A Letter For Myself, For When I Was Pregnant For The First Time

Dear Pregnant-for-the-first-time-self,

I look at you through my mind's eye, languishing through the hot summer afternoons on the couch, eating pickles and toaster strudels by the box full, and I wonder why nobody ever told you that's not all going exclusively to your baby belly. Most of it is going to forever reside in your ass. Sorry.

Look at you, writing your birth plan and worrying about things like c-sections and episiotomies and whether or not you're going to poop on the table when you're pushing. You have no idea right now that in the frenzy of pushing you won't care of you crap all over the doctor's face, just so long as he can still get the baby out of you. In fact, you'll want it out so badly that the second you start to tear you're going to scream at the doctor to JUST CUT YOU ALREADY AND LET'S GET THIS OVER WITH.

The nurses will find it funny. You will not.

Here you are at your baby shower, waddling over to the food buffet a sixth time for more potato salad. Enjoy it while you can, because once the baby comes you'll be lucky if you're awake and coherent long enough to eat four stale saltines and half a Sprite before the baby wants back on your boob.

Oh and about boobs: just get over them now. They're going to change, they're going to hurt, they might even blister and bleed and even if no one else notices, you will probably always feel like they're lower or flatter than they used to be. But, there's never been a war without casualties and despite all the pamphlets and books full of inspiring messages and softly lit, flawless photographs, pregnancy is not as much a "beautiful journey", back lit with honey gold lighting, as it is a full-on military invasion, complete with land mines {hemerroids/stretch marks/verricose veins}, trauma {pooping for the first time after deliver when you still have stitches} and casualties {your boobs}.

Just so you know, it's OK to stop listening to other people, especially marketing executives. Babies used to roll around in the back of covered wagons for thousands of miles across the country, so I'm sure yours can most certainly live without 90% of the shit that they say you need. Actually, little do you know right now, you won't even need that fancy crib you just spent six hours and an entire box of Twinkies trying to put together. The baby will end up sleeping with you.

And when it comes to what you should listen to and what to ignore, remember that some people are mean, some people are annoying, some people like to give trite and over used advice that doesn't apply to any real life situation ever. Some people will throw bible quotes at you, some people have every inspirational quote ever written memorized, some people will just never get over their self righteousness. Very few people will be genuinely helpful, but those that are have probably been where you are before: a mom for the first time, sweaty, awkward, nervous and constantly leaking milk.

So when your first friend is becoming a mom for the first time, remember what it was like and bring her a chicken and do her laundry, because everyone like chicken and clean clothes.

Also, you're going to have stretch marks on the back of your calves by the time this is over. That shit wasn't in the Beautiful Journey pregnancy books either.