Just call me....

Pee Pee McFarty.

or

The Barf-o-rama Babe

or the Heartburn Heartbreaker.

Sexy, eh? I think so. Or at least the part of me that believes in saying to hell with what others think. Pregnancy is just not like they show it on TV. They either show:

A. The badly dressed exhausted women waddling and shuffling along in slippers, donut crumbs on her shirt

B. Some cute young thing in lululemon pants showing off her perfect baby bump, skinny everywhere else, tiny hips.

Or my pet hate,

C. The fabulously wealthy dressed to kill in 3 inch heels pregnant woman off to close her third deal of the day after eating a few organic morsels for lunch.

In reality, all of these caricatures are non-existent bullshit, all of it designed to make women feel inadequate. With a lot of prep and money and some rest, I could look like C. But after a very short while, I'd have to take off the heels. I'd have a chocolate bar hidden in my purse to eat, because of the heartburn and starvation from the lunch. I have spent some more money on nicer clothes this time, so I might be able to look dressed to kill rarely for this pregnancy. But it will be RARE.

If I was B. I'd be quaking in terror at the thought of a vaginal birth with hips that small, and since pants cut that low rest directly over my bladder, I'd spend most of my time eithering running for the bathroom or peeing my pants. And there's no way you can wear anything like a pad the way they mold to your butt. So cough too hard, and peeing your pants in public is a very real possibility. And christ the skinnies get stretch marks too, so what's with pretending they have smooth lil' hairless scarfree tummies?

Although I may feel like I look like A sometimes that's kind of a depressing vision. I want comfortable pants, but too polyesterish or sweatpantish and I'll feel sloppy. I keep hoping I can find a cut that is nice, and fabric that is breathable/stretchable and maybe washable, but that combo is expensive or unattainable so far. Waddling is unavoidable, but comfortable shoes that aren't butt ugly shouldn't be such a tough request to make of the shoe manufacturers. I'm trying to avoid the donut crumbs, but seriously, on behalf the formerly flat-chested in the world....it's a weird experience to suddenly acquire a shelf. I need a bib I think. Basically it's easier to be comfortable like this, but most of us don't want to have to look like crap. And I bet there is a middle ground.

In real life, I bet all of these women are carrying gas-x in their purse, and tums, and all of them have trouble keeping up with their personal grooming, or at least contorting themselves to reach certain bits. They should show women having real morning sickness, past the first trimester, and not just the polite little version where the genteel mother-to-be lies on her bed with the vapours, or the bad girl version where she vomits like it's the morning after a kegger. Or acckkkk, I forgot my absolute utterly most hated stereotype, the brave morally superior nausea and vomiting sufferer who is told to tough it out, and is admired by doctors and society for never taking "those awful drugs that could hurt the baby." (Last part is uttered with lots of high-pitched judgment, usually by idiots who couldn't read a scientific paper if it hit them in the middle of the eyes. )

Speaking of teenage moms----could the media stop spreading the idea that teenagers all give birth effortlessly and perfectly and have no risks at all. Teens under 18, and especially 15 and under have a dramatically higher rate of miscarriage, stillbirth, preterm labour & neonatal death, birth defects, labour and delivery complications, etc. than the stereotypes portray. And it's not because the teen mother is being an irresponsible mother, or even because of social issues. Sometimes it's just because her body hasn't matured enough to properly carry a pregnancy. Ovulation and periods don't mean the rest of the body has caught up, so yeah, I wish the media wouldn't make it sound like hey, they're young and healthy, blah blah blah...life is all sunshine and risk-free puppies. HA!

I'm creating life here. It's going to get messy. But I shouldn't have to feel ashamed or pressured to live up to stupid stereotypes along the way.

So if we ever meet in real life and I fart or burp, I'm not going sputter with embarassment. If you look in my purse and see some spare undies and gaviscon, there's a reason.

Suck it up Miss Manners, Pee Pee McFarty has moved next door. And she ain't wearing no sailor dress with a floppy bow.