Why worry about the big things? It’s the little stuff that gets ya!

Recently my friend Christina and I have been talking a lot about our recently found ’bouts of paranoia. You see while I am getting ready to have a baby, Christina is getting ready to get married, both huge life-changing events. We decided to both write a blog on this new-found paranoia to see the similarities and the differences between how we are both handling it. You can read her blog here.

As far as my new-found fear of the uncontrollable, it isn’t that I am always paranoid or anything like that, it’s the stupid stuff that I find myself suddenly worrying about that has me perplexed. I have never really been one to get all worked up about things I can’t control, but lately I find myself really worried about the craziest things.

*Quick break in the blog, I just ate the best peanut butter cookie ever!*

Back to paranoia……here is an example of something that gave me pause the other day, snow removal. Yup, I got very concerned about having a snow removal ‘plan’ should I go into labor during a snow storm (like my husband can’t hold a shovel or something). My fear lead me to think we should make sure our plow guy is comfortable being ‘on-call’ and we should have a back-up ‘plow-guy’ in case the first one can’t show up. Now if you don’t live in New England that probably sounds completely rational, but who is my next phone call going to be to….the state of MA? Should I let them know that I might go into labor and they should make sure my road is plowed at all times? Sure…..I’ll make that phone call……next time I feel like being laughed at.

So the thought about the ‘snow removal plan’ lasted for about 10 seconds before I realized that the weather is just out of my control and I am going to have to deal with it as it comes. See, the paranoia comes….attacks…and then leaves.

Other things that have worried me recently? A tree falling on our house, electrical fires, power outages, and some thing bigger than a mouse taking up residence in my attic. These are all normal things for people to NOT want to happen, but I’m not kidding when I tell you that I will sit up in the middle of the night sweating, heart-pounding, in a panic worried about an electrical fire burning down our house. Then I will tell myself to stop being stupid, go find one of the cats and drag them into bed with me. Some how they make it all better (although I am not sure they appreciate the under the covers, teddy-bear headlock).

The last thing that has been up there on the paranoia scale is something happening to my husband. My husband is the type of guy to totally brush off my fears about this, mostly because he thinks he is indestructible, but also because I don’t think anyone likes to think about their mortality.  Whether it worries him or not is not the point, it worries me. Let’s get something straight here, I am not in this whole marriage-baby-thing to do it solo. I need my hubby to make this work, it’s the only way. And to think about him not being around to partner with me on this adventure is enough to make me sick to my stomach. This particular worry I think is VERY NORMAL, and therefore I don’t let myself dwell on it. Let’s be real, either one of us could get hit by a bus at any time…..and there is nothing I can do to change that other than put my husband in a bubble or lock him in the basement and I don’t think he would go for either.

I am sure paranoia is a normal occurence when you go through a lot of change and/or are facing a big change in your life. I have been kind of lucky so far, most of mine has been so insanely silly that I have been able to laugh it off. I figure letting go of things you can’t change is just practice for being a parent, so I might as well start now. Otherwise I’d be a stressed out, hungry, tiny-bladdered, over-tired pregnant woman. If you take the stress out, I’m just an always hungry, needs to be near a bathroom at all times pregnant woman who takes great pleasure in sleeping on the couch. Which is just fine with me.

Solid advice on maternity clothes

I got a few tidbits of advice regarding maternity clothes when I first found out I was pregnant. One was don’t wait too long to buy maternity clothes. Well that was easy, even pre-pregnancy I was a huge fan of sweats and elastic waist bands! Being able to ‘legally’ shop for clothes that are meant to expand with every meal sounded like a dream come true! Until reality set in.

Sadly maternity clothes have not come as far as people say they have. Most of them are still in polyester (which I didn’t think was even around anymore) and many of the shirt patterns resemble something you would either hang from a window, give to your grandmother…..or burn. Also unless you are one of those tiny pregnant women who really only get pregnant in their belly, many of the shirts and dresses will resemble a fancy bed sheet the minute you put them on.

Of course I had another ‘maternity clothes’ snafu that I thought I was prepared for but obviously was not. The ever-growing size of my chest. I knew they would get big when I got pregnant, but never in a million years did I expect them to out-pace my belly until 7 months into my pregnancy. Victorias Secret just does not make bras to deal with this situation. I don’t want satin, lace and pretty little bows. I want support, support that doesn’t mean squeezing the life out of my feeding machines.

So after a few months of trial and error I wanted to share with other pregnant women out there what I have learned.

1-buy maternity pants sooner rather than later. But only 1-2 pair.

You will find that many of your tops will still work for a while, so given the hideous nature of what is available stick with what you have as long as you can. For pants I found that 1-2 pair of the demi-belly pants are the best way to start. You are still too small for the fully belly pants, but your current pants just won’t be comfortable. DON’T buy too much now. You WILL out grow them….quickly.

2-Black, white, tan & grey are your friends.

If you buy anything maternity BUY BASICS! A white maternity tee-shirt will get you a long way with a cute cardigan over it (a non-maternity cardigan). Plus if you are any good with accessories now is the time to let them be the bling to your outfits. They will make you feel pretty and you won’t out grow them.

3-TRY ON TRY ON TRY ON

First, returning items is just a bitch. Motherhood (ugh) Pea in the Pod ($$$) and Mimi Maternity (now part of Pea in the Pod I believe) have a 10 day return policy. You don’t get it back to them in 10 days, its yours forever. And unless you have one of these shops near you, you will find that getting it back in 10 days is actually quite a challenge (after all you do have a life other than just being pregnant).

Second you know those weird-looking bellies they have in the fitting room? The ones that tend to look a little beat up and just generally gross? Well they serve a purpose and if you are looking for something that has to get you all the way through your pregnancy…..suck it up and use one. If this is your first pregnancy you have no idea what BIG looks like, and what it does to your clothes.

3-Once you TRY ON…walk around.

I learned this lesson the hard way. I would put on something in the dressing room, turn around a few times, check out the belly and then buy it. Only to put it on again at home, walk 10 steps and start the never-ending tug-of-war. It’s hard to imagine that with an elastic waste band pants would fall down, but they do and they take your underwear with them.

When you find some pants you like, take a stroll around the store for 5 minutes. Yes it might feel a little weird but the shop clerks are used to eccentric pregnant women so don’t think twice about it. Tell them you are looking for a top or something. If you take ONE TUG at the pants when you are in the store DO NOT BUY THEM!!!!!!

4-Invest

Once you are big enough for the full-belly maternity pants, invest in 3-4 pairs of GOOD ONES. What I am saying here is walk away from Old Navy, GAP and Motherhood and head towards the Lucky Brands Jeans and other top designers at Pea in the Pod. Yes, it is crushing to pay $120 for a pair of jeans you will only wear for a few months and may never wear again. But with so many other things making you feel fat and uncomfortable, you deserve a pair of hot jeans.

5-For your sanity….buy new bras when your old ones stop fitting.

I just don’t think I need to add any more to that.

6-My little secret

A good paid of basic black yoga pants can double as black work pants if paired with the right top and shoes. Don’t fight it, just trust me on this one, no one will notice.

So that is pretty much it. I know it sounds simple, but maternity clothes are a big investment and if I had taken some of my own advice it probably would have saved me a couple of hundred dollars. Now, with 3 months to go, I finally feel like I have clothes that I can wear without dreading every minute. It cost me a small fortune…..but really, what is the cost of comfort these days?

Life…as a pregnant lady

There are many things people will and won’t tell you about being pregnant. For example, many of your girlfriends may tell you about the morning sickness or annoyingly heightened sense of smell. But how many of them have told you about the constipation? Or the lovely hemmrhoids that, as it was so well put in ‘Girlfriends guide to pregnancy’ by Vicki Iovine, will make you never want to eat solid food again in fear of passing a solid piece of shit out of your poor bum. Yeah, they leave that stuff out.

Another thing that they leave out is the overwhelming feeling of life spinning out of control….maybe that’s a bit harsh. How about life taking a turn down a road that you THOUGHT you were ready for, but are now having second thoughts? It’s like going into a haunted mansion. It looks like fun, sounds like fun, the people coming out of the mansion and laughing and seem to have had a good time, but when you are actually in the dark creepy mansion with things jumping out at you…..you’re trying not to pee in your pants. Or cry, which is what I did last time I went in a haunted house 9 years ago and therefore haven’t been in one since. Pregnancy can be a lot like that, it looks like fun. The people with dark circles under their eyes and who travel like they are moving in just to go to the store, they TELL you its fun. But damn if you don’t wonder.

Another thing no one tells you is exactly how long 9 months is. Sounds like a trick question, right. Well for starters , it’s actually 10 months. It took me awhile to figure out how I am 23 weeks pregnant, going into my 6th month and yet have 4 months to go. I think it is a practical joke doctors decided to play on poor innocent pregnant women 100 years ago and it just stuck. And if that wasn’t bad enough, 9 (10) months feels like a life time. You watch your husband and all your friends go on with their life and you feel like a big egg timer, slowly ticking away with nothing else to do but go off one of these days. Hence why I am sitting at home on Halloween night, alone, writing a blog. Yes, I feel like the cool kid now go drink your damn beer and leave me alone.

It’s not that I didn’t have the option to go to a party, I did. The same party my husband is at. But let’s get something straight here, parties are not fun for pregnant ladies. At least not for more than 5 minutes. One, everyone seems to feel the need to talk to you about the damn baby. Hey, news flash, I had a life before I became an incubator! Two, you realize how truly obnoxious drunk people are. Now buzzed people, they are funny. They usually say things they don’t really mean and act generally humorous. Once people take the turn toward completely hammered….well I take it as the cue to leave. They talk SUPER LOUD, like unless they are yelling no one can possible hear them. They also tend to get a little more touchy-feely. Yuck, get your gross beer-soaked hands off my belly. Plus they are a blatant reminder of how nice it can be to throw a few back and truly forget about life for a while.

Sadly I have realized that pregnant women actually have a lot in common with intoxicated people, perhaps this is another reason why I find them so annoying. We have a lot in common but I’m not having fun. You know how they say you pee a lot when you get pregnant? Well they aren’t kidding. And much like drinking, the minute you break the seal you are back in the bathroom every 10 minutes for the rest of the day. Anther odd similarity is the forgetfulness, also known as ‘baby brain’ for us preggo people and ‘blacking out’ for the drunkards. I knew baby brain would make me more scatter-brained and maybe slightly forgetful, but what I didn’t know is that I would completely forget entire conversations. Wish I had the booze to blame on that one. Pregnancy hormones also come into play in this little comparison. Ever been at a bar, drinking (duh) and said something you never thought you would say out loud? Like ‘Betty is nice but she has such a fat ass’…oops! Yeah, same thing happens when you are pregnant. I know it’s hormones, but I also think there is just a part of you that is so tired and annoyed that you just don’t give a shit anymore and therefore you, shall we say ‘cut to the chase’ much more quickly than your pre-pregnancy days. Kiss tact goodbye, again no booze to blame.

All in all I know I am starting the most amazing journey of my life. I know it will be totally worth it and I am the luckiest person alive to not only be able to get pregnant but to also have what has generally been an easy pregnancy. Still with no life I am left with a lot of time to think, and now write. Welcome to my blog.

Hormones Suck

Ever have one of those PMS days where you feel like if one more person annoys you or says something to you your head is going to split open and your brain will come out and kung fu their ass? Sounds pretty graphic but I think it’s fair to say every woman has been there. Well multiply that feeling by at least 20 and that is the hormonal nonsense that comes along with being pregnant. I don’t even know why things annoy me, or how to react like a human being….all I know is I think I truly understand what ‘going postal’ means. And my poor husband, all he is trying to do is figure out how exactly he is going to survive the next 6 months without heavy drinking. Many of my girlfriends told me that men have no idea what we are going through during pregnancy so I thought I was pretty prepared for handling the clueless man. Nope. It just makes me mad, which is totally unfair and wrong. It’s not like I will ever understand what being kicked in the nuts feels like, and I am pretty sure my husband isn’t mad about that! The hardest part is having one half of my brain still function normally and it knows that I am over-emotional and short-tempered and need to relax and the other half is totally crazy….sadly the crazy half seems to be winning more and more. The insanity is supposed to stop soon, maybe then we can become that cute cuddly couple planning for our baby’s future, starting scrap books and talking about names. That’s all I want, that unrealistic fairy tale that is some how stuck in every woman’s psyche from birth. Not the reality, no reality sucks.

In the game of LIFE…

So as it turns out I am not very good at this blogging thing. I have so many things I want to write about but never any time to sit down and write. So instead of working on a project that will take me days to complete but is due in 2 hrs, I figured I would catch everyone up on my crazy life.

They say things happen in 3′s, well I hope that is the case because we found out I was pregnant, sold our house and bought a new one all in the last 4 weeks. If things really do happen in 3′s then we should be good to go for awhile because I think those 3 things count as 6 in total. Now we are in the wonderful waiting section of life….waiting for the home sale & purchase to be complete and to make an addition to the family. What drives me crazy is that none of them can be hurried along. No matter what I do or how impatient I get, we will not move until 8/31, I cannot tell people at work I’m preggo until 8/10, and so on. You may have noticed I didn’t mention being impatient about HAVING the baby. Well, I’m not there yet. I think a 9 month gestation period is a good idea. What I am impatient about is telling people.

We decided to go ahead and tell the parents right away, one b/c my husband wanted to and two b/c I was going to see my parents in early July and wanted the opportunity to tell them face to face instead of over the phone. After the experience of telling them I decided telling everyone else just going to be odd. My husbands parents immediately put in their order for the sex of the baby-his mom would prefer a girl, his dad a boy. What do I look like here, a candy bar machine?? They then proceeded to pummel us with questions about why they can’t tell other people yet. I think if we let her, his mom would have climbed onto the roof and started shouting “I’m going to be a grandmother!”. Like she finally gained entrance into some sort of exclusive club.

My parents weren’t that much better. They both put in an order for a healthy baby. Although I think they get not telling anyone else, my mom evidently didn’t think that applied to strangers in stores. How’s this for embarrassing…I’m bathing suit shopping (already a horrid experience but imagine doing it with your body now deciding to give you a gut and your mom asking you to show her everything you try on) to find something that will cover my now growing belly and support my now super huge tits. What does my mom do? Grab the only pregnant lady in the store, tell her I’m pregnant and see if she can help me find a swim suit. Um mom, remember, we aren’t telling people? This went on for awhile with restaurant staff at dinner and etc until I finally told her to please cease and desist. Now it is just a constant nagging about telling my sister. My poor sister. Not only has she had a rough summer but once I tell her this she is going to have to spend the next 7.5 months listening to my mom talk about me and the baby. I almost don’t want to tell her for her own sanity.

Now we are starting to fill in close friends and thank God, they have been much less annoying. I now realize why some people are so weird about telling the general public they are pregnant. Because the general public sucks.

My first blog….

Blogging…hmm…well, I guess it’s worth a try. I have decided to start a blog to document the funny and not so funny things about my first pregnancy. Just to give everyone a quick run down on me, my name is Tiffany and I am 30 yrs old. I married my boyfriend of 7 yrs, Bill on a stormy night in September of 2008. We lived together in a townhouse in Boston and have 2 cats, fatty & stupid-I mean Whiskey & Sesame Chicken. And I am pregnant.

I am pretty early on in my pregnancy, only 6 weeks along, because I was lucky enough to figure it out quickly. I say lucky a bit sarcastically. By catching it early I have given up those 2-3 weeks of relaxation, wine & summer fun before the insanity sets in. Oh My God, you would drink while you’re pregnancy-yeah, I can hear you thinking it. No, I would not. But I would gladly have enjoyed a few more weeks of ignorant bliss. If that’s terrible, stop reading, I am only getting started.

Morning sicknees, the waiting game.

I guess most women don’t get morning sickness until the 7-8th week of their pregnancy….tick tock…tick tock….do I feel a little nauseous? Maybe, I don’t know. Does the smell of that food bother me?? I can’t tell. Should I go to the bathroom just in case? Am I going crazy? Quite possibly. I feel like a time bomb waiting to throw up. And to make matters worse, they say that having morning sickness is a good sign of a healthy baby. So what do I wish for? To get sick now so my baby is super healthy? Not to get sick at all since most of my friends wanted to DIE the first few months of their pregnancy? What if I don’t get sick at all? Does that mean my baby isn’t healthy. Now for all of you people who want to give me rational advise about how only 50% of women experience morning sickness-stuff it. When you are pregnant the last thing you want to hear is any sort of stupid rational advice because nothing about what you are feeling is rational. Just nod, smile and don’t let me near anything sharp or blunt.