"Some of the Pregnancy Stories" Part 1... or "A Link" or... Something.

Back in December I said I was going to do this. I said, "So. Childbirth story. But that story begins with some of the pregnancy stories. For those who aren't friends with me on facebook, I will try to begin at the beginning. So. That will come next, I think."

I mean, I sort of started to tell some of it. I gave you facebook pregnancy status updates, and a post about being overwhelmed and pregnancy and anemia. But I didn't really start the stories yet.

So. (I know, I keep saying that.) Here's a start. A real start.

Or... not. I mean, I wrote out a whole post that was the beginning, but it was 1000 words long, and most people who recommend anything about blogging seem to recommend writing posts at half that length (at most). So I'm chopping this one in half.

(Kind of. It's sorta like a starfish. You chop off limbs and it regrows them. But it is smaller, at the moment. 

"Quick! Hit publish before it grows so big it kills us all, like some horrible video game dungeon boss with regen capabilities!")

Hey, on the bright side, the rest is already written, so it'll be super extra easy to actually post later. On the less bright side, it's still barely the intro to the stories. But... if you want to read more, there's more! Lots more! Yay?

Anywho, this first half is a bit more about why I'm doing this. (And the first half is also looong, preambly intro, evidently. Also not supposed to do that. And parentheses. John says I use too many of them. Basically I'm a bad person. Er, blogger.) I know. I'm sorry, I do run on. But there's a link involved that is so very good. I promise. (Warning: little bit of language, though. For those who care.)

Somehow, one can live for almost thirty years and never think much about or hear a description of what a contraction feels like. At least in modern times.

As Pamela Ribon said in this amazing, wonderful, that exactly post, "It is incredible to me that when I sit with three friends who aren’t pregnant who are asking me what it’s like, that all I’m doing is teaching them things they didn’t know that I didn’t know either before getting pregnant. That four women can be all way above twenty-five years old and not know the kinds of things that happen to us when every single one of us is here because someone went through this for us. Why don’t we all know what happens to people when they get pregnant?"

And, "Why is pregnancy such a combination of mystical and disgusting that we choose to not talk about it? You can’t get pregnant from learning about it. Can you? I’m not sure anymore. Because I didn’t know until I was pregnant that there was a chance my stomach muscles would separate. I would’ve like to have been informed beforehand. There were sixteen pages of 'Here are all the ways you might get hurt or die' that I had to read through before I could skydive. I had to watch videos and sign consent forms to sit in a helicopter for twenty minutes. I had to have two forms of insurance to play roller derby. But at no point did a doctor or a teacher or a fellow woman stop to say, 'Hey, listen. Before you get pregnant, you should know that it could cause you to lose feeling in both legs for months every time you try to sleep. Your feet could grow and they’ll never go back to the size they once were. You might get massive nosebleeds that make you think you have brain cancer, but you don’t — you’re just pregnant. It’s why you can’t stop crying and get panic attacks when you’re in a passenger seat on the highway.'"

Here I am, talking about it. Well, somewhat. Virtually. Or... I will.

Oh, and those bits above that I quoted are more serious bits. The post overall is hilarious. I especially like one bit in the middle of her last Maya Angelou-ish contraction poem... go read it yourself. Then you'll ask which part I was talking about, and I'll say, "That part, of course!" and you'll say, "That's what I thought, I just wanted to be sure."

Moms out there, what do you wish you'd been told?