It's inevitable. I will turn into a wuss.

As a crime reporter, I do spend a lot of time talking with police, specifically homicide detectives, and on a daily basis I write about horrible things, alleged perpetrators of said things and victims of atrocities. 

Normally, I can leave my emotions at home before I head to work. But lately, I've found, they've been following me around like a puppy dog in need of constant nurturing.

The prospect of taking a year-long break from the job I love isn't the only thing that makes me blubber lately - the crimes themselves are starting to get to me. I've turned into an on-and-off emotional wreck.

I noticed it this week when tears threatened to cloud my vision while I read about Karissa Boudreau, a woman who admitted to killing her 12-year-old daughter.

Is this another side effect of owning a placenta? Another one of progesterone's mean jokes?

Probably not, a male editor has told me.

Such emotions (darn it) seem to come with having kids. Since his were born he's had a markedly lower threshold for real-life gore. "I can't even read that stuff anymore," he said recently. "I think of my own kids in that situation and it haunts me."

Great - another thing for me to worry about post mat leave! The Lentil is going to turn me into a total wuss!

No way. No how. No baby.

Who thought of this ridiculous method of getting them out? Seriously?

I've weighed the facts, conducted a thorough cost-benefit analysis, looked carefully at all of the details and made an important decision: I will not be having this baby.

Birth is too gross. Too humiliating. And from what I can tell right now - still not a full member of this mommy club - too painful.

No way. No how. No baby.

Yes - I feel a bit like a ripening zit that will inevitably have to be popped - by me or a qualified cosmetician. Yes - the Lentil's tiny feet frequently get stuck in my ribs, it feels like, and its kicks have turned from endearing flutters to punchy death blows (kid - what are you doing in there?!). Yes - I would like once again to have a flat (ish) stomach.

But since I began learning about labour and delivery - mandatory reading at my stage in the game (I thought it was prudent to see what I'm in for) - all of the above seem like trifling, petty gripes.

From what I can tell (and to quote my good friend Amy) I have no interest in trying to "squeeze a watermelon through my nostril."

Pictures of a prego's anatomy are frightening to me. There is no way THAT opens up enough to sneak through another person's head! Words like "episiotomy" and "afterbirth" should be banned from the English language altogether, let alone introduced to an anxious, first-time expectant mom. Birth looks too dangerous too. It involves a lot of blood (okay, so our body increases its blood volume to handle losing too much on delivery day), fluid leakage and possible tearing of sensitive, membranous tissues.

Now I've never been a prude (well, I do sorta like doilies), but those areas are private, for goodness sake! A team of people fussing around my bottom end lacks a certain appeal.

When I express my wishes to not to give birth, people have told me not to worry. Some have attemped to calm my nerves by explaining that once the process begins there's really no way to reverse it, so I might as well just go with the flow.

People have also said that my doctors are going to insist I let this child out at some point (maybe because there's a push against overprotective mothers these days?). And that I won't really feel embarrassed or humiliated when the time comes.

They also tell me I'll be quite happy when it's over (except I'll never sleep again). And that there are six billion people on this planet, so this birthing thing has been done, like, you know, many times before and things have worked out A-Okay. 

But, I don't buy any of that hooey. I've made up my mind. Birth is still not for me.

So get comfortable in there kiddo! As your mother, I'm issuing you a first directive: stay inside.

Strollers. Can't live without 'em.

At around 10 p.m. yesterday my friend Keely called me in a panic.

"Have you bought your stroller yet? Please tell me you haven't," she said, quickly, nervously.

"I have," I answered. We ordered it a couple weeks ago, so it gets here in time.

"Why, what's wrong?"

From the tone in her voice and the harried pace of Keely's speech I thought maybe millions of Canadian babies had just come down with lead poisoning from spending too much time in the popular wheely contraptions.

Thankfully, there wasn't a disaster. Just a cool product she needed to tell me about.

The Orbit stroller. Not only is it light, folds quick and easy, looks neat and has a baby bucket that converts from stroller seat to car seat in seconds, it has a similar toddler bucket too.

Now, I've never been good at thinking long term and I can barely wrap my head around the fact that I'm about to have a baby, but even to this confused mom-to-be, it sounds so cool.

It's only available in the U.S. at present. And it cost about a zillion dollars when you buy all the necessary attachments, but it's worth a look.

Like buying all essential baby items, stroller shopping was nerve-wracking. We had a long list of "things" we wanted it to do.

We wanted a stroller that folds to a standing position in one swift motion. But the one that does that, the Micralite Toro, has weird handles and its two front wheels were so close together my feet kept bashing into them whenever I tried to take a long stride (and believe me, I don't really have a long stride).

We wanted a stroller that allows the baby to face us sometimes and can be turned around to face the world too. One that has a lot of storage space, for diapery-type things and toys, I think (what else do you put in a stroller?). And, we were looking for something that's light, looks cool (because I still feel like that will make me a more competent mom), won't demand that we pay for it with our first born and will last us for years and years. We don't want to have to go through this again anytime soon.

With so many models to choose from at so many different prices, the decision was almost impossible  - especially since none of them seemed to do everything - well except maybe the Orbit...

The decision was made for us (thank god) when my mom just went and purchased a stroller to give to us as a baby present. What a lovely woman!

Sick and pregnant: useless

The upside to being sick while pregnant: getting to say home and sleep! Yay!!

The downside to being sick while pregnant: having to stay home and sleep .... because you can't take any medicine. Boooo!!

Now I count myself among the lucky. I got a flu shot early in the season, which seems to be working it's magic. I haven't come down with anything monstrous thus far. I seemed to have skipped the gastric nightmare that's passed through the guts (and up the esophagi) of many colleagues (I am knocking on wood as we speak). 

But I contracted one nasty head cold last week and it just won't go away.

 

How much snot can a body produce?? Really?!

Normally, if I come down with these symptoms I'd visit the well-stocked medicine cabinet in our home. I'm not a huge pill popper or serum taker normally, but since I hate not being able to function, I swear by Motrin, Tylenol Sinus and Cold and Flu whenever I need it.

 

But, they are all off limits to a prego! Bah, I say.

 

There is no choice but to tough it out.

 

"Well, we can't really give you anything," the nurse at my doctor's office told me over the phone. "So, come in tomorrow if you still feel bad and we'll see if there's something we can do."

 

I felt like yelling "give me some drugs!!!" but decided against it.

 

Modern science is capable of creating life in a test tube and launching rockets into space, but there's nothing they can do for a sick pregnant woman. Makes no sense to me at all.

 

The worst part about being sick at seven months - aside from feeling like crap - is that I can't really revel in being stoic for a higher purpose.

My sickness confers no benefit to this baby (he or she could care less that I'm sick and is happily pummeling my insides as I write this from my tissue-strewn bed).

 

Since we both have separate blood supplies, the immunity I build to this darned cold won't get passed onto the fetus.

 

So this being sick thing is totally, utterly useless.

 

There must be someone I can talk to about that...

 

 

 

dooce!

Check out this awesome blog. Dooce is hilarious! Skinny, but hilarious.

Nature - can you hear me?

Nature works in strange ways.

All at once it's very clever and quite amazing the way it can fashion an entire human being out of left over macaroni. But it's also baffling.

For instance, shouldn't it know that since my body will suffer from a chronic and dizzying lack of sleep in three months, that I should probably rack up as many shut eye hours as possible, right now??

Progressively over the last few weeks, sleep has become more and more of a fleeting commodity.

Where, since the start of this pregnancy, I would pass out on my pillow at 10 p.m. (or earlier) and wake up at 7:30 a.m. (or much later), I am now lucky if I can stay asleep until 4 in the morning.

From there, its a fidgety, half in, half out slumber or a restless awakeness for the rest of the night, where I try to convince kicky the fetus, sometimes out loud, to stop sitting on my bladder, please get off my lungs, and quit running through my mind, so I can please, please have enough stamina to function at work!

And the dreams are preposterous! 

My mind usually gets snared by some nightmare - that I've got a baby but can never remember to feed it. Or, the newborn eats so much that I can't keep up and it grows taller than me by the time it's nine months (I'm pretty short, so that may actually happen). 

Or, I've left my house, but forgotten my kid! Or, I get eaten by Jack McBrayer - the comedian who plays an NBC page on Tina Fey's 30 Rock.... but that's an entirely different story. 

Please tell me I'm not crazy?! Actually, if I am crazy, I may not want to know.

People tell me that frequent nighttime waking can be nature's way of preparing the pregnant for the many millions of sleepless nights to come. 

However, I'd prefer to get a good night's rest now and bank some energy for when I'll need it most. 

Hey nature - can't I just have that? 

You won't let me sleep on my stomach anymore. Lying on my back stops my breathing. And, if the body pillow weren't in existence I wouldn't know what to do with myself at all.

Give me this one thing? Please? Are you listening??

Something tells me my complaints are falling on deaf ears.

I guess we'll just fight it out

Next week my husband and I start prenatal classes and I'm already gearing up - mainly gathering the strength - to handle the debates that will undoubtedly erupt between us over the lessons.

At the best of times my husband and I love to tussle. About everything from which route to take home from my parent's house, to what colour the sky was yesterday, we're an argumentative couple.

Normally I don't mind.

But I'm not looking forward to arguing over whether to cover our newborn with a blanket or a grow bag and any other topic that might make us nervous when handling our child.

True, I don't know exactly what will be covered in the classes, but I suspect those teaching will use fear and shame to convince us, say, never to use bumper pads or lie our baby on its stomach.

And I'm sure a doting nurse will warn us that we're headed for the Bad Parents Hall of Fame if we don't breastfeed. We're planning on it, but I refuse to feel bad about myself if I just can't. I've seen so many friends frightened by public health messages, especially that one, only to feel like failures when they can't abide by "the rules."

I won't get bullied. But I worry about Ted.

So eager to do right by our pending bundle of joy, he may get, well... totally neurotic (more than me!) and insist we bend over backwards to do everything exactly "right."

I don't know if I can deal with that. Already we're debating whether or not we'll "let" our child sleep through the night before three months (like he or she is going to give us a choice) and whether we subscribe to the theory posited by The Happiest Baby on the Block."

I can't lie. I've been devising ways to get him to stay home - but planning a sporting event he may want to attend next Thursday night (and for the six weeks after that) is proving difficult.

"Oh fine," I recently told him, "I give up. I know you're going to come, aren't you?"

"Yes," he said. "I'm excited."

Fine. I guess he should have some say in this whole parenting thing.

So let the arguments begin!

I can weather these

Subway riders suck. For the most part.

Subway riders are either heartless or selfish.

That statment doesn't leave a lot of room for debate, I know, but I've been shocked the last few times I've ridden the rocket to discover no one gets up to give a pregnant lady a seat.

True, most days I look more like a sausage than an expectant mom all squished into my non-maternity ski jacket (the M-Coat doesn't exist in my size and now I've almost written off pregnancy clothing altogether), but even when I play up my tummy - unzip my jacket and look pathetic - no one so much as bats an eyelash in my direction. Let alone stands to surrender a seat.

Why is that?

People sometimes stare at my stomach from their reclined positions on the TTCs cold metal chairs. They'll glance up or sideways then resume their gaze on their own hands, the book their reading, the floor.

No one makes a move. I think that going forward, if someone ever did offer me a seat, I might be so taken aback by the gesture I would probably look at them weird or mean and likely refuse to accept it.

I hate to think that in the past I've been that heartless or selfish - but as a subway rider myself I've probably, most certainly, been that idiot who refuses to budge.

Now I know better. 

And I vow never to NOT pay attention again. I promise - once I'm no longer with child - that I will always offer my chair to someone who looks like they need it.

Because having to stand, sandwiched between some smelly guy with a pointy backpack and a kid with snot on his face, at seven months pregnant just plain sucks.

It sucks at the best of times, but as a queasy rotund chick it sucks even more.

No Cs for me please!

Even though I'm about three months away from delivering, the end seemed nearer and more frightening today than it has in the past few months when the doctor said:

"For such a small thing, you've got a good sized baby in there."

"I do?"

"Yes," he said. "It's measuring very well."

This in and of itself doesn't worry me. I'm glad the baby feels free to spread out and grow large in its fluidy environment. I want it to thrive, obviously.

But secretly, I don't want it to get TOO big. I'm pretty small, all things considered, and a gargantuan baby might not... uhm, come out. At least not by the means I've been hoping for.

All of my short, small friends who have given birth in the last few years have had c-sections. The baby's head has been too big for a natural birth, they've explained, or they didn't dilate enough or they couldn't live through yet another 27 hours of labour.

This makes me nervous because I don't want to have a c-section. I am not too posh to push. I don't want to have my ab muscles sliced for fear that they will never snap back. And I don't want to look forward to fluid-heavy, balloon-like legs that often result from the procedure or having to become dependent on pain-killers (well, maybe that's not soooo bad).

Now I have heard that it isn't all horrible. Many moms say they'd schedule a c-section again for the delivery of their second child. And they swear that the flat stomach returns - eventually, usually with work.

But I'm not convinced. Surgery's not my thing, ya know? I had my appendix out a few years ago, through tiny incisions in my abdomen, and my belly button has never looked quite the same again.

But I guess I got used to the new one. And if I have to go under the knife for this kid, hell, it'll prepare me to go under the knife again. That's right, it'll prime me for that tummy tuck I'll need to get in a few years!