So, there are good things and not so savory things that happen to your temple when you become with child. No, I'm not saying my body resembles anything close to Jennifer Love Hewitt's song inspiring physique. It's more like, "I wonder what's going to happen to it next?" We'll start with the good things.
As we all know, one of the perks of being pregnant is the temporary bust augmentation. Coming from someone who's always been the 'other sister' surrounded by buxom women all my life, this is fan-freakingtastic. It's kind of nice knowing that I get to have them around for a bit, no matter how painful they get just from a towel brushing them, and then give them back when I reclaim by 12 year old boy body of yesteryear. That happens, right? It's like I'm growing into Dolly Parton's long lost sister and I L-O-V-E it.
A couple other wonderous things that follow a period of major suckage are the skin and the libido. Way back when, I told you how I was eating like a carb loading 15-year-old track star. Well, apparently that track star was also going through puberty. I was never a really acne-prone adolescent, but weeks 6-11 taught me a lesson. Just like braces, if you're going to have wicked zit face, it's best to have them in high school when everyone else does. Not when you're a 30-year old professional woman. The silver lining, however, is that upon reaching the 11-week mark, all of this seemed to dramatically improve. I admit that my diet consisting of McDonalds, candy, ice cream, all dairy all the time, and my investment in the college funds of the children of the makers of Little Debbie during weeks 6-11 may have fueled this dermatological dilemma. I also kind of 'gave up' on exercise for a month or so, for lack of a better (more embarassing) term. Now that I'm getting back in the healthy eating groove and working out a couple of times a week and hydrating adequately, I think my body has stopped punishing me...for the moment.
On a side note, I worked out today for the second and final time this week. It's enlightening to see that if you set your goals pretty low (working out 2x/week), they are miraculously easier to achieve and you can celebrate your accomplishment with dill pickle chips way more often and with much less guilt. Another fun fact is that I'm officially the girl who walks on the treadmill. Yeah, that's me. Huffing and puffing on an incline of 12 at 4.0, sometimes swinging my arms like a seizure victim and sometimes grasping the top of the machine, holding on for my life. I tried to run and use the elliptical, but the image of my baby holding on to his umbilical cord for dear life as he was tossed around, ricocheting from side to side of my belly, crying, 'why, mama, why?' is not one easily erased from the mind.
Back to the good stuff, libido. I hate that word but 'horny' creeps me out that much more. This will be a fairly short segment given that my family reads this (aka my dad) and him knowing too much about this department is a little creeptastic. Anywho, so during the whole 'feeling like death' and wanting to eat like crap and ralph all the time and sleep horribly period known as the first trimester, the desire to be one with your hubby is akin to your desire to be lit on fire and run over my a truck. Not that he's not hot and not that you don't think about it, but fathoming actually doing it, literally makes you nauseated. However, a magical little flip switched right at 11 weeks and 2 days and now it's on like donkey kong. I'm happy, he's happy (and relieved that he wasn't SOL for the next 6.5 months) and that's the end of that story.
So, John, remember when you said that some things I can share with you and some things I should save for my girlfriends. You should quit reading right here or else you'll have images that will be burnt into your mind forever and ruin our forementioned, new fun time.
The bad stuff isn't, like, life or death bad, just weird-kinda-gross-not-normal-me bad. For one thing, your previous monthly escape to the esthetician for some painful 'landscaping' now may be needed every 3 weeks, even every 2. It's crazy what those prenatal vitamins and eating healthy and staying hydrated will do for your hair, skin and nails. We also get to endure fun new patches of furry goodness in places that were previously barren and beautiful. Take, for instance, the happy trail. This is one of the things that just looks better on a guy (preferably with dark hair and a little tan) in addition to the weird, over-developed oblique abs that only guys can rock (sorry Pink, it's creepy.) During pregnancy, there is nothing fun or happy about having to shell out even more dough for 'landscaping' especially on your belly. And they can't even call it something cute like the 'happy trail,' it has to be the 'linea nigra'. Oh, that sounds real promising. Can't wait to find what's waiting at the end of the linea nigra. Told you, not the same effect, right. When I mentioned before that I was turning into Dolly Parton's long lost sister, I forgot to mention that it was the one who's mom was shacking up with a wookie. (That song is classic Bloodhound Gang).
Other things aren't so bad and are really par for the course. The fatigue, you sleep more. The growing belly, even in the first trimester, you wear bigger clothes and revel in your hugeness. The emotional roller coaster, you get to get everything off your chest about and to anyone who you want to because it's all the 'crazy pregnancy hormones' talking. That is one of the unsung benefits of being preggers, by the way. The baby is an excuse for EVERYTHING. I don't want to eat that. That smell makes me sick. I don't want to go there. I don't feel up to doing that. It doesn't matter what any of these is talking about because the reason and indesputable excuse is that it's 'because of the baby.' Love it, love it, love it. Is it crying wolf? You betcha. Does every pregnant woman in the history of sperm meets egg do it? Damn straight. Who am I to mess with historical precedent?
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