Being Pregnant Sucks

Pregnancy. Let me tell you I have gotten a lot of flack for expressing my distaste with carrying children into this world. If you know me then you know I can be a chronic bitcher and complainer from time to time. And pregnancy was no different for me. Sorry but I hated it. Almost every minute of it. I really had high expectations for it and I had planned in my head exactly how my pregnancies were going to go. All of that planning was done in vain. I wanted to be that fit pregnant woman who was doing yoga hand stands at nine months- you know those videos that go viral like the one of the pregnant chick bench pressing? Yeah, I expected my pregnancy to be a less extreme version of something like that. I expected I would be active; I would have a doula and I would avoid a c-section at all costs. None of these things happened for me. My fit pregnancy plans expired when I ran into some spotting early on in my first pregnancy. It had taken me awhile to get pregnant in the first place and I was terrified of losing this pregnancy. When my doctor told me to stop exercising and just stick to walking to take it easy I listened. I ate lots of fruits and salads and craved lots of veggies during my first pregnancy and I wore my fitbit and walked as much as possible since it was all I could do. And so at 8 weeks pregnant I was already not the fit kind of pregnant I imagined I would be. I honestly really don't enjoy anything at all about being pregnant except for the feeling of the baby moving inside me. Even the uncomfortable jabs in the ribs were fine with me because I knew the movement meant I had a healthy active baby inside me and I loved it. It was the only thing I missed. But everything else I absolutely despised. The raging hormones would make me nauseous and I had unexplainable reasons for avoiding certain foods I once enjoyed. Until this day I still can't stomach the sight of chicken. (It was my go-to protein prior to being pregnant). The exhaustion was another symptom I had a hard time adjusting to as well. I am used to being quite active and goal oriented- I am very rarely NOT doing something whether it was chores around the house, personal projects or working on exercise and meal prepping. Pregnancy turned me into a sleeping machine. I was always tired and always felt the need to doze off no matter where I was. I remember being in a work meeting and feeling my eyes closing right in front of my boss! And I had no control over it. I would come home from work and crash for the night. Things didn't get done around the house and I had no motivation to care. I exercised daily before my first pregnancy and was used to the amazing energy serge I had afterwards and this was a complete 360. Next, I thought that I would absolutely enjoy eating as a pregnant woman. I thought I would be hungry all the time and need to eat foods I normally wouldn't to satisfy bizarre cravings but that wasn't the case either. I hated eating. I couldn't wait to eat after I gave birth. I was especially displeased at the long list of foods that were off limits including medium rare beef and feta cheese! Why feta cheese??!! I craved it so badly during my pregnancy that I would have to seek out pasteurized non imported versions to toss on all my salads. And I brought that feta with me everywhere. Non physical reasons for hating pregnancy have to be people's comments. It is like being in an uncensored alternate universe when you get pregnant. I mean people I never even spoke to before felt the need to comment on everything from my growing butt and the size of my baby bump. I had to hear everything from whether I was too small for my size or if my bump was too big. People would estimate that my baby was going to be HUGE based on the size of my bump and that pissed me off entirely. (My daughter was born at 7lbs exactly so goes to show you how accurate people are with their annoying comments). When you really start to get big in your last trimester, you can be prepared to hear shit like "You are going to pop any day now!" Like who the fuck asked you?? Sorry not sorry but expect some pregnant women to be super cranky at the end. The bigger you get the harder it is to sleep comfortable. I don't care what wrap around body bamboo pillow you buy. You can't fucking sleep. Trying to turn from side to side is so increasingly difficult as the months drag on. And I used to wake up repeatedly with these cramps in my pelvic area. They would hurt if I stood still so I would have to jump out of bed and try to walk them off. Well jump is a far cry from the truth. It is more like I would have to teeter out of bed. Next has to be the amount of times I had to pee during pregnancy. It started for me almost immediately-fun fact: early on pregnancy hormones increase urine production- yippy! It's like a foreshadowing of what the next 9 months will be like. I could barely leave the house worrying if there would be easy access to a bathroom. I honestly never had to pee so much in my life. Well this about sums up the major reasons I hated being pregnant. I know some women love it and my experience by no means reflects anyone else's but my own. Let me know what you thought about being pregnant. Share it below.

#Momlife - When Shit Gets Real

I know I talk about being a stay at home mom alot. I know I complain too. But truth is there's alot to fucking complain about! We all know the endless amount of tasks expected of women so I am not going to even get into that- but let's talk about something else - something that I least expected when I became a mom of two under two. I am just going to come out and say it- I completely underestimated the amount of feces I would encounter on a daily basis. Yes feces. No like seriously? What do I feed this kids??!!!

Sometimes I really question myself since I am the one home during the bulk of my kids bowel movements. (Seriously, no pun intended). But this issue is something I did not expect when I imagined my life with 2 toddlers. There are lots of mom struggles when your kids depend on you for all of their basic human needs. And yes cleaning poop does come with the job- that wasn't the surprise. The surprise was literally how much poop would come out of such tiny humans and how often, including at all the worst times of the day. It's basically unlike any other experience I have had prior to raising my kids. You know you have a busy morning (and this is true regardless of whether you're a working mom or a sahm) you are getting ready, you are getting the kids ready, everyone has to eat but cannot unless you provide the food and water and even assist them in ingesting it and the YOU yourself must also perform basic human necessities like brushing teeth, washing face, eating and drinking but of course like a good mom all my children's needs come first. And just when they are done with their food and I have fed them their last spoonful of whateverthefuck I can clean their tiny faces and fingers and take a deep breath and finally take a bite of something myself. But then it happens. That little butt pops out in a toddler sized squat and their faces scrunch up and redden and then there is the death stare - focusing on absolutely nothing at all but what is happening in their diaper. Now if you missed all these signs you can wait for the smell - kind of like a cartoon where a stream of green putrid mist is floating up into the hair and then it finally hits someone in the nostril- that's basically what happens when kids poop. I tell you a mom must have been the one to design that animated concept. This is the part where you now must stop eating whatever it was you were looking forward to as you drooled over preparing everyone else's meals and then proceed to clean this pooptastrophy (of which I will spare you any descriptive details on what will come out of your child). I will leave some elements of surprise for you if you have no children of your own yet. While you are cleaning one - the other runs into a semi hiding position and you know, you just fucking know they too are taking a shit! This is going to be multiple poop diapers in a row before you even immersed yourself in your own breakfast! Now tell me really, who the hell even wants to continue eating breakfast at this point? Most of the time breakfast becomes a meal that takes me a few hours to finish because by the time I can stomach eating anything at all again someone is bound to do something nauseating. If your question is do my children's shit ruin my appetite? Yeah it fucking does! It's gross; I don't care what you think. Gagging over my kids' bowel movements does in no way reflect my ability to parent and if you are going to stand there and tell me you never wanted to hurl during a diaper change than you are a damn liar! Or you are just a psycho who likes the smell of shit! You pick. How can I go on and on this long about feces. Well, have a few kids and you will find out. Because I haven't even ventured into the territory of changing a poop diaper in a public place yet. That is a whole special type of physical horror that you have yet to encounter if you do not know what I am referring to. Have you ever been far from a public restroom or sans changing table and had to do the whole inside-the-carriage-hope-I-dont-get-shit-on-anything diaper switcheroo? Nevertheless, I haven't even touched on blowouts! Blowouts are what new moms think won't happen to them because they will always use the appropriate size diaper and be more careful than other moms. I know I was one of those moms too. Rookie mistake! But then I got a reality check in the form of a shitsplosion that ruined multiple cutesy baby outfits I could no longer save without the terrible memory of what occurred in them. I love my babies. I do. And they will probably hate me for writing about their shit in the pubic blogosphere - but I am in the spirit of keeping mommyhood real- the good, the bad, and the shitty. And shit is about as real as it gets honey. One time I even kept a tally of how many poop diapers I changed in a day and then I sent that number to my husband who was busy at work and could care less. True story. I don't know if I was looking for some kind of defecation trophy or just a "thanks for wiping my kids' butts, honey" but I finally realized I might just be going a bit a crazy (blame it on the daily inhalation of toxic fumes). Either way needless to say no one was really impressed. But for new moms and future moms, it is really not all shitty. And if we can find humor in the parts that aren't so great than we've already won half the battle!