note to self

Dear Future Penelope,*

The next time you want to have another baby, I want you to come back and read this very post. Maybe you'll get the 10-month itch like the last time around, where you were like, ooo, aren't babies cute! and think it's time to start trying again. Or maybe you'll be smarter and wait a few years. Either way, listen up:

Being pregnant=NOT FUN. Particularly Being Green? REALLY NOT FUN. What you are apparently remembering is the END RESULT, i.e. THE BABY, who yes, is in fact very cute and fantastic on so many levels. The fact that your labor wasn't the total stuff of nightmares does not in any way reflect the nine months leading up to it. Yes, it's super-cool when the baby begins to move. Yes, the idea of a new little person being created is "really neat." But please, for the love of all that is holy, do not fail to remember the following:

First Trimester=Land of Suckitude. Yes, you get to spread the news and say, woohoo! Yes, names are already floating around in your unsuspecting, selectively amnesiatic brain, as well as ways to reinvent the nursery. You're already, as a seasoned pro, making lists of what you really need this time, rather than what you think you really need. Great. Super. In the meantime, here comes Week 6. Then Week 7. Up to Week Yet to Be Determined. We're talking increasing nausea at all hours of the day. Nine o'clock bedtimes, giving you approximately 1/2-hour out of the whole day to yourself, most of which is spent fighting heavy eyelids.

Then you start to vomit, usually in the morning. The time when it is most painful, because there's nothing in your stomach to purge. It's like a hangover without the fun times preceding. And you know you need to eat and fill your stomach, but everything will sound absolutely disgusting. And then when you force yourself to pick something, it will be absolute torture to ingest. It may or may not take the edge off. In the meantime, you know you should drink water, but from the second you found out you were pregnant, water became instantly abhorrent! So in no time at all, you're going to feel dehydrated. Cracked lips and everything. Which is not only not good for you or the baby, but it also makes you feel more nauseated. It's a vicious freaking cycle, Future Penelope. DO NOT FORGET.

Along with Being Green, you absolutely also cannot forget your increased sensitivity to, oh, I don't know, everything? You're already a sensitive girl, and Future Penelope, you may think I'm exaggerating, that it's really not possible for you to become any more sensitive than you already are, but YOU WILL. Being Green coupled with any sort of perceived environmental shift like heat, cold, hungry, itchy, etc, makes those shifts seem insurmountable. You won't want to do whatever it takes to correct the situation for yourself, however small. You'll just want to curl up in an irritable little ball and wish the world away. EXCEPT THAT YOU'LL HAVE TWO, COUNT THEM TWO, CHILDREN DEMANDING YOUR ATTENTION. ONE WAS DIFFICULT ENOUGH.

One last thing, and remember, we're addressing just the First Trimester here. We won't even get into the heartburn, various organ pressures, sleeping issues, increasingly uncomfortable OB appointments (remember the gestational diabetes test??? drinking the sugared-out juice when you already felt like vomiting? FUN!!!!!!), wanting the baby out in the last few weeks, and then actually GETTING THE BABY OUT. We won't even go there right now. You need to know, at this crossroads moment, that you also become, as a person, seriously un-fun. Downer Penelope. A bane to yourself most of all, much less poor J.Lo. Because you're sick all the time, and not yourself anyway, and the whole physical world feels like an assault, and you kind of hate all your clothes, and you just don't know what you were thinking anyway--pretty much, you're a bitch. Which makes you annoyed with yourself and the situation (all self-created, mind) even more, which is yet another vicious cycle.

In conclusion, I'm warning you, Future Penelope. Don't do it to yourself. At least not with extraordinarily careful consideration and committment to the cause. YOUR BODY DOESN'T HANDLE IT WELL. Much less your mind.

Waving My Arms in Warning,
Penelope in many shades of green

*A note to the little baby inside: Mommy's current discomfort with life has nothing to do with you, sweetie. She doesn't regret one iota that you're on the way. She just desires desperately to take a little vacation from her body at the moment, and is a wee bit frustrated that it's all going so similarly the second time around. (Hey, does that mean you're a girl, too? Just wondering.) Love you!