A Toast!

Last night I dreamed that I was suddenly in charge of a family of seven—not me and Dr. Husband and five kids but me and Dr. Husband and three kids and those kids’ mom and dad. I had to get breakfast together for everyone, including the mom and dad who seemed quite pleased to be able to kick back and chill in the backyard while I slaved away over the toaster.

That’s what I made for everyone: toast. And it was exceptionally challenging. For starters, there weren’t more than three slices of any one kind of bread, and I’d never really thought about this before because I’ve seldom had to cook for seven, but it’s a lot more difficult to toast 14 slices of multiple sizes and shapes and colors and types of bread than it is to toast 14 slices from one loaf. Why? I’m not sure, but in my dream it was very, very challenging.

I was still in the toasting phase—I hadn’t even moved on to the buttering stage or the finding out what kind of topping everyone likes on their toast (Nutella? Jam? Peanut butter?) stage when it dawned on me I’d have to make them all lunch, too. How to do all this and get them to school (and in the case of the parents, work) on time? In the end, everyone was late and I forgot to write a note to the attendance lady so no one would get in trouble.

If I have this much difficulty making toast, how will I possibly make it as a Mom?

Things They Don't Tell You About Pregnancy #816

If anyone ever tells you that once you're done with your first trimester of pregnancy you're in the clear, barfing-wise, they're lying.

That's all I'll say.

Scents to a Woman

Apparently my used furniture karma has taken a turn for the better. I bought yet another dresser for the nursery last week—a cute little minty green one—after assuring myself that it passed the sniff test and the aesthetics test and the “not the same colors as my junior high PE uniform” test. When I mentioned my previous ill-advised dresser to the super nice young couple who sold me the new, cute one they told me they might be able to take it off my hands, as they make a living fixing up old furniture and selling it on Craigslist. I sent them a photo and innumerated the dresser’s flaws and told them I was more than willing to take a loss it just to not have to deal with trying to sell it myself—or letting it sit in the attic until Dr. Husband and I die and our child has to return home to sort through our effects. Holy crap, what’s the deal with this ugly dresser that matches Mom’s junior high P.E. uniform? And why did she save her junior high P.E. uniform? Hopeless.

This afternoon the super nice young couple came and bought it! For more than the lowest price I’d mentioned being willing to settle for! And they gave me tips on getting rid of the mildew smell on our bed—which the female half of the couple described as “like mildew and feet” and the male half described first as nonexistent then conceded was “like the smell on a boat.” “Right,” I agreed, “which is pretty much the smell of mildew and feet.” They suggested trying vinegar, and if that doesn't work try some sort of fire-be-gone stuff you spray on furniture that’s been in a fire, and if that doesn't work try polyurethane, and if that doesn't work, sell it on Craigslist. “It’s a really nice bed,” they both said. “Maybe you can sell it to a gay couple since guys apparently can’t smell,” the woman suggested.

I am now the proud owner of not two but one nursery dresser—and the stash of twenties in my wallet has been blessedly replenished and I no longer feel like such a regretful moron. Now, off to sort out the changing table situation as the Febreze-stinky leather ottoman taunts me from the corner.

In Good Hands

What is it with life insurance guys? Why must they always live up to their reputation? We had one—I’ll call him Bill because that’s his name and yet it doesn’t exactly give away his identity—visit us yesterday since apparently he needed to meet the missus before moving forward with our new policy.

He showed up at our house a HALF HOUR early and called from his cell phone and was all, “I’m sitting here in my car trying to do paperwork, but it’s really difficult here in my car. Where I’m sitting. Outside your house. Doing paperwork.” I was all, “Well, Dr. Husband just worked the overnight shift and I’m a pregnant stay-at-home writer, so NEITHER OF US IS SHOWERED OR DRESSED YET, YOU MORON, so hows about waiting until the time you were supposed to show up before letting the slimefest that is life insurance sales commence?” Or something vaguely like that.

Once we’d put on clothes and let Bill into our home, he was very impressed to learn that Dr. Husband is an emergency medicine doctor and very happy to share his every harrowing emergency room story with us… The time his son had a bad prescription drug interaction, the time his other son fell out of a tree, the time the son who he no longer speaks to because he’s “too much of a nonconformist” went off his meds—or something like that, I wasn’t really listening, I was just trying to sign my name as quickly as possible so he would leave our house so I could take a shower and start my day like a typical nonconformist—i.e. without a life insurance agent at my dining room table.

Bill stayed for half an hour—the amount of time it takes a life insurance agent to collect four signatures and two drivers license numbers and two Social Security numbers.

Oh, also in that time he managed to squeeze in lots of fawning over Dr. Husband (You’re a doctor! An emergency doctor?! That’s great! That’s so exciting! How interesting!) and to finally turn to me to ask, “So, you’re a homemaker?”

A homemaker.

I’d forgotten that word existed. I thought it had gone the way of the dodo, the laserdisc, and menstrual pads with belts.

I explained, tight-lipped, that I’m a writer. There’s a big difference! Sure writers stay home during the day and putter about the house halfheartedly wiping down countertops and absentmindedly making grocery lists—but we also write! We digest experiences and render them entertaining and enlightening. We’re like the stomach of the masses—or maybe the kidneys, or perhaps we’re more like—

Bill interrupted my internal monologue to ask, “So what's your annual salary?”

He wasn’t being mean, he needed an answer for his paperwork.

I grimaced and told him the answer.

He was kind enough to reply, “Well, that’s something!” and, more importantly, he was kind enough not to laugh.

Thank you, Bill the Life Insurance Guy.

But please don’t ever come back to my house. Even if you're on-time.

Dog Daze

I searched the web today for the “best daycare in Seattle.” All that popped up were places that will take “loving care” in a “home away from home” environment for my “kid in a fur coat.”

When I searched for the best playgrounds in town I discovered all the hot spots for “tiny four-legged tots.”

I never thought I’d say this, but apparently it's too bad I’m not gestating a canine.

Nosocomephobia: Who Knew?

Today we toured the hospital where I will be giving birth sometime in the next two months. Like so many other aspects of this whole pregnancy adventure, educating myself on exactly what I can expect from my hospital experience was not exactly the calming, empowering, anxiety-reducing experience all the books promise it will be. It was, instead, terrifying.

Yes, it’s helpful to know where to park and which button to push in the elevator, but aside from those educational gems, the tour merely served to remind me how much I hat hospitals. I mean, I reminded Dr. Husband as we approached the entrance that I know hospitals are no big deal for him but I hate them—I’d just forgotten how visceral my hatred is. And “hatred” probably isn’t even the right word. It’s more fear than loathing—as evidenced by the tears that sprang to my eyes the instant I saw a very unhappy-looking woman being wheeled down the hall on a gurney by a lone nurse. She wasn’t screaming or writhing or behaving in any way like a laboring woman in a movie or television show, she just looked like she would rather be anywhere else in the world doing anything else in the world wearing anything else than what she had on.

I simultaneously wanted to crawl up onto the gurney to snuggle her and to run away shouting, “Sign me up for a home birth!”

If only midwives could administer epidurals.

Fear of pain, fear of dying, fear of needles, fear of scalpels, fear of forceps, fear of anesthesia, fear of episiotomies, fear of nurses, fear of tubes, fear of beeping noises, fear of antiseptic, fear of hospital gowns, fear of hospital food, fear of bedpans. For as long as I can remember I’ve been plagued, too, by the fear of my slippery, slimy newborn being dropped on the hard hospital floor. I mean, I suppose the doctors have had plenty of practice catching babies, but would it kill them to put down a few towels?

It would probably be good for me to visit the labor & delivery wing a few more times before I have to go there for real, to desensitize myself a little. I’ve heard that fear slows down the labor process, and the last thing I want is to be there any longer than I have to. But I have a suspicion that exposure therapy won’t work all that well if I just stand there thinking, “I hate it here, I hate it here. What’s that smell? I hate it here.”

Boarders

In the process of preparing the house this summer for the baby’s arrival, Dr. Husband and I switched the guestroom from the one across the hall from our bedroom to a cozy, quiet little room in the corner of the basement. A friend visiting from Minnesota tested out the new room for a week and declared it to be “perfect.” Perfect, too, it turned out, was having the guest room not right outside our bedroom. Not that Dr. Husband and I were up to anything worth spying on, we just fare better when we have our privacy. We’re more relaxed, more ourselves, more likely to brush our teeth while naked when there’s nobody else upstairs with us. Many of our favorite moments of our wedding were the ones where it was just the two of us in the car driving from one event to the next, either quickly processing some relation’s antics or just sitting quietly holding hands and enjoying being a tiny little team.

So it was with some horror that I realized recently that not only are Dr. Husband and I getting a baby out of this whole pregnancy deal, we’re also getting a housemate—one with an 18-year minimum lease. I had this flash of our son (we still don’t know the baby’s sex yet—I just keep picturing a boy) at age 13 living in the bedroom across the hall from Dr. Husband’s and my room, and the whole proposition seemed suddenly absurd. In no way have we been in the market for a housemate—particularly a teenage one! Some days the proximity of the next-door neighbors feels oppressive—and they’re hardly ever home! Why are we suddenly inviting this adolescent stranger to come live in our former guestroom and hog the TV and eat all the best snacks? It took a few moments of Lamaze breathing (hee—hee—hee—hee—whoooooo) before it occurred to me that by the time the boy is 13 he won’t be a stranger, and he won’t feel like a guest. First he’ll be this screaming, fussy suckling who keeps us in a state of sleep-deprivation so severe that we forget what it was ever like to have peace or quiet or privacy. By the time he’s 13 we’ll probably be rather used to him and rather able to be ourselves around him.

“Yeah, either that,” Dr. Husband deadpanned when I told him all this, “or we can just send him to boarding school.”

Clothes Horse

Ever since I was a little girl I’ve cared about the clothing I wear—a favorite sweater or perfectly broken-in pair of jeans or shiny knee-high black boots that perhaps would have been better suited for riding horses than attending Care-Bear-themed birthday parties—I chose these items carefully each morning, relishing the “look” I felt I was creating. Bookish one day, flowy and romantic the next. I was a shy kid—friendly, but quiet—and used clothing as a way of expressing myself to the world without having to open my mouth.

I never understood people who wore pajamas all day long. One of my least favorite parts of the week was Sunday morning when my mom and dad hung out and read the newspaper in their robes—All. Morning. Long. Weren’t they bored and icky-feeling? I was bored and icky-feeling just being in the same room with them. A day of pajamas was a day of nothing interesting happening. And, frankly, after decades of use, those robes didn’t smell so great. Even when I was sufficiently sick to stay home from school, I hoisted myself out of bed and put on clothing. Just being in my pjs after 8am made me feel more unwell than I already was.

So you can imagine how poorly I’ve been rolling with the whole maternity clothing thing. Just toss on some yoga pants and one of my husband’s extra-large t-shirts advertising some extreme sporting event? I’d pretty much rather kill myself. Call it vanity, call it stubbornness, call it making my life more difficult than it needs to be—I do not wear exercise clothes unless I’m exercising. And even then I’m inclined to wear things like cute, stripey knee-socks rather than the requisite puffy white sweat-collectors.

As for actual, official maternity clothes, why must they be so hideous? There’s nothing quite like not being able to fit into pants unless they feature a “secret fit maternity panel”—essentially a giant tube of pantyhose where belt-loops ought to be—to send a woman, or this woman at least, running into the arms of the nearest therapist.

I’m surprised by how difficult it’s been. I always fancied myself to be one of those women who would like being pregnant. But that was before I came to grips with the grim realities of all-day morning sickness and permanent indigestion, and before the realities of maternity panels, granny-cut shirts, and the poly-blends maternity clothing manufacturers prefer because, hey, pregnant ladies don’t need natural fibers—they’ll just throw up on them anyway. As if being huge and hormonal and uncomfortable and nauseous and desperately hungry—but not wanting to get fat—all the time weren’t enough, we have look like we dressed ourselves from the Sears catalog, too.

The other day I was so desperate to wear pants after spending three months in a $10 stretchy skirt from Old Navy that I went out and happily—happily—purchased a pair of khakis with a secret fit maternity panel and rushed home to put them on along with a heather grey maternity t-shirt that actually covers my entire belly, so excited by the prospect of wearing clothing that fit and was reasonably comfortable that I neglected to remember that I don’t like khakis. They make me feel frumpy even when I’m not pregnant and they don’t feature a giant cylinder of panty-hose around the waist. I slid the cylinder up over my hips and belly until it was practically touching the bottom of my who-knew-cup-sizes-went-that-far-into-the-alphabet maternity bra and pulled the t-shirt down to cover the cylinder. I took one look in the mirror and collapsed onto the floor wailing, “I look like a pregnant army mom!” Nothing against army moms, pregnant or otherwise—it’s just not a look I've been meaning to cultivate.

My very sweet husband suggested I go shopping for some accessories to cheer myself up—perhaps some shoes or funky rings or hair ribbons—but by then I was in such a bad mood it just made me feel worse, like he was acknowledging that the core of my body is so hopeless I should just focus on my extremities.

Increasingly I’m realizing how afflicted I was by the soft-focus image of pregnancy our culture is intent on projecting. I thought when I got pregnant I would feel strong and useful and happily ripe, like the first tomato of the summer. I swore I would not be one of those women who complained about feeling fat and then polished off a pint of ice cream. I would just eat the ice cream and enjoy being filled with the miracle of life. I would grow round and wear horizontal stripes. I would be patient and soft with myself as the flood of hormones washed away the standard flood of insecurities, leaving me content and fulfilled and certain about my purpose.

Basically I thought pregnancy would make me an entirely different person.

But in reality I miss my form-hugging jeans and clingy shirts and sweaters. I miss being able to run up and down the stairs without holding onto the railing and worrying I’m going to kill precious cargo should I trip and fall. I miss wearing bras whose cup sizes belonged firmly to the beginning of the alphabet and came in colors other than beige. And I miss the days when my husband’s hospital scrubs were too big for me to wear as pajamas.

Mostly I miss feeling like myself, weather in my favorite jeans or snuggled up naked next to my sweetie at night without a big, hard beach ball wedged between us. Don’t get me wrong—I’m excited to have a baby (who, incidentally, will not be sleeping between us)—I’m just not loving the whole being pregnant thing. And it’s not the maternity clothing industry’s fault that I feel this way, but they sure as hell aren’t helping.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a pair of secret fit maternity panel khakis to exchange, because guess what? Maternity stores don’t take returns! Only exchanges! If they took returns they’d be out of business—all two of them. Hopefully they sell accessories because I could really use a new pair of stripey socks and a nice set of funky barrettes right about now.

Land That I Love

Today is the beginning of my third trimester, more or less. No nausea or massive exhaustion, just indigestion worthy of one of those commercials showing a red, pulsating esophagus.

I fear that I’m already becoming completely boring, and I’m not really even a mom yet. All I want to do is shop for baby stuff (cribs, changing tables, stuffed bears). So I’m not just boring but hopelessly American.

Maddening

This morning I took a sip of water from a glass that had been sitting out all night and quickly discovered that it tasted like worms—an observation I immediately shared with my new husband.

“How do you know what worms taste like?” the good doctor replied.

“Well, in Iowa whenever it rains the worms crawl out onto the sidewalk, and they smell really bad, and this water tastes like that. Like the smell of worms.”

“Oh. The smell of worms. That’s different.”

Introducing...

Dr. and Mrs. Husband!

A Real Kick

We’re deep in the throws of last-minute wedding planning (you know—ordering bow ties, shopping for shoes, choosing the wording of our vows, sewing table runners—all the stuff the experts suggest leaving for the last possible minute), and I’m finally feeling the baby kick in earnest. Now that it’s happening a lot, I realize I’ve been feeling it for a few weeks—I just thought it was, well, there’s no polite way to say this: gas. It feels nothing at all like butterflies but quite a bit like an air bubble moving through my intestines. Who knew?

When Dr. Fiancé put his hand on my belly to feel the kicks from the outside I told him they weren’t that strong yet.

Turns out I was wrong. The babydaddy was quite pleased. As was his soon-to-be-wife.

Boys Only

In these last days before our wedding, Dr. Fiance reports that his colleagues are giving advice like, “Live it up while you still can!” and, “Enjoy life on this side of things before it’s too late.” Can I just say: no one says these things to a pregnant bride? So not fair.

Mr. Astute

The other day while reading the paper Dr. Fiancé glanced up and exclaimed, “Hey, as soon as we get back from our honeymoon, it’s going to be time to start taking childbirth classes!”

No rest for the weary. Well, I guess a honeymoon is restful, but that’s about it.

Lithium of Sorts

Clearly something is up with my hormones.

Is it possible for pregnancy to make a woman’s moods more stable? Has this ever happened in the history of the world?

One of my very best friends wrote yesterday to say that her partner isn’t recovering as fast as they’d hoped from his recent surgery and she wouldn’t be able to come to the wedding after all. I’m sad and disappointed but haven’t shed a single tear or slammed a single door or turned my fiancé into a scapegoat for, say, buying the wrong kind of butter. I’m all, “The show must go on.”

It’s unnerving.

Hormones

Last night I dreamed that the über hot guy from Friday Night Lights—the long-haired receiver (or whatever one of those guys who gets the ball thrown to him is called) with the alcohol problem who’s in love with the paralyzed quarterback’s girl—I dreamed that he was the father of my child. Even though he has the emotional IQ of a mole and was, in my dream, perpetually on the phone telling a different woman he loved her, I wanted him to come to Seattle with me to take an active role as my baby’s daddy. I was also sort of in love with him myself. And though I don’t have a precise memory of this from my dream, I’m pretty sure the sex was amazing.

Small Favors

This wedding planning thing is never-ending, I tell you. I sent copies of the readings Dr. Fiancé and I selected to our three readers, and one of them wrote back to say he wasn’t sure the poem he was supposed to read was appropriate for a wedding. “Do you really want a poem that uses the word ‘immolate’ read at your wedding?” he asked. Dr. Fiancé and I panicked, then re-read the poem, then re-read it again, and finally decided, yes, we want a poem that uses the word “immolate” to be read at our wedding. However, Dr. Fiancé no longer liked one of the other poems we’d selected. Upon further inspection, it turns out Shel Silverstein is a pretty dark dude. So we both spent the day not dictating charts or working on a magazine article or looking for branches for a chupah or sewing table runners for the reception dinner or any of the other 4,934 things we need to do in the next 13 days but instead looking for another reading. Again.

It only took the whole day, but we finally found one. And it’s kind of perfect. We’re just a little behind—but what else is new? At least I’m not still barfing.

Another Career Possibility

I’m thinking of writing a series of children’s books about the adventures of a pregnant lady about to get married. The Pregnant Bride Gets Her Wedding Dress Fitted Two Weeks Before Her Wedding Day. The Pregnant Bride Goes Bra-Shopping. The Pregnant Bride Goes Bra-Shopping Again. The Pregnant Bride Tries to Help Her Fiancé Choose a Champagne for the Wedding Without Giving Her Baby Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. The Pregnant Bride Drags Her Fiancé to Nordstrom Rack to Shop for Wedding Shoes. The Pregnant Bride Shops for Tile and a Faucet and a Sink for the Bathroom Remodel. The Pregnant Bride Makes Yet Another To-Do List. The Pregnant Bride Wishes She Could Take a Nap. And, The Pregnant Bride Says “Fuck It” and Takes a Nap Anyway.

The Butterfly Effect

I woke up this morning knowing that my baby is a girl.

I am 0% confident that this means I’m actually having a girl, as sometimes I wake up in the morning “knowing” that I’m in my childhood bed or that I’m still single and need to get busy looking for a mate.

When I poke and prod at this “knowledge” I have about my offspring, it becomes indistinguishable from sheer wishful thinking. So, Dr. Fiancé and I settled on a baby girl name 12 months ago whereas I’m having second, third, and fourth thoughts about the boy name we also “settled” on months ago—that isn’t the universe telling me that this child is a girl. It’s just the universe telling me that one shouldn’t choose names so far in advance—and that the girl name we chose kicks total ass.

Speaking of kicking, where are those much-advertised baby kicks? As far as I know, I haven't felt any yet, though I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to be feeling. I’m certainly having intermittent cramps, but reportedly baby kicks at this point feel like butterflies pounding their wings against the walls of your uterus—and any moron would know what that feels like.

Things They Don't Tell You About Pregnancy #11

Itchy nipples, people.

Maybe I'm Just Agnostic

You know what I just realized? “for all of eternity” is a really, REALLY long time. It seems so much longer than “'til death do us part” or “for as long as we both shall live.” So much longer. I’m pretty sure atheists aren’t supposed to feel this way, but there you have it. Promising to be with Dr. Fiancé until I die is no problem. But promising to hang out with him—or anyone—for all of eternity is just asking for trouble. There is no way I could keep that commitment, and there’s no way I would allow someone to hang out with me and my moodiness for all of eternity—especially someone I love. That’s just rude.

Variety: The Spice

Ever since I met him, Dr. Fiancé has been talking about his dream to remodel the downstairs bathroom so that it’s as nice as the other ones in the house—as long as you overlook the washing machine and dryer filling up the eastern half of the room. It’s not necessarily where I’d vote to spend our money, though the sink is truly hideous and the floor was laid out around the sink instead of under it, so if we replace the sink we have to replace the floor and if we’re doing that we’ll have to remove the baseboards anyway, and why not replace them with nice ones that match the rest of the house instead of the cheapo ones the previous owners threw down? It’s If You Give a Mouse a Cookie every day around here.

I thought I’d go insane if I had to make one more decision, but it turns out my sanity is more robust than I’d previously given it credit for. Because our contractor can only do the bathroom project in the next few weeks if it’s going to get done before the baby comes, Dr. Fiance and I were assigned to spend the day shopping for a sink, a faucet, floor tile, a light fixture, a medicine cabinet—and, while we were at it, a new washing machine and dryer.

I’d like to say that it was a nice break from choosing votive candle holders, table runners, and hors d’oeuvres—but I’d be lying.

Just Shoot Me

This is what my life looks like right now: wandering through Goodwill—not the first but the second Goodwill of the day—carrying a wedding veil and a onesie in one hand and a stack of shot glasses and a pitchfork in the other.

This is what it sounds like: Is this veil white or ivory? It looks white compared to that other one, but that one is practically yellow. Like my teeth lately. Why are they so yellow? I haven’t had coffee for months. Maybe it’s the pregnancy. Should I get them whitened for the wedding? Is that safe for the baby? Maybe I should hold the veil up to something I know is white… how about this cotton onesie? Oh, it’s so cute—I wonder if I should buy it or wait and see how many people give us for baby presents… there’s just something so classic about a white onesie. Okay, the veil is definitely ivory. Too ivory to wear with a white dress. Should I buy it anyway, just for fun? Maybe for the kid’s dress-up clothes box? No, they can play with the veil I actually wear to the wedding, and what am I saying “they”? Remember how miserable those first 17 weeks were? Remember the constant nausea? Just one kid. Zero population growth. Right. Okay. Focus. Shot glasses. Will these shot glasses work for the wedding? Are they too ugly? Too big? How about this pitchfork? What’s the pitchfork for again?

Chicken/Egg

I’m having a bit of trouble focusing, what with items from my giant, ever-expanding Wedding Planning to-do list hovering around my head like a tangle of gnats with some giant, buzzing Getting Ready for Baby to-do list flies mixing it up from time to time. Did I mention we’ve been remodeling our house for the past month and that I still have some work-work to take care of? Like writing a reflective essay on what the past year of teaching creative writing has meant to me… Five whole pages, which feels impossibly long right now. Five pages on planning a wedding? Easy. Five pages on my thoughts about getting pregnant before getting married? Cinchy. Five pages about the joys of spending one day a week trying to get 120 high school students to use a facial expression other than Disinterest? Impossible—especially with all those gnats and flies telling me I ought to be shopping for votive holders sewing table runners finding branches for a homemade chuppah finding non-cheesy secular readings painting the bathroom making wedding programs shopping on Craigslist for a crib looking for photos of wedding hairdos writing letters to my unborn child finding a comfy rocking chair that’s not too expensive and doesn’t smell like Febreze…

I went for a walk this morning to clear my head and ended up sitting on the curb in tears. There’s. Just. So. Fucking. Much. To. Do.

Two of my best mates who I’ve been friends with since high school wrote the other day to ask me what we’d like as a wedding present and all I could think was, “A breast pump would be useful.” And then I cried.

Dr. Fiancé, who is uncomfortable with the idea of people buying us wedding gifts, much less ones we’ve specifically requested on a capitalist greed list and is slightly less uncomfortable with the idea of people buying us baby gifts suggested that my friends could get us an infant car seat. I’m pretty sure the icy tone of my voice when I replied that I’d like it if the present from two of my oldest, best friends wasn’t something we’d only use for a year and then give to Goodwill guaranteed that Dr. Fiance won’t be giving me any foot rubs any time soon.

At my last doctor’s appointment when I asked my OB for therapist recommendations she asked if I’ve been feeling more depressed or more anxious. It’s just so hard to tell—am I spending every weekend crying in the bathroom because I’m anxious about my epic to-do list, or has my to-do list become epic because I’m spending every weekend crying in the bathroom? Either way, I’m getting headaches from all the crying, and I don’t know if you know this, but Tylenol is just sugar compressed into a capsule. So until I can take Excedrin again, no more crying!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to duck into the bathroom, turn on the ceiling fan and some running water, burrow my face into a hand towel and…not cry.

Bare Necessities

I’ve spent the last two days online researching baby strollers and car seats and swings and cribs and mattresses and bottles and nipples and breast pumps and glider chairs and changing tables and slings and diaper pails and everyone’s favorite—rectal thermometers. I was supposed to attend a friend’s garden party yesterday afternoon, but I never made it past my driveway because I realized I’ve lost the ability to converse like a normal person. All I’ve got is, “Can you believe they make a baby swing that simulates womb sounds? ... And do you think we need one?”