Okay, who made up this auspicious "glow" that all pregnant women hear about? I'd like to meet that person and personally congratulate him on pulling off the Greatest Hoax of All Time. I sincerely suspect that what really happened, back long before our day, to create this idea of a pregnant woman having an aura of peace, calm, and radiance was actually this:
Late one evening, a group of Neanderthals was sitting around a campfire, ugging and ooging about their day, when a pregnant Neanderthal waddled up. The light and shadows of the campfire illuminated her as she came to the scene in her monstrous state, and everyone sitting around the fire was startled and began shrieking and running around in terror. With their limited vocabulary, they managed, "Ahh!!! Glow!!!," to express their fear of this glowing, shadowy monster. However, when they realized it was just their boat-sized tribeswoman in the latter stages of pregnancy, illuminated by the glow of the fire, they all felt terrible. But an extremely clever and diplomatic member of the tribe, who was more quick-witted than the rest, spoke up in hopes of saving the day. He said in an awed, respectful tone, "Ohhhhhh....Gloooooowwww!! OOooohhh!!" And the rest of the tribesmen quickly followed suit.
Willing to believe anything in her fragile pregnant state (and already a bit dumber than dirt, given that she was a Neanderthal), she believed them. Seeing how encouraged she was and how much her mood improved over the course of the evening, the rest of the tribesmen got to thinking. It really was unpleasant when their pregnant, hormonal Neanderbrides started smashing rocks and throwing bones, and they really could use a leg up during what was normally a very unpredictable and unfulfilling phase of marital loving. So they started trying the same tack on all their pregnant wives. Lo and behold, this pregnant glow thing really took off!
Even females in the tribe started complimenting each other on their glows; because even though they didn't really see any glow, they didn't want to appear dumber and less observant than the other tribespeople. And besides, what female doesn't want to believe in some glow that she might possibly get when it's her turn to look like a beached whale? It was worth hoping!
And that brings us to our current fixation on the pregnant glow. I hear about it. "Oh, my word, but you should have seen her. She was just gorgeous during her pregnancy. She LITERALLY glowed!!" I see news stories on it. "Stay tuned for our next segment: 5 Tips on How You Can Get That Pregnant Glow!" I read about it. "When hormonal levels are raised, the increased estrogen and blood flow results in a more flush, brighter appearance to your skin..." But thus far, actually seeing this pregnant glow myself has been as lucky a search as my quest to meet a snipe.
As tempting as it is to believe that some hormonal change is going to make you beautiful when your belly doubles in size, your calves and ankles turn into cankles and your feet swell like over-filled water balloons, you begin sweating from places you didn't even know have sweat glands, and you begin to waddle like Daisy Duck, I think that you really need to let yourself off the hook and just accept that the only glow you will acquire during pregnancy will be from the scorching fire burning in your esophagus from uncontrollable heartburn and indigestion.
I know I got told I had the glow - which I certainly appreciated. Though this neither boosted my confidence in those individuals' grips on reality nor their integrity. Being my first pregnancy, I really didn't show for a very long time. Oh, I gained weight. BOY, did I gain weight! (49.5 lbs. over the course of the pregnancy.) But with the way it distributed, my belly didn't "pop" until almost 6 months in. So instead of looking all cutesie with my lovely little baby belly, I really just looked fat.
When I FINALLY started looking pregnant, it was around the 5.5 month mark. I was standing in the Walmart check-out, and the cashier, without hesitating, asked me off-handedly, "When are you due?" I think people had been afraid until this point to ask that question for fear it would be met with tears and a very awkward moment explaining that I wasn't pregnant and was actually just an overweight glutton with disproportionate fat distribution. I looked kinda pregnant, but it was the awkward period of not looking pregnant enough for people to risk asking. So when the cashier asked my due date, without hesitation or reticence, I nearly threw my arms around her and kissed her! THANK YOU!!! I finally look pregnant!!!
As fate would have it, though, soon after that point, I really began to feel pregnant. I'd dealt with nausea and exhaustion during the first trimester, and all through the second and third I had horrific back pain (and basically didn't sleep for 6 months before or after the baby was born). But until the third trimester, I didn't feel pregnant so much as run down and a bit "off." Third trimester rolled around, however, and I was amazed at how much you can feel like you've been hit by a mack truck without actually having been so.
By the end of the pregnancy (around week 36 or 37), I was so miserable, I quite literally got down on my hands and knees and began begging God for mercy and to bring my son early. While I wish I could say this was from maternal glowing embers of love and impatience to just have my little bundle of joy in my arms, it was actually one hundred percent self-serving out of a desperate plea to have my body back. "Please, God, give me my body back! I just want to feel human again! I feel like I am hosting an alien that is leaching me of all sanity and sustainability, and I need him to be out!!"
When he did finally come out (only 3 days early), I felt an immediate, immeasurable joy and passion for the beautiful creation God had blessed me with growing inside me, and I will never be able to put into words the love I felt (and still feel) for my little alien.
That being said, growing a creation within your body for nine months does come at a price. A price I gladly paid and would pay over and over and over and over again for my precious little miracle.
But if you are pregnant, sitting around wondering where your pregnant glow is, let me reassure you: it will never come. Your glow will come the second AFTER you give birth, when you see your miraculous, amazing, incredible bundle of beauty that you grew and protected in your body. Yes, at a sacrifice to your own well-being and health, but a sacrifice that does not even come close to matching the blessing of your beloved child. So hang onto that hope, and stop waiting around for your pregnant glow. Your glow is coming; it's just on the other side of that belly.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Man or Beast?
Six weeks into my marriage, I decided it was probably time we buckle down and start a family. We had been putting things off long enough with this married-without-children thing, and it seemed about time to get down to business. My husband, on the other hand, felt that six weeks was not quite the eternity I thought it was, so we discussed a slightly less life-altering alternative.
And thus began our first experience as dog owners. (Oh, how little we knew.) We had both had dogs growing up, but let's face it - the child enjoys the dog, the parent cares for it. And what we have found in the last 3 1/2 years of dog parenting followed by 8 1/2 months of human parenting is that there are actually more similarities than dissimilarities between the two roles.
The first myth of dog ownership versus parenthood: Dogs are cheaper than kids. Maybe in the long-run, yes, dogs are cheaper than kids. After all, their life expectancy is much shorter. Plus they don't need a car or college education. But depending on the dog, it's really not the savings you might think. I guess if you're getting a dog to be an after-thought to your life, you don't have to do much more than give it some grub, buy a collar and chain, and maybe remember to give it some shots if you aren't into the whole worms and rabies thing. But if you treat your canine like another member of the family, then you have a whole other thing coming to you. And since my first baby had four legs and was covered in fur, I saw to every need with the devotion and willingness to sacrfice of any first-time mom. And, boy, does it add up once you figure in vet bills, food, destroyed household items and furnishings during the potty training/DON'T-CHEW-THAT! phase, a crate and toys, boarding or pet sitting if you go out of town, and so on and so forth.
Another myth of dog ownership versus parenthood is that you aren't shackled by a dog like you are by a kid. Well, in one sense, this is true. Instead of hiring a sitter, you can lock your dog in a crate for six hours and even come back to find him perfectly content, in good health, and just downright excited to see you. Nonetheless, a dog definitely ties you down. Anytime my husband and I have wanted to plan a spontaneous, spur of the moment trip out of town (even for a long weekend), we've stopped short, realizing that the cheap weekend deal we found a couple hours away would not be nearly so cheap when we figured in boarding fees. And oftentimes finding a boarder with last-minute availability has been hard to come by, since we made the oh-so-smart decision to own a 110 lb. beast that nobody wants to board and nobody has room to board vs. one of those nice, cute compact little things people can stick in their purses. (Though, really, those little things don't qualify as dogs. They're more like dog treats. My dog could eat two or three of them for lunch and still need dessert.) But anyway, the point being, travel is tricky with a dog as well as a kid. Even if you take the dog on the trip and find somewhere that accepts pets and accepts pets as large as ours, you probably wouldn't want to stay in said lodgings unless you yourself were part canine and could handle the smell of marked territory.
Other similarities between children and dogs:
-Immediate heartbreak if attention is given to one dependent and not the other
-Demanding a diaper change/to be let out right as the last three minutes of your season finale is airing.
-The incredible ability to refuse sustenance all evening until the exact second the first bite is being raised to your mouth at the dinner table, at which point spontaneous starvation is triggered and feedings can under no circumstances be postponed.
-Vomiting on your carpet rather than the tile floor that is a mere 2 inches away.
-Refusing any beverage that is not the perfect temperature. (Yes, my dog is that picky. Tepid water, water shared with another dog, water that has been sitting a few hours - all completely unacceptable and less appealing than even death by dehydration.)
The greatest similarity between my dog and child which I've noticed thus far is during my son's crawling and trying to walk phase. Now that he is mobile, I am having flashbacks to the dog training phase and realizing that I already have in place all the vocabularly needed. "Leave it!" "Don't chew that!" "Back away!" "Waaaaiiiiit." And my favorite - "Come here," while holding out a piece of food to coax him across the room.
My son apparently also believes himself to be on a similar playing field with his four-legged counterpart. Around four months old, I discovered that really the only difference between dog chew toys and baby chew toys is who happens to be sucking on said chew toy at a particular moment in time. They both squeak. They both crinkle. They both get ratty and gross. They both get lost for weeks, only to be found randomly by an unsuspecting bare foot in the middle of the night. I try to keep the toys separate, but no matter how much effort I put into it, I always find my son sucking on the dog's rope toy and the dog batting around my son's water bottle.
Probably my greatest difficulty I face in keeping my baby out of my dog's things is keeping him out of the dreaded dog water and food tray. For at least 2 months now, my son has been undeterred in his determination to splash his hands in the dog water. We put up a gate between the kitchen - where the dog tray is kept - and the living room, but somehow he still manages to pull a Houdini and get to it a couple times a week. He will happily sit and smack the water, splashing himself and everything around with grimy, dog drool water. Now, most recently, he has discovered the dog pellets. And, gosh darn it if he doesn't try to pop them like Whoppers! He will eagerly grab a handful, tilt his head back, and like any male sitting on a sofa watching football, try to pop them in his mouth.
Thankfully, my ever-vigilant eye has caught him in time to prevent consumption of these pellets, but I know it's only a matter of time before he succeeds. Maybe when he starts integrating dog food into his diet he'll also begin barking and scratching behind his ears with his toes. And now that my son has taken to throwing Cheerios on the floor for the dog, I wouldn't be surprised if very soon my dog starts walking upright on her hind legs and calling me "Mom."
Believe me - at this point, NOTHING would surprise me.
And thus began our first experience as dog owners. (Oh, how little we knew.) We had both had dogs growing up, but let's face it - the child enjoys the dog, the parent cares for it. And what we have found in the last 3 1/2 years of dog parenting followed by 8 1/2 months of human parenting is that there are actually more similarities than dissimilarities between the two roles.
The first myth of dog ownership versus parenthood: Dogs are cheaper than kids. Maybe in the long-run, yes, dogs are cheaper than kids. After all, their life expectancy is much shorter. Plus they don't need a car or college education. But depending on the dog, it's really not the savings you might think. I guess if you're getting a dog to be an after-thought to your life, you don't have to do much more than give it some grub, buy a collar and chain, and maybe remember to give it some shots if you aren't into the whole worms and rabies thing. But if you treat your canine like another member of the family, then you have a whole other thing coming to you. And since my first baby had four legs and was covered in fur, I saw to every need with the devotion and willingness to sacrfice of any first-time mom. And, boy, does it add up once you figure in vet bills, food, destroyed household items and furnishings during the potty training/DON'T-CHEW-THAT! phase, a crate and toys, boarding or pet sitting if you go out of town, and so on and so forth.
Another myth of dog ownership versus parenthood is that you aren't shackled by a dog like you are by a kid. Well, in one sense, this is true. Instead of hiring a sitter, you can lock your dog in a crate for six hours and even come back to find him perfectly content, in good health, and just downright excited to see you. Nonetheless, a dog definitely ties you down. Anytime my husband and I have wanted to plan a spontaneous, spur of the moment trip out of town (even for a long weekend), we've stopped short, realizing that the cheap weekend deal we found a couple hours away would not be nearly so cheap when we figured in boarding fees. And oftentimes finding a boarder with last-minute availability has been hard to come by, since we made the oh-so-smart decision to own a 110 lb. beast that nobody wants to board and nobody has room to board vs. one of those nice, cute compact little things people can stick in their purses. (Though, really, those little things don't qualify as dogs. They're more like dog treats. My dog could eat two or three of them for lunch and still need dessert.) But anyway, the point being, travel is tricky with a dog as well as a kid. Even if you take the dog on the trip and find somewhere that accepts pets and accepts pets as large as ours, you probably wouldn't want to stay in said lodgings unless you yourself were part canine and could handle the smell of marked territory.
Other similarities between children and dogs:
-Immediate heartbreak if attention is given to one dependent and not the other
-Demanding a diaper change/to be let out right as the last three minutes of your season finale is airing.
-The incredible ability to refuse sustenance all evening until the exact second the first bite is being raised to your mouth at the dinner table, at which point spontaneous starvation is triggered and feedings can under no circumstances be postponed.
-Vomiting on your carpet rather than the tile floor that is a mere 2 inches away.
-Refusing any beverage that is not the perfect temperature. (Yes, my dog is that picky. Tepid water, water shared with another dog, water that has been sitting a few hours - all completely unacceptable and less appealing than even death by dehydration.)
The greatest similarity between my dog and child which I've noticed thus far is during my son's crawling and trying to walk phase. Now that he is mobile, I am having flashbacks to the dog training phase and realizing that I already have in place all the vocabularly needed. "Leave it!" "Don't chew that!" "Back away!" "Waaaaiiiiit." And my favorite - "Come here," while holding out a piece of food to coax him across the room.
My son apparently also believes himself to be on a similar playing field with his four-legged counterpart. Around four months old, I discovered that really the only difference between dog chew toys and baby chew toys is who happens to be sucking on said chew toy at a particular moment in time. They both squeak. They both crinkle. They both get ratty and gross. They both get lost for weeks, only to be found randomly by an unsuspecting bare foot in the middle of the night. I try to keep the toys separate, but no matter how much effort I put into it, I always find my son sucking on the dog's rope toy and the dog batting around my son's water bottle.
Probably my greatest difficulty I face in keeping my baby out of my dog's things is keeping him out of the dreaded dog water and food tray. For at least 2 months now, my son has been undeterred in his determination to splash his hands in the dog water. We put up a gate between the kitchen - where the dog tray is kept - and the living room, but somehow he still manages to pull a Houdini and get to it a couple times a week. He will happily sit and smack the water, splashing himself and everything around with grimy, dog drool water. Now, most recently, he has discovered the dog pellets. And, gosh darn it if he doesn't try to pop them like Whoppers! He will eagerly grab a handful, tilt his head back, and like any male sitting on a sofa watching football, try to pop them in his mouth.
Thankfully, my ever-vigilant eye has caught him in time to prevent consumption of these pellets, but I know it's only a matter of time before he succeeds. Maybe when he starts integrating dog food into his diet he'll also begin barking and scratching behind his ears with his toes. And now that my son has taken to throwing Cheerios on the floor for the dog, I wouldn't be surprised if very soon my dog starts walking upright on her hind legs and calling me "Mom."
Believe me - at this point, NOTHING would surprise me.
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