The Sh!t No One Tells You About Pregnancy

Introduction

WHEN I FIRST found out I was pregnant, I panicked. Mine was about as far as you can get from an unplanned pregnancy (think a romantic encounter with a 65-year-old nurse practitioner wielding a vial of sperm), but I was still scared all the way shitless when faced with the reality of a positive pregnancy test.

As I sat on the floor of my bathroom, surrounded by peed-on pregnancy tests, my body was officially in the process of building another body. When that building was complete, my body was going to expel the new body through the most unfortunately small of exits. Then, after all those Discovery/Sci-Fi Channel shenanigans took place, I was going to be responsible for the well-being of this tiny human I made from scratch.

So I freaked out a little. Because I was officially in over my head.

To calm my panic I immediately bought every book I could find having to do with pregnancy. I piled them on my nightstand, as if being in close proximity to 3,000 pages of gestation facts would somehow make my uterus smarter.

Each night I would pick up one of these pregnancy tomes and begin to flip through it. I had such high hopes of learning all there was to know about my body and the baby it was growing. But I would usually only make it about three pages before falling asleep or swapping the book for a mindless celebrity magazine (sometimes there were pictures of pregnant celebrities in the magazines, so technically I was still doing research).

When I set out to write my own book about pregnancy, I had one clear goal in mind: Do not bore the pregnant women to sleep or to Us Weekly. This might seem like an easily attainable goal, but then you might not be taking into consideration exactly how tired pregnant women are or how inviting the pages of Us Weekly can be.

I’m not a doctor (as should have been apparent by the word Sh!t on the cover of this book). Absolutely nothing I share with you within these pages is in any way based on science or research into science (unless you count hours spent on WebMD as “research into science” [which you should, because I was able to diagnose myself with 35 extremely rare diseases while on there]). But methinks you didn’t pick up a book with the word Sh!t on the cover in hopes of discovering a detailed look into pregnancy on a molecular level.

What you were most likely hoping to find, and what I have aimed to provide, is an honest look at pregnancy from the point of view of someone who has made her way through two of them. Think of me as your (overly sarcastic) best friend who is not going to let you head into procreation without some advanced warning of what’s coming your way.

What do most friends do when you tell them you’re pregnant? They usually give you a wholehearted, “Yay!” (or maybe a less-hearted, “Yay?” if they are unclear as to the whether the pregnancy was planned). But I’m aiming to be the friend who immediately sits you down, hands you a pad of paper, and tells you to take some notes, because it’s not all going to be gender-reveal parties and funny onesies.

I’ve also brought along some of my own friends who have their additional notes to share (you might need a bigger pad of paper). I call these friends my “Moms on the Front Lines” (or MOFL) throughout the book. They have been out in the parenting battlefields for years and are reporting back with what they have learned. As you make your way through the various stages of parenthood you will soon realize that mom friends can be just as valuable as doctors (and not only because doctors never offer you wine). Moms are a great resource because they’ve been there, cleaned that, and are a reassuring reminder that we are all sorta making this up as we go along (with the help of WebMD).

In addition to my MOFL, I’ve asked some partners (dads and co-moms) to share their point of view. Partners sometimes get lost in the shuffle during pregnancy, but it’s a pretty big time in their lives too. So tell yours to grab another pad of paper and pull up a seat.

A big difference between this book and other pregnancy books is that this book not only focuses on your gestation, but also on what is waiting for you on the other side of your delivery, namely that tiny human we spoke of previously. I think pregnancy is a beautiful time in a woman’s life (if you don’t count all the gross stuff that happens), but more than that I think it is a very important time. Important not only in a “Circle of Life” sort of way, but also in a “Shit Is About to Get Real” sort of way.

As soon as that pregnancy test strikes positive, your countdown clock is started. In a matter of months you will be expected to take a newborn baby into your home and will be left responsible for its survival. I know, that seems more than a little alarming considering the fact that the contents of your fridge are currently 92 percent take-out containers and every plant in your house is 100 percent dead.

For your sake, and mostly the sake of your upcoming child, you need to spend these pregnancy months getting into prime parenting shape. This means less nursery planning, and more building up your tolerance to being in public with poop on your clothes. It’s important.

To that end I’ve littered this book with various ways that you can prepare yourself and your life for Hurricane Baby. There are lists and tips, warnings and advice to help you maximize these precious training months before you are going to need to be ready for action. I’ve even developed a series of Parenting WOD (Workout of the Day [like CrossFit, but my workouts involve more openly weeping]) to gradually build up your child-rearing reflexes.

Because I like to think of pregnancy as a countdown to parenthood, I’ve divided up the chapters of this book into quarters, like a sporting event. A sporting event that involves sprinting through Babies “R” Us, fighting through aches and pains, and catching a number of gifts that are going to be thrown your way by fans. Your team has a lot of work to do before that final buzzer goes off, and it’s time to get a game plan in order now.

Whether you are pregnant, thinking about getting pregnant, or weirdly hanging out in the pregnancy aisle of the bookstore, I’m here to make your journey a little more fun and fill it with a lot more truth. I’m going to encourage you through 40 weeks of pregnancy and send you into parenthood armed with everything you need to survive (a sense of humor, Post-it notes, and the ability to pick things up with your toes are three of the top necessities).

So many adventures await you on this journey. You’ll be horny yet bitchy, tired yet filled with the urge to reorganize every closet in your house, ecstatically happy yet able to uncontrollably sob at the drop of a sappy Internet video. And that’s just what an average Saturday night holds in store after that pregnancy stick gives you a thumbs-up.

Let’s make a baby!