A Brief History of Pregnancy

To put it bluntly: 

Pregnancy is bullshit.

Now in the eighth month of my second - and, trust me, final - pregnancy, I have come to the conclusion that this is the type of painful oppression that could only have been invented by some rich, land-owning, white Christian MEN during the Victorian era.

Image: Public Domain

Men: Grumble, grumble, these women these days and whatnot, grumble grumble.

Buford: Hey. What are we going to do about these women? I mean, they're nice to look at and all, but we need to come up with more ways to keep them as immobile and uncomfortable as possible, before they start wanting to vote and drink in pubs and stuff.

Orville: The other day my wife expressed an opinion! About politics! Where does it end, brothers? WHERE DOES IT END?

Silas: My daughter wants to be a doctor when she grows up. How am I supposed to feel like a man in my own home when faced with that sort of perversion?

Merrill: My maid wants a living wage. How...I...what....I don't even...

Orville: Shhh, there, there.

Buford: Calm down, dudes. Like I said, what can be done about this?

Orville: What if we cut off their feet? Like, at birth? We just cut off all baby girls' feet.

Buford: I like where you're going with this, but let's hear some other ideas.

Silas: We could just drown all baby girls. 


Buford: No, no. We like our women. Without them we'd have to cook our own meals, and I'm not having that.


Merrill: What if we make them carry the babies before they are born? You know, those babies that just appear out of nowhere? We can make women do that part. Not for, like, ever, but less than a year. Say, nine months or so.


Buford: I like it. I like it a lot.


Orville: Ok, but we have to make it really uncomfortable. Like, painfully so. With bloating, and gas, and cramping, and stretching, and back pain, and insomnia. Not enough to kill them, but enough to keep them away from our humidors and brandy snifters.


Silas: And if they complain, we'll tell them they are being unwomanly, and that everything they do is bad for the baby. If they move around too much, it's bad for the baby. If they don't move enough, it's bad for the baby. If they eat too much, it's bad for the baby, but if they don't eat enough it's also bad for the baby. And if they think mean things about the pregnancy, or us, or anything at all ever, that is the absolute WORST thing for the baby, and may destroy mankind as we know it.


Buford: So, gestating babies it is, fellas?


Orville, Silas and Merrill: Yes!


...I may have made this up.

Taking Care of Babies

A lot of people assume that being pregnant while already taking care of a preschooler must be stressful.

And it is. But it's not nearly as stressful as being pregnant while working a pink collar administrative job for a bunch of grown-up babies.

Here are some differences I've noticed, between my first pregnancy with the Juban Princeling, and this one.


When the Princeling, who is now three, asks the same question 15 times in a row, I get only mildly annoyed. The way you do when the car door doesn't shut all the way on the first try, so you have to open it and slam it again. I know that repetition and consistency are part of a little guy's emotional and cognitive development, and that gives me more patience than I realized I had in me.


When the eight adults I supported at my job asked me the same question 15 times in a row, I wanted to stab them in the eyeballs with a plastic spork from the office kitchen. Apparently, the higher up in the company you are, the harder it is to understand the very complicated and multi-step process of printing an email. (Husband: "Why does anyone need to print an email?" Me: "I DON'T FUCKING KNOW.") I know that some people get Ph.Ds in email printing, and that the great minds of the 21st century have written dozens of books on the topic, and, like 19th century German philosophy it seems like one of those arcane things that no one really understands, but after I show you how to do it five or six times, a healthy, functioning adult should really be able to click on the little printer icon by him or herself.


If I'm writing, or reading, while home alone with the Princeling - yes, sometimes I do things other than devote 100% of my attention to him 100% of the time he is awake, OMG CALL THE PARENTING POLICE!!1!!! - and he comes up to me and asks, nicely, if I want to play with him, about 9 times out of 10 I will close my book or my computer and play with him. Because he's three, and there will be a baby in the house soon, a baby I can't close and put away, and because my son is so goddamn cute and sweet I just want to fucking eat him up, and when he holds his toy cars out to me and says, "Mommy, do you want to play with me?" it would take a cold, hard person indeed to say no. And also, all through my pregnancy he has taken good care of me, finding ways to work around my limitations so we can still play together, and that just breaks my heart, and I want to scoop him up and snuggle him and tell the rest of the world to fuck off.

When the eight adults I supported at my job interrupted me, it was generally, a)while I was working on an actual work project for work; and b)so I could drop everything and do personal work for them, like book their family ski vacation or send flowers to their wives or track down the $100 ear phones they left on a plane. (Me: "If these ear phones are so important to you, why'd you leave them on a plane?" Boss: "That's not the point. Just find them.") So then I've got one boss asking me if I've booked a babysitter yet for his teenage children for their trip to Aspen, and another boss asking me where he should take a client to lunch, and another asking me which is the best hotel for a girls' weekend in Vegas, and another telling me if her sister calls to say she's on her way, and another demanding to know why this work-related project isn't finished yet. And then there's me, ending up on bed rest a few weeks before my due date.

The Princeling naps for 2 1/2 hours every afternoon, allowing me some quiet downtime in which to write, or take a nap, or watch reruns of AbFab while eating Double-Stuf Oreos and texting my gay husband Patsy.

At my old job I had to eat lunch at my desk because I was responsible for answering 12 phone lines: my eight bosses, plus the main line, plus backup for the three partners. And without fail, every day, at least one person in the office would walk by and snark on what was eating, because, you know, it's totally other people's business if I'm eating penne pasta and a Coke while pregnant. (Actual comment: "I'm a little scared of that drink on your desk.")


So...yeah. Is it an ideal situation taking care of an active, imaginative, and attention-demanding 3-year old when I'd rather be spending my days in a warm bath so I don't feel the strain of my enormous belly? No. But it beats the crap out of ego-stroking, up-managing, and priority-juggling eight grown-up babies, who, in real life are actually nice people, but at work become non-functional.


Besides. The Princeling is hella cuter than all of them combined.

Pregnancy Cliche Bingo

This week I made an executive decision for myself to stop trying to finagle into maternity jeans and just wear yoga pants or sweat pants for the remaining three months of my pregnancy.

And no, I'm not looking for "helpful" suggestions or advice, thanks. Let's just pretend like you already told me what worked for you, and I tried it, and it did not work for me.

At some point the battle to remain even remotely stylish got lost in the shuffle. Actually, no, I know exactly where the battle was lost: last weekend at the New York Botanical Garden Holiday Train Show. What should have been a fun, festive family activity turned into a craptastic, disappointing waste of time. I'm sure the Train Show is fine for normal families, but my son, the Juban Princeling - who loves trains the way I love cheese, that is, he's never met one he didn't like and will take them in any and all forms they come in - was on Day 3 of what turned into a 4-day nuclear meltdown. Even taking two subways, including his new favorite, the "Orange Compress" (express) to get there did not help, especially when he reached out and accidentally shoved a train off the tracks and my husband and I went all psychotic modern parent on him: carefully looking around, self-consciously reprimanding him and wondering if people thought we were being too harsh or too gentle. 

Meanwhile, we shoved our way through the crowd of half-dazed parents holding piles of coats and restless, overexcited little kids, in a hot and humid conservatory. 


Maternity jeans are not designed to last forever, and mine were already so stretched out they kept falling down. At the same time, the "Secret Belly" band pulled on my belly - I'm carrying high this time around - and irritated the skin and caused what I'm sure is massive internal bruising.


So there, somewhere in the middle of the New York Botanical Gardens Annual Holiday Train Show, amongst throngs and throngs of parents and children, I lifted my shirt and yanked my jeans up while simultaneously stretching the band away from my poor, battered, six-month belly. 


I'm not generally one of those people who gets embarrassed easily - behold the photo I let my best friend Tia take of me in Miami a couple of weeks ago - and pregnancy demolishes whatever shame I have left. I'm sorry, world, but you are going to have to put up with my desire to be comfortable for three more months BY WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY and then I promise never to gestate again, ever. 

No, you would not be the first to make a joke
about me and my love of Cuban c... roosters.
Not shown: the epic amounts of pain I'm in.

A few days later I sat in a run-down Quest Diagnostic office for an hour and a half, starving from fasting for my glucose tolerance test, with the radiator cranked up to "Hellfire," and The Today Show blasting at top volume into my ears against their will, feeling sorry for myself but wearing highly stylish maternity jeans. This time I opted for a pair with a low, supportive band that worked fine when I was standing up, but rolled down and squashed me and The Fetus whenever I sat down. Which was a lot. The Fetus and I had this conversation about it in my mind:

Fetus: Ow! What IS that?
Me: It's part of my jeans. Sorry.
Fetus: Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!
Me: I can't.
Fetus: Fuck you. *kick* 
Me: I know it's uncomfortable, but it's only for a little while longer. Please just hang in there.
Fetus: Fuck you, and fuck Kathy Lee Gifford. *punch kick jab* Also, I'm hungry. *kick kick punch elbow*
Me: *cry*


Screw fashion. Screw style. Screw the world. I am going to be comfortable for the next three months and everyone who looks at me will just have to deal with it. I dragged the Juban Princeling to Motherhood Maternity at rush hour on a Friday and bought myself some righteous black velor sweatpants, and ordered a pair of grey velor sweatpants.


I don't care if I don't have anything that goes with them.


I don't care if I look like a Real Housewife of Long Island in them.


I don't care if they are already covered in lint.


I don't care that they don't quite work with my winter boots.


What I care about is that they are comfortable and don't hurt my baby belly. Even if Barack and Michelle came over for dinner, I'd probably wear the velor sweatpants. Michelle's had two babies, she would totally understand and be all, "If anyone can rock velor sweatpants, it's you, Mer." And then we would fist bump in sisterhood and be BFFs.


So deal with it, world.


And, as I told my brother Mr. Funny, for those of you playing Pregnancy Cliche Bingo at home, here's another square to mark.

...don't say anything at all

This being my second go-round on the Pregnancy Carousel of Suck, I am well aware of the fact that my baby bump tends to make other people stupid. 

Oh, it makes me forgetful. Lately I've taken to a sort of Tara Gregson approach to what is commonly called "Pregnancy Brain." Like this:

Husband: "What's that actor's name?"
Me: "Oh, man. Non-Pregnant Meredith knows this off the top of her head. I'm going to have to look it up."

or

Form at the doctor's office: "Name:"
Me: *pulling out my driver's license*

The other day at the supermarket I meant to grab two containers of orange juice, and the next thing I knew I was standing by our shopping cart, checking to see if I had put one of them in there yet. Turns out I had only grabbed one, but the point is half a second after I would have put an oj into my cart I forgot whether or not I had done so.

While that's not nearly as bad as "How I Met Your Mother" would have us believe when earlier this season Lily gave a stapler and a bottle of wine to some trick-or-treaters, it's still not fun, especially when you usually have a mind like a steel trap. Steel! Trap! WHAT???

But, you know, at least I have the excuse of being pregnant to explain away my forgetfulness. Hormones, building a person from scratch, not being able to get comfortable when I sleep, waking several times a night to pee - none of that is good for the ol' noggin. 

Know who does not have an excuse for being stupid? Other people. Especially other (non-adoptive) mothers. You'd think that, of anyone on the entire planet, other women who have gone through the whole pregnancy rigormorale would be a little more careful about what comes out of their mouths, but they aren't. They're pretty dumb.

First, there were the several women who told me how much better sons are than daughters during my first pregnancy. Around that same time I wore a pink t-shirt one day to work and a cashier at the drugstore commented, "Oh, are you having a girl?" Because I guess failure to create another uterus inside your own bans you from the color pink forever.


Then there was my former building super, who told me over and over how his wife walked for miles every day during her pregnancies and both her labors were, like, minutes long, because as we all know, walking is the one and only key to a quick and painless labor.

A pregnant friend of mine today informed me that she told a co-worker how she now goes to bed at 9pm, to which the co-worker responded with, "You need to get a hobby!" Because if there's one thing pregnant women are, it's bored, especially when you work and already have a 2 1/2-year old.

Today I treated myself to a pre-Holiday haircut and eyebrow shaping because even feminists sometimes like to look like pretty ladies, and the woman waxing my brows - who has four grown sons of her own - said to me, "Wow, you're only about a month away, aren't you?" 

Now, my reply: "Actually, I have another four months to go," would normally embarrass and silence most people. Most people would blush and apologize, but not my brow waxer! She continued, "Wow, you're really big!"

I had no witty retort to that, so I just sort of shrugged and said, "Yeah, I'm carrying really high."

Which I am. I'm carrying so high that the baby may well come out of my rib cage ala John Hurt in "Alien," unlike my last son, whom I carried so low that by the end I had to hold him in with my knees locked together, afraid that a hard sneeze or laugh would send him shooting across the room.

So, I'm carrying high this time, but I still don't think I'm carrying particularly BIG, you know? And it certainly isn't the job of anyone else to comment on my size.


Which...bothered me, at first. As a feminist, I make a conscious effort not to fat-shame myself, which is why I can happily report that I am writing this while eating an entire pack of Twizzlers. But if I'm not feeling fat-shamed for that woman's comment, then why did it bother me so? And the answer came to me a while later: because pregnancy, like so much else concerning women's bodies, is considered public domain. Total strangers feel the need to comment upon mine, like the bartender at the Japanese restaurant my husband and I went to (DON'T WORRY, PREGNANCY POLICE, I DID NOT EAT SUSHI!), who asked me, "You're going to breastfeed, right?" while going through the motions of honking his non-existent breast. 


Because ultimately, strangers commenting on whether I look big or small is really their way of commenting on whether they think my unborn child is healthy or not, on whether I'm taking care of myself - and, more importantly, my fetus - or not. I would like to think that it's heartwarming to see such an outpouring of community concern for the well-being of the unborn next generation, but I doubt these strangers are coming from an "It Takes a Village" place. More likely they are coming from a place of judgment, something almost every mother is familiar with. Mothers are a favorite whipping-girl of our society, starting with the nanosecond our baby bumps become obvious.


For those of you who need a take-away from all of this, here is a list of perfectly nice, acceptable, non-judgey things you can say to a pregnant woman:

"You look beautiful!"


"Here's a bottle of Macallan 18-year old Scotch* for when you pop that kid out!"


"Would you like a free foot massage at the expensive day spa nearby?"


"I hope labor and delivery go according to your birth plan!"


"That child is already so lucky to have you as a mother!"


"May your baby never get colic!"


"You're already doing an awesome job!"

"I've heard that chocolate in the womb helps babies develop higher IQs and love their mothers more!"

"May your child be the first gay Jewish-Cuban President of the United States!"

And, of course, there is what my husband tells me on a nearly daily basis: "You are one sexy pregger pants." He's a smart one, is that guy.






*I did not receive any compensation or requests to endorse Macallan Scotch Whisky for this statement, but if they read this and want to send me a free bottle anyway, for when I pop this kid out, I will not protest.

Dude!

The next little member of our family will be born with a penis. Which means I will be the mother of two boys. 

(Liberal disclaimer: should either or both of my children-born-with-penises feel more comfortable as girls, I will fully support them, and depending on how our financial investments go, we might even help pay for any operations they wish to have.)


While we did sort of want a daughter - and the ladies in my husband's family are practically donning widow's weeds for lack of a princess to dote upon - I have to admit to a few reasons why I'm happy we get to have two boys: 

(Liberal disclaimer: a lot of these are non-politically correct on purpose for the sake of humor.)
  

• I will never have to defend letting her play with Disney Princesses
• No crying tantrums when she wakes up with her hair in a knotted, tangled mess
• My husband doesn't have to reverse his stance on gun ownership for her dating years
• I get to retain my title as Queen of the Household
• No one in this house will ever steal my tampons
• Three words we can all happily live without: Teenage Girl PMS
• The uppance for my 14-year old obsession with New Kids on the Block will now never come
• I never have to take anyone shopping for a training bra
• I've just DOUBLED my chances of having a child of mine play for the Yankees
• My husband now has TWO strapping young men to pass on the near-extinct family name Lopez
• Boys love their mommies

The biggest downside right now? My husband and I can only agree on one boy's name, and we already used it for our first son. 


The second biggest downside? Now I won't get the Skywalker Family costume I've always wanted to do. Maybe that's the biggest downside, actually. 

"Oh, woe is me!"

During my last pregnancy, when people asked if I was having a boy or a girl and I'd tell them, I got the dumbest reactions. 

Pregnancy is generally a time when everyone but the pregnant woman says asinine things. I think that preggos should be allowed to punch people. Or taser them. Whether strangers in elevators told me I looked like I was "about to give birth" (at 7 months along) or co-workers shouted, "Waddle waddle waddle!" as I waddled by, what on earth makes people think it's OK to say these things to a pregnant lady? 


But the worst reactions of all came in response to my declaration that we were having a boy. OTHER MOTHERS would tell me, "Oh, good. I mean, I love my daughters, but boys are better."


Yes, someone actually said that to me.

Possibly my own mother may have confirmed this statement, though I was high on post-natal hormones, sleep deprivation, and Percocet, and she now denies it.


Forget for a second that I am someone's daughter, and let's talk about how insensitive that remark is. What if we were having a girl? Would these women then gasp, clutch their pearls, and scream, "Oh dear god in heaven, someone help me get this poor girl-bearing woman to the nearest back alley abortionist!" I get that they were trying to be nice, but a simple, "Oh, how wonderful, boys are such a joy!" would have been fine. Really.

Do we really still live in a time when people prefer boys to girls? What is this, China? Do people really still believe that all girls all the time are always manipulative, evil, back-stabbing, overly dramatic creatures? Just because I was that way? 


As a feminist I did look forward to raising a strong-willed, outspoken, kick-ass young womym who would some day grow up to be the first Jewish-Cuban female President of the United States. 


Instead, I get to raise two strong-willed, outspoken, kick-ass young men who will become part of the solution and not part of the problem, will respect women as human beings, will follow their father's example and self-identify as feminist and LGBTQ allies, and will never ever ever leave me.


So let it be written. So let it be done.

My Happy Place

I am not coping well with the news lately. And honestly, I probably shouldn't be allowed to watch the news. Not in my delicate condition.

During my last pregnancy the entire economy crashed. At the time I worked at a high net worth wealth management firm (exactly what it sounds like), and pretty much every morning for a week in September 2008 we had "emergency" all-staff meetings that went like this:

"Well, Bank ABC has gone under, but please assure your clients that Banks DEF, GHI, and JKL are still fine and cannot possibly go under."

"Well, Bank DEF was just bought by bank GHI, but please assure your clients that Bank JKL is still fine."

"Well..."

"Um..."

"Oh, crap."

And so on.

I ended up on bed rest three weeks before my due date because one day at work I lost the abilities to speak and to see. Literally. The day my replacement came in to train for my maternity leave I sounded like a stroke victim and kept bumping into things. I didn't even think to call my doctor about it until my husband - who has no medical training - said that losing vision and speech is not normal in the 9th month of pregnancy. I was all ready to tell him what a nervous nelly he is, but the nurse on the phone sent me to the labor & delivery ER and the doctor told me to go home and stay there. That sure showed my stupid husband!

This time around there is no need to force myself to endure the slings and arrows of this cold, cruel world and endanger both myself and my fetus by doing stupid things like paying attention to the world outside my little life. Besides, there are natural disasters beyond my control happening here in New York, and the 10-year anniversary of September 11th just passed, which, even with my news-blackout I can't avoid because we LIVE in New York City and because I was here on September 11, 2001. And, my neighborhood is currently being terrorized by at least four would-be rapists, which I can't avoid even if I want to because I have to pass by the enormous NYPD double-wide parked on my route to my son's preschool.

So, some things I can't avoid, but most things I can. I've told my friends and family that from now until I am 6 months post-partum I do not want to hear about anything going on in the world unless it involves me directly, and not in a New Agey, hippie, Mother Earthy, "We are all part of the interconnectedness of Life and the Universe, and when a mosquito dies in Australia all our hearts die a little inside" kind of way. I mean a direct way, like, "Michelle Obama is hosting a dinner party and wants advice on a good budget wine from a fellow mom, so she needs your cell number, MEREDITH LOPEZ," kind of way.

That, I can handle.

Anything involving politics, the economy, natural disasters in places that are not New York City, wars in foreign countries, and so on, I cannot handle. For the sake of my baby, I'm not even going to try. I can't have booze to take the edge off, I'm no longer on anti-depressants, and every time I tear up it induces vomiting. I have zero release for my stresses, plus a 3-year old who thinks that I force him to nap as a way of ruining his life, a husband who works late most nights, and at least two pinched nerves in my back. And did I mention no booze, pills, or even crying to make myself feel better?

The other day when we had our friends and their kids over for a playdate, and the husband started talking politics with my husband, I just sort of spaced out and thought about this instead:






And really, what does the rest of the world need from a pregnant, tired, achey woman anyway? Do I control the world's economy? (Though, with the timing of my pregnancies, it looks like my womb might... I promise, no more kids after this, lest we all end up in bread lines again.) Can I avert natural disasters? (Answer: not yet, but give me time.) 


So, I'm on a news hiatus until well into 2012, at which time I am sure there will be world peace, no hunger or disease, and the economy will be fixed. Right?

Morning, Noon and Night

I am not one to suffer in silence. I am not one of these timid women who's always all, "No, no, I'm fine."

And I'm certainly not one of these mothers who thinks that suffering makes me a better mother.

It's not an equation, people. It's not:

Suffering = Good mother

I believe the opposite. Happy women make good mothers. That just makes sense. I figure, the less I have to suffer, the more functional my family will be.

As a quasi-Buddhist I am aware that suffering exists. We all suffer at various times in our lives, to greater or lesser degrees. And for me, pregnancy is one of the deepest forms of suffering I've ever experienced. And now I'm experiencing it a second time! On purpose! Someone please have me committed, because clearly I do not make healthy decisions when it comes to my own well-being.

Pregnancy sucks. It just does. I have few mom friends who will argue otherwise. My one friend who didn't suffer much during pregnancy gave birth to a shrieking banshee who never stopped screaming for her first year and a half. Oh sure, she's adorable and sweet now, but it wasn't always so. I figure that was just the Pregnancy Goddess's way of evening things out. Sure, I'll give you a smooth ride for nine months. But the eighteen after that will SUCK! BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Here are some stretch marks.

Actually, I don't know if my friend got stretch marks or not.

Morning sickness is a misnomer, because it doesn't only occur in the morning. For the past three weeks I've thrown up:
Upon getting out of bed
After taking my son, the Juban Princeling, to the indoor playspace at the YMCA
After doctor's appointments
After lunch
While doing dishes
Sitting on the couch watching TV
Before going out to dinner
While waiting for our friends to come over for the evening after our kids go to bed
After talking on the phone

And this is all while on medication! Not the baby-deforming medication an officer from the Pregnancy Police thinks I'm taking because she is confused and can't be bothered to do her research, but the same medication I took while pregnant with the Princeling three years ago, the one that's prescribed all the time for pregnant women with bad morning sickness and is perfectly safe and wonderful. And back then it worked! This time...less so. I can eat, at least. It's just that whatever I eat usually comes back to haunt me, ifyougetmydriftIthinkyoudo.

By the way, YES I HAVE TRIED EVERY SINGLE NATURAL REMEDY. If I have to drink ginger ale one more time, or eat another saltine, I will cut a bitch. So don't even mention those to me, or seasick wrist bands, or Vitamin B, or tea, or lemons, or sour candies, unless you want me to throw up on you.

My mother never had morning sickness, something I fully resent her for. Aren't daughters supposed to have pregnancies like their mothers?

When I was 3 1/2 and my mother was 8 months pregnant with my brother Mr. Funny, we were in the process of moving and Miami was under a hurricane warning. So my mother, in her condition and with a 3 1/2-year old to take care of by herself because my dad had to work, had to prepare not one, but two houses for Hurricane David. If I were her I would never ever let my children forget that, but she barely mentions it. I think it's safe to say that my mother is a far tougher woman than I, at least when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth.

Being sick to my stomach all the time during my last pregnancy was bad because I was working a full-time job I didn't much care for and the stress of it made me barf at the office. Thankfully my cubicle was near the ladies' room. I liked most of my co-workers, and most days were fine, but there were a few people who got under my skin. One time the mere sight of someone walking by my desk made me retch.

Because I was so sick during that time I was told by my doctor to eat whatever I could hold down, which for me meant a lot of junk food. When I gave birth I was surprised my placenta wasn't entirely Nutella. Just a big clump of Nutella with a Nutella umbilical cord connecting it to my baby, who somehow managed to be born covered in amniotic fluid and not Nutella.

But, at my job, we had low cubicle walls, and nosy people who felt perfectly all right in walking by my desk and making comments, out loud, about what I was consuming. Thank you, Pregnancy Police! I hope you all have hemorrhoids and crippling constipation now.

This time around my job is to take care of the Juban Princeling, which is both better and worse. Better, because at least he doesn't snark, "Wow, I hope your baby appreciates that root beer you're drinking right now WHEN HE GROWS UP TO BE A SERIAL KILLER," and because he's generally very sweet when I throw up. Once he even brought me his carsick bucket. Isn't that the cutest? But it's also worse because if I say, "Mommy doesn't feel well," he interprets that as, "I want to argue with you over what you are going to eat for lunch, and if I have to touch another dinosaur chicken nugget I will barf all over you." He also gives me no privacy, so if I want to lie down on my bed in misery there's a very good chance a pair of little feet and hands are going to follow me and kick me and tickle me until I give up.

So, upside, fewer officers of the Pregnancy Police hounding me, plus I'm surrounded by sympathetic friends who are most eager to swap pregnancy horror stories with me (which, strangely, makes me feel better). Downside, I always have a tiny shadow following me into the bathroom when I hurl and commenting on it: "Mommy throw up. You done, Mommy? I close toilet now. Get up, Mommy. You all better now."

Actually, that's one of the upsides.

Juban Princeling Photo of the Week: 7/23/11

My mother ordered the same book for the Princeling she used to read to me when she was pregnant with Mr. Funny:





I'm so old that the book has nurses listening to the fetal heartbeat with a stethoscope and the father isn't allowed into the delivery room. But I think the Princeling gets the gist of it: There's a baby a-comin', and things are gonna change, and he's going to feel lots of different things about it.

Happy Anniversary. Here's a Stupid Baby.

Recently, we all - and by "all" I mean me, my husband, our son the 2 1/2-year old Juban Princeling, and my brother Mr. Funny - flew down to Miami to celebrate my parents' 40th Anniversary with them.

And if you've been a regular reader of Grey Skies and you're now thinking to yourself, "Gee, Meredith sure flies down to Miami a lot to see her parents. She must really love doing that!" then you are an idiot. I do it because my parents want to see their grandson, not me, and they buy our tickets for us because they have a Zero Tolerance Policy when it comes to excuses why they are not able to see him. Every once in a while my mother calls me up and says, "Window, or aisle?" and I know I have another trip down there to look forward to. She's already bought our tickets for Thanksgiving. I kid you not. Travel between New York and Miami is a pain in the butt at best, but for the Holidays it turns into a circle of HELL. So naturally it makes sense for my parents - who are two grown, self-employed people - to stay there while four adults - three of whom have jobs they are not the bosses of - and a toddler go to them. At Thanksgiving. Kill me.

Anyway, we went down for my parents' 40th Anniversary, which is not the sort of thing you can get out of even if you have a really bad sore throat that the doctor has told you is not strep. No, you go down there because you love your parents and because Miami has Dairy Queen and New York does not.

And since Mr. Funny and my husband had to work on Friday I got to fly down with the Princeling all by myself. With a non-strep sore throat.

Know what's more fun than flying alone with a 2 1/2-year old while you're super sick?

Flying alone with a 2 1/2-year old while you're super sick AND PREGNANT.

The day before I left I peed on a stick, and whaddya know, there's a giant "+" sign letting me know that another little bundle of joy is shacking up in my womb for a while.

Instead of pluses or minuses, pregnancy tests should say "Whew!" with a photo of a martini glass, or "Oh, Sh*t!" That would be funny. Because although we planned this one - as well as the last one - pregnancy is just not my thing. More on that later.

So we get to Miami, and I've agreed to wait until my husband arrives the next day to tell my parents the blessed news, which means my father spent 24 hours pushing hardcore pain medications on me like he was a doctor from the 1950s. Because I assume all doctors in the 1950s pushed hardcore drugs, right? So, he's begging me - begging me - to take at least a Tylenol, and I'm like, "Just say no, Dad!" Because I grew up in the 80s and stupid Nancy Reagan is stuck in my head. But I can't tell him why I won't take drugs, so he keeps pushing and by the time I was ready to flush his bottle of Advil down the toilet he finally gave up. Or fell asleep. Whichever.

But my favorite part of the weekend was when one of my parents' friends made the comment, "What a great anniversary present!" As if my husband and I were sitting around the house a few weeks ago saying to ourselves, "Now, what can we get them for their 40th that would be cheap, easy, and a complete burden to US but fun for THEM? I know, a baby!" while meanwhile poor Mr. Funny shows up with his sad little Hallmark card and a poem, or something.

What we actually got my parents was two dozen ruby red roses in a ruby red vase, because I looked it up on the internets and 40 is the "ruby" anniversary, and there was nothing else Mr. Funny and I could come up with that would make our parents happy while also being cheap.

Ruby red roses in a ruby red vase

And then, in an early case of Pregnancy Brain, after we told my mother-in-law the good news I went ahead and posted it on Facebook like this: "I feel a disturbance in the Force...a BABY-SHAPED disturbance in the Force." Unfortunately, I forgot that the hubby hadn't yet told his brother, Gilligan, the news. Since Gilligan lives in LA he was 3 hours behind us, which means my husband made a panicked phone call to Los Angeles at 7:45am their time on a Sunday, which means Gilligan's reaction was less "ecstatic" and more "thrilled yet churlish."

With a second baby, people are slightly less over-the-moon than they tend to be with a first one. The Princeling's birth caused one of my friends to get a divorce and another one to start in-Vitro fertilization treatments. No joke. His birth was that profound that two of my friends made major life decisions because of it. I'm not being sarcastic there, they really did.

With this announcement it was more like, "Yay. Aren't these red roses pretty?"

And that's fine, because I hate being pregnant. I am not one of those glowey, annoying women who walks around like I am At One with The Universe and being pregnant gives me insight into What's Really Important.

Quite the opposite.

My husband, friends and family all barely survived my last pregnancy, so I have no reason to believe any of them will still be around to love and support me in 8 months when Nugget* makes her** appearance. I am not good at being pregnant. If my husband and I were settlers out in the plains in the 1800s, or Catholics, or some other group that doesn't believe in birth control, I would have killed myself by now. In fact, the only reason we're doing this again is because we're dead-set on having two kids and this way is cheaper, easier, and faster than adoption. Though we did look into that. But we'd rather save up for a down payment on a super hot Park Slope condo instead of a stupid baby.

The last time I was pregnant I had "morning" sickness from two weeks past conception up until the day of the Princeling's birth. One weekend early on I threw up so much I lost 5 pounds in three days. My doctor had to put me on Zofran just to stay alive, and every time I tried to go off it I'd hurl my guts out. They even had to put it into an IV drip for me when I gave birth. It was that bad.

And for all of you out there thinking, "But every pregnancy is different!" I'd like to point out that I'm only 5 weeks along and I've already barfed several times. So shut up.

If pregnancy were an equation for me, it would look like this:




When I was pregnant with the Princeling in 2008 my feet swelled up so badly that people were actually horrified. I remember meeting a friend for dinner and she took one look at my feet and said, "Oh my god, I thought you were exaggerating but they are actually worse than what you said!" My obstetrician actually made me get an ultrasound on my left leg because my left foot was swollen disproportionately larger than my right. My husband nicknamed my left foot "Monstro." He used to play with my feet like they were Silly Putty, poking his finger into the mess and then making sick little noises of disgust when the indentation stayed there.

Me and my best friend Tia the night before my baby
shower, August 2008. Not pictured: Monstro.

So with all that in mind, I really just want to get through the next 8 months as quickly as possible. And I'm sure you do, too. Because I am not a "suffer in silence" martyr type. My misery is your misery. My swollen feet, hemorrhoids, gas, backaches, cramps, and vomit are YOUR swollen feet, hemorrhoids, gas, backaches, cramps and vomit. But, together we will get through my pregnancy. And let me just say it now so you all know: I love you. You are special to me. I can't do it without you. Please don't leave me alone. And for god's sake, do NOT block the way to the bathroom.



*That's the in-utero name we're using this time around. We got it from the new recruits on Battlestar Galactica. Yes, really.

**Three fortune-telling devices have all predicted a girl: the Chinese Gender Predictor on thebump.com, my mother-in-law's Cuban numerology voodoo, and my son's girlfriend. Of course we'll be happy if it's a boy, too, but my MIL and a 2-year old and the Chinese don't lie.