BABY BUMPS

My daughter's friends are all getting married. She was in two weddings in two months this summer. I figure it's only a matter of time before the babies start arriving. Here's some information and advice, for what it's worth. It's been almost thirty years for me.

BABY BUMPS

Women who want to be grandmothers lie to their daughters. It may be a lie of omission but it is a lie none the less. They coo over babies. They tell you how wonderful being a mother is--the remarkable rewards. They make it seem like nirvana. What they don’t tell you is what will happen to your formerly pristine body and sanity.
The woes of pregnancy are legion. Nausea, unquenchable thirst, constipation, varicose veins, backaches, swollen ankles. Fertility means you grow things. Not just a baby but skin tags, hair in undesirable places, fingernails and toenails that will rival an eagle’s talons. Which, unless you keep trimmed, will shred your sheets. Oh, wait. That assumes you will get any sleep, which you won’t because you will be spending the night traveling back and forth to the bathroom. And forget sleeping on you stomach ever again.
There are only two positive results to pregnancy as far as I can tell. Besides the wonderful child you will produce, and believe me--yours will be the greatest thing since the flush toilet--the porn star boobs will amaze you and the great thing is that as long as you nurse you will keep them. I imagine this is why some women don’t give it up until their kids are ready for kindergarten.
Pregnancy itself has evolved over the ages from a natural event to a disability and back to a natural event. This is why men invented birth control. So pregnancy could be planned and thus not interfere with their lives. When my husband was born, towards the end of the great depression, his mother, a school teacher, was forced to take a five year unpaid leave. Presumably from the first visible signs of a pregnancy bump, so as not to give ideas to her teen-age students, through the stages of weaning and teething, until the kid itself went to school. I suppose they felt parental bonding was important. Pregnancy was viewed as a little shameful, even if you were married, which is what kept the teens scared to death to have sex.
This was around the time that pregnancy went from being a natural event to a disability. When employers had to start paying for disabilities it went back to being a natural event. Go figure.
The actual process of pregnancy has also changed over the years. No, I don’t mean how you get pregnant or the mechanics of growing a fetus. I mean the advice you get. Everyone from your doctor to the grocery store check out clerk will have something to say to you. An entire library of books to tell you what to do. Old wives tales, fond memories, horror stories--you’ll hear them all. Just smile and glow. You can’t avoid it. My suggestion would be to listen to the doctor and let the rest roll off your back. Of course a little good sense doesn’t hurt, and keep in mind that even medical advice goes in and out of fashion.
When I was pregnant thirty years ago the rule of thumb was three alcoholic drinks a day. That may explain why my daughter has such tiny ears. Now the trend is to treat your body like a temple and only eat and drink pure, organic, chemical free food, and if your child doesn’t get accepted to Harvard you have a good shot at a malpractice suit. My mother drank, smoked and whooped it up. She took no prenatal classes, went to a general practitioner rather than an OB specialist, and almost delivered me in a taxi, yet my IQ is 140. Explain that.
The farther away from old wives you can get the better. Especially if they are strongly ethnic. They suggest things like drinking beef blood if you are anemic, and they’ll dangle needles over your swollen abdomen to predict the sex of your baby. Even though these things have been made obsolete by vitamins and ultrasounds, old wives will insist their treatments are safer and you really can’t argue with them. Even coffee and regular tea have been implicated in fetal damage. Tea. Can you imagine? Must be why the Brits lost the Empire.
Which brings us to what a pregnancy can do to your mind and emotions. When your husband tries to get you a prescription for lithium because your mood swings are scaring him, quietly and patiently explain to him that your behavior is normal. Or you could scream it at him...your choice. These mood swings will include a lot of yelling, throwing things, and weeping. Try to confine this behavior to your home. If done on the street people will assume your husband just told you he wants a divorce.
Just keep in mind that pregnancy is nature’s joke on woman, woman is nature’s joke on man, and children are nature's joke on everyone.