I am 17 weeks along, or just a little over 4 months. Well, mostly. Here’s the thing about pregnancy weeks. Some people, like my mean doctor, like to count you as far along as you are—as in I am 16 weeks because 16 weeks have already past. Some people, like my lovely pregnancy tracker, count the week you are in—as in I am in my 17th week as 16 weeks have already past. Then there are the people who count thing like the exact days, as in I am 16w1d or 16 weeks and 1 day. Until I am overdue, we are gonna ignore that sh*t. Between that and the food you have to remember to eat and NOT eat, the myriad of doctor’s appointments and all the crazy acronyms that pregnancy boards toss round, no wonder women get pregnancy brain. Too much crap to remember and you brain shorts out and you put your phone in the freezer. (Don’t tell Jethro.)
So anyway, 17 weeks and I’m already a bad mother.
First off, I don’t think I’m drinking enough water. Honestly, I don’t think anyone is drinking enough water, but since I’m sharing my space for the next five months, I should probably be more considerate. But I just don’t FEEL LIKE IT. It’s tough, trying to plow through 64 ounces a day. I mean, that’s a butt-ton of water, y’all. Yes, I can count other drinks as my fluid intake, but I JUST DON’T FEEL LIKE DRINKING.
Unless it’s a beer. Because I really super want one of those right now. I sipped one of Jethro’s crappy Coors Lights and it was like ambrosia dripping from the petals of a flower held by an angel.
Hell, if I’d had a Paulaner Hefe, my face might have exploded.
Second, I’m irritated with my belly. I blew right past baby bump and went straight into baby GUT. Which is cool, means I don’t have to suck in when waddling around anymore, pathetically trying to NOT look like I have a food baby rather than a real baby. The baby gut is mostly hard, but there is definite jiggle. Now, I realize most of the gut is my own organs and that nice layer of fat that I lovingly crafted of bacon cheeseburgers and sushi, but does there have to be JIGGLE? It feels funny. Not gross, just WEIRD. Aren’t pregnant bellies supposed to be all hard? Has Hollywood LIED to me?
Also, my gut has consumed my feet. I think feet are gross in general (Jethro has almost been stabbed many time after sticking his toes on me,) so I don’t miss them. But did they have to go away so soon??
“Feets?? I see you, don’t goooo! FEETS!!!! DON’T LEAVE ME!”
And by covering my feet, this also means my gut sticks out further than my chest. Where are these amazing pregnancy ta-ta’s I’m supposed to get??? Why are they not growing in direct proportion to my stomach? I’ve always had a big chest and never once have I lamented their size, until now. I want bazonga’s that cannot be contained. I want boobies so big that I need Hooter-Hider even in the privacy of my own home. I want the La Leche League to be knocking on my door, offering me endorsements. WHERE ARE MY GIANT BOOBS?
Third, we have decided to find out the gender, but for completely selfish reasons. I keep referring to Tater as “she,” mostly because I really do feel she’s a girl. This makes Jethro reflexively respond with “he,” because Jethro is scared of girls. He knows that a teeny little girl with giant eyes and curly hair will break him like nobody’s business and he does not want that. He also knows that one day she will have a boyfriend and considering how he feels about any wrong done to his sister, we know will be possibly be looking at future assault charges. (Between him, his father, my father and then myself, this child will have to leave the country to date.)
Previously, we thought we’d wait to find out. The ultimate surprise! No gender-molding! No pink onsies OR sports-themed baby tees! We are so progressive! However, because our relationship is built on a mountain of snark and bickering, Jethro and I have decided to find out the sex of the baby at our next appointment at the end of February. JUST TO PROVE EACH OTHER WRONG.
We are terrible people. Me moreso because I am bound and determined to get Jethro to bet on this. Mama needs some Kate Spade.
Finally, I am ambivalent about making the house baby-ready. I’m sure a nesting phase will set in, but right now my nesting consists of me wanting to buy baby stuff very badly. Which doesn’t count because I look for any excuse to buy things. “OMG, IT’S ARBOR DAY? There’s got to be a sale somewhere….” However, Jethro is on a baby-proofing kick. It started with him wanting to add a railing to our stairs. We have the second and third floor of a condo, so we have return stairs that take us up the bedrooms. The bottom set doesn’t have a railing on either side and I made the mistake of joking about tumbling over the side and my ever-cautious husband now has a phobia of dropping the baby off the stairs. I want to tell him that you can drop the baby anywhere and it would be bad, but I don’t think I need to continue to contribute to his neuroses.
Thing is, we’re renting so it’s not like we can just put in a railing whenever we want. Also, does ANYONE know how to put in a railing?!? Do they have classes at Home Depot on that? Is there some talk radio show I can call into and speak to grumpy old men who call me puddin’ and assume I don’t know what a Sawzall is? WHEN is this a skill you have to learn? (I just googled it. Apparently there are YouTube videos on it. OF COURSE THERE ARE….shut up, y’all.)
Jethro’s next pet project is that he thinks we need to replace our living room carpet. We have hardwood floors throughout, with the exception of a teeny square-footage where our TV and couches are. Apparently, this carpet is now “nasty.” This carpet was brand-new when we moved it. It is not pretty because it is brown and boring, but any part of the nasty is completely achieved by us. Does it need to be shampooed? Sure, we have a dog and I craft on it too much. It wouldn’t hurt. But I really don’t plan on serving the baby any of her strained carrots on the carpet, so WHY replace it? And shouldn’t the baby get USED to our brand of “nasty”? It probably won’t happen in the beginning, but eventually I’m going to stop sterilizing the baby’s binky after it falls out and just blow on it to remove the dog hair and pop it back in her mouth. Because as fussy as we are right now, once we get the hang of this parent thing, we’re going to relax. And then we’re going to realize that we can’t protect Tater from ALL of the gross things in life, so we just need to protect her from the MOST gross. One day, we will find her licking the dog and we can either flip out, or just sigh and rescue poor Maggie. So we might as well start now and just clean the carpet and call it a day.
Because if this child is anything like me as a child, she is going to do enough damage that we will HAVE to replace the carpet before we move.
So, yeah. Bad Mama already. And I’m trying to be a little better. I’ll drink more water, stop glaring at my stomach as it jiggles as I walk upstairs and let Jethro plan on saving the Tater’s life before she even has her first breath. (PLAN, not actually do. I’m not endorsing the crazy.)
But don’t hold it against me if I count a Cherry Coke as part of my water intake. I got up to pee three times last night, Mama is TIRED.
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Kind of a Mess 
Could be worse, one of my other pregnant friends (one of the 20) is at 7 months and she still really doesn’t have pregnant belly at all unless she wears the right pants.
See, that sounds nice, but when I think about it, I’d flip out. It’s like when you get hurt and don’t have a bruise, I want a physical representation of my complaints….
Do you see how I just compared my child to an injury? ALREADY A BAD MOTHER.
Ok so the very first thing my mother ever said to anyone about me was after they took her back to her room after the delivery. She picked up the phone, called her sister and said “I had a baby girl, and she is ugly.”
And she tells people that story all the time.
You can’t be worse than that.
You just made me laugh so loud I startled a co-worked from like ten feet away.
If I get fired, I’m blaming you and your mother.
I feel you on the lack of water thing. My appointment last week was a huge guilt-fest – I need more calcium, fruits and vegetables and water. I’m still barely choking down dry toast, and yes I would LOVE to have a more balanced diet, but my sensitive appetite isn’t there yet. Sigh.
Eh, I say eat whatever you can keep down for now. I had morning sickness so badly from weeks 6-18 my doctor told me as long as I was taking my prenatals to just eat whatever I could keep down and it’d even out eventually.
A very wise woman (Liz from Happy Sighs) told me that her doctor said a baby can take pretty much anything but heroin. Which made me feel much better.
Also? Smoothies and juice helped me a lot in first trimester, until I started in with the heartburn in second…
Our bodies suck, huh?
I’m like 8 months pregnant. (Or due in 5 weeks. Or 34 and change weeks pregnant. Or have been gestating for 32 weeks. Pregnancy math is stupid.) And I cannot get enough water. I think I drank 5 bottles at work yesterday, plus a couple of cups of tea. And then went home and drank more water, and ginger ale, and caffeine free coke. I just cannot get enough liquid.
And I only wake once a night to pee.
That’s probably because Skipper is peeing A PINT A DAY INSIDE ME and needs all the hydration is can get. Gross. Pregnancy is so weird.
If you click though to my blog, you can see The Belly trying to eat my entire body. It’s bizarre. And yet, 8 months in, my boobs haven’t, thankfully, grown at all. Which is good – buying an F cup bra would just make me sad.
Oh, and about the hard belly? Totally happened around 6 month for me. Went from large and kind of soft to generally very firm. And then it goes super rock hard during the regular little contractions. Like, overly inflated basketball hard. Bizarre, I tell you.
Morgan, I’m right about as far along as you are — congrats, and good luck! The weird pregnancy math has me freaking out that I’m going to go into labor before my projected due date…
Pregnancy ta-tas seem to be highly overrated, at least in my experience. As a modestly-endowed lady before the baby, I love that they’re bigger, but since they haven’t grown at the same rate as my belly (thank goodness!), it was hard to notice a change until one day my bras just felt too tight. I still feel like I’m washing someone else’s unmentionables when I do laundry.
And Alyssa, you sound like a pretty conscientious and balanced mom-to-be to me! I’m convinced that expecting moms who follow *all* the dietary guidelines and have a perfectly baby-proofed house are a myth.
I agree on the myth. Either that or they’re liar liar pants on fire and should be ashamed.
Thank you. You have made me feel completely justified in having Panda Express for lunch. (Even though my chest disagrees, WHAT IS UP WITH THIS HEARTBURN CRAP?)
I know you’re probably over this, but your belly is ADORABLE!!! (See what a hypocrite I am?)
I forgot they pee inside you. Which isn’t gross, but just WEIRD. PREGNANCY IS SO WEIRD!
And now that you mention it, I should shut up about my boobs; I had an incident at a maternity store where I bought my first maternity bra and kept sending Jethro back for a bigger one until he came back and said, “They don’t have any bigger ones.” And then I cried and he ran and the saleslady was smart enough to go, “Honey, rather than go up in cup size, why don’t you try to go up in bust size.”
Thank God for that lady….
My breasts pre-pregnancy are the same size as the biggest bra in the maternity stores. I suspect I may have to live in nursing tanks for a very long time, as I’ve tried bras with bigger bands and they just physically hurt to wear because they press at all the wrong spots. And I hear your boobs get huge when the milk comes in, so that’s going to be crazy. And uncomfortable. Bleh.
you are going to be an awesome mom. also YAY BABY BUMP. ..since I accidentally bought myself a NURSING BRA the other day (totallyyyy didn’t even notice the extra flaps in the dressing room baahaha), I kind of hope my bewbs don’t grow at all during my eventual theoretical future pregnancy, so I can still wear it when it’s you know, helpful. (still helpful right now actually, those little flaps with clasps make flashing really easy)
I recommend drinking out of a squiggly fun straw as a way to make drinking water more fun. I randomly got one a few months ago and have been drinking a ton more water. sounds silly but it’s working for me!
hahahahaha d-day i love you. i can’t stop laughing.
HAHAHA! I love it. My favorite game with my nursing bra is to whip down the cups and be all “WHIT-CHA! NINJA BOOBIES!”
I probably find it funnier than Jethro….
Squiggle straw is BRILLIANT. I also have a bottle with a filter in the spout and that would help…I just have to find it. But twisty straws sound even better…
Haha, I was just babbling about the grossness of carpet on my blog today! But honestly, you’ve got a point there about introducing grossness to little kiddies. There is some research backing up this whole builds up immunity business so you don’t really want them living in a cloud of clorox.
I saw that! You made me want to go scrub my carpet immediately. Also, I started eying my shoes and wanting to take them off even though I was in my office….
I’m a total believer in building immunity. Especially since I had my splenectomy and am more prone to bacterial infections. I won’t pontificate here cause I’m not a doctor, but may a folk have been subjected to my treatise on hand sanitizers and the rise of super bugs, after I’ve had a few beers. (What can I say, I liven up any party.)
I love this post – and you’re totally not alone. I’m only 11ish weeks along and feel as though my world revolves around drinking water (or trying to). I second the straw idea – not that I have a fancy squiggly one – but even ordinary straws help.
Best of luck in the “prove each other wrong” contest (which is fabulous) – I’m pulling for you!
I love all the preggers ladies coming out of the woodwork! It seems like the straw is the way to go, must get one!
And thank you! Think lots of lady thoughts for me, maybe it’ll help! 🙂
Congrats on becoming a mom. I like your normal & realistic & hilarious outlook much better than friends who overdo everything the minute they become pregnant & instantly morph to crazed women anticipating becoming perfect moms with perfect kids while still striving to achieve perfect wife-status and ultimately just end being perfect pains in the you-know-what….
Thank you! And I am most certainly a pain in the you-know-what, just in a different way. 😉
“eventually I’m going to stop sterilizing the baby’s binky after it falls out and just blow on it to remove the dog hair and pop it back in her mouth.” I say this takes a week, tops. 🙂
Definitely. Once I start realizing that the baby is mine forever, I’m gonna stop taking care of it like I have to give it back in mint condition. 🙂
My water-drinking tricks are to add a little bit of lemon juice (for flavor – I hate the taste of most water) or to drink hot water (not tea, not coffee . . . just hot water). The latter requires extra effort (stove/microwave) and people might look at you funny, but if you’re prone to being cold AND dehydrated, it’s an excellent option.
Good luck mama! Time to start making Jethro paint your toenails.
Ooo, the cold thing is definitely me. I think my problem is that I’m not really dehydrated, I just can’t be bothered to drink the water…or ANYTHING. I’m a brat. BUT, I do love water with lemon, maybe that’ll trick me into drinking more. Hell, I might even add a packet of splenda and make ghetto lemonade like I’m poor and in college again…..
I totally make ghetto lemonade in my office sometimes! Water with a real slice of lemon feels so classsssy but overall flavor crystals win out. Ah, college . . . 😉
We have an electric kettle in our office and it’s amazing!! Plus, no whistling.
Here’s a similiar (and cheap!) one: http://www.target.com/p/Proctor-Silex-Kettle-White/-/A-10837166
awesome blog post, but some of the comments are scaring me from wanting to be pregnant at all! Not that we’re trying yet, I’m still on the pill (my bank account thanks me for that), but still planning! I feel like I’m planning to get engaged or apply to college all over again. Who knows what’s coming!?
OI!!! Have we learned NOTHING from APW? Just as others weddings/marriage are not a reflection on how yours will go, neither is pregnancy. Your will be its own unique brand of weird and gross and amazing. Promise.
Plus, remember, for everything that the ladies and I are agreeing on, there are a myriad of things that I’ve got they never had. Don’t let us sway you one bit, sweetie; your future children are too adorable and need to be born. 😉
So true! I feel like everyone has at least one weird symptom nobody else gets. I had the world’s worst nausea/vomiting for the longest time, but hey – no having to pee every 3 seconds and no stretch marks as of yet (27 days to go!).
And I didn’t throw up even once, but got my first stretch mark at 8 weeks after loosing 5 pounds. Pregnancies are so very, very unique.
If the heartburn is bad, zantac is amazing. After 12 endless weeks of raging heartburn so bad that I could barely eat anything, it’s a miracle. (And by anything, I mean it. YOGURT gave me 18 hours of unrelenting heartburn. The only foods I could stomach were lucky charms and ice cream, and that does not a good diet make. Tasty though.) The pills allow me to actually eat a (semi) balanced diet and not spend most hours of the day being violently uncomfortable. Doctor recommended!
Were I not married, I’d be proposing right now. Bless you, my dear.
I’m pretty sure all of the things you mentioned as bad are what will make you a good parent. Sense of humor, making games with husband, being relaxed…it’s all good. 🙂
I love that the only reason you two are going to find out the gender of the baby is to prove who’s right. Nothing like betting on the sex of your unborn child…I mean, you gotta keep things interesting right? My sister in law is getting the gender ultrasound on Monday. She’s going to have the nurse write down the gender and seal it in an envelope. Then she’s going to give the envelope to a friend that is going to make a cake with either blue, or pink insides. Then on Tuesday when I get out of work I’m going over there so we can all cut the cake and find out the gender together. I cannot even describe how excited I am! It’s so damn mission impossible feeling and I love that her and my brother are doing this to include me!!
The other day I had an “I’m going to be a horrible aunt” episode. I was looking at Pack and Plays online (to which the husband asked if it was going to be for the puppies…he is sometimes very out of touch) and then realized that I had no idea what babies require. And then that spiraled into “our house is the only house that is actually unsafe for a baby”!!! At which point I had to shut down the computer and watch some Netflix.
Being pregnant is hard work. Even thinking about being pregnant makes my head hurt. So I’m glad to be able to read your story well in advance of ever conceiving so I can fall back on it when my brain eventually turns to mush. Thank you!
You make me laugh so hard. I’m 20 weeks tomorrow, and I’m the one getting all crazy with the babysafing our rented apartment. We started using bearstronaut as a mock baby to begin getting the dogs used to not jumping up to sniff things we cradle in our arms, or play with on the carpet.
Re: carpet, get it steam cleaned, DON’T get new carpet. Reasons:
1) Steam cleaning is amazing. Hot hot steam kills gross things without chemicals, and doesn’t promote superbug evolution, and then the stanley steamer guys vaccuum all the stuff up with their industrial strength sucking machine, AND they show you the difference from before and after. On our offwhite carpet there was a huge difference, very confidence inspiring.
2) New carpet is full of toxic stuff and releases volatile organic compounds (VOCs, aka harsh chemical gases) that are really bad for your baby’s developing nervous and respiratory systems.
Stick with the old carpet, it is actually safer because it’s done releasing its toxic chemicals.