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!

Is This Modern Mom Life?

Being a stay at home mom is one of the hardest jobs that I have ever done. When I was sitting at my desk in my office 8 months pregnant, I had these delusions that being home with my daughter would be easy, peaceful and stress-free. I would have tons of free time around taking care of her and be able to complete all of these personal projects before going back to work full time. Well, I was wrong. Really wrong. I mean seriously where did I get these visions of motherhood from? I really thought I was going to be my best self at home, that chores would be done and I would be done up with hair and makeup and get my workouts in and my pre-baby weight would just fall right off. Maybe it was really ignorant of me for having these kinds of thoughts but coming to terms with the actual reality of staying home I think is more disappointing than the job itself. First, I really had to learn to stay away from social media and went as far as removing the apps from my phone because I felt like it was slowly contributing to my mental decay. Social media when you are a stay at home mom is like living in a house and looking out the window to a cardboard cut out of a sunny day. Everyday is a pretty picture but its not what's real and after awhile you miss seeing the rainy days and the snow storms because that is what's real. I got tired of seeing moms who supposedly have their shit together and maybe they actually do. Kudos to them. But now that I have two children under two years old I can barely get my shit together. My hair is lucky its washed most days and I have had to buy clothes several sizes up from what I was used to wearing. My hair is mostly gray at the roots and just pulled back in a messy ponytail. I barely recognize myself when I look in a mirror. My glasses are on instead of contacts and I am mostly exhausted and less ambitious than I used to be. As far as house work, it feels like I am Sisyphus. Constantly rolling that boulder of chores only to watch it get undone each and everyday. There is no end to laundry and dirty dishes and even when you think you got ahead the hamper is full of dirty clothes yet again. When I started working out and preparing healthy meals I used to eat, I only found myself juggling too much as the babies needs are always first and rightfully so. I have no resentment for that. But when I tried having parts of the life I used to have before children I only grew disappointed in myself for not being able to balance everything. I found that having absolutely no expectations for myself during the day made me a nicer mom instead of a mom who felt like she was always failing. Now I work part time and thought that this would help me recover a sense of self. Not having many adult conversations and absolutely no time for breaks to think single mental thoughts instead of multitasking many thoughts can eat at your soul. There are days that I wake up and forget that I am an individual with my own personality; instead I am constantly computing mentally what everyone around me needs to function and neglect myself. This kind of mom stress lessens over time, so I hear when your children get older and they no longer rely on you for everything. But this period of adjusting to motherhood is a hard one and I think we owe it to one another to admit it. I don't think that having a hard time being a mom or adjusting to being a mom is something we should be embarrassed to talk about or admit. In fact, we should be able to swap war stories with one another and talk about how we dealt with it or are dealing with it. It is something I find that we cannot really talk to our husbands about either. It is hard for some to understand all that we do and have sacrificed when they still get to keep their individuality in tact. It is like they just add "dad" to their resume where we have to basically dump ours in the trash. When you are home everyday it is easy to forget all that you were and all that you did before you had children. I know that this stage of motherhood doesn't last forever. I am sorry if I sound ungrateful for all that I have because I am not. I love my children and am thankful everyday that I get to stay with them and grow them up the way that I want to. It is a beautiful thing for me to see them grow and develop in each stage of life while learning about their own likes and dislikes. Their little kisses and smiles are what makes me keeping getting up everyday and repeating the monotony. Maybe this is a generational mom struggle and has everything to do with the fact that we as women are not grown and bred to just marry and make babies. We had lives before we have children now since we are having them much later in life than other generations. We have careers and educations and we are able to choose not to be stay at home moms if we don't to. Not all of us are great with children and we don't have to be these days, we can choose to show our children what our strengths are and just as importantly what our weaknesses are too. We do not all have to be June Cleaver. And it's about time we assure ourselves that we don't have to be. That we don't have to live up to a fake picture of motherhood.

A Not so Feminist Interview

It is true what they say about meeting some of your heroes or people in the world that you most admire. They do not always live up to the standards we hold them to. I think it is hypocritical when women who work for the equality of other women are just not decent human beings to begin with. How can you believe in a cause that promotes civil rights and equality and than discriminate against someone? I had an unfortunate experience interviewing with a woman last year; she is well known in the feminist world through her writing, political activism and her work with women's rights and abortion. Currently, she is running her own Planned Parenthood type clinic in NYC. I had read some of her work before and had a skype interview with her assistant the week before the interview and I was really hyped about working for a woman that was not only an icon to the struggle for civil rights but lived through the second wave of feminism and had so much rich history with women's rights in NYC. I was interviewing for a position to work with her in her clinic and even if I did not get the job I was happy to be meeting her in person and hoping to be inspired to continue struggling in the writing world. I had taken a train through severl boroughs for this interview and was so nervous I arrived early. It had taken me about 2 hours to get there by public transportation. When I walked into the clinic I was surpirsed to discover young minority women scattered around the waiting room, surrounded by pictures of one white woman holding picket signs. Also, snipets of her books and articles published on her in picture frames adormed the walls as well. To me, Something wasnt right; this place was designed to support women who could not afford reproductive health care and instead looked like a museum or shrine to the woman who was in charge of it all. I looked around the walls and read the articles as I waited for my interview, still not sure why there wasn't more information on birth control and safe sex instead but I shrugged it off because I had traveled a long way and was very interested to meet this particular woman who was the star of her own wallpaper. When she called me into her office, finally; she did not smile but was very terse. She asked me a few general interview questions but hardly looked up at me and stood behind her computer screen. I went from being nervous to confused in an instant. Why had she called me down to come here for an interview when this woman was treating me like I was not even a person. Just by looking at me, she assumed that I was much younger than I am and therefore inexperienced which was extremely rude and judgemental. She flat out told me that I was a waste of her time and not what she was looking for without ever really taking her nose off the computer screen. I walked out of that room in less than 2 minutes without hardly saying anything about myself; she had treated me the way men treated women in the workforce in Mad Men. I turned the door knob to leave her office and wanted so badly to shout expletives at her and make her feel as small and insignificant as she had made me feel but instead I walked out and dumped her book in the garbage in the lobby and never turned back. I couldnt help but hold back tears as I walked back to the subway. It is overwhelming to be consumed with disappointment after meeting with a woman that sounded admirable behind a pen and paper but in reality was just enforcing the social stigmas she was supposedly fighting against. It all made sense now, why the clinic was a self absorbed shrine to herself and the women inside it were nothing more than patients, not people, not women, not individuals. And I was treated the same way when I entered. I couldn't help but be angry as well; how dare she think that my time is not as valuable as hers! I had traveled awhile to get here just to be treated like garbage! Had such an important and educated woman not gone over my resume before calling me and asking me to come in only to turn me away after a single glance?! Was I not the young white ivy league educated woman like herself that she was looking to hire? Or was being cruel to other women some kind of sick amusement? Some people do like to model the hierarchy they once struggled against; perhaps this was the case? I did not realize it then but I know now that she had done my a favor or I might be writing a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada at this very moment. So if she reads this one day and recognizes herself I hope she receives my Thank You. Thank you for opening my eyes to the fact that not all women who call themselves feminists and engage in social feminist circles are truly feminists or practice feminist ideals in their own life. I do not think that I am the only adult woman who has ever walked out of that office the same way and I am sorry for whoever really did get that unfortunatle position.

Not Your Grandmother's Breakfast At Tiffany's

I am a big fan of Audrey Hepburn and her work and I went to see Breakfast At Tiffany's live on Broadway with the apprehension that no one could play Holly Golightly the way Audrey portrayed her in the 1961 film. But Emilia Clarke was not Audrey's Holly Golightly; in fact, she recreates the character in a way that 1961 Hollywood could not portray Holly. Holly is a young woman who tries to escape love and the stigmas that are associated with it like marriage and patriarchy by using them to her financial benefit. In other words, she's a hooker. She uses men of course to climb the social ladder but men are disposable and she uses them as she sees fit; yet, they cannot help falling in love with her. We all understand what Holly's profession is in the movie but the rawness of her speech and actions is missing from the film,perhaps because it just wasn't acceptable to portray women with sex and vulgarity in 1961? We can even argue that she was a pioneer for gay rights as well! The film will always be special to me but I do not think I fully understood Holly's complexity until I saw the play nor did I appreciate the effect that Holly has on Fred's sexuality or his climb up the social ladder. Holly, in the play teaches Fred what society is all about and how the game is played. Holly might be, dare I say, a more feminist character than I had originally thought. We see a gender role reversal with Holly and Fred because the woman in this era is not trying to mimic the male work ethic and infringe on his sphere. Instead, Fred is doing what we might originally expect Holly to do and this is to copy male behavior to fit into corporate America. However, Fred is so disappointed with the white collar industry that he begins to copy Holly's tactics to gain higher positions and more money. In the end, Holly becomes almost like a legend who has touched each man's heart (and wallet, of course) but continues to disappear and reappear like a mirage. Holly does not end up happily ever after at the end with her male love interest. She foregoes love, marriage, and motherhood altogether even though she was so close to obtaining the American dream lifestyle for Friedan era women. She not only loses her chance to make that lifestyle a reality but I think she was more content and relieved to give it up and continue her pursuit for freedom. The play ends with Holly running off alone, to freedom perhaps.

Women Through Time

How well does history know women? We have been occupying this Earth for hundreds of years, we are 1/2 the population and yet century after century society enforces new social norms for women, completely neglecting their actual needs and desires.

Slut Walk NYC

If you have a vagina then chances are you have been called a "slut" at least once in your life. But what is worse than being called a "slut" is being told that you ask for certain violent and unwanted sexual behavior.
"Asking for it" is not a new concept, not for women. But when men who are educated with women, living with them, in addition to having sisters, mothers, and daughters, are making comments that victims of rape and sexual assault are dressing or acting like "sluts" and therefore, bringing on themselves this violent behavior,then we, as a society, have a huge problem on our hands.
When someone is mugged in the street do we blame the robber or do we blame the victim? Well if they did not have a purse or a wallet then it would not have happened. Ridiculous concept no? Then why is it ok to blame rape victims?
It's not.
The activity of blaming women for their sexual attraction is also no new concept. Men have always blamed women for their own lack of control of their own bodies. As if it is somone else's fault that they can't keep it in their pants.
That is where the SlutWalk comes in. It is a feminist movement that wants to rectify the connotation of the word "slut." And although some feminists are calling the Slutwalk ridiculous and a joke, well at least these women are standing up and doing something about feminism which is moving backwards again. The Slutwalk has been in many U.S. and Canadian cities and is making its way to NYC on October 1st.
And it is definately needed in this city, especially under the wake of several rapes and assaults that are being dismissed. Remember the 2 NYC police officers who were recently acquitted of raping a drunken woman they were supposed to be helping get home safely? The newspapers mentioned quite often that she was under the influence, insinuating that she brought this type of treatment on herself. And what kind of message are we sending to police officers, that it is ok to rape, especially when the girl is a "slut?" And what message are we sending to young women, that no where is safe?
Recently, another NYC police officer Michael Pena was accused of raping a school teacher at gun point, using the same gun he is supposed to be protecting citizens with. And why shouldnt he? The last two of "New York's Finest" rapists got away with it!
Not to mention, Dominique Strauss Kahn who was just today released of criminal charges for sexual assault. More and more we are sending men the message that it is ok to rape and assault women because well they are "sluts" and "sluts" deserve that type of behavior.
As bizarre and useless as the Slutwalk may seem to other women and feminists, I think its great that someone is going to do something to remind MEN and WOMEN that another wave of feminism needs to begin, that young girls and boys are getting the wrong impression about proper bahavior.
For more info check out the Slutwalk NYC facebook page!