- Eat. This one seems so simple and yet, it’s almost impossible when you feel nauseous. The key to getting over the nausea is to crawl across the kitchen floor to the pantry cupboard and jam a cracker in your mouth. How can you even think of eating at a time like this? It’s one of those forced scenarios that is guaranteed to work and will go against all of your natural instincts. If you can scarf the cracker before your body starts to heave, sometimes even hitting the bile on the way by, you will have a few minutes of dizzy-free existence. During this time, this is key, load up on more crackers.
- Accept a glass of wine when offered. Don’t drink it! If you turn down a glass of wine, you are in your mid-twenties or older and have been married for ten months or more, every human within a fifteen mile radius will assume you are pregnant and rumours will begin to fly. If you accept the glass of wine, the beer, the shot of tequila and walk around with it untouched, no one will ever think you are pregnant. You will avoid awkward conversations like, “Liz, I notice you’re not drinking wine with dinner…” There is deep meaning behind the “…” and now you’re on the defence only to be made the fool when you eventually come clean with your exciting news or worse, throw up on someone’s shoes. Take the drink and if your partner loves you at all, he’ll drink for both of you when no one is looking.
- Don’t be too quick to sport the maternity clothes. Look, it’s really exciting to embrace the whole ‘our bodies ourselves’ vibe but you will be so tired of those clothes by week forty-one (and post-birth) you will be wishing you could reverse the clock and cram yourself into those skinny jeans one last time.
- Don’t take drugs for the delivery. Kind of goes against everything I stand for, but the birth will be quicker and you will heal exponentially faster than if you opt for the tray of pills and other injectionables offered. Also, you will look like a hero to women everywhere and your husband will let you name the baby whatever was on the top of your list even if he swore the entire 40 weeks you were pregnant he would never agree to spell Michael with a J and apostrophe. A rose by any other name, sweet little J’Michael.
- Don’t turn on lights when nursing in the middle of the night. Don’t look at the baby, don’t smile at the baby, wearing a disguise (while I’ve never tried this) might even help. No stimulation, no cuddling or engaging in activity of any kind other than eating will get a baby back to sleep. Is it tempting to watch your taped Daily Shows at 3am while sitting in your nursing snuggie? Hell yes, but you’ll wonder why your baby at 2 years old is still waking up to be entertained in the wee hours of the night. You did that. You made it a portable party at 2am giving the small wonder something to look forward to. Make it about food and unappealing, sterile, quiet darkness and you’ll be back to eight hours of sleep in no time.
- Don’t tell anyone your baby name choices. Do you think everyone in the world is going to love the name as much as you two? Think about how hard it was for the two of you to agree on a name. This only gives people time to judge, hate the name and waste time trying to convince you their suggestion is not only superior but would better suit your unborn child than sweet J’Jayden Junior.
- Don’t wait until the baby is born to choose a name if you are relying on the fact that your baby will resemble anything other than a potato. If Spud was your first choice in name then breathe easy, otherwise, have a back-up plan.
- Borrow from family and friends. I had a great support group of women with a Rubbermaid bin filled with maternity clothes always in transport. We would laugh when the next pregnant friend/relative arrived in the ten year old outfits, each stain its own story to tell but it saves money if more people would just share their maternity clothes. Even more fun is the huge bonfire ceremony when all of the husbands have had their vasectomies and those large, unflattering prints go up in flames with a bottle of Dom at the ready.
- Silence is Defecating. Don’t sugar -coat the delivery to your friends. If you or someone you know defecated on the birthing table, let it be known. I for one, ahem, would have appreciated the heads up that the possibility even existed. If you can help one other anxious mommy-to-be, your silence exposed is worth more than you know.
- My Mom says you forget the pain of childbirth. False. I will never, EVER for as long as I live forget the pain. Not when I’m a Grandmother, not when I’m being thrashed around in a shark’s mouth (my ultimate demise), will I forget. Did it make me want to stop having kids? No, because the end result was worth it but that is a pain unlike any other and sometimes on humid, overcast days, a memory twinge will shoot up your spine and you’ll nod into your tea and snippets, someonmyvest, that really smarts.
