The Google Monster

Google. It's my best friend, and my worst enemy all at the same time. For example, I could be in the middle of a conversation with someone, and we can't come up with the answer to a question. My first response is 'hang on, let me Google it'. Fifteen years ago, I would have said, 'let me just got look in my encyclopedia'. Yes, I had a set of Funk and Wagnalls encyclopedias. I actually just had to Google their correct spelling. You see, we literally depend on Google for everything! I'm not sure how long it takes to hardboil an egg. I Google it. I'm not sure what time my favorite show is on tonight. I Google it. So, would it not be only natural for me to Google my many pregnancy questions as well? Oh you bet I do. BUT, this is where it gets complicated. I have literally been Googling my little heart out since the first day I knew I was pregnant. In fact, I started Googling when I suspected I was pregnant. 'Early signs of pregnancy', then it was 'how to tell your parents you're pregnant'. I took a unique approach on the whole 'telling the parents' thing. I simply showed up at their house with a bottle of wine and said, 'here, it was in my cupboard and you might as well have it because I can't drink wine for a while', The response was 'why, are you hungover?' 'No, I'm knocked up'. Cue tears and excitement. As well as a 'finally' from my Dad. Anyways, back to Google. Needless to say, for the past four and half months, I have been Googling the crap out of everything pregnancy related, and therefore scaring the living shit out of myself. Yes, I am the idiot who decided to watch a birthing video weeks into my pregnancy. I was sitting there, in my kitchen, half crying and half too shocked to do anything. I called my Mom, bawling and crying, saying 'I can't do this, I'm too weak'. Her response? 'Candace, it won't be any worse than the the worst ear infection you had as a kid'. Now I'll grant you, I have had some wicked ear infections in my lifetime the worst kind of numbing pain you could imagine. But somehow, I picture childbirth to be slightly more intense than an earache. But okay Mom, I'll take your word for it. Now, let's move on. Every single woman who has ever given birth has their own idea of how to go through your pregnancy, what to do, what not to do. I've seriously heard it ALL. I have a lot of friends who have had babies in the past five years, and they all offered me advice or support. But the BEST thing anyone has said to me, thus far is this, 'every birth is different, so do what's best for you, you can't compare yourself to someone else and don't let their stories freak you out'. Honestly, seems simple. But it's so basic. No one person is the same, and every person deals with a stressful and painful situation differently. So whenever I find myself worrying about that big moment, I try to remind myself of this. Now here is the other thing that is kind of hard on the head. The never-ending list of what you can and cannot do during pregnancy. Seriously people, if we listened to every belief out there, we might as well put ourselves in bubbles for 9 months. I was under the assumption I had to stop drinking coffee for the entire nine months, do this weird exercise with my pelvic area everyday, and take cold showers. Yes, there are some things that the doctor says you absolutely should not do. Like going in a hot tub warmer than 100 degrees (Fahrenheit), drinking alcohol (although they do permit the occasional glass of wine). You should definitely try and quit smoking (pregnant or not), no drugs, no ibuprofen, no raw fish. But seriously, if you are anything like me, you won't have any desire to eat raw fish anyway. I love sushi, but I have been such a puking machine lately that the mere thought of it makes me gag. That's another thing, the sickness. Some people will judge you for taking medication that the doctor make prescribe to you if you are seriously ill with nausea and vomiting during this process. This is where you need to look at them and say 'listen, I can't even walk into my kitchen without puking, and I haven't gotten out of bed in three days, shut the hell up'. Take the damn pills, eat meals regularly, and enjoy your life. Just because you are growing a baby doesn't mean you have to feel wretched for entire process. Oh, and one more thing, don't believe everything (or really anything) you read on Google.

Get in where you fit in.

Now there are many different aspects of being pregnant that affect women. Body, mind and spirit. Oh frig sakes, don't get all worked up now. I'm not going to going into some 5 paragraph rant about how we should be meditating and reciting Buddhist chants for 40 weeks. No no, I'm actually looking further than all of that body, mind and soul junk. Let's just talk about the fact that during those 40 weeks, there are to be ZERO drunken nights, no hot tub adventures, no drug use (not that I'm a frequent flyer anyway), no horseback riding, no downhill skiing, the list goes on. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't have any sudden urges to go downhill skiing, and I am not currently in the possession of a hot tub. I certainly never enjoyed horseback riding a great deal. BUT, I do enjoy the occasional bottle of wine, with or without the company of others. The hard thing about being pregnant is accepting the fact that just because you can't do all of these things, doesn't mean that the people around you should have to stop doing them too. Unfortunately, we live in a world where most social gatherings (in my world) involve alcohol, or drugs of some sort. Now I'm not saying I walk into afternoon tea at a girlfriends and she offers me a line of coke. I'm just saying that the odd joint may be passed around my vicinity from time to time. Anyways, the bottom line is that life is still in session all around me. I'm the pregnant one. However, I will say this, and I know it's been said before.. if you want to find out who your real friends are, have a baby. Just being pregnant alone has showed me who my friends are. Now I don't expect everyone to change their lives drastically for me. But it is nice when your friends show some consideration for the girl who can't drink and prefers to be in bed by 10. Yes, I may have been the girl you could call at 10 or 11 pm and expect to go for a drive, or be picked up from the bar. That girl no longer exists. I am now the girl who is yawning by 8, struggling to keep my eyes open by 9, and snoring by 10. Now don't get me wrong, I do have some very sweet, and thoughtful friends. For example, the friend who invites you out for supper.. and then proceeds to choose a restaurant that serves only unrecognizable things on the menu and everything has a spice level, from moderate to extreme. How are you supposed to handle that? 'Um, hi, waiter? Could you just bring me a head of lettuce and a pitcher of water please?' If they seem puzzled, just awkwardly point to your stomach. They'll either think you have intestinal issues (which I do), or they will get the whole preggo picture and smile sympathetically. They might even put an extra lemon in your water to make you feel special. Now this might seem like a lot of pointless rambling to some of you. You're probably thinking, 'But my friends LOVE babies, and they will totally sit and binge on chips and ice cream with me for 9 months'. Oh no my friend, they will not. I can assure you that none of your friends are going to be willing to pile on the pounds to make you feel better. So expect some lonely nights, at home, watching those 90210 reruns on Netflix, yelling at Kelly for taking Dylan away from Brenda (still not over it). Half of the problem with this friend situation is that some days it may be hard to tell whether your friends really do suck, or if you are just having an extreme preggo mood swing where you think the world is against you. At which time you will look down at your ever expanding stomach, and say, 'at least I have you little one, you're the only friend I need'. WRONG! You friend is going to be a pooping and crying machine for the first year or more of their life. You are going to be needing those other grown-up friends for moral support. So, calm down, realize that half of this crying is just due to your hormones, and the other half is that your friends kind of suck (just a little bit). But we have all sucked in the friend department at some point. So keep them around, and hope that your baby is cute enough to bring them around for lots of visit, post-pregnancy.

Verbal Diarrhea

Well, that got your attention now didn't it? Don't worry though! This isn't one of those cases where we put something shocking in the title to suck you in, and the completely let you down by speaking about something completely irrelevant. No no, verbal diarrhea is just as harmful, and painful in the after effects as normal diarrhea. How do I know? Well, let's just say that I have suffered from, at times, uncontrollable verbal diarrhea. Now, being pregnant has certainly made controlling this 10 times more difficult. For a while, I was working on becoming this great person who agreed with people, and kept my opinion to myself. But, if you know me, you would know that this is not as easy for me as it is for the average, rational-minded individual. Namely because I am not rational-minded, at all. In fact, put me on a scale of rational to irrational, and I can guarantee that I am tipping of the very end of irrational, ready to drop right off into the pool of completely and utterly irrational. Okay, now that you get the picture, I don't usually think before I speak, I don't have a censor button. Let's combine that with the hormones that woman must deal with during pregnancy. Never mind that woman I mentioned in my prior post, who glows and is happy all the time. That woman DOES NOT EXIST. If she does, I am going to send a letter in on her behalf for an Academy Award, because she must be a damn good actress. Okay Candace, focus! Getting back to my initial point, (I swear there is one) I  was so proud of myself for making a tremendous effort to keep my opinions to myself on a daily basis as of late. But then, one day, my brain decided it just couldn't take it anymore. My head was about to burst with all of these thoughts that I hadn't said out loud, but still kept thinking silently to myself. So, guess what happened?! You guessed it! Verbal diarrhea, my friends. Messy, gushing, jumbled up, sometimes hurtful words, all coming out of my mouth. The worst part? I'm the type of person that feels that once I open the floodgates, the damage has already been done, and it can't get any better, so I might as well let it get worse, so I just let it all fly. Now, let's not mistake, I am a kind and loving person, and I do have feelings. In fact, the problem is that I feel too much. So when all is said and done, we come to the after effects. Now, I don't need to describe the after effects of diarrhea to anyone. But, you can imagine that the verbal stuff hits in a way that is comparable to this. Basically, I cry, feel remorseful, and then lately, my hormones kick in and I feel resentment towards whoever I lashed out on, because in my mind they probably deserved some of this, but maybe not in such a harsh manner. So, here I am, sitting alone crying to myself, and then consoling myself over the whole situation. Then, I have to decide, do I pull the pregnancy card out on this one? Or do I just chalk it up to pure, and predictable Candace behaviour? Sometimes, I don't say anything at all, except I'm sorry. But, if I'm feeling energetic, I may go back in for what could be a round two, by defending my actions as a part of a mood swing I had, directly related to my pregnancy. Now, with the right person, this defense will hold, and they will accept that and move on. BUT, if I approach the wrong person, or if the situation was on the more intense side (picture my throwing spoons and forks around the kitchen), then it may take more than a pregnancy defense. I may actually have to convince that person that it wasn't me, they were just really tired, and dreamed the entire scenario up in their head. Now, keep in mind that the last part doesn't really look. But if you're lucky, they may look at you with a very puzzled look. In this case, I strongly urge you to give them your best desperate, and innocent smile, at which time you tell them you're going to lay down because you're feeling tired. Usually, by the time you wake up, things will have blown over. If they haven't, I strongly urge you to, AVOID AVOID AVOID. Eventually, they will begin to think that maybe you are just too embarrassed to deal with your actions, and they may let you have a pass. After having said all of this, I feel like I dedicate this to my loving, wonderful fiancé. He has been through such an emotional Candace roller coaster over the past 4 months, I feel like deserves some sort of prize. But then, after thinking about it, I realized that he is getting a prize. The best prize he could ever have. At the end of all of the emotion, tears, pain, diarrhea, and hysteria, he will get to hold his little one in his arms for the first time. Something tells me that in that moment, he may just forgive me for it all. :)

17 weeks and counting...

A few weeks ago, while my sister was paying me one of her usually sporadic visits, she suggested I start blogging throughout my pregnancy. At first I thought, why should I even bother? Someone will just find yet another reason to critique me on something in my life, thus pissing me off and causing me to delete it. But then I though figured, what the hell. I recently read Jenny McCarthy's book, 'Belly Laughs'. It's basically an extremely honest diary of her pregnancy and how she dealt with it. I literally read the entire book in one sitting. I laughed (and cryed) from beginning to end. She doesn't leave anything out. So I've decided to use this blog as my outlet. To vent, or to share funny and honest stories about what this experience is like for me.
Now I could go back to the beginning. When I was about 4 weeks pregnant and ready to take out anyone who looked at me the wrong way. Instead, I 'll just pick it up, right here at about 17 weeks. I'm still experiencing the wonders of morning sickness, although I'm praying it goes away sometime soon. I mean seriously, who doesn't love the thrill of wondering if you will make it through a meal without having to run to the bathroom part through? Let me tell you, this has not been a walk in the park for me so far. Anyone who is reading this and is under some illusion that pregnancy is this beautiful thing, where you eat lots and glow all the time, while looking up cute baby stuff on Pinterest, is WRONG! You, my dear, you poor naive thing, you are in for the shock of your life. You will probably be the one crying because your boyfriend showed up 5 minutes late for supper (I did), and then 10 minutes later you'l be laughing. But then once you realize you are laughing, you'll probably start crying again, because you'll wonder how you could possibly be laughing when you were so sad before. Yes, pregnancy is exhausting. The laughing, the crying, the binge eating, the barfing, the list goes on. But don't get me wrong. Once you come around to the fact that you are in fact going to be a mother, you will be happy. Seeing your little bundle of joy (which resembles a lima bean with a tail) for the first time on that screen is quite moving. I had my first ultrasound at 7 weeks, because my doctor was concerned that my excessive sickness was due to the fact that I was having (brace yourself) twins. Although two bundles of joy at once would have been just ducky, I was a bit relieved to know that the world would not be acquiring two more of me at one time. The next generation can probably only handle one. Also, hearing the heartbeat for the very first time was quite an experience. My doctor asked me first if I was comfortable with her trying to find it. She had explained that sometimes this early it was hard to find. However, I trusted her enough to try and sure enough, we heard a nice strong heartbeat thumping away. So, there have been a lot of ups and down in the past three months. But babies are resilient, they can handle quite a lot! Thank goodness, because this mamma is quite a stress case. I have a tendency of biting off much more than I can chew. For example, a month ago I was planning my wedding for this upcoming summer, as well as getting ready to move at the end of the month! Fortunately, I located the on switch to the rational side of my brain, and was able to realize that both of these projects, on top of having a baby in the Spring were just too much at once. So, we are staying out in our smaller home (which I love) and we are planning our wedding for two summers from now, when our baby will hopefully be walking and not stuck on my boob 12 hours a day. I feel like I was delaying with the whole growing up thing for a while, and then this summer I just decided to kick into high gear. Buy house, move in with boyfriend, get engaged, get pregnant, buy a new car. I've always enjoyed living a busy lifestyle, but I forgot to breathe for a while.
But, recently I've developed a good rhythm and I'm accepting that not everything can happen at once. I still have my crazy, psychotic freakouts, but, they are few and far between compared to what they used to be.
However, with 23 more weeks to go, I have a feeling we are far from in the clear. So stay tuned for what's next....