Some women just exude pure joy when they are pregnant. Little birdies chirp around them. Angels sing when they enter a room with their glowing skin and perfect little bumps. They say things like, "I am just soaking in every moment of this pregnancy" while sipping organic juice and eating a healthy salad topped with grilled chicken. They talk about taking prenatal yoga classes and lovingly chart each milestone and prenatal appointment on a special keepsake calendar.
I stomp around with a permanent bitch face slapped on. I get horrible morning, noon, and night sickness that lasts well into the second trimester. I eat hot dogs and cold cuts and sometimes cold cuts on top of hot dogs sprinkled with freaking soft cheese. The only exercise I do is throwing up. Occasionally I may rise from the sofa to hand my kids some money so they can run to the ice-cream truck and bring ME back a King Cone. I gain at minimum 50 pounds each pregnancy. On a small framed woman, 50 pounds is a whole lotta pounds let me tell you. There ain't too many places for that weight to go, so it goes EVERYWHERE. I get heartburn so bad I walk around with a Maalox mustache from guzzling the stuff. Speaking of mustaches. My pregnancy hormones get so out of whack, that I could compete for the role of bearded lady in my very own freak show. I become so forgetful that my doctors have to call ME to remind me that I do in fact need prenatal care. It's unreal how bad I am at gestating human life!
Well, every pregnancy, I have what I call a "come to Jesus moment." It is a moment in time where I realize that I am seriously done being pregnant and cannot imagine waking up even one more day looking and feeling like I've swallowed a basketball, a football, and a dang soccer ball. About 25 weeks into my last pregnancy, I had my come to Jesus moment. Picture this: I am standing in my kitchen angrily slapping together a sandwich when my youngest runs in screaming about something or another. All toddlers sound like drunk people when they talk, so I really couldn't understand what he was saying. Bending down to hear him better, I hear a loud "RIPPPP!!" In confusion, I quickly stood back up in search of the noise. Looking down at myself, I realized what had caused the sound.
I had split my pajama pants wide open. My pajama pants. Pants that are supposed to be stretchy and loose. Pants that had failed me. Apparently sensing the fragility of the situation, my son fled the room.
As I stood in my kitchen, suddenly nude from the waist down, all sorts of irrational thoughts flooded my head like, "could I sue the manufacturer of these pajamas for intentional infliction of emotional distress?" and "the youngest child witnessed everything - he will just have to go." Letting out a wail of pure horror I fell to my knees and gathered the tattered remains of my beloved Victoria Secret pajama pants in my hands.
Never again, I whispered, my fist clenched in the air. Never again. My husband Lou, alerted to the commotion by my toddler's drunken babbling, chose that moment to unwisely enter the kitchen to investigate.
Any way, that's how Lou was scheduled for a vasectomy 6 months later. I wasn't kidding when I said never again. What was your "come to Jesus moment"?
