First, thank you to all of you for your
incredibly kind and thoughtful words and cheerleading on my last post. Celebrating this
pregnancy – instead of, you know, persisting in a state of completely
paralyzing anxiety – has at times been challenging. But if my laugh-crying is
any indication, I’m getting there. Mostly though, just thank you. I know that
many of you are still deep in the infertility struggle, so the kind words mean
even more. And now, on to the funny!
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I’m no
expert. In fact, the act of simply writing this – as if I even sort of know what I’m talking about – is
bound to induce the M word or some other parade of horribles. But because I am completely
unhinged calm, cool, and TOTALLY
CONFIDENT, I press on.
So.
Here is a totally non-exhaustive list of completely random things that I did do, and that you should not do, under any circumstances, during
the first trimester of pregnancy. I hope you can learn from my novice mistakes:
1. Riding a ferry
Seriously,
what are you, some kind of deranged masochist? We all know that non-drowsy
children’s Dramamine is a joke.
2. Interviewing for a new job
No
matter that you’re wearing tightly-cinched-at-the-wrists long sleeves under
your suit jacket in 85-degree weather and look like some iteration of a clinically
insane prairie wife. One wrong move could reveal your wrist-bound SeaBands –
literally the only thing standing between you and projectile vomiting. Sure,
whatever, you know they can’t nix you for being pregnant – hello lawsuit – but you also know that would never be the stated reason.
3. Being present – or anywhere within
smelling distance (which, when you’re in your first trimester, is, approximately, 18 miles) – when someone
is eating marrow
I
don’t even know what to say about this one. Just writing it out so disgusts me
that I can hardly continue. It may be true that prior to being pregnant, your
partner has never, ever, eaten bone
marrow. But the first trimester may, inexplicably, find you at a series of pretentious-hipster
restaurants where bone marrow is somehow featured prominently on the menu as
a kind of appalling “appetizer”. And your beloved partner, or one of your
dear, dear friends, will say something convincing like, I mean, seriously, WHEN are we ever going to have THIS again? To
which the only appropriate response swill inevitably be – NEVER! LET’S EAT IT RIGHT
NOW! LET’S ORDER TWO! <everyone
breaks into frenzied and delirious excitement>. If you find yourself in this
situation, I implore you. Intervene! Provide a reasoned analysis. Namely, there will be other times to eat adventurously.
Like, you know, any time, whatsoever,
when you are not pregnant. Like, literally, ANY FUCKING TIME THAT IS NOT RIGHT
NOW.
4. Fiendishly consuming an entire bag of
sour gummy peaches under the auspices of a legitimate sour candy craving that
must be sated IMMEDIATELY
Purely
hypothetically speaking, you may find yourself, in an aisle of a northern
California Walgreens, as your partner, in his most soothing, understanding, but
secretly terrified voice, tries to bring you down off the ledge of mass corn syrup
consumption. In an escalating series of let’s face it, pained exclamations “whispers”
you will assure him that you know exactly what you are doing, despite his
desperate entreaties to PLEASE EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION since, really, you
haven’t had anything but oatmeal and pasta for days. No matter. You press on,
defiant. Of course, as everyone knew it would, it all ends in four words:
EXCRUCIATING HEARTBURN FOR DAYS.
