Doherty - Funny little pregnant things: (the good, the bad and the just plain gross things about pregnancy that other books arent going to tell you)

funny little pregnant things

Copyright 2016 Emily Doherty

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Published by SparkPress, a BookSparks imprint,
A division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC Tempe,
Arizona, USA, 85281
www.sparkpointstudio.com

ISBN: 978-1-940716-58-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-940716-57-2 (ebk)
e-ISBN: 978-1-631520-29-7
LCCN: 2015953520

Cover design Julie Metz, Ltd./metzdesign.com
Cover photo Neil Beckerman/Getty Images Author photo Rammelkamp Foto
Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

Please note that suggestions in this book are not meant to replace the proper role of a nutritionist, doctor, midwife, or other health care provider. If you think you have a serious problem with your pregnancy, please seek professional help. This book is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of physicians. The reader should regularly consult a physician in matters relating to his/her health and particularly with respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.

To my husband, Patrick: without you this book could never have been written. You do an amazing job raising our children. I am in awe of you every day. Thanks for keeping the laughter in our house alive.

Hi there! I want to start by letting you know that I am not a doctoror any sort of professional when it comes to babiesand will not be giving any medical advice in this book. So if youve picked it up because you want technical explanations for why you are sweating through your clothes and every sheet you own you may want to get a different book.

Also keep in mind this book is not designed to tell you the best way to do anything. Before, during, and after your pregnancy, youll have plenty of people telling you, This is how I did it, and my way is, in fact, the best way. But the truth is, all pregnancies are different, and so are the babies they produce; it follows, then, that one method of preparation may work for one baby and not the next. And besides, theywhoever they arechange the rules all the time anyway. Microwave your deli meat Never mind, just use caution while eating. Good, cause I wasnt going to do that anyway. Gain as much weight as you want while youre pregnant actually, were only going to budget you twenty pounds. Whoops, too late! Have a martini and a cigarette, it will help you relax er, actually, we got that one wrong, steer clear of the booze and smoke! Yeah, no sh*t Sherlock.

So what exactly is this bookand why, as a working mom with a two-year-old and a three-week-old, have I decided to write it?

First, the why. Heres the thing: As a mom-to-be, I read a few of the prerequisite pregnancy books, and although I picked up some facts from them, I couldnt get over how dull they were. When of the fourth book I attempted to slog through let me know that my baby was now the size of a lemon, I gave up. Is there actual practicality in knowing that my child resembles a certain type of fruit? I wondered. Wheres the good stuff?

Besides how boring those books were, they were also incomplete. Now that Ive had two babies, I understand just how many little details they left outdetails that you only know if youve delivered a child; details that are very, very important. (Not one of those books, for example, told me that I should be prepared to get breast milk all over everything I owned after I gave birth!)

At least provide me with a pregnancy book with some humour, I thought. Then maybe I can make it to and not be super annoyed when you tell me that my baby now resembles a melon.

So this book is for women like memoms-to-be who want some realistic tips about what to expect from pregnancy without being bored to tears along the way. Here you will find accounts of the ridiculous things youll likely encounter while pregnant, including the good, the bad, and the often gross stuff that people so conveniently forget to mention to you when you first decide to have a child.

In that spirit, let me get one of the big ones out in the open right now: There is a greater-than-average chance that you will sh*t yourself while giving birth. And theres nothing you can do about it. If its gonna happen, its gonna happen.

Pregnancy anyone who said it would be easy (or pretty) was a big, fat liar.

If you bought this book you are probably already preggobut in the event that you arent, lets just start with the initial step of actually getting pregnant, and go all the way to D-Day (also known as delivery day).

I distinctly remember my first sexual education class in middle school. It was incredibly awkward because they split up the boys and the girls and they required your parents to sign a permission slip in advance for you to even attend.

During the class we were taught mostly about bodily changes like breast buds (whoever named that term should be fired), body odor, and leg hair; but we also got our first introduction to how babies are made. They led us to believe that pretty much all a boy had to do was breathe on you and you would become pregnant. My best friend at the time was a boy, so this scared the living daylights out of me.

Later on, in high school, I had to attend another round of sexual education classes, and although these were much more progressive in their messaging, the overall thesis on how easy it was to have a baby didnt change. Unless you wore a condom or were taking birth control, they told us, unprotected sex at any time was pretty much guaranteed to lead to the production of a baby.

You may be shocked, like I was, to know that this is a gross overstatement. Your body cant just get pregnant any time a bunch of semen takes a tour of your vagina. You can only really conceive a child during the week leading up to ovulation. This tends to be a five- to seven-day window for most women. If you have sex outside of that time frame, your body has missed its chance, and will have to wait till the next cycle to try again. Great odds if you just had sex in the backseat of a car and the condom broke, but tough if you are actually trying to make a baby.

I mention all of this not to give the green light to a bunch of lusty teenagers (p.s., unlike pregnancy, STDs can happen at any time), but to give a heads up to the couples who are trying for a child. Getting pregnant is not as easy as you may think, and it can take a long time for many people.

If youre having trouble getting pregnant, try to take the stress out of the process. There are way too many calendaring systems and timing techniques out there. Dropping everything to have sex every time your phone app notifies you its go time is enough to drive anyone crazy. Try to relax a bit and let nature take its course.

If youve been trying for a while and are still having trouble with conception, you may need to consult a doctor. Infertility is very common in both men and women; you are not alone.

And so we begin.

Taking a pregnancy test, for most people, means going to your local pharmacy and coughing up the ten bucks it costs to buy one off the shelf. Warning: You are about to be royally ripped off. The pregnancy test is the first (though by no means the last) scam of the birthing industry. There is no way that those glorified pieces of plastic should cost anywhere near ten dollars, but they do. And you rarely just buy one of them.