Sunday, August 21, 2011

39 Weeks Later

As we get ever closer to our due date, I thought it was time for another round of sharing. (Partly so I don't forget some of the gems that people feel compelled to say out loud before thinking about how they sound in their head.)

1) Please don't make grand sweeping statements like *knowing* that the baby hasn't dropped yet. Regardless of how it may look to your well-trained eye, I've actually been the one carrying this baby around for the past 9 months, and thus probably have the best insight as to where the baby is or isn't.

2) Comments like, "I see you didn't shake the baby loose on the dance floor. Hahaha," aren't actually that funny. Especially coming from a man.

3) Comments like, "Wow, you look so great," when spoken in a stunned tone of voice really just end up sounding like, "Amazing... you don't look like a beached whale!" Uh, thanks?

4) It's not very helpful to ask about my labor/birth plans, and then respond with skepticism. I think we're long overdue for more support and empowerment of every mother's (and her partner's) choices - we're all trying our best to make choices that are right for us and our families. I loved our childbirth educator's analogy of a friend telling you that they were planning on running a marathon. Would your response be, "Ooh, that's going to be really hard. Are you sure you can do it? What happens if you get to mile 13 and feel like you can't do it anymore?"? Probably not. Your response would probably be something like, "That's awesome! Good luck! I'll be cheering for you!"

5) I am completely in favor of Smitten Kitchen's plan for labor and delivery nurse bribery, and fully intend to make these brownies this week.

6) Last time I said that it doesn't get much more amazing than feeling a beansy human doing back-flips in your uterus - well tiny human hiccups feel pretty dang cool too!

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