Did you hear the one about the woman who was pregnant for 40 months? Me neither, I made it up.

I want to talk about pregnancy.  Have you ever been pregnant?  If you are a guy, I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that your answer would be no.  So if this topic doesn’t interest you, I am giving you leave to head on over to Home Depot…hurry while I’m not lurking in the hardware aisle looking for a cheap thrill.

For those of you in the sisterhood, I want to vent for a little bit here.  Chime right in with a “right on sister!” if this has happened to you.  Let’s say you are at the point in your pregnancy where your belly is finally looking pregnant.  It isn’t at that in-between stage where people look at you funny and don’t dare ask when the baby is due because you might just be fat.  You know…that stage?  So here you are minding your own business in, let’s say, an elevator, and in steps a fatherly-looking, and perfectly sane-looking gentleman.  You exchange pleasantries and then it happens… he leans over and pats your tummy and asks, “Did you swallow a watermelon…argghhh, arghh, arghhh…LOL, LOL…ROFL!!!” 

Now I ask you ladies…seriously…what pregnant or non-pregnant woman for that matter, has not heard that lame joke?  I mean, I have to admit, I look at my swollen belly and it’s a regular laugh riot to me also, but where do perfect strangers get off touching my what is typically a very “off-limits bodily area” and laugh?  I’ll tell ya what… If I pointed to a dude’s very “off-limits bodily area” and laughed, well, that would be the end of the date, I’m sure.  Hey…now I think I know why those Match.com dates never really got off the ground!  But I digress. 

So, while I’m on a roll, another thing that torques me off is how older, wiser, and many times over pregnant women like to torture first-time mothers with gruesome stories about labor and delivery.  I remember as a first time soon-to-be mother, I was around seven months pregnant and I was getting to that stage where I was freaking out about labor.  I was thinking, gee, I wonder if there is a clause in like, a life contract or something, that I could sign that would get me out of experiencing any pain.  I would SO sign that contract right now.  I would even consider negotiating a celibate life for a term not to exceed two years if that was on the table.  No kidding, that is how my mind worked at the time!  So, I was trepidatious as I sat there waiting to see my OB/GYN. 

Now it happens, there were two very large and Amish-looking older ladies talking with one another, rocking their newborns and recounting their recent labors.  I tried not to appear to be eavesdropping, but come on, let’s be real; the waiting room is the size of a postage stamp.  Pretty hard not to hear everyone’s conversations, but you get to pretend that you are uninterested.  That’s what my mama taught me.  Yeah, like I listen to what my mama taught me!  Had I listened to my Mama, I wouldn’t be pregnant sitting in a waiting room, but I digress. 

So, here I am with my magazine, pretending not to hear as one of them recounts, “…well, my 8^th labor lasted 49 hours and they had to use the Jaws of Life to pull the poor sucker out of my uterus.  It took 4 hours to stitch me up.  They finished and stuffed me into a taxi to get back to the farm just in time to plow the north forty and feed the cattle before dinner.”  I dropped my magazine and my jaw to the floor at the same time and blew my cover!  All I could think was, come on lady, the Amish don’t ride in taxis!    Obviously, I wasn't believing a word this woman was saying.  However, it was at that moment that I left that riveting discussion to find a bathroom so that I could sink my head in a toilet and throw up.  What I’m saying here ladies is give these first time mothers a break…gruesome labor stories are best left to entertain us all at card club.

Lastly, but certainly not least, can we all agree that pregnancy is not a disability?  It AMAZES me that some new mothers think that pregnancy is a disability.  Seriously, I mean do they give you blue handicapped cards to put on your rear view mirror when you are pregnant?  No! Why?  Because it is a condition…repeat after me…it is a condition.  Not a disability!  And it has a beginning (we all know when that was, *wink* *wink*) and an ending.  Unless you are an elephant…then it goes on forever.  But I digress. 

Most of us women are made of tough stock and we soldier on, but for those delicate first-timers who may find this hard to believe, I guaran-darn-tee you that you will be able to clean that toilet, wash those dishes and fold those clothes even if you have *gasp!*, God forbid, swollen ankles.   AND (this just keeps getting better doesn’t it?) you will survive a trip to the grocery store when your belly is getting kicked by a growing baby that just found its love for soccer.  It’s true, I wouldn’t lie.  And you know that whole “I’m eating for two” thing you have going on?  Well, embrace that for as long as you can sweetheart because as quick as a rabbit reproduces, you will give birth and all those extra pregnancy pounds will become just run–of-the-mill FAT.  It’s the pre-cursor to the middle-age spread.

So, as you can tell, I’ve done the pregnancy thing and I survived.  I am now in the season of my life (you like that, I say “season of my life” like it is fun, when really it is shorthand for “crap, I’m old!”) when I can dispense wisdom to soon-to-be new mothers.  So with all the kindness I can muster, I will say, “Thank GOD you aren’t an elephant!  I’m just sayin’…!”