The Unknown Symptoms and Rules of Pregnancy

It amazes me how little people know about pregnancy and how shocked they are when I inform them of something simply in passing. For example, your feet grow, you can't eat lunch meat, no sushi, no alcohol while breast feeding, your eyesight might readjust while you're pregnant and then again after you give birth, some people have to have their cervix sewn shut, bed rest means absolutely no activity or stress and disregarding it could mean jeopardizing your life or the life of your baby, paid maternity leave is not guaranteed, it can clear up your skin or make you have acne, it can induce a very itchy rash, you lose chunks of hair after you give birth while your hormones readjust, you have Braxton Hicks contractions well before going into labor, what a Braxton Hicks contraction is, what it means to be 50% effaced, why you have to pee so much even early on in pregnancy, and on and on. Just yesterday I had to explain that there is such a thing as a breast pump (not kidding) and that there is a method called "Pump and Dump" when you decide pump your breast milk and throw it away after you drink alcohol so that you don't pass on alcohol to the baby through your breast milk. I also explained that they now have test strips so you can tell whether you've expelled all the "contaminated" breast milk (I prefer to call it "enhanced" breast milk) from your system. And quite frankly, a lot of this amazes me too.

Okay, crappy burger for lunch. I swear they didn't cook it all the way through. Can't they see my enormous protruding tummy and gather that I am pregnant - hence I need my food cooked thoroughly? Of course, I have to deal with the overly protective too - all those people who think I can't even carry a single law book from the library to my office or stand up for more than five minutes at a reception. Seriously, don't you think I look more awkward sitting in a chair while everyone else around me is standing and all I have at eye level are crotches and boobs? It boggles the mind that people think I would be more comfortable like this. If you can't picture this, try pulling up a chair at a happy hour where everyone is standing around conversing as they sip on their delightful adult beverages. It probably wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't dead sober at the same time, so make sure you do this at the beginning of the happy hour so you can fully appreciate the awkwardness of staring into your friends' pelvises or craning your head upward so you can follow the conversation and relieve your eyes from darting awkwardly from one crotch to the next. Moreover, you can't really participate in a conversation when no one is looking at you. Okay, that's off my chest now. Thanks for listening.