage. I mean the absolute worst-case scenario of breathtaking incontinence. It's soaking my clothes and my chair and I can feel it running down my legs and pantyhose and oh my God, it's making a SOUND as it's dripping onto the plastic mat under my desk.

So I did the only thing I could think to do, given the circumstances. I kept talking to my friend as if nothing had happened at all. Only LOUDER, just to drown out the suspicious drippy noises.

About 10 minutes later she left and I dove at the door and slammed it shut, and then spun around to confront the horror. What to do what to do what to do?

SO YOU'VE GONE AND PEED YOURSELF AT WORK:

1) Crank up the air-conditioning unit, sit on it.

2) Attempt to formulate plan.

3) Survey contents of office in terms of absorbency. Tissues? Useless. Secret stash of horded restaurant napkins? Yes! 300 back issues of various financial newsletters? MacGuyver says HELL YES.

4) Paper the damn floor like you're preparing for the damn PuppyBowl.

5) When ass is sufficiently chilled and dry-ish from sitting on the air conditioner, strip off pantyhose, shove in purse, and poke head out of office and make a mad dash for the office kitchen.

     5a) If kitchen is occupied, sit down in nearest chair and pretend to contemplate nearest Chinese takeout menu with GREAT INTEREST.

     5b) If kitchen is vacant, make a beeline for the storage cabinet and grab several rolls of paper towels.

6) Dash back to office. Weep, for yes, this is what your life has come to.

7) Re-paper the floor and create an ample paper-towel cushion for chair.

8) Oh, you have to pee again? OF COURSE YOU DO. Maybe someone will give you an M&M if you make it to the potty like a big girl this time!

9) The next day, smuggle in sponge, scrub brush, antibacterial spray, Woolite and bottle of Febreze to work in your purse.

10) Stash extra paper towels in bottom desk drawer for remainder of pregnancy.

Whew. That felt good to finally confess. I feel like I really helped some people today. Good work. And I'm one step closer to that lucrative banner campaign from Depends.

However, to any of my former coworkers: Uh, no! That's totally not my chair you're using now. I...uh, heard they got rid of it. Yes. They sent it upstate to live on a farm. With the other chairs and the puppies.

11 Weeks

So I have only thrown up twice this week.

Quick! Let me know you've read that sentence (use some hand signals, or just cough kind of pointedly) so I can delete it. My blog has become a passive aggressive ASSHOLE, and has somehow artificial-intelligenced itself into my digestive tract so anytime I mention feeling relatively okay it decides to punish me.

(Shit. I bet it's reading that paragraph right now. Quick! Pretend we're talking about something else.)

...and then I was like, OH MY GOD, there's a llama in the backyard! But it was only the hydrangea.

Dog butts: for when you cannot think of an appropriate segue.

So I'm somewhere in the vicinity of 11 weeks, and starting to feel like I might just make it out of this thing alive. Last week was definitely the worst -- I threw up pretty much every night, was unable to eat dinner, and then woke up every morning with crashing blood sugar and ravenous hunger, but was always faced with three smaller beings who insist on being fed first, even though SOME OF THEM eat food that smells like rancid-cold-cut-and-mackerel salad, I AM NOT SAYING WHO.

Whut? Can't I horf cat fud in peace over here?

(By the way, since I am a crumbly emotional mess these days, I feel the need to counter all my dogthing-mocking with a declaration of love for the hamsterdog. She may need a diet, probably a bath and definitely a less disproportionate headsize-to-body ratio, and my GOD, must she have an aneurysm EVERY time the mailman walks by, but she really DOES get plenty of love and affection and clearly, way too much ham.)

My next OB appointment isn't for another week and a half, which means the reassurance from my last visit is starting to wear off and I'm fighting the urge to call and invent a pressing reason why I need an ultrasound RIGHT NOW, since "I only threw up twice this week!" or "I dunno, I think I feel a little less gassy" won't really cut it.

I rented a doppler last time, and ended up accidentally keeping it (and paying monthly rent on it) for close to 18 months, and then stupidly sent it back when I was one damn payment away from owning the damn thing outright. (Every once in awhile, though, I get a $10 check from them, presumably from people who stumble upon the referral number I posted ages ago. So I'll probably break even in about 23 years, provided I keep my Google Page Rank up.)

Needless to say, I am not allowed to rent another doppler ever.

Oh, and about this. I still don't know. Your comments certainly got me jazzed for the idea of a big birthday reveal moment, but then a minute later I get distracted by something and change my mind. Jason is firmly in the find-out camp, but is willing to go along with whatever I ultimately decide, probably because he KNOWS I won't really be able to hold out and will eventually cave, so it's safe to indulge me for now. So...realistically, I'm guessing we'll find out, unless the baby is modest and keeps his legs crossed for the next few ultrasounds.

(Yeah, I said his. In a way, I think the whole issue is moot, because I'm fairly sure it's another boy.)

Still fairly sure it's a Wonderpet.

The belly at dawn, as compared to the belly at night, with a day's worth of bloat. Ah, dignity. I must have left it in my other pants. The ones I can't button, no matter what time of day it is. Stupid pants.

I Didn't Spare My Family Any Morning Sickness Details Either

Oh hi. I'm busy. Very busy. Very busy with various digestive quandaries, including: seriously, how hard is it to make a damn slice of toast in the morning, especially since you KNOW that's all it takes to stave off the vomiting, you frigging dumbass? and also: hmm, since I just threw up a still-eerily intact prenatal vitamin, does that mean I have to take another one?

That last question is actually rather complicated, since prenatal vitamins have gone ALL KINDS OF FANCY now, and I am now required to take TWO pills everyday. One being the run-of-the-mill multivitamin, and the other being a space-age omega-3 DHA capsule, and only the fishy-tasting DHA pill seemed to come up undigested but the two pills are sealed together in the little foil packets so I cant just take another DHA pill and aaaaahhhhhhh mah baby needs its brain pillz! Or could I maybe get away with a My First Flintstones? I do love the taste of purple.

I was describing the new generation of prenatal vitamins to my sister-in-law this weekend, and she was rather appalled. "So babies are already smarter than their parents by the time they're BORN?" she asked. "That's bullshit. I wouldn't stand for it. Mothers are entitled to being the smart ones for AT LEAST six extra months or so."

She's got a point. However, my family does have a lot of hopes and dreams riding on this next generation.

And how is that going, so far?

(You know, I still vaguely feel like I belong more on that couch than behind the camera. None of those kids even bother calling me "Aunt Amy" because I was always the young and cool one. I got free passes to Sesame Place and never knew what the going rate for birthday cash was so I always overestimated and I'd totally let you use my head as the center support beam for your Ultimate Fort. But now I am just another Old Person Barking High-Pitched Commands At Toddlers While Teenagers Silently Wish For Death.)

In less bershon-y moments, here's a sequence I call "And Suddenly, There Was Cake."

Oh, and PS:

Was not included in grandbaby photo. Was not given any cake. Hate this family. Going to poop in sumbody's luggage.

The Toddlerese Phrasebook

"Mama in der? Mmma an na na a CHOUND? In der? IN DER?"

(Mama, do you hear the sound that is coming from that general direction over there?)

"A cow! Jump cow oh uh na amoon!"

(The cow jumped over the moon.)

"A TRAIN! A TRAIN! CHOO CHOO!"

(A TRAIN! A TRAIN! OMFG!)

"Aw, a boo hurt! Na ma a ban aid? Boots?"

(I have injured myself and require a licensed-character Band-Aid.)

"RAWR! RAWR! Onster anna book anna yoo turn da page! Oh no!

(There's a monster at the end of this book and you turned the page! Oh no!)

"No poop."

(I don't care what you smell, woman.)

"Oh no! A messth! Whew! Dapeart? Okay."

(I would like to reverse my earlier position re: poop.)

"I know. In der. A dridge. Ohhh, down. An tuntel. Up up up an der."

(A complicated description of the engineering of drawbridges. I am told I wouldn't understand.)

"Oh maaaannnnn!"

(Success! Swiper the Fox has been foiled yet again!)

"A nack? Okay nack. Nack oh der."

(May I have a snack? Actually, I'm just going to go ahead and answer in the affirmative that yes, I may have a snack. And I'm going to go eat my snack over there. Smell ya later.)

"A chide an mah polpet! A polpet, Mama! Choon an polpet!"

(Uh.)

"DADA! DADA! WHEAH ARRRRRE YOOOO?"

(Dada, Mama is currently denying me the object of my heart's desire, please come home from work to rectify the situation.)

Baby Legs and Everything In Between

I had my first dream about the baby this week. I was frantically ordering baby gear from Amazon at the last minute (note to self: we already have a swing and a crib aquarium, but we do need BATTERIES. you cannot parent without BATTERIES) when it was suddenly time for my scheduled c-section, and then suddenly someone handed me the baby. A big fat naked baby boy, who nursed easily and awesomely, and was just about the cutest thing ever, although he looked nothing like Noah. And oh my GOD, his thighs. I couldn't stop squishing them. I loved him completely, and was sorry to wake up and remember that October is still a long time away.

I had baby dreams all the time when I was pregnant with Noah, but never NICE dreams. They always involved the baby not being human, or us being woefully unprepared for his arrival (I still remember one where we were desperately trying to buy a carseat, and I lost the baby in an endless sea of racks of Washington Redskins sweatshirts.) The baby was always a boy, even before we knew we were having a boy, although I wonder if that was just another shade of anxiety, since I was pretty scared about having a boy.

I woke up and told Jason that we're having another boy, and he harrumphed and said he'd believe it when he saw it -- why is it that mothers (or fine, JUST ME) get all hand-wringy about daring to have a gender preference and fathers are perfectly okay with wanting one or the other? (Jason wants a girl. He claims it's because he doesn't want "us" to get tempted into having a third child in order to have a girl, like DUDE. I don't know where he gets this "we" and "us" business because I am perfectly happy with being the sole princess in a houseful of boys, but Jason is suddenly going ga-ga over the little striped tights in the girls' clothing section.)

(Okay, I do love the tights too.  But Noah has this pair of barely-worn baby Pumas that KILL. ME. Oh! And this little corduroy blazer and a pageboy cap! Plus, I just plain love baby boys.)

(OKAY! I would love to have a daughter. I don't care! I just don't want to throw up any more! I am easy to please!)

We're getting the nuchal translucency screening done in about two weeks and my doctor dangled out the possibility that, thanks to his new-fangled fancy 4D ultrasound machine, that we MIGHT be able to get a pretty decent guess at the sex. (Mr. Google tells me the 4D ultrasounds can correctly identify boy or girl parts at the end of the first trimester about 85% of the time.) Part of me is like, YEEHAW, SPREAD 'EM, FETUS, while another tiny part of me is wondering what it would be like to NOT find out this time.

On the one hand, I don't feel like Noah's birth was any less OH MY GOD MY BABY! because we knew he was a boy and were even 99.99999% sure of his name. Hell, we even knew what he was going to look like. And since I did have a slight preference for a girl (for dumb reasons that I've already covered), I felt like I needed to know ahead of time to make sure I wouldn't have that twinge of disappointment when a boy popped out. (Totally lame fear, I know, but clearly I had MASSIVE doubt in my mothering skills and instincts last time.)

On the other hand, I don't have a preference this time. The guessing game is sort-of fun even if it drives me nuts with the relentless pointlessness of it all. (Yesterday at Noah's mock preschool therapy thing another mother had me and another pregnant woman hold her three-month-old, since in her culture there's an old wives tale that says how infants react to a pregnant woman can predict the gender.) (Verdict: he cried when I held him [boy, and therefore his rival], settled down when the other mother held him [girl, and therefore his sweetheart]). I doubt I have the self-control to not find out since it's just so EASY, what with the ultrasound machine being six inches from me at every prenatal appointment from here on out.

On the other other hand, since I know there's a very good chance this pregnancy will end with a shockingly anti-climatic scheduled c-section, maybe not knowing the sex is my way of injecting a little bit of excitement and drama into the proceedings.

What do you guys think? Any experience with both finding out vs. not finding out? Totally worth it or just still sort of OH MY GOD MY BABY! either way?

And...um...how the heck would I break this to Jason who is completely and totally unaware this crazy idea is rattling around in my brain and thinks we're definitely going to find out, and how would I go about changing his mind by 9:40 am on April 9th?

THROWDOWNUP with Amy Storch

In my long and illustrious career of bothering minor celebrities, I have:

1) Swiped fried calamari from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

2) Screamed IMABIGFAN!! at Ted Allen outside a wine festival while waving a commemorative wine glass at him.

3) Ate fondue with Project Runway's Laura Bennett; spilled fondue on self.

4) Non-consensually hugged Alan Cumming in the bathroom line of a restaurant.

5) Stared slack-jawed at 30 Rock's Judah Friedlander while he ate ravioli with his family.

LESSON FOR CELEBRITIES: if you see me, and there appears to be food involved in the scenario, RUN AWAY.

A few weeks ago, Jason got an email from someone at the Food Network. They were looking for local "food people" to participate in a new travel series that would profile a local chef. I was invited too.

Basically:

Food Network People: We need some DC-area foodie people for this show.

Google: Here you go!

Food Network People: Oh look, he's married! Hmm, maybe she's a foodblogger too!

*Food Network People visit my blog on the day this entry was posted *

Food Network People: Well, THAT was easy.

LESSON FOR BLOGGERS: Visibility on Google is important, even if your blog is TOTALLY NOT.

Of course, we DID explain that I am not a foodblogger, and the Saltines were NOT involved in any sort of gourmet cracker-and-black-truffle napoleon amuse bouche, or anything, but they still liked the idea of husband-and-wife foodies, and invited us to be on some show we'd ever heard of as part of "panel" that would sit around and eat food and then talk about said food. I encouraged Jason to accept the invite, since I figured that, as part of PANEL, the OTHER PANEL MEMBERS were probably researched a bit better and we could sit back and let them talk and just be the idiots who are always on camera shoving free food into their mouths in the most awkward manner possible.

We showed up at the appointed time yesterday. I wore the only two items of clothing I own that currently fit. A old pair of maternity jeans from the Gap and a Liz Lange t-shirt from Target. I did not get a haircut for the occasion, and decided to take the risk that unplucked eyebrows won't be noticeable on HDTV. I looked somewhere between "sort-of pregnant" and "so how was the kegger?" My goal for the day was to stay away from the camera as much as possible, and to NOT THROW UP. (I have thrown up about 300 times since Monday, of course.)

"Hey," I said to Jason as he paid our cabbie, "I swear I just saw Bobby Flay."

LESSON FOR EVERYBODY, EVERYWHERE: The Food Network is run by Ashton Kutcher.

We walked in just in time to hear Bobby Flay challenge the local chef to a throwdown. A motherfucking Throwdown with Bobby Flay.

The restaurant was already packed, and the crowd seemed especially well-lubricated. We found some friends and took our place in the anonymous mob, and I breathed a sigh of relief because the crowd had a LOT of tall people who were willing to jump into the camera frame and scream WOOOOOOOOOO DC RUUULLLES! while I parked my ass in a prime bit of real estate next to the ladies room.

Bobby Flay is really blurry in person. That's a fact!

Bobby Flay and our hometown chef started cooking mussels and fries. (Moules frites!) The smell was...oh. Dear. Two minutes in and I was not doing well. Jason held onto my elbow to keep me from reeling and right then a guy with a headset approached us. He told us he needed to take us upstairs.

And once we were upstairs we learned the full extent of our complete and total punk'd'ing. We were not part of the crowd or a panel. We were the goddamned JUDGES.

"Just us?" I squeaked.

Just us.

And judging would involve on-camera interviews and personal introductions, something called "hero shots" and also, you know, ACTUAL JUDGING OF FOOD. That we would do in front of the cameras, the chefs, and that crazy-ass drunk mob downstairs.

Our official God-like judging cards and beverages of choice. Well. Not my FIRST choice, anyway.

The good news is that the cooking smells were definitely muted upstairs. The bad news is that I was now nauseous for completely different reasons.

Oh my God, you guys. I fully admit to having my attention whore qualities, but I was TERRIFIED. OUT OF MY WITS. I wanted to RUN AWAY and I couldn't get my hands to stop shaking. I'm more of a print attention whore, I think.

Jason and I held hands and promised to never, ever leave each other's side during this horrifically surreal experience and solemnly swore to judge the dishes fairly and honestly, even though it sounded like the crowd would fucking crucify us if the hometown chef didn't win. (The judging is done blind, at any rate, I suppose you might be able to guess but you really only know the two versions as Dish A and Dish B.)

The camera crew came upstairs and miked us (the sound guy lifted up the back of my shirt and said, "Congratulations!" at the sight of the ulta-attractive navy belly band) and had us do a million and four takes of our personal introductions (whatever, like ANYONE is going to hear "amalah.com" and have any idea how to fucking spell it) and our personal tastes in moules frites ("blah blah texture balance flavor holy shit please let me stop talking now), and then we had to like...MUG for awhile. Arms crossed, hands on our hips, grimaces and tough-guy hard-ass judgey looks, or something.

Jason was especially good and hammy at these, while I just stood there and stared at the camera like a deer. AFTER it's been hit by the headlights. Of course, Jason had more problems SAYING stuff on camera, since he kept adding "uhs" and "ums" and they made him redo it all over and over. I think his problem was that he was actually trying to THINK about what he was saying, and make POINTS and SENSE, while I just opened my mouth and let nonsense spill out until I eventually got to a spot that seemed to call for a period. Then I would stop talking and stupidly look off-camera at the producer, who would sigh and tell me to do it again and to LOOK AT THE CAMERA THE WHOLE TIME, IDIOT.

I am telling you, those guys' jobs are really hard, and we did not help with anything.

I was really impressed with the custom judging cards, obviously. Maybe if the foosball table actually had a foosball I wouldn't have been, but we did what we could to pass the time.

Then it was time for judging. We were brought downstairs and the crowd was ordered to part for us, like we were some big-shot judgey judge experts of DOOOOOM (even though I'm sure everybody was like, "who the fuck?"). We sat down at a table with everybody behind us and Bobby Flay came and shook our hands and he is much shorter than I thought but is very very good-looking and an extremely sharp dresser. I would very much like a maternity version of his jeans, and the man can really pull off eggplant. 

Unfortunately, I was not there to discuss Bobby Flay's personal style. We were there to judge moules frites, which...not exactly the most appetizing thing to the first trimester digestive tract, and I don't even know if I'm supposed to eat them at ALL, but I figured since these mussels were MOST LIKELY not purchased off the hood of a car parked on the shoulder of the interstate and were PROBABLY cooked with a high degree of care, I could risk eating a few. In the name of the Throwdown! Tis my duty! A higher calling!

(I think we maybe got a touch of the Stockholm syndrome during the hour or so of sequestering.)

They brought the dishes and told us to go ahead and eat and discuss and make notes, and I panicked for a second because there were no forks on the table. I asked for forks (complete with fucking BABY SIGN LANGUAGE, people, since I clearly do not get out much), and the director said, "Oh, you want forks?"  Like, really? Is that your way, here in DC? How strange!

And then I panicked again because...yes? Right? You use a fork to get mussels out of their shells? I know how to suck down oysters but...mussels?  They can be stubborn and slimy and there's all sorts of other stuff in the broth you need to eat in the same bite? Or fuck, did I just make a huge cutlery faux pas on national television?

She gave us plastic forks. And we dug in.

And here's where the story must end for now, in the name of preserving the sanctity of the results and the show, which most likely won't air until the summer. (I think they shoot the entire season pretty much back-to-back and then edit them all later.) (Jason's convinced he'll get edited out completely, and I am quite hopeful they'll replace me with a cute CGI bunny rabbit, or a digital Ted Allen.) I learned later that I said at least one completely boneheaded misinformed thing about one of the dishes, but was assured that my hair was NOT doing anything weird and I didn't have lipstick on my teeth.

When it was all over I ran to the bathroom because I'd had to pee the entire time but was afraid to pull my pants down in case the microphone slid off and fell into the toilet. The end.

Insert Unnecessary Placeholder Here

People, I have what may be the best story ever -- in the HISTORY OF EVER -- to tell you. Seriously. My brain is leaking out my nose in frustration because to TELL you the story I have to TYPE the story and the story is just long enough to require both the space bar AND punctuation. Dammit.

Oh man, it's so good. It involves both 1) celebrities and 2) me being an idiot around celebrities and also 3) a kind of hot guy lifting my shirt to attach a microphone to the waistband of my maternity pants.  It's got everything!

I should probably start typing it, instead of this, because I feel very tempted to go off on a Tangent.

Okay! FOCUS! I will get to typing THAT STORY, and direct you in the meantime towards this week's Zero to Forty update at Alpha Mom, and also to interject a housekeeping thingie for anyone (Bueller?) wondering where today's Advice Smackdown column is. Today's Advice Smackdown column is off having a fabulous time in the future, i.e. tomorrow. We're switching the publishing schedule to Monday/Thursday/Friday for the sake of my very tenuous sanity.

That is all. As you were. I'll be back later this afternoon with a sure-to-be-disappointing update, now that I've gone and gotten everybody's hopes up.

Stuff, and Then: Surprise! MORE WHINING!

THINGS MY CHILD WILL SAY IN FRONT OF ME, BUT NOT IN FRONT OF ANYONE ELSE, INCLUDING THE &$@* VIDEO CAMERA, WHICH MEANS ACCORDING TO THE LAWS OF BLOG IT'S LIKE HE NEVER SAID THEM AT ALL:

1. Hmmm. I know!
2. ONE MINUTE!
3. Dog! Dog! Where arrrrre you?
4. Won, Too, Tee, ready or not here I come!
5. Oh mah gawd!

WORDS MY CHILD CAN READ VIA THE REFRIGERATOR MAGNETS, BUT ONLY IN FRONT OF ME BUT I SWEAR, PEOPLE, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP:

1. Oops
2. Egg
3. Noah
4. Hot
5. Ass

NUMBERS MY CHILD LEAVES OUT WHILE HE COUNTS TO TWENTY:

1. Four

NUMBER OF TIMES IN THE PAST THREE DAYS I HAVE TACKLED MY CHILD, DIPPED HIM IN CADBURY CREME EGG FONDANT AND SWALLOWED HIM WHOLE:

1. 567,987,001

I expected pregnancy to sort-of suck. I mean, honestly, it sucked last time too. Although I would probably never let myself use that word, since I still remember walking through the pregnancy and family planning section of the bookstore years ago, a massive dose of Clomid coursing through my system, and seeing that book called "Pregnancy Sucks." And I blinked and sniffed and thought, "Ungrateful bitches."

I keep saying that I feel better this time than I did with Noah, although Jason is often there behind me, shaking his head, because he thinks this go-round is just as awful. I'm not throwing up as much, that's for sure -- maybe four or five times total so far, with at least three of those times being more the fault of a skull-bashing migraine than traditional pregnancy nausea.

I didn't get migraines last time, though. Definitely not. And those of your who have ever suffered from migraines, pregnancy-related or otherwise, well -- you know. Migraines are more than a headache. They manage to hurt both before and after the actual head pain. You feel them in your shoulder blades, in your eyeballs, your stomach. Light hurts. Sound hurts. Movement hurts. After it goes away you're left exhausted and shaken and terrified that it will come back because you just can't fathom living through that kind of pain again. They have colored my entire world in dark, dismal hues that I can't see past right now.

I used to get migraines a lot -- in high school and my early twenties, mostly, when I was in the thick of eating disorders and jacked my blood sugar all up for the sake of size zero jeans. I never had a single headache once I got pregnant, though. The nausea was bad, I lost weight, I got slammed with anxiety attacks because OMG WHAT HAVE I DONE I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH A BABY OH SHIT, but no headaches. And even at my sickest, I really did have a deep and profound appreciation for pregnancy and all the glorious suckitude that came with it -- even if I rarely admitted that yes, wow, this sure can suck sometimes.

This time, I am happily and completely anxiety-free. Dude, I WANT this baby. Jason and I both WANT this baby. Badly. We are, simply put, so fucking excited about having another squeaky little newborn here. Another year of fat baby thighs and rapid-fire milestones and we cannot wait to hear what this little being has to say when s/he starts talking, whenever s/he chooses to start talking.

In the meantime, though, I am impatient. I want the BABY. The CHILD. The little THING in my ARMS.

The migraines -- and I've had at least a dozen of them so far -- are worse than labor. Worse than the morning sickness. They take me away from Noah and turn me into a shitty, lazy mother who leaves the TV on all day and slacks on her writing deadlines and gets short and irritable with anyone and everyone. Some days I'm okay. I get a little caffeine and watch my blood sugar and use a cold compress at the first little twinge in my eye sockets. But then there are days when we're out of easy breakfast options and Noah needs to get to some activity and we're running late and I suddenly feel my stomach lurch and my shoulder blades hurt and I know I should go lie down and take it easy but I can't, I just can't. 

And then Noah cries because we have to leave the park and I've yanked his arm too hard and scared him and Jason comes home and I yell at him to shut up and leave me alone when all he tried to do was talk about his day and make a suggestion about dinner and then because I've been in bed for hours I can't actually sleep at night and spend hours and hours pacing the house and watching crap TV until Noah wakes up exactly 20 minutes after I've managed to fall asleep.

The only pregnancy-approved painkiller option (besides Tylenol, pffffffft, I spit on you, aspirin has always been my drug of choice) would be narcotics, which my doctor doesn't want to prescribe unless the headaches continue beyond week 13, and honestly I don't really want narcotics either. Codeine, Vicodin...I don't mess with that shit when I'm NOT responsible for a vulnerable, developing being. I wouldn't fault anyone for turning to them, however, and I am not trying to be some kind of pregnant martyr, but they just aren't for me.

My parents are here this week, to help me out and care for Noah while I "rest" and "take it easy," although it's already translating more into "frantically digging myself out of the professional black hole I've made for myself over the past few half-assed weeks."

I wish I were writing funny stories about oh my gawd! Pregnancy Brain made me walk out of the house with no pants on! Ha ha ha! I wish I could look at my round belly with a sense of awe and wonder instead of, "Oh. It's just bloat. Whatever."

I wish I felt better. I wish I felt like a better mom right now. And a better pregnant lady. And less like an ungrateful bitch.

But pregnancy...well, it's not the baby. I get that this time around.  I get that my attitude towards the whole messy gestating process does not mean I have the same attitude towards the baby. They're more separate this time, since last time I couldn't really fathom anything beyond pregnancy and the hypothetical idea of a newborn who would grow up into...a kid? A person? Pshaw! Crazy talk, that.

Maybe I have my priorities more in order this time? It's not about me and a big show-offy belly and prenatal massages and piles and piles of itty bitty clothes? It's about just one fleeting step in the process of being a family? The pain of struggling to build that family is still fresh, but doesn't sting as much, because I've already been blessed worlds and worlds over.

It's a miracle and a gift and exactly what I've wanted for ages now...but it's also kicking the living shit out of me. I have three weeks to go until the second trimester, I think, I hope. I also hope it will suck less.

Yeah, pregnancy sucks. But I am one grateful bitch.

Bringin' SexyVBAC

Red whore panties + C-section scar + stretch marks = WINNER

(No, I have no idea why I am posting this. It seemed vaguely on-topic, but now that I'm looking at it I realize it's probably just gross. But I know that once I hit the publish button I am going to take a nap. So perhaps Britney-style debasement just seems a lot simpler at this point than a lot of typing and words and zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.)

The Baddest Mommy on the Block

I had my first official prenatal visit this morning, during which I came about 30 seconds from getting a THIRD ultrasound, except that my doctor happened to flip back a page in my chart while the machine was warming up. "Oh!" he said, "We saw the heartbeat already, so we don't need another one just yet."

Dammit. I got a pap smear instead.

So, I really do like my doctor, although I also occasionally want to stab him in the ears with a fork, or maybe one of the handy Ortho-Tri-Cyclen pens he keeps in a cup on his desk. Like today, when he asked me how I was feeling. Which, you know, BAD. AWFUL. Like, I-have-only-told-the-Internet-half-of-it bad and awful. The migraines, the insomnia, the fact that I made my two-year-old cry yesterday (twice) simply through the power of my drained-of-patience angry-mommy voice.

(I'm not counting the time I simply screamed at him to STOP CRYING! STOP CRYING RIGHT NOW! because...come on. He was ALREADY crying. I'm sure I didn't help the situation but HE TOTALLY STARTED IT.)

(Don't let the sarcasm fool you, of course. I could totally die from the guilt right now, especially since I yelled at him AGAIN in public today when he wouldn't get on the elevator we'd been waiting 10 minutes for and I believe something along the lines of "you are going to GET IT" came out of my mouth and oh yes, I should just go ahead and have five more children. I'm the BEST AT THIS EVER.)

Anyway. Where was I? Oh. Right. The doctor's office. I was toddler-free and everybody was finally asking me how I was feeling, like I was a person who mattered, and I broke down and told my doctor how terrible I feel and how I can't get out of bed during the headaches and I'm throwing up in the shower and I can't sleep at night and...dear Lord in heaven, please tell me you can write a prescription for SOMETHING, ANYTHING, PLEASE DON'T TELL ME TO EAT SMALL MEALS AND TAKE SOME TYLENOL AND...

"Good! Feeling bad is good! That means everything is healthy and great! You might want to try eating more small meals during the day!"

Needless to say, I did not walk out of there with a prescription for anything. I did get an offer from a nurse to walk me back to my car, because I looked so very positively green.

And yes, I finally had the conversation with my doctor that so many people have been inordinately curious about: VBAC or scheduled c-section. (Seriously. The pee had barely dried on the test stick and suddenly everybody wanted to know whether I'd made my "decision" yet.) I hesitate to even bring this topic up, because yes, I've seen that website. Yes, that one too. And probably that other one as well. I find much of the information from both sides of the debate to be horribly biased, and both arguments tend to rely heavily on scare tactics instead of real data and OH YEAH, it's just not that big of a fucking deal to me either way.

Before I had Noah, I thought his manner of birth was terribly important. This led to a series of blog postings that I am now terribly embarrassed about, because I let people work me into such a STATE about it. Scheduled c-sections are awesome! Emergency c-sections are hell! All c-sections are unnecessary! And around and around my naive little head went.

A recap for anyone just joining us: My doctor suspected that Noah was on the big side, and knew for a fact that he was not in the ideal position. (He was facing forward, or sunny-side up.) He suspected that I might need a section, but he is overall very anti-intervention. So I wasn't induced or scheduled and went into labor on my own. And it was pretty awesome, actually, and I felt powerful and damn impressed with myself during it. And then the complications started piling up -- nothing particularly major, but enough. Meconium. Fetal distress. Irregular heartbeat. I pushed and pushed and Noah didn't budge past my pubic bone. His heart rate became more and more worrisome with each contraction. So I had an emergency c-section, which revealed that the umbilical cord had been wrapped tightly around the neck of my 9 pound, 15 ounce baby who had little marks on his head from pressing against my freaking bones.

I know that doctors in this country are awfully trigger-happy with pitocin and c-sections. I have no doubt that many sections could be avoided and I will never, ever understand celebrities who opt for completely unnecessary MAJOR ABDOMINAL SURGERY because they're afraid of an episiotomy or whatever. (Ladies! Slicing open your gut really fucking hurts too! Imagine that!)

But in my case, I think the decision and the timing of that decision were appropriate. I have no regrets over my c-section. I was nursing within 10 minutes of delivery. My recovery was a breeze. I was up and about in no time and my scar is small and smooth and practically invisible. (Seriously. I tried to show a curious friend recently and it took me five minutes to FIND the stupid thing.)

I'm extremely happy that I got to experience labor and pushing and if I had managed to deliver vaginally, I would probably attempt an even lower intervention birth this time -- probably with a midwife and a birthing center and no epidural. I know I could do it.

But..I won't.

Of all of our (minor, run-of-the-mill) complications, the only one that's likely to repeat is the high birth weight. And even that isn't a sure thing. Then again, an ultrasound from just days before Noah was born put him in the eight-pound range, a full two pounds under his actual weight. And he never measured particularly "big" at any point in my pregnancy. So no matter how many measurements I get, I know there's no guarantee that I won't end up with another linebacker baby who is just not gonna come out that exit, sorry, at least not without a significant risk for us both.  So even if I do attempt a VBAC, I would choose to do it at a hospital, with an epidural (to avoid being put under in case of an emergency).

My doctor droned on and on about the benefits of a scheduled c-section. Benefits that frankly, I couldn't give two shits less about. Convenient for childcare! (Right, because it's not like we have two sets of grandparents so chomping at the bit for this baby they'd gladly move in now and stay through 2009.) You won't have to go through labor! (Right, except that I thought being in labor was kind of awesome, in a way, and am totally not scared of doing it again.) Your recovery will be faster! (Right, except that I am apparently half cyborg and recovered really damn fast last time.)

We all have our things that we care deeply about. Our secret little judgey list of The Way Things Should Be Done. I've got them too! Serving wine at the correct temperature, for example. Drives me batty, all this overwarm red wine. But birth plans? No. At least not anymore. I look at Noah, at all the little moments where I can either be a great mother or mess it up completely, at all the things that are worth worry and guilt and stress, and the manner in which he exited my body isn't anywhere on that list. It's like this old, weird worry from another dimension, or a past life.

I will probably schedule a c-section. I will probably schedule it on the later side, leaving the possibility of letting labor happen if it's meant to happen, provided we keep on top of the measurements and provided I give even the smallest slice of piping hot rat's ass about any of this by October.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think my emergency c-section child needs me to go wipe his butt. God, this is ALL THE EPIDURAL'S FAULT.

I'm leaving comments open (eyes the room suspiciously), but...let's all remain calm, okay? I have really and truly seen the websites you're itching to link to, I've done my homework and so help me, if anyone mentions anything about dead babies I will close comments, ban your ass and snatch you bald headed. Thank you. I love you. Mwa.