Is pregnancy beautiful?

"Don't have your baby right here!"

"Oh my god, your water better not break in this office!"

"You look like you're about to pop!"

What? I'm a pregnant woman - not some ticking time bomb! And, as I've been told by many many preggos there is no gushy Hollywood water breaking scene either. Time doesn't stand still and I won't leak in a pitifully embarrassing display on a friend's thousand dollar Manolos.

Public misperception is yet another reason I don't particularly find pregnancy beautiful.

A very articulate reader submitted a comment to one of my blogs, noting she'd like me to talk more about the nicer, more beautiful side of pregnancy.

Well, I have found this nearly 10-month experience to be fascinating, eye-opening, jarring, a bit gross at times and utterly miraculous. It's amazing how one human body can create another human body, brain, kidney, personality, life, out of so little. It is baffling to note how my body has changed so rapidly to accommodate a tiny creature who will one day contemplate life, the universe and its own existence. And when the fetus started communicating with kicks and squirms - well that just made it completely worth it.

But I certainly have not found pregnancy beautiful.

It's been difficult. Abusive to my sense of vanity. Hard on my energy levels and motivation at times. Irritating, nerve wracking, painful, debilitating, emotionally draining. Life changing. And until I became pregnant myself I had no idea the yuckier sides even existed.

None of my friends ever told me about the bad stuff. They just kind of suffered in silence. It's tough to spend an entire night throwing up, peeing repeatedly, sleeping sitting up near the end (because lying down with a seven pound fetus squishing your lungs just isn't comfortable) and then be expected to perform superbly the next day at work.

It's been rough, for me, to contemplate taking a year away from a job, which I love. And it's frightening to think I'll have to reforge part of my identity.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting it's okay to whine through the entire experience (although I do love to complain and fancy myself quite good at it as evidenced by my blogs) or stay home and feel sorry for yourself. I certainly haven't done that. In fact, I plan to work up until a few days before my due date.

And I don't believe in taking anything lying down!

But, I felt very alone at the start of my pregnancy because I didn't realize something so common could be so hard. So why sugar coat it?

It was my choice to have a child. And I'm tremendously excited for the end result of this pregnancy. That's what will be beautiful: my baby.  

A small gripe:

A small gripe:

My two lovely younger sisters bought our bundle-of-joy-to-be a happy-looking, music-making, newborn-soothing swing a few weeks ago and paid for its delivery from the uptown store to our downtown home (this is not my gripe). 

But when I called the store to arrange said paid-for delivery, the salesperson informed me that they only dropped off items on Wednesdays and Fridays between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m.

"But I work during the week!!" I shrieked hormonally into the phone. "Who the hell can be home at those ridiculous hours?? People who have money to buy things, like this swing, have to work during work hours to make money to buy them!!!!"

Needless to say the phone call ended shortly thereafter and I picked up the swing on the weekend. 

When I finally calmed down it occurred to me: Once I pop this creature I will be home during the day, specifically between 9 in the morning and noon. 

Oops!

I was on the radio!! So, I think I'm all cool now.

I made a brief radio appearance on CBC's The Point today, talking about the Secret Language of Pregnancy. I wrote a column about it a week ago. 

To find the radio spot go here or to the March 4th show labeled Mar. 04: Provincial coping, Tim's Law, wood stoves and click on Part 3.  

It's tricky to find.... almost as if they're trying to hide it.... 

Anyway, I meant to post this last weekend, but after each day or running around at work, I've been so tired!! The third trimester has brought with it some of the first trimester's fatigue! 

In a recent column, I wrote a short glossary of pregnancy terms I felt are important, strange, scary etc.

But there are so many more phrases and terms out there that need mention or dreaming up. Don't you think?

There should be a word for the fear of labour and delivery, such as cervix-dilatophobia or baby-expel-ophobia, I thought... until I learned that "tocophobia" is the real word for the fear. Who knew??

And, I think there should be a word for the phenomenon of losing one's keys while pregnant. I haven't yet come up with a term, but I have either lost my keys or locked myself out of my home or office at least 20 times since I got pregnant.

So if you think of a term, let me know. Yes. It can include the word "idiot."

Pregnant politeness.

My job takes me to some interesting places. 

Recently, I spent half a day with a homicide detective inside the top secret Toronto police property unit. It's this massive storage facility another reporter has termed the "Indiana Jones warehouse" because it seems straight out of  the  Raiders of the Lost Ark movie. There, police store seized weapons, seized marijuana, other nutty items seized during investigations and raids, such as patio furniture and bubble gum machines, and rows and rows and rows of boxes containing files from thousands of different crimes. 

A Star photographer came to take pictures and asked me to mind one of his tripods. It was light, though a bit awkward. Still I had no problem carrying it around.

But every time someone saw it in my hand, they'd say "let me take that from you!" 

There are big stairs leading to the Star's bureau at police headquarters on College St., where I work. I run up and down them every day. But if I'm hiking to the office with an officer or a colleague they look at me and say: "Poor thing. Is there an elevator for you?"

And when my husband and I sit down to dinner and I find myself with food envy, he doesn't say a bad word when I plunge my fork into a morsel on his plate. "Here," he says, happily shifting his food in my direction. "The baby likes this."

And in countless other situations - except on the subway, where I have yet to be offered a seat by anyone - people go out of their way to be kind and courteous to this pregnant woman.

This makes me wonder: What is it going to be like after I give birth? Will people cease to be nice and polite? 

It's amazing how responsible others feel for the well-being of an expectant mom. At the same time, in my life before Lentil, I don't remember feeling that warm and fuzzy about the general public.

I'll just enjoy the little perks of pregnancy while they last, I suppose. There are few of them! All too soon, I'll be that woman wheeling a massive stroller into a restaurant only to be sneered at. 

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.

So what if I talk to my stomach?

People on the subways who talk to themselves elicit strange stares. Obviously. 

So it should be no surprise to me that when I crane my neck downwards in public and address my stomach, the same should happen. 

 Yes, I've officially started talking to the fetus. Yes, I feel crazy. Yes, sometimes I lose myself around other people and start asking the fetus questions. Yes, once or twice I've gotten the stink eye. 

“How about some broccoli for dinner, little kicky?” I’ll say. "No, you want poutine only? That's not healthy.... okay, you convinced me: just poutine it is!" 

Nuttiness aside, I've been reading that acquainting the fetus with the sound of my voice (and my husband's voice) is a good thing, so that when it's born it will already have some familiarity with its primary caregivers. 

Some of my friends read stories to their babies in utero. But for that, I need more focused time, baby books and probably a better stimulus than just my belly button. 

To prime this kid for the world to come, my husband and I have also started playing music to my stomach. We've gone so far as to put on our old, grainy-sounding records (yes, records) of Sesame Street and Annie (Annie, the musical soundtrack belongs to my husband Ted! He says it was mine, but it was really his. He's just trying to save face).

Now, I've read that some people even mount headphones on their abdomens. That, I certainly won't do. 

Whether in private or public,  that seems totally odd.  

 

 

Tummy Touching - fine! go ahead!

The first thing I ever wanted to do (before I went and got all knocked up, of course) when I saw a pregnant woman was touch her stomach.

So it seems perfectly natural to me that people want to put their hands on my bump (this sounds dirtier than intended!).

But since "belly touching" seems to have become a societal no-no lately, with words like "unwanted" and "invasion of privacy" used to describe the popular practice of pregnant tummy patting, my friends seem scared or nervous to come near me.

Sometimes, their hands start to lunge for my belly, but they stop themselves.

"Oh sorry," they say. "Uhm, can I touch."

"Yeah, sure, why not?" I return.

True - I wouldn't want strangers off the street trying to grope me. I've never been into that. But, no one entirely random has tried to come near me or the Lentil yet, so like an animal that's never been threatened by human contact before, I'm open to the tummy touching.

So far I find it cute and friendly. Hardly threatening.

It does make me feel a bit like a toy, however, but part of being pregnant, I think, is realizing my body is not entirely my own. Or, at least, not entirely under my control.

In essence, I am sort of a playground for the Lentil!

So, if other people can derive a little bit of happiness from my stomach (and often it makes me feel less turkey-like when they express an interest in being near my tummy) they why not!

Pat away, I say! 

Where's my M coat?

Where's my M coat???

I want to be a "hip and happening mamma" as it says on the M coat's website. But there don't seem to be any in my size. I've ordered one... even though my husband is going to freak out when he sees the price tag (about $450 before tax)... but it's MIA, it seems.

And this brings me to yet another clothing-related quip. Why, with so many pregnant women running around the city and frankly, the world, is there one coat specifically designed for moms and moms-to-be?

This seems like a huge niche market opportunity, no?

I give up on clothes. Again.

And I have decided (yet again) to just wear sweatpants or go around naked.

I have actually started to be a total-more-than-usual-schlep around my house. My poor husband.

"Uhm, can you wash that shirt? Please?" he asked me just the other day, pointing to some stain in the middle of my favorite sweatshirt. "It's starting to smell."

"Fine," I said, and threw it in the laundry.

"And, how about doing your hair once in a while and not clipping your nails on the bed?" he asked, again, pressing his luck.

"We'll see," I answered.

At a time when putting on tights is starting to become a challenge, I want to turn into a total nose-picking Neanderthal who just lies around, yelling for food (bring me a chicken leg!). I'm finding it hard to find the motivation to look and act "sexy."

Luckily, my friend and workout partner Erica forced me to a spinning class on Sunday. I felt so much better afterwards. I even went home, blew dry my hair and rolled on tights! And a dress!

And then promptly ate an entire lobster. So, today I feel like a sloth again.

Well, at least the sexiness lasted for a few hours!

I'll take a cranberry soda. Argh.

It looked fun, I was still awake. So we figured "why not?"

Since I got pregnant I've slowed down my extra curricular activities (to a crawl). But earlier this week, after dinner my husband and I decided to join friends for a drink at a busy downtown bar.

There were women dancing on tables (I swear this was a trendy Wellington St. W, vodka bar, not a skleazy strip joint), men in stuffy suits swinging their tushies. And everyone seemed drunk.

Except me.

"Give me five, no, seven months," I told my friend, "And I'll be up there on that table."

(For some reason, at that moment, it seemed like the right thing to say).

The waitress sidled up to where we were sitting. Everyone else ordered and then she trained her eyes on me.

"I'll have a cranberry soda," I said.. The waitress narrowed her eyes and her lips curled into a disappointed frown  - it was as if she could sense the amount of her tip dwindling with those five words. She quickly turned away.

Despite numerous and various warnings to the contrary (not to mention the judging eyes of friends and family), lots of people have the odd slurp, or even glass of wine or pint of beer when they're expecting.

But I just can't bring myself to do it.

I've never been one to scare easily, but the warnings do make me really nervous. And it's also the thought of a poor drunk fetus squirming around in my tummy.

When I eat Timbits, or some other sugar laden fatty food, the Lentil goes mental - kicking, twisting.

I couldn't imagine what it would do if I got it drunk (if it's anything like it's mother, it might twist an ankle in high heels, drunken dial, or start making out with the placenta - not a good scene).

Not to mention the guilt I would feel afterwards. There are so many challenges it will face in this world, that I want to make sure it is born with all its faculties in tact.

So, even though I felt the waitress started a sneer campaign against me and my cranberry soda that night, I held my drink high as I sipped it! And stuck out my stomach, so she could tell I was passing on the alcohol for a good reason!

I'm losing my mind

My name is Michele Henry. I'm 32 years-old. And I'm losing my mind.

It's only a bit funny.

This week alone I've locked myself out of my house twice. It's not even Wednesday. Like someone 82 years my senior I forget where I put things, such as the phone, my lunch, my frickin' keys, even if I touched them, like, a second ago.

Words escape me. Names - forget about it. I have no idea who anyone is anymore. I just say "hey, you, cutie," when I'm staring at someone (such as my husband) and can't remember what to call him.

The most frightening part is that "they" say this is normal. Apparently, pregnant women become absent minded, forgetful, doofus-like.

What the hell kind of evolutionary edge could that possible give us?? I can't see how not remembering where I have to be when, or who I spoke to on the phone for an hour yesterday, could benefit my life or the life of the baby currently slurping up my amniotic fluid.

Wouldn't it be better (for everyone) if pregnant women got super brain? We're expected to work during the day - without lettin' 'em see us sweat - and still be awake to converse socially with people in the evening time.

So, why does nature make us, well, less competent? dumber?

I have not yet found a suitable answer. I'm still looking. I'll let you know when I figure it out. If, that is, I still remember the question.