It has been my experience that most of the information that first time mothers- to-be get from “so-called” reliable sources is, to say the very least, inadequate and incomplete.
This explains why woman without children regard you and your slowly dying waistline with envy and utter unmasked excitement, while the wiser mother of two seems to regard you with a measure of pity.
She knows what your going through and knows what is still to come, but dutiful to the unspoken code of decorum surrounding this event she refrains from scaring the crap out of you and simply warns you to take your vitamins.
So you dutifully pop a carefully regimented routine of folic acid and omega three, you refrain from sushi and drink non alcoholic beer that tastes like fermented cat urine, you pee constantly and your boobs hurt, but you smile when people tell you how wonderful it is because you know that this is normal.
You knew that this would happen long before you even seriously considered having children and you had long since come to the conclusion that these small hiccups are a small price to pay when in pursuit of fulfilling ones biological destiny.
Alas some time near the end of your first trimester you start to realize that when mankind was ordered to go forth and multiply, nobody stopped to negotiate the terms by which this frolicking fornication would take place.
And now you are stuck to bare the repercussion of gross non disclosure.
The ugly truth, that at some point you are going to stop and say “oh my god what have I done” is shrouded is impenetrable darkness and secrecy.
You were never told that you will go through a phase of morning for your now dead and gone social life or that you will silently wonder if you’ll love your baby enough to accept that you are now a frauw.
While you may only have wallowed in this self loathing cesspool of insanity for a short while you will feel the guilt of it for weeks or at least until you find a way to redeem your soul.
None of the magazines that you have suddenly taken to reading ever tell you that despite the endless crooning and attention you receive from every person you know, including those you thought you weren’t speaking to, you will on some level feel very alone.
The prospect of childbirth looms in your future as possibly the most terrifying thing you have ever faced and your body is doing all sorts of strange things. And while the daddy-to-be is aware of these life altering changes it is all a rather inconsequential abstract to him and you know it. He doesn’t grasp the full weight of what is happening to you and he was never designed to.
Someone should truly write a book about pregnancy definitions so that prospective preggies would know that the direct translation of “Morning sickness” is “all day, all night sickness that feels like your stomach lining is clawing its way up your thought” or that food aversions means that you will be averted to food in general, that you will constantly feel overeaten and even the slightest thought of anything creamy will make you want to vomit in your mouth.
The list of pregnancy symptoms should be revised to include;
-Farts so powerful it makes the nuclear holocaust look like a low adrenalin getaway.
-Feeling lethargic should be more adequately explained and an unparalleled exhaustion the likes of which are only rivaled by death itself.
- Your body is running at the same temperature Hitler once used to burn Jews at and yet you’re still feeling cold
-Back ache Back ache back ache!!!!!
And for crying in a bucket could somebody please for all the love in the world start making maternity wear that does not resemble a badly stitched circus tent from the 1800’s
Your going to want to kill him about a baby name and the nursery color scheme and he’s going to write your rage off to pregnancy mood swings, instead of your dream of the perfect kid with the perfect name being ruined by his utter inability to sit down shut-up and agree with you.
Any moment he spends lying on the couch will be seen as a direct reflection of his willingness to help out when the baby arrives and you will consider feeding him to your pets to spare yourself the aggravation.
You will feel the slight urge to impale the next person who uses their experience with babies thirteen years ago as a platform to tell you what to do and you will cringe every time some random person completely molests the principal of personal space to rub your tummy.
People who tell you that your glowing put themselves in serious danger of having their eyeballs donated to someone more likely to put them to actually use them and you are quite sure you’ll pass out at the sight of another pink polka dot.
And the truth is that you will feel terribly sorry for yourself much of the time while working incredibly hard to hide the feeling from other people because you too now prescribe to the pregnancy pact of “shut up and deal with it”
However all this considered it is kind of nice to know that you have hundreds of people who are all of a sudden incredibly concerned with your wellbeing.
It’s refreshing when daddy brings home take out when you don’t want to cook. Its great to know that my little sister is wishing my pregnancy over with as much impatience as I am because she cant wait to be an aunty.
Its also kina cool to sit back and remind yourself that you are getting closer to the end every day and that soon you get to be one of those wiser woman
hello
Today I start by apologizing for my long absence from this blog sighting the joys of pregnancy as my water tight reason for slothly behavior.
It just so happens that in the past few days I have been given ample reason to argue that pregnancy is by no means a wonderful experience nor do pregnant woman glow. And whomever said so has either not been pregnant or was smoking tik when they were.
No I don’t glow instead my complexion has taken on the depressing shade of partly putty and my temper is no less flexible for it.
I am tired all the time, my morning sickness seems to be of a rather ambitious strain that, despite my futile doses of crackers, aims to stick around all damn day.
My boobs are “stripper quality” huge and feel like they are back in puberty and to top it all of the pregnancy gods have deemed it so that I start to develop headaches as well.
Anyway…
Its seems that the orah of excitement surrounding the pregnancy has subsided somewhat and things are getting back to normal (except for the fact that I feel like kak all the time).
Eugene is still in worry overdrive and I am convinced that somewhere in the deep reaches of his PC he keeps a spreadsheet documenting my diet, vitamin frequency, sleep patterns, urination frequency and the like.
He also walks around warning people not to get on my nerves as my current condition fuels my already combustible temper to the point where I will gladly relieve your neck of the weight of your thick head. While this is a complete exaggeration I have not stopped him as I rather enjoy the valid excuse to walk around constantly cursing.
Tomorrow we are at eight weeks approximately and above are great pictures of what the Thingy looks like at this point
7 weeks David Nel
As of today I am seven weeks pregnant and as I say this with pride at having made it through another week without incident I am prompted to reflect on my pre-preggie days and my utter disgust at being told the term of a woman’s pregnancy in weeks.
In my stream lined perfect universe a woman was 2months pregnant or 4 months pregnant and not 8weeks or 16 weeks pregnant.
The labor of dividing weeks to illustrate months was by no means the highlight of watching other woman expand to the size of small countries and it did not take me long before I stopped asking that dumb “how far along are you question” all together.
However Pregnancy itself has a way of buggering up such streamlined perfect universes as mine and now in my own pregnant state I find myself inclined to the same horrible habit.
I also find that it is a habit born out of the fact that finding out you are pregnant is the best day of your life regardless of whether you expected the news or not, and
as soon as the euphoria starts to ware off, you realize exactly how long nine months is and that placing waypoints 30 days apart is cruel and unusual punishment for any expectant mother (or father for that matter).
Yes its called expectant for a reason and the fact it that marking your progress by weeks instead of months helps to calm the excitement that’s burning a hole in the back of your scull.
Yes Ladies, Gentleman, Grannies, Granddads, Great Grannies, Great Granddads, Aunties, Uncles Cuzons, Great Cuzons, and cuzons once removed.
I am at the front door of my seventh week and due to my regular consumption of nutritious low fat low taste meals have not picked up any weight, a fact that I am sure my mother will be proud of.
Don’t get me wrong I am by no means becoming a fan of the new “prego-rexia” movement. The fact is that since I only ate one meal a day before my pregnancy and have now increased that number to five I am doing exactly the opposite. A practice that, while providing the thingy with its daily dose of grub is speeding up my metabolism and while I am not picking up weight I may be slowly losing it.
I have also started to substitute my abnormally large intake of cheap coffee with moderate doses of earl grey tea.
I realize that tea also contains caffeine but after all the bad habits I have given up so far asking me to completely cut out caffeine would be the equivalent of asking me to flay the skin of my face.
IT AINT GONNA HAPPEN.
Sorry Thingy, Mommy’s no saint.
I drink more water and under Eugene’s unflinching vigilance take a multi- vitamin twice a day that makes my pee turn tennis ball yellow.
As far as the baby is concerned, Thingy is not lacking in news by any stretch of the imagination.
During this week Thingy should develop elbows and slowly but surely fingers that will, I’m sure, be sporting a Parker solute in no time.
Thingy is also busy growing feet, intestines and teeth this week and will be limiting the size of his head to a manageable size in accordance to our very long conversation about the limitations of mommy vjayjay.
Eugene and I have discussed the matter and decided that since Thingy will be taking his surname and thereby continuing Eugene and his father‘s endangered lineage I am entitled to name the baby after my father. Presuming we have a boy.
So if it’s a boy Thingy he will be named David Nel.
And I am hoping for a big mop of curly black hair.
Sobering Pregnant Lady Rant
The reason I stopped blogging was because I was finding it increasingly difficult to write. I argued that it was lack of reference material as apposed to skill that was so sorely lacking in my writing.
I promised myself that I would recommit myself to the failing cause as soon as I found a subject worthy of my genius.
Thus, upon discovering that I, a more unlikely creature than a hobbit, am expecting a baby, I took a duster to my key board and took another stab at changing the world (or at least those whose social lives have trickled down to an insignificance that warrants the reading of my profound bull shit).
After all pregnancy is a writers dream a single subject containing life changing revolutions, health and well being, romance, Violence (I hear mood swings can get pretty big), Hippopotami and boobs.
It’s a love story, its family drama, it’s a comedy and come the third trimester has great potential for an action ending.
Blast to hell were my rose colored idealisms when I discovered that while the big picture may present itself as a Pulitzer prize winner to the outsider the truth is that journaling a pregnancy is as boring as an oven glove.
There are only so many paragraphs one can write on the increasing pain and size of my boobs or the fact that pure exhaustion is slowly but surely strengthening my believe that woman have been badly done by in the great scheme of things.
Naturally I could resort regurgitating facts or taking the “pregnancy Magazine” approach to the situation and shovel some unsubstantiated rubbish that pregnancy and childbirth is the most wonderfully fulfilling experience.
The fact is that there is nothing fulfilling about feeling like you are permanently hung over or about trying to squeeze your incredibly tender boobs into a C cup that is as of two weeks ago a cup size to small.
No ladies and gentlemen its scary, It might even be funny at times but I assure you “wonderfully fulfilling” are not the adjectives I would have used.
Sobering…. Yes that’s it… Sobering would have been my choice description. A child takes all of three seconds to make you realize that your life up to now pales into insignificance in light of what you now face.
To remind you that no matter how old or stubborn you get you always need your mom.
That family are genetically programmed to love you the most when you desperately need it.
That people still have the ability to surprise me no matter how cynical I am.
And that contrary to my believe Eugene can manage excitement about an event that did not happen in strict accordance to his very well mapped out plan.
On Saturday right after my incessant complaining that my lack of morning sickness is fueling my neurosis Morning sickness pitched up and kicked me in the head.
I spent the whole afternoon feeling like I had endured a week in the company of a very unsympathetic tequila worm.
Eugene had a good giggle at me and proceeded to make it his personal mission to ensure that I get my nutrients despite my protesting digestive system.
Luckily the morning sickness dissipated at around 11pm that night and has as yet not resurfaced.
I intend to loge a formal complaint in the form of a very snotty letter with whom so ever is responsible for naming it morning sickness. This is clearly gross misrepresentation and I object.
I spent much of Sunday putting up the pretence that I am a normal human being and not a slowly inflating atomic incubator, all in the interest of our guest Louis.
I doubt that I was a very convincing and a diagnosis of my poor performance has prompted me to the decision that the next time I am temped to trade under a guise I should chose a subject I know more about and never attach the word “Normal” to its description.
I also made a phone call to the Cape Town Parker sect to share the happy news that my grandparents are to become great grand parents for the second time.
Gran cried as was expected of her.
It also just occurred to me that their first great grand child (the Australian born Tanner) was also born in September.
Either way the cape town branch are incredibly happy which makes us happy.
On another Note Eugene and I have deducted that given both our above average intelligence and exceptional genes, our child is guaranteed to be the most intelligent and good looking creature to ever be born into this world and is destined for world domination.
Hehehehehehe.
Things that I have learnt today
Babies need a lot of stuff. I mean really really a lot of stuff
Dear Little-tadpole-looking-thingy
Dear Little Tadpole-Looking-Fetus-Thingy
My name is Leanne but you can just call me Mommy. I’m the squishy wet stuff all around you, the drumming noise you can hear, that’s my heart and it’s all yours.
You surprised us my little thingy, we didn’t know you were there, but now that we do we wouldn’t have it any other way.
We admit that you weren’t expected but we will never deny how much you are wanted.
You’ve turned your Daddy into a real goofy dope, your arrival in our lives has rendered him comatose. He wonders around with a funny grin on he’s face and glassy eyes as he imagines little baby feet with little baby toes and a little baby nose.
He kisses you good morning every day and rubs my tummy at night, you’re his be it all and end it all and your not even a cm long.
I can’t wait for you to meet him.
I’m sorry if I’m getting some things wrong, you’re my first thingy and I don’t know much about you. But don’t worry I’m reading a lot and soon I should get it all right.
By now you should have noticed that the food has gotten better and I have fixed the air conditioning, soon you’ll have more space too and you and I can sort the rest out as we go along.
For now all you need to do is thingy stuff like grow and float and cause mommies boobs to hurt. Daddy and I will be out here getting the world ready for your arrival.
Lots of love
Mommy and Daddy
Does it all come with the bump?
I have read every baby magazine I could get my grubby little paws. I read glossy page after glossy page of mommies saying what a miracle it is to be pregnant and how wonderful it feels to know there’s a life growing inside you.
Unfortunately after my week long crash course in babies my stress levels have spiked not declined.
Despite the fact that I have stopped smoking and people now refrain from making loud noises and sudden movements around me. I only feel more and more stressed.
I feel stressed because stressed is all that I feel.
I have come to terms with the fact that I am going to become a mom and am to say the very least psyched about it, but I don’t feel pregnant.
Yes I know its an abstract term in essence and I have pondered the exact definition of it myself and while I have yet to come up with anything conclusive I am sure that feeling pregnant must feel different.
And I don’t feel different.
Apart from having a conscious motivation to eat more regularly, take my vitamins and quit my bad habits I feel the same.
And feeling normal has never been this uncomfortable before.
Apart from the intangible, abstract and perhaps idealistic feelings that I should be feeling I am also not displaying any of the more medical accurate symptoms.
I don’t have morning sickness
I don’t have food aversions (other than my aversion to the time consuming practice of eating more than once a day)
I don’t feel more tired than usual (Okay that a lie, I do but that’s only because I haven’t been sleeping lately because I was on the wrong side of the bed)
My sense of smell is only more acute because I’v quit smoking and the frequency of my bathroom visits is by no means an accurate benchmark as I have always had a bladder the size of an atom.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Yes I realize that all you more experienced woman are rolling your eyes at me ready to pick up the phone and remind me that I’m only six weeks along and all this will come.
And you don’t need to, I know that logically you are right, but the fact is that I am petrified that I am going to have that blood test done and the docs gonna tell me I’m not pregnant.
That I’m gonna have to go home and tell Eugene that that baby that he’s been kissing and talking to and bragging about never existed.
Drizel said that she only started to feel anything at 12 weeks and tomorrow when I have the blood work done (a prospect that in itself could reduce my towering confidence to rubble) I’m going to hanging on to that for dear life
Murphy mamma
Last month I said to the ladies at work that God was by no means an engineer, no engineer would have designed anything as dismally flawed in design and practicality as giving birth, personally I put it right up there with the platypus as prove that God has a sick sense of humor.
None of these ladies thought that was funny and have since taken to beating me with their handbags in the hallways.
I also recall saying that I will only have children when man kind finds a way to skip the stinky sleepy bitchy baby bit and go right to cute amusing toddler.
Then I made the cardinal mistake of saying dumb shit like, “my kids will never” and “I will never be one of those baby obsessed woman”
I had challenged the two most powerful woman in the universe and was about to get brought back down to earth forthwith and with speed.
Sometime in December, under the mask of silly season frivolity, God and Murphy met to negotiated a formidable alliance with one single goal in mind.
One that no single being whether mortal, immortal or ethereal has ever succeeded in, a feet so unreachable that it would take careful timing and two of the most certain laws in the universe in perfect sync to accomplish.
By the beginning of January the was over and I had been shut up (all be it momentarily)
And while I refuse to revise the statements that got me into trouble I will say this.
While god may not be an engineer, I am quite convinced that she is a baker as the human incubation process is one even I marvel at.
And there is a possibility all be it small that I may become slightly concerned with babies.
However I would like to qualify that this is only because I find myself in the dark regarding the current state my body and I are in.
Naturally I did what any self respecting idiot would do and googled it.
Yes my browser has been working overtime and I have visited and read every baby site the net has to offer, problem is I still feel like and idiot because all of them tell you that no matter how much you prepare or how much you know you’ll never be ready.
This then begs the question “why the hell bother to write this crap then?”
This being said I do admit that I have learnt a thing or two.
The first being that how far along you is not calculated from the actual conception date but rather from the date of you last period making me 6 weeks pregnant as of yesterday.
I also found a calculator that estimates my due date at around the 7th of September this year and that according to the Chinese gender birth calendar I am expecting a boy.
I truly hope that some ancient Chinese mumbo-jumbo is more clairvoyant than my sister who is convinced that I am carrying a girl and is as we speak contemplating whether barby and hallo kitty are pink enough for my little girl.
Oupa Hilton seems very excited about having a baby to play with and for some reason I suspect that be it boy or girl it will be spoilt rotten.
None of these ladies thought that was funny and have since taken to beating me with their handbags in the hallways.
I also recall saying that I will only have children when man kind finds a way to skip the stinky sleepy bitchy baby bit and go right to cute amusing toddler.
Then I made the cardinal mistake of saying dumb shit like, “my kids will never” and “I will never be one of those baby obsessed woman”
I had challenged the two most powerful woman in the universe and was about to get brought back down to earth forthwith and with speed.
Sometime in December, under the mask of silly season frivolity, God and Murphy met to negotiated a formidable alliance with one single goal in mind.
One that no single being whether mortal, immortal or ethereal has ever succeeded in, a feet so unreachable that it would take careful timing and two of the most certain laws in the universe in perfect sync to accomplish.
By the beginning of January the was over and I had been shut up (all be it momentarily)
And while I refuse to revise the statements that got me into trouble I will say this.
While god may not be an engineer, I am quite convinced that she is a baker as the human incubation process is one even I marvel at.
And there is a possibility all be it small that I may become slightly concerned with babies.
However I would like to qualify that this is only because I find myself in the dark regarding the current state my body and I are in.
Naturally I did what any self respecting idiot would do and googled it.
Yes my browser has been working overtime and I have visited and read every baby site the net has to offer, problem is I still feel like and idiot because all of them tell you that no matter how much you prepare or how much you know you’ll never be ready.
This then begs the question “why the hell bother to write this crap then?”
This being said I do admit that I have learnt a thing or two.
The first being that how far along you is not calculated from the actual conception date but rather from the date of you last period making me 6 weeks pregnant as of yesterday.
I also found a calculator that estimates my due date at around the 7th of September this year and that according to the Chinese gender birth calendar I am expecting a boy.
I truly hope that some ancient Chinese mumbo-jumbo is more clairvoyant than my sister who is convinced that I am carrying a girl and is as we speak contemplating whether barby and hallo kitty are pink enough for my little girl.
Oupa Hilton seems very excited about having a baby to play with and for some reason I suspect that be it boy or girl it will be spoilt rotten.
