Month 1—Oh my! I feel surprisingly GREAT considering the horror stories I’ve heard. Slight nausea but nothing a couple of soda crackers won’t fix. One rather scary and seemingly unnecessary needle drawing, ahem, blood….barf. I still can’t figure out why this is required. You’ve already peed on a stick from a kit you picked up at the Dollar Store (before the price hikes), isn’t that proof enough?
Month 2—Dear one month pregnant self, you were an ignorant moron. You will have people telling you to stop eating granola bars and calling them a healthy snack, “you might as well just eat cookies,” so you switch from granola bars to cookies. Your head may be in the toilet for some or all of month two and you may vomit in your car en route to a meeting and have to run out of a meeting to do the same all the while “pretending” you are not pregnant in front of co-workers/friends and family because someone wrote in stone you should never reveal your pregnancy until you are twelve weeks along. Lick it, stick it, stamp it.
Month 3—Baby Name Search. You begin to track top ten baby name lists first from your home country, your search quickly broadening to include names from around the world. You find (unexpectedly) the name Mahmoud is growing on you. You look up names and their meanings and while you love Giselle, you can’t bring yourself to name your child something that isn’t instantly associated with things like, eternal happiness, world leadership so you settle on Philanthropy-Ann.
Month 4—if you’ve been trying to hide it from any co-workers, your cover was blown two months ago, especially if this is not your first baby. This is the month you run out of the first bottle of Materna pre-natal vitamins and opt to refill with the generic brand. Commence vomiting. You realize it’s the generic pills that saved you $4 that have caused all of this grief. Once again your frugality has not paid off.
Month 5—orange crush chugging contest/needle. Brutal. This is the exercise in the medical lab where you are asked to drink a McDonald’s orange pop for breakfast and then sit and think about the needle some stranger is about to jab you with. If you’re anything like me, you’ll wander out the front doors at minute fifty-nine acting cool and collected and when you reach the corner, you’ll vomit all over the sidewalk.
Month 6–You’ll start falling asleep while sitting upright on the couch in the middle of the day. Not even playing make believe with your 2 ½ year old could wake you so she decorates your stiff, strangely situated corpse with feather boas and tiaras and makes do with the imaginary friend snoring next to her castle.
Month 7—pre natal class run by a Doula. Your husband will ask things like, “Have you ever seen a baby born with a tail?” and make instant enemies of all of the other soon-to-be-parents ensuring you will not have a friend in the world to talk to about your horrific labour and delivery experience which will inevitably be more painful, longer, require more drugs, more staff, more security at the hospital, less hot water, fewer visitors, worse cafeteria food, less parking availability, worse television, crazy Doctor who discusses her pet rat…you get the idea.
Month 8—those adorable maternity clothes you couldn’t wait to start sporting have become old news. You stare at them with disdain tearing up at the only three options you have left knowing you have to wear them for another two months, not including post delivery. You start googling things like “is it safe to burn clothes?” and “Do you need a permit to burn stretchy pants within city limits?” and plan their disposal the second the baby arrives. This will be the month you wear yoga pants out in public, something you wouldn’t have dreamed of doing when you were thin but with your middle finger high in the air, you just don’t care anymore, time to be comfortable. By the way, get used to feeling humiliated. You will feel like an animal at the zoo during delivery. Interns will wait with their clipboards and if you’re lucky toss bread crumbs your way while jotting down details of your squeal timing and spousal outbursts/attacks.
Month 9—goodbye sleep, hello bedside TUMS. You can no longer see your ankles which is a blessing in disguise because if you could, you’d be disgusted.
Your Doctor’s appointments are scheduled closer together than any of your contractions and after a 1 hour waiting room nap, last approximately 1 minute in length. I’m sure there’s some irony to be found here but you’ll be too busy scooping through your purse for a bag of almonds to care.
Month 10—oh you didn’t know there was a month 10? Do the math! Forty weeks! I always calculated one month as having four weeks. Hmmm. Or if you’re me, 41 weeks and two days for two of the three cruel, anti-deadline, stubborn babies.
This is also the month you are required to attend, either as an invited guest or worse be an attendant in a family or best friend’s wedding. You’ll always wonder if they planned it this way and the answer of course is yes. Your “custom” outfit will be accented with Birkenstocks and everyone will talk about you for years to come.
The baby arrives. The world stops. Philanthropy-Ann no longer seems fitting. Yoga pants back on for the ride home (and hopefully final public appearance) as a “family.” You’re in love…….and your nipples might be bleeding.
