baby stories

According to the doctor, I'm 4 days away from my second trimester. 

It is at monumental times like these that we must pause, yes folks, pause and ask ourselves the ultimate 

questions in life. The questions we ignore. The questions that change us. The questions above all other 

questions, the questions that resonate deep in the soul of a being and rock the core of our human 

capacity and understanding. 

Questions like "So..yeah, how was that?"  

It was fine.

...I'm practicing becoming a great orator and you have to start somewhere.

Anyway, when I was young and naive and believed that my grandfather really did wrestle alligators at

Myrtle Beach in the summer months, I didn't put much stock in the whole idea of pregnancy being as

weird or different as women say it is.

 Full disclosure..I don't think I ever had even the most fleeting thought about pregnancy.

 I was nine, gosh, don't be weird. 

      But now that I'm not nine anymore, and a few more significant physiological changes have taken

place  those long-lost words have started creeping back into my cognitive field of vision.


Baby shower horror stories resurface in vivid detail.


It is a universal truth that any place you gather a group of women who have gone through the trauma

of child-bearing, you will have the reproductive equivalent of the worst wisdom-tooth extraction stories

you can imagine.

Everyone has a story, typically one per child...you do the math. Everyone comes out on the other end

with an experience that - due to dark traditions established by our long deceased matriarchs - must be

shared. in. detail.

These stories...these horrific, awful stories about months of hideous sickness, post-birth deflated

abdominal muscles, heartburn (and subsequent reassurances that your child will have a head full of hair

if you feel like your chest is an inferno), skin splotches, thinning hair, baggy eyes and vomit...always

vomit, are for your own good.

If they happen to scare the crap out of you in the process, you just need to ask yourself a question...

"Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?

Because you might be. 

You just might be blessed.

You might not come out of your first trimester looking like a creature worthy of roaming the pages of a

Mary Shelley story.

I wasn't sick long enough to complain about it, blip on the radar really. I was tired but the bags under

my eyes were already present and accounted for so I can't complain there either. My first trimester

experience has been....easy, if not exactly what I would call "fun".


You know what has been fun? Sleep. I've enjoyed that.


So hey, I'm just here to tell you, you might be fortunate enough to have a less than horrific first

trimester. Maybe. And if you aren't, well then, consider yourself initiated! I will happily sit and listen to

your horror stories at the next baby shower since I've been blessed enough to not have any thus

far - thank the good Lord.

Really though, I am good at legitimate empathizing right now. I'll probably cry...I wish I was kidding.

I will cry with you, anytime.

My closing thoughts (that's part of a good oration, right?)

- Eating often helped me. Beating a dead horse there, but really it does.

- Eating clean helped me. Except when vegetables were nauseating. Then it didn't help.

- Exercise helped me. Nothing crazy, but staying active did a lot for my mentality.  

- I had to put myself away a few times. Go in my room and close my door and sit in my ever present

pile of laundry and then either cry or fall asleep. Sometimes both. Funny how the amount of tears in a

household increases before the baby ever makes his or her grand appearance... speaking of which...I'm

really looking forward to figuring out if I have a him or a her on the way...

Hims and hers required lots of different things.

Cool grammar.


Love,

Rae


p.s. This post in no way discredits the struggles or heartaches that go along with difficult pregnancies, 

there's a reason so many women have stories to tell and I believe that if we're being honest, they've 

earned the right to tell them any time they please when it comes down to it...That's all.