Month: July 2007

Since childbirth is the gift the keeps on giving, we’ve extended our list to the post-partum days.

Post-partum Small Prices to Pay for a Miracle

• Night sweats – It’s like taking a bath in your own sweat every night no matter the season. Thanks, hormones! I love not having to wash my hair in the morning! (ummm…just kidding I promise).

• Crying jags – Another gift from the ol’ hormones. Andy told me it was a good thing the childbirth classes prepared him for the “baby blues” (sounds so innocuous, doesn’t it?) because if not he would have thought I was seriously cracking up.

• Sleepless nights – I guess I don’t really need to explain this one. Of course I didn’t get a lot of sleep when I was pregnant either, but no tiny, needy person was screaming at me then. The grass is always greener…

• The six-week long period – Kind of makes up for not having a period for nine months.

• Bad hair days – my hair fell out in such abundance that I thought I was going bald.

• Jello belly – here’s a snippet of an actual conversation I had with a friend about six weeks after Kate’s birth.
Friend: So, are you back to normal?
Me: Kind of, but I have NO stomach muscles at all!
Friend: Oh really? As opposed to the six-pack you had before?
Me: (comment deleted for inappropriate content)

• Rock hard leaky/squirty boobs – I will spare you the details.

• Stretch marks – and lots of them.

• Either A) having something the size of a grapefruit come out an opening the size of a lemon OR B) having a ginormous hole cut in your gut!

But of course, all these wonderful trials are worth it. They are. Really.

Remind me of that when and if I ever get up the nerve to go through it again, ok?

We know that any minor inconveniences that come with pregnancy are worth it. We’re thankful we have healthy children. And we really do love our kids.

But if you’ve been pregnant, you know that even though the logical you knows that the morning sickness and cankles will pass (eventually), but it really doesn’t seem that way to your enormously pregnant self. So we’ve made a list of just a few of the fun things that we encountered during our pregnancies.

Small Prices to Pay for a Miracle

 Swollen hands and feet : and by swollen, I mean approximately 3-5 times the normal size. I will never forget the nurse that asked me several hours after giving birth if my feet were still pregnant. Sure enough they were.

Fat face: mine was so bad, I can hardly stand to think about it.

 Stretch marks: everywhere.

Fatigue it’s a darn good thing that Jenny and I worked in the same office (alone, I might add – great thinking, former employers!) while we were pregnant – one of us could be the look-out person while the other one napped on the conference room table.

 Irrationality/emotional instability: our husbands will back us up on this one.

Charley horses: I have a really unfortunate charley horse experience that is too long to tell here, but would be the good subject of a future blog entry.

 Projectile nosebleeds: what does pregnancy have to do with nosebleeds? Oh that’s right, NOTHING is sacred!

Dr. putting her hand up to her elbow in your hoo-ha: self-explanatory

Hips popping out of wherever they’re supposed to be: No, no, I’m good, I’m just gonna stand her until my anatomy corrects itself and I can walk again.

Being 9 months pregnant for TWO MONTHS: DO the math

Puking: it’s not always just in the morning folks!

Inability to roll over in bed: Having to wake your husband to roll you over is NOT good for your marriage.

Tailbone (aka BUTT) pain: don’t need to elaborate there, either.

Baby squishing your lungs: CAN’T FREAKING BREATHE

Heartburn:  all the time, regardless of what I ate or didn’t eat. It was awful. (And for those familiar with this particular old-wives tale, my baby had a ton of hair.)

25-??? extra pounds: Those question marks should really be multiplication symbols.

So that’s what Jenny and I could come up with… but we know there’s a lot we’re missing! What “small prices” did YOU have to pay for your miracle???