What Pregnancy is via cartoon.

Pregnancy isnt for the mild hearted couple. If you plan on gettin involved in this mess of a game called growing a human with another person, then make sure you like that person ALOT, cause let me tell you...it aint pretty for most of the time. I have cartooned just some of the "beauty" of pregnancy to clarify why its important to love the person you are doing it with....cause if you were just "so so" before...its going to get messy...fast....both literally and metaphorically.

Here we are. Happy couple meet pregnancy.

Pregnancy: " Oh hi there, you two look like a lovely couple, why dont i join you for nine months?

Couple: "sure! then we get to have a baby at the end of it!"

Pregnancy: "Oh sorry, did i forget to mention that you still have to love her through endless days of vomitting?"

Boy: "oh....thats okay..."

Pregnancy: "Oh did i forget to tell you that her belly will become much much larger than a watermelon under her skin?
Boy: "oh...well thats okay! that just means theres a baby in there..."

Pregnancy: "Oh did i mention that that big baby belly is going to become marked up with red and purple lines because im making her grow too fast? "
Boy: "oh....well...those will fade...its all a part of the process..."

Pregnancy: "alas, i may not have told you that i am going to make her extremities swell also. They will probably twice the size, and having her put shoes on will be a really big effort"

Boy: "oh dear....well we can work on elevating them up..."

Pregnancy: " Whoops, also, because of everythign else that has gone on physically to her, she also will now become super emotional and horomonal throughout this whole process...so you may notice she cries more and throws mini tantrums for no reason.."

Boy: " I wish there was something i could do to help..."

Pregnancy: Oooooh, right...and you are going to see her in a very messy, very intimate way when that baby decides to come out...there will be bad words and some images you will wish you hadnt seen"

Boy: "Holy cow."

Pregnancy: " congratulations for making it through....now you get the prize."

Boy: "totally worth it."

So. Its a process. But people keep telling me its a worthwhile one :)

Whoopsies.

Dear Lower Extremities.

Unfortunately I had forgotten about you until just recently. Yes I knew you were there but to be honest, as long as you were getting gme up and out of bed, I didn’t remember I used to maintain you somewhat. So when I looked down last week and saw hair growing its own little forest on my neglected legs I was actually surprised. I also noticed that my skin was tight and dry. This is because I had been focusing so much on making sure my swelling, overstretched, hugely tight tummy was being greased up to prevent stretch marks which turned out to be a huge waste of time.  So I put it on my list of things to do: shave legs. I got into my tiny corner shower and attempted this.  You can imagine how bad that turned out. Since I can barely turn around in this shower, me attempting to lift a leg and then bend to shave it....there was cave man noises and alot of swear words. I got out and sat down for ten minutes to regain both my sanity and my breath.  Epic fail.

So I drew a bath for myself. Sounds nice. Warm water, nice smelling soaps, and a nice relaxing environment for my big pregnant body.   First of all, I don’t fit in this bathtub that well anymore either. I definitely don’t submerge even a little bit. Id actually go as far as to say I  can only submerge like 60% of my body now.  So I settled in, picked up my razor, and went to shave my legs. I now realise that when I attempt to bend over to put shoes on and its impossible so I quit...that its the same motion I make when I would be sitting straight legged and reaching for my calves. Either way, again, it was less that successful. So after LITERALLY 15 minutes of me maneuvering my legs and my hand to half ass shave the forest off my legs, I quit. It wasn’t perfect, ....it wasn’t even adequate, but It felt like a success.

Then moisturizer....well to be honest, at this point was just utterly defeated by this whole lower extremity p rocess so Jake puts lotion on my legs at night time now. Because I can lead against a wall and elevate my leg up. Pathetic I know, but these are the realities of a woman whos belly exceeds the realms of normal body proportions.

I also literally CANNOT breathe lately. I couldn’t breathe WELL before, but now its seriously the hugest effort. I yawn and my diaphragm hits my uterus and I flinch in pain and only get half the yawn out.  Its a sad process.

I also had a fun time last weekend....not. I apparently picked up some sor t of bug and it landed me in the hospital. Apparently vomiting and diarrhea for a prego is super bad news....well thats what my uterus started telling me around 4 am when it started contracting about every 20 minutes.  No shit.  Well actually lots of shit. Hahahaha, TMI I know.  So after I continued to vomit even pedialyte and water aggressively and with serious abdominal pain to the point that I couldn’t catch my breath,  Healthlink and my sister advised a quick trip into the hospital. 

Quick trip. Right. Apparently I was in kind of rough shape. Vital sign wise, heart rate was too high, blood pressure was low and I kept vomiting while they were trying to get some numbers on the watermelon in my tummy. Then those numbers came back not great either, poor little pumpkin had a heart racing way faster than a teenage girl who just met justin beieber.  SO, start the fluid resuscitation. Open IV lines into the arm and push as much volume as possible,  super super super shitty. Plus gravol and continous fetal monitoring, and apparently regular contractions.  Sigh. So I fall asleep and wake up with a fever. I knew what that meant. Fever=madi stays in hospital.  Boo urns.  So 18 hours, 5L of fluid, 3 blood draws, 5 doses of gravol, 10 hours of listening to the babies heart rate, and a very sore IV site and they let me leave.

Needless to say, I was exhausted, like beyond exhausted. I was a walking zombie....a walking very swollen and hole filled zombie mamma.  Its been 3 full days since I have been out and im finally able to do laundry and make myself meals without needing to  nap for 3 hours. Pregnancy makes everything magnified I have learned. But that makes sense I guess .I mean, normally, I could recooperate fine in a day or two, this wasn’t an even match up though. I had a baby growing in me too. So I had only half the toughness I usually do.  Sigh.  Either way though, we all pulled through just fine and I think the only real damage done was the emotional stress on poor Jake.

Now. I am beyond beyond swollen. I wake up and the side of the face ive been sleeping on is so swollen that my eye barely opens and my jaw is sore to move.  Then I get up and my feet and hands explode out .And I pee every  15 minutes now. Because the fluid is starting to come out...but my bladder cant take much more than like 50cc of fluid since the baby is on it...it makes for a challenging day.

Im going to post pictures of my huge feet...and my huge belly. 

Big time baby in my belly.

More photos of the chaos that is pregnancy....this little guy is going to be a big one.

There was a time...

There was a time when the sun went down and I didnt yawn and stretch and head to bed.

There was a time when my boobs went out farther from my body than my belly did.

There was a time when I would chew my nails and not have to rechew them for weeks.

There was a time when watching commercials with babies on it didnt make me cry.

There was a time when I could work a 12 hour shift, and not shudder in pain for the next 3 days because my hips felt like they had literally separated.

There was a time when Jake and I would lock ourselves in the house, drink 3 bottles of wine, and have dance parties in our kitchen.

There was a time when heartburn was something my dad got after dinner.

There was a time when the scale and me ....well we werent friends, but we were on terms we both could understand...

There was a time when I didnt need to eat 4 boxes of Runts just to feel good about my afternoon.

There was a time when I didnt spend half the day worrying over the stretching and dilating of my body one day just weeks from now..        

There was a time when my bladder was actually a useful organ, not a flimsy wimp of a thing at the mercy of an invading uterus.

There was a time when I walked normally, with no strange gait or waddle.

There was a time when getting out of a car was something I could do WITHOUT a 30 second pep talk.

There was a time when farting was something that happened only periodically.

THere was a time when my brain worked, and was efficient and thorough.

There was a time when if my shoe didn’t slip on I would bend over to put it on, instead of cancelling my whole day and sitting back down.

There was a time when I could lift things without feeling like my entire body was going to come out of my special area.

There was a time when Jake had never read a book about birth...it was a simpler time.

There was  a time that a mucous plug was something that just sounded gross and couldn’t be real

There was a time when jake would steam roll me in bed to wake me up....rude.

There was a time when wine was water, and water was not something that could break inside me.

There was a time when Jake would never had made me get up to do squats with him because "the book said so"

There was a time when i didnt spend time in my morning planning out my day specifically to how long i could be out without my feet swelling, and with the least amount of stops to avoid getting in and out of the car.

There was a time when I could sleep on my belly, or on my side, or turn side to side without sounding like I just finished a race.

There was a time when vomiting was only something that happened to me after nursing parties

There was a time when stretch marks were only something I noticed in my well used clothing..not my skin.

There was a time when my uterus was theoretical to me...not a very real part of my every day functioning.

There was a time when the only thing my body could grow was leg hair and fingernails.

There was a  time when “ring of fire” was the name of some cool movie and not a medical term of something that will happen to me.

And now. Im pregnant. 35 weeks and a bit to be right on the money. So everything is different now. Obviously more difficult, but im hoping  that five weeks from now,  I will have a list of cool things that I do now instead of the things I cant do. ...like make a baby that looks like me and little bit and jake a little bit smile.

And finish all the Ubrew wine we’ve made in under a week.

I will keep you posted on both.

Check this out

FOr reals, this is me. I was getting into bed last night and Jake was blown away by how HUGE this abdomen that is attached to me is. We laughed about how enourmous it has gotten without us really noticing...well without HIM noticing...I notice on a daily, minute by minute basis. And yet it still surprises me. Anyways..... check this out.

ps. I have edited out stretch marks so as not to upset everyone...mostly myself.

Umm hello there person in the mirror...have we met?

So who is this person I have become?

I was trying to explain to Jake the other night how confusing being pregnant is. He doesn’t get my irrational thought processes, the dreams I have where me and Jake are in high school and we need to go a “break” and I wake up crying, the frustration that can emerge just because I cant get the lid off of a jar,  or my new development of wanting him around all the time, everyday.

Its kind of hard to explain to someone that isn’t or hasn’t been through a pregnancy, and its almost impossible to explain to man.

Women have a hard enough time for the most part knowing who they are and accepting that about themselves. They see their bodies and consider it and what should be different, what they liked that someone else had, and how they can pose themselves in photos to avoid certain flaws. Its serious. Its a truth that you all know you do, and if you are a boy, you really weren’t supposed to know. So anyways, we want shorter hair so we cut it, and then we cry because we loved our long hair, we buy a new outfit thinking it will change our lives but find that nobody really noticed it....except for our girlfriends (thank god for girlfriends), we work to lose weight and then complain that we didn’t lose it from the RIGHT place,  we gain weight according to a scale and suddenly see it all over like thick blanket that we are sure everyone else is just staring at. We’re women. And we cant help ourselves. Women are wonderful. They are empathetic and wonderful listeners, multi taskers and efficiency experts, eager to improve ourselves at every turn, whether its in their careers, their hobbies, their friendships, or their love lives, although for the most part, in my opinion, you cant improve on the perfection that is a woman.

Back to the topic.

We then come to some sort of terms with our mirror images, we make peace, make friends and try to not be our own worst enemies.  So we have now come to accept how we appear. Then there comes the acceptance of who we really are.  We want to be the best at everything all the time. Why is that so hard to understand? We want to be the boss,  run the show perfectly, be the best friend possible, be a nice girlfriend/wife,  raise the kids, win the marathon, finish the grocery shopping, plan a trip to Italy, raise the most money for a charity, make the big paycheques, and obviously, look amazing the whole time. So we consistently are let down. But eventually, you start to learn how much you can take on while maintaining your sanity. You learn how to enjoy your own company,  how to spoil yourself and how to appreciate yourself.  Again, this is a LONG process that women work on for their entire lives. We reluctantly accept our flaws, and learn our weaknesses, and figure out what we can have on our plate before we get sick (both theoretically and literally),  and go to sleep at night with some state of peace with who we are and what we are and what we want. Because we want everything at once, and at the same time are never really ready to commit to the responsibility that may be slyly attached.  Yes, we know we are confusing creatures, we have a hard enough time figuring out our own hearts and heads so stop reminding us.

Anyways, so we finally get to a sort of inner calm, where we learn to balance and manage our lives without wanting too much at once, or ever settling for not enough.

Then pregnancy happens. And life as we, women, know it, is 100% different.

My brain has been hijacked by a very VERY whiney woman.  She is always telling me how sore she is, how stressed she is, how lonely she is and how huge she is. She sits there weighing me down,  and its hard some days to ignore her. But I do, for the most part, she sits there in my head crying whenever a pin drops for no reason, and stomping around in frustration when she spills sugar.....but there are times, I can admit willingly, that she wins, and she comes out of me in full force, like when im watching commercials about babies, that woman wins those times, and we both sob uncontrollably because we know nobody is watching. Typically im fairly put together around other people... its hard to not be embarrassed of your emotions when you literally have no say in where they are coming from.  Some days I wake up feeling great, and then realise that I have to shower that day, and my mood just drops to below zero degrees. Its honestly its own little soap opera going on in my head and its EXHAUSTING telling someone in your head to pipe down all the time. And reigning her back in is also super hard, once she is out, she’s like a hurricane of hormones that I cant seem to get a grasp on, and at the time, don’t even want to.

Then there's that body you  had, as a woman grown to appreciate and know toes to eyebrows. Weeeellll thats gone. Its not yours anymore, its something you literally cannot figure out. Its swollen, and awkward, it makes noises youve never heard,  grows in places you had become accustomed to at a certain manageable size and aches in every place imaginable.  Your tummy becomes its own planet,  your boobs become big enough to LITERALLY carry another baby in,  your nose bleeds, your stomach revolts with heartburn, your  feet swell,  your fingers tingle,  you bladder  becomes a useless organ, your heart races, your appetite changes, and you wake up in the middle of the night jus t to burp.

Its the STRANGEST thing to get out of the shower, look at your once familiar body, and see the body full on pregnant that has replaced it. Sometimes i just stand there waiting for that person thats looking back at me to say, "oh hi madi, Im pregnant madi, we havent met but ive slowly been transforming you into me, its nice to meet you" . Yeah, again,  Im a little bit crazy i think. This belly cant be mine? And these boobs are definately not the ones i remember, was that second chin always there? why are my cheeks so red? The realisation that you have no control over this strange physique that is ever changing  becomes its own emotional battle. Every stretch mark becomes a personal loss,  every burp becomes a necessity, and every pound on weighs on not just your joints, but also your heart.

YES, its a wonderful thing, growing babies is super amazing and incredible, I agree....or I agreed when it was happening to other women...to other women’s minds and bodies....now that its mine, its a daily overwhelming realisation that I have minimal control over my head, and almost no control over my own body. It just keeps on growing, ....and my belly just keeps on moving without cause or effort from me. Because there's a PERSON in there now....is anyone else super weirded out by that?!  Literally, my body will get the hiccups....and I wont.  If that’s not rattling, what is?!

Its become apparent that I don’t quite know this woman I am right now. Shes strange, and she does weird things, and wants odd things, gets in and out of cars in bizarre ways, breathes like a marathon runner just from getting out of bed, crys because she cant find something to watch on TV, and waddles when she does ANYTHING.  But I’m counting on the fact that even though I feel like everyday I re-meet her,  that she is going to know exactly what to do when it comes to pushing out a baby. I have a feeling, that her and this huge body she lives in has one purpose, and that is to make a baby that is healthy and comes out of me when its time.  So she can hang out for a few more weeks I guess.  Although once this is all over, and my squash baby is here,  Id appreciate her taking a leave of absence ASAP...and for her to take the extra 25 lbs she brought with her.

Remember that time i was skinny? no? me neither.

Well hello there, you may not recognize me these days,  I’m that huge sweaty lady standing beside you breathing heavier than the guy that just ran a marathon, and holding her back/belly/ hips like an 80 year old woman when bending, sitting, standing....overall just existing. That’s me.  Doesn’t look much like the old me I know...remember that girl? Man. She was fun.  And much skinnier. And way better to invite out for a night of mayhem. These days, my mayhem nights are nights where me and Jake stay up until Eleven....on a weekend night....

Jake has somehow adopted my attitude as well. He’s surprised when we stay up past nine thirty at night and almost more tired by the end of the day than I am.  Some may speculate its due to the fact that he has to deal with me being pregnant all day long....but id ont even feel bad for him. If he thinks being AROUND me being pregnant is exhausting, well try BEING me while pregnant...I make myself crazy pants...with hysterical crying listening to country music, sudden onsets of depression when trying on my clothes,  bizarre laughing fits that turn into me crying, and just trying to do everything I used to do when I wasn’t pregnant ....i used to be a great multi tasker....these days multi tasking looks more like me starting alot of things and then sitting down on the couch with a glass of milk instead of finishing anything.

Which then leads to emotional moments when I find that I haven’t finished anything I started that day...

Who is this strange person I have become?

Even my mom noticed how boring I am these days...it says something when I cant even stay up to ten pm to finish watching greys anatomy with my mom on the couch because im just done with that day. ..again...who is this person?

And also?  Where did my feet go?

Walking down any form of staircase is super tricky. Its almost a cruel joke, I hav eto lean forward to see the next step, but me leaning forward means giving into the huge amount of weight  that has suddenly popped up in front of me, making me lose balance. So I pretty much hold on to anything near by while walking these days. Including Jake.

And, I can feel little limbs inside me. Pushing against me and rolling around and, well to be honest, they push back when I push on them to get them out of my ribcage. Doesn’t this baby know I need my ribs for breathing and functioning?  And hello, my lungs are under there...and breathing is already tricky so...

Me and this little guy are going to go over some serious anatomy lessons when he’s out.

HOWEVER, I have decided that I have a new career up and coming. It is nursery decorating...although it makes me sad to think some mom out there wouldn’t want to decorate her own nursery for her little baby...she would be one of those really rich moms that just wants to show her friends her vera Wang mobile and fendi crib bumper. Judged. So maybe this isn’t a career I would be into.

Although, I am pretty impressed by my little nursery.  And I think that the baby will like it. Although I don’t really think he cares...I’ve learned, and Jake has learned that nurseries are more for the mom to be than for the baby.  Since he can barely even see as a newborn I don’t know if he will truly appreciate the beautiful tree wall decal I’ve bought for him ...and me. I think that also my new sobriety has lead to more creativity....that’s the only reason I can come up with for my new found interest in thank you card making and scrapbooks. However, I will gladly give up this new found creative side of my brain for wine again in 7 weeks.

Me and Jake also have our prenatal class coming up.  That should be more that interesting. I accidentally bought jake a book to help him prepare for the event that I will call “the big show” (this is when the baby the size of a watermelon will come out of me), I now regret this decision. Jake started reading it last night. ..since then I have had numerous tasks and recommendations by Jake via the book about how to make labour easier.

Jake literally wants me to do squats with him everyday. Squatting is something that at this point in my pregnancy...and at this WEIGHT im at, I think a solid squat will just straight up push the baby out accidentally. He also has already started lecturing me about drinking during labour, and how I am “not allowed to get mad” when he tells me I need to drink.

Let me make this clear. At some point during the big show , where  I AM THE MAIN EVENT, and the baby is the big star, Jakes needs are going to be lost in the mess.  Even if Jakes needs are to make sure Im drinking enough, or whatever.  I have a strong feeling there will be a point where Jake wants to tell me something else he learned about how I can cope better and I will accidentally punch him.  I wont mean to, but I have a feeling it will feel like life and death at that point, and nobody can be held responsible for their reactions at a time like that.

Again. We will see where this book takes mine and Jakes relationship. We only have to push through the next 7 weeks....lets all send happy thoughts to my huge belly, my already stressed out baby doorway, and Jakes wellbeing.

Nursery Love to Follow :)