Help a Mama Out

Life continues to go well here in newborn land, although I had hoped to blog more often. It's not that I couldn't find the time. I just often spend it doing something else.

I always had planned to extend an invitation for guest bloggers, so please don't feel like it's just a desperate, unshowered, overtired mommy begging for others to do her work. No, not at all.

I will keep posting, but it will be good to publish someone else's thoughts when I've suddenly realized what feels like one long day actually has been four in a row and Mommy Remix is getting a touch stale. In journo land, this is what we call having a well, from which we dip when it's a slow news day.

Please send your submissions to me via email at rckleiboemer@gmail.com and I will happily put them in the lineup.

You can write a full-length post or just a paragraph. Send pictures if you'd like. You have my full permission to be as snarky and foul-mouthed as I have been to this point, but no worse.

Topics could include:

• Your own family story
• What you do/did or don't/didn't enjoy about pregnancy
• Adventures in fertility, or disappointments and challenges 
• Why you don't want to have a baby
• What you can't stand about how parents raise their kids
• Thoughts on co-sleeping, nursing in public, crying it out, cloth diapers, etc.
• Hilarity of traveling with children
• How you keep your marriage and adult relationships going
• Public policy regarding education or health care
• What you like or don't like about your OBGYN or pediatrician
• Tips and warnings for new parents
• The best baby shower game or birthday party theme
• How you're raising your kids to deal with their peers
• To give or not to give an allowance
• Methods of discipline
• What phrase of your parents you swore you'd never repeat but did

For the record, Gabe often hears, "What the hell's the matter with you?" The more I say it, the more I like it.

And this post took me more than three hours to write, interrupted by two nursing sessions and one pee blowout that soaked both Max and me to the point of complete outfit changing.

For Unto Us Another Baby Is Born

The first ever Kleiboemer family portrait.

Our little sailor has finally come into port.

Maxwell Charles Kleiboemer was born at 2:50 p.m. May 10, 2012, by C-section in the surgical room of the Family Birthing Center at St. Luke's Hospital in Maumee, Ohio. He weighed 8 pounds 15 ounces and was 20 inches long.

When at 2:50 p.m. the next day, his daddy held him and sang "Happy Birthday" to him for being exactly 1 day old, I thought my heart was going to burst into a firework display of love and gratitude.

The event to bring Max into the world went fairly well, and my recovery is going better than I thought it would. I am taking the advice of several who have had this surgery and keeping a steady pace with Percocet and Motrin, and reportedly my incision is healing "beautifully." This would be the only reason anyone would smile like that after checking under my gown at this point.

A macabre homage to some rather
unfortunate military photos.

My M.O. before such big deals as this is to be the calm before the storm. I do not bother worrying or fretting because I am powerless before the impending nature of major surgery. I just sit back, relax and laugh my face off with my sister, mother and husband.

When the medical professionals take over, sticking me with needles and such, I just ask that they tell me exactly what they are doing as they do it and why it is important. My comfort level always increases with the amount of information I have. The staff responded really well to this, and in many cases enjoyed getting to talk shop a little with someone who cared.

While I was bemused by the hilarity of what it must have looked like as I floundered from my bed to the operating table like a beached whale, I reminded myself that this team sees big pregnant women all the time. Certainly there is a spectrum of grace but I didn't need to worry about my placement on it. I just needed to keep following their directions and note with some detachment what steps they were taking.

When we got to the part where needles were going into my spine, though, I knew this was the point of no return. My excitement actually started to rise here, because this was the step that really felt like it was beginning the procedure, even though other steps had started about an hour beforehand. Once I was numbed, a first cut was going to be made, my husband was going to be ushered into the room and our baby would emerge, all in a relatively short order.

Here's where I lost my composure.

The injection for the local burned far more than I had expected, and it didn't really seem to do all that much when the spinal needle started jabbing me. The anesthesiology team assures me that it is normal to take several attempts to secure this injection, but by the third time of a very painful sensation off-center of wherever they were aiming, I started to cry.

My OBGYN and two nurses were all over me, touching me and patting me and holding my hands, trying to reassure me. It was sweet that they were being so concerned, but I eventually communicated something along the lines of "please just give me a minute." The needles stopped jabbing, people backed up, I blew my nose on a sheet and pulled up my big girl panties.

Gabe is enamored with baby brother Max.

I had spent so much energy on not spending energy up to this point, that the perfect storm just boiled over. I was surprised that this is where things would get halted, right where I wanted them to accelerate. I thought it must be my fault, that I wasn't arching my back enough or was being too big of a baby myself.

Then the doctor told me with all the sincerity in the world that I was doing a great job helping him do his, telling them whether he was on target and such. A tiny part of me wondered if that was just bullshit, but a bigger part of me truly appreciated his approach to helping me get back on track. One more big breath, and I was ready to start all over again, even as far back as the burning local.

But after that, it took just one more jab for the spinal, and soon my butt started to get all warm. (Thank goodness my nurse had warned me that would happen.) They laid me back, and my legs started to tingle and then quickly turned ... I don't know ... funky. It's difficult to describe. It's beyond being numb, like when a leg falls asleep, and the immobility is trippy. But you can still tell when people are touching you if they apply enough pressure.

A nurse poked me with a sharp stick up and down my body to check where I could feel it, and I was surprised that my armpit was as high as I could sense. Very shortly after that, I became queasy at the realization that my chest also was numb, and had no conscious control over breathing. But as soon as they explained to me what was happening and I had some physiological understanding of it, I relaxed and the sensation went away. (I believe I also was aided by an injection of some anti-pukey thing in my IV at that moment too.)

The big blue sheet went up, the OBGYN made her first cut, and my husband was brought into the room, dressed like a Smurf mechanic. I could smell the burning of the knife as it cauterized the cutting, but I smartly kept that to myself. Husband Smurf would have left the room at that point. When a happy call came from beyond the curtain, "The head is out!" the anesthesiologist asked Dan if he would like to watch, and Dan asked him if he would like to see him puke through his mask. They both laughed and Dan remained where he was, seated next to my head and holding my hand.

Max, in the arms of cousin Jon.

After a fair amount of tugging, out came the rest of our baby, followed quickly by very strong shouts of objection from him. That was music to my ears. He was taken to the warming table to be cleaned up and assessed, and I thankfully had a clear view. Dan went over there to take pictures, and I saw him reach out enough to touch his little toes. Within a few minutes the baby was swaddled and placed in Dan's arms, just as I had hoped would happen no matter what kind of delivery I had.

Our healthy son with a perfectly cue ball head was soon brought within kissing distance for me, and a nurse snapped a really great picture of us. I think I should take all my photos upside down now; it makes my double chin disappear.

I was amazed when another nurse told Dan, "Come on, let's take him to the nursery and do all the other stuff," and let him carry him right on out of there. Later Dan would confide that while he obeyed the order, inside he was screaming, "I'm not qualified to do this!" But he became so in one short walk down a hallway.

I of course stayed strapped to the operating table for about 30 more minutes, being rather violently but still carefully manhandled by doctors and nurses as the placenta was removed and all my guts were cleaned out. (I heard later my OBGYN has a reputation for desiring really clean guts, and I think this is great.) Another doctor and a nurse stitched Humpty Dumpty back together again, and the anesthesiology nurse gamely responded to all my chatter throughout the rest of the procedure. Turns out we both have freshmen children enrolled at the same high school. Nice small world.

We all were shocked when Max's weight was reported to us. The betting pool had centered around 9 pounds 4 ounces, and all had remarked variations of "that's a big baby!" when he arrived. Later my OBGYN assured me that we still had made the right decision to deliver by C-section because while he wasn't anywhere near engagement in my pelvis, he apparently was patting the top of his head with one of his hands, and that could have been bad news if he had been like that if he ever did drop down.

His daddy will teach him how to properly shake hands one day, but it surely didn't need to be the first ever moment of his life.

Unzip Me

This is why people can't help but
giggle when I walk into a room.

I do have the intellectual understanding that this baby will be born eventually, but I also have the irrational exhaustion that makes me feel like I will be pregnant until the end of time.

So it is with immeasurable relief that I have received my doctor's permission and agreement to schedule a C-section this week. Someone will go in there and *get* him out of me.

And as you may be able to see from the picture, I am so freaking ready.

I am not keen on scheduling C-sections just to avoid vaginal labor or to protect the sanctity of one's cookie box. That seems like flipping off Mother Nature, and she can be a bitch.

Neither am I keen on Pitocin to induce vaginal labor. Talk about a bitch. I have experienced the kind of contractions that little concoction brings on, and they suck.

But this little bugger inside me is well on his way to being another 9-pounder, just like his brother, and I think once is enough to squeeze out someone that big.

He also is positioned in what's charmingly called "sunny-side up." The back of his head is resting against my spine, which would make labor all the less "sunny" and increase risks to me of horrible things like tearing and blood loss. Speaking of the position of his head, it is nowhere close to where it needs to be in order to go through the magic baby door. (That was the explanation my mother gave me when I asked where babies came from, according to my baby book.)

These things combined with my age, blood pressure roller coaster and history of excruciatingly long labor make me a very good candidate for a C-section.

This makes me a very happy pregnant woman, who soon will be a very happy mother.

With a gnarly scar.

Pillow Talk

A glorious thing happened this morning.

I slept in.

Today is the first day of my maternity leave from work. Technically, I'm burning vacation days, but I am simply ruining the office pool for those who bet that I'd still be at my desk when my water broke. (A police reporter informed me, "If that happens, I just want you to know, I'm not cleaning that shit up.")

On any other given Saturday, I would have woken before the birds and the sun and my entire household and headed to downtown Toledo. I would have had the entire newsroom to myself for a few hours, mostly transferring wayward customers' calls to circulation to discuss the non-delivery of their printed edition of The Blade. Which is a great job for an online editor, btw.

I would be mowing through the moderation list of comments readers had left on our online edition, mostly overnight and apparently drunk. There may be a wreck or a drug bust to write up, but I also may leave it for that grossed-out police reporter. Unlike weekdays with a full newsroom and a steady stream of stories to be posted, weekends are rather slow and one must scour the wire for those long analytic pieces that may have some interest to readers, just to freshen the site for those hoping to leave a few hungover comments. A good two hours can be consumed by preparing the Sunday advances after the presses spit them out, three if the photo or graphic files aren't where they're supposed to be.

Saturday mornings aren't too bad of a shift, but sleeping in is waaaaay better.

So is wandering downstairs and spending some time chatting with my husband on the sun porch while we laugh at the dogs frolicking on the deck. Eating cookies for breakfast.

There's a grocery trip that needs to be made, and I might run some errands with my brother. The recycling bins are overflowing, so I will have all day to nag my husband into taking care of that.

Once/if motivation strikes, I'll tackle the stacks of stuff in the dining room that should be in the nursery, and the basket of stuff cleaned out from the nursery when it was my dressing room that should be in several different drawers and shelves all over the house. But I'm on vacation all next week, so I have plenty of time to do that.

By next Saturday, my schedule likely will be ruled by a squalling infant and sleeping in will be a thing of the past. I'm going to milk it today for all it's worth.

I may even take a nap later.

Women Who Are Still Waiting

The following quip is increasingly applicable these days: "They're not maternity clothes, they're eternity clothes."

I have found myself complaining quite a bit as my countdown can be measured in days. My husband clued me in that it might be too much when he said: "Geez, you couldn't wait to get pregnant, and now you can't wait to get it over with."

Lots of pregnant women and mothers would understand and empathize. But there are lots of pregnant women and not-yet-mothers who, while capable of mustering sympathy, would do anything to be squeezing their swollen feet into my shoes.

There are women lying in beds right this moment, desperately hoping to stay pregnant as various complications threaten to expel the fetus long before viability.

There are women sitting in doctor offices, wrestling with improbability results, or slumped on a bathroom floor, staring at yet another negative sign on a pee stick.

If I were one of them, and I were reading my blog, I likely would be giving my computer monitor the middle finger.

I have friends who are far, far better women than I am.

When I first found out that I was pregnant, I wondered how best to share the news with several close girlfriends who were at difficult points in their own conception journeys. Which was best, to treat them like everyone else in a joint announcement, to approach them individually, or to even wait a while for that "right" moment?

Was it more insulting to feel so apologetic? Were they tired of being treated with kid gloves? Was my idea of compassion just another sign of my self-centeredness?

All of those questions had both yes and no answers. As in all relationships, all one can really do is blunder ahead and hope for the best.

My girlfriends gave me their very best. They congratulated me.

One actually screamed with joy, and I started to cry. "Don't you do that!" she scolded. "This is your moment, this is a beautiful thing, and this is to be celebrated."

Remember when we were kids and Cabbage Patch dolls were all the rage? I so wish the cabbage patch was real. I would take every one of my pregnancy-challenged friends there.

Hearts like theirs make wonderful mothers.

Party Pooper

Nearing the end of my pregnancy, I am passing up more and more social engagements. I thought it would bother me, but relaxing in my own home has become quite a fine substitute.

I'm toying with the idea of going to at least one date of my season ticket package for the Mud Hens baseball team, if only to see the look on the face of Charlie, my favorite usher, when he sees the reason I will be selling off the rest of my games. But I imagine I will be spending more time on a soft club house chair indoors than on the hard bleacher seat overlooking the field. That's a big energy investment for no beer and no baseball.

I was disappointed to miss a fundraising dinner for the Maritime Academy of Toledo Foundation, of which my husband serves as director. Held at the Toledo Club, guests enjoyed nine courses of the final meal served aboard the Titanic to mark the 100th anniversary of the luxury liner's sinking. Certainly I wanted the food, particularly the foie gras atop the beef medallion, but I also wanted to be on the arm of my dashing officer all dressed up in his Navy tuxedo. Being able to hobnob with the muckity-mucks from my own company would have been a plus, too.

My supper club group repeated the experience, same bat place, same bat menu, the following weekend, but I sent a declining RSVP for that one too. I'm as big as the Titanic now and late nights really sink me. There is a casual event slated for four days after my due date, which seems silly to even think about. The only gourmet meal I'll be concerned about during that week will be the one coming out of my own breasts.

I missed my nephew's birthday party after a particularly uncomfortable bout of baby-in-bad-position, having left work early two days in a row, one of which to head to the hospital triage to make sure everything was still ducky. (It was.)

Going on a movie date sounds great early in the day but dissolves into an exhausted "not tonight, honey." Heading out to dinner is OK as long as we go during the early gray-haired hour. Staying up to watch TV shows or play board games with the family loses out to soundly snoring with the bed pillows.

Some day I'll have a life again, once I bring forth another.

The Indignities of Pregnancy

Back when my feet were pretty, and
I could take a hot bath without the
danger of boiling the baby inside.

Look at my fat feet!

I sat at a desk all day at work, sat in my car as I drove all over God's creation running errands, and then sat at a desk all evening at home, paying bills and printing shower thank-you cards and writing some blog posts. My swollen feet look like little sausages trying to escape my favorite Steve Madden flats.

Patti, my favorite nurse, would be pissed. She insists that I spend a significant time each evening with my feet "up." I'm not exactly sure how to get them "up," since that would involve me lying on my back and breaking the cardinal rule. (Pregnant women are not supposed to lie on their backs because it squashes a main artery and drops blood pressure for mother and fetus, which is very bad, hear tell.)

When I do lie on the couch for a little Food Network viewing, I adopt THE most unlady-like pose as I lie on my side with one leg thrown over the back of the couch. If I were 10 years younger and 100 pounds lighter, that might be sexy for my husband to see when he walks in the door. For the moment, it's creating skid marks on the kitchen tile as he does an about-face on his boot heel.

This little BTU manufacturer inside me raises my body temperature at whim, but especially after I get out of the shower. I put off getting dressed as long as I can, and I have to leave the bathroom door open while I style my hair or rub lotion all over my swallowed-the-moon belly. My teenager has had the unfortunate experience of walking down the hallway and glimpsing my naked ass, muttering to himself, "I did NOT need to see that."

Many pregnant women fear what happens to their nether regions, particularly hemorrhoids. (Think Darcy in "For Keeps?": "There's something hanging out of my butt.") I got news for you, honeys. Those are nothing compared to varicose veins.

Oh, and I just love this abdominal muscle separation, which is essentially a hernia on my belly. I literally have to hold myself together as I walk, or the pain is excruciating. I bought a giant belly band, which is helpful to wear around the house as I wash dishes or cook dinner, but I can't wear it for too long without squeezing my bladder beyond repair or exacerbating the lovely condition I mentioned above.

Rolling over in bed has become an exhausting production. So has walking up the stairs. Walking anywhere.

And where the hell did all of this hair come from? It's even growing on the big toes of my fat little feet.

Now that's sexy.

Tip Me Over and Watch My Thoughts Fall Out

It's a good thing I'm the first one into my newsroom in the morning. It gave me time to turn my cute little cropped jacket right-side-out before anyone else saw its inseams.

The other day I left the house with two different shoes on my feet. Luckily I got no farther than my garage. I happened to look down as I got into my car, with the foot pedal lights illuminating one black sequined flat and one red patent leather flat. I rushed back into the house and found the appropriate match.

I really do look in the mirror after I dress, but pregnancy goggles are showing me what I think should be reflected and not always the reality. Maybe I just can't tear my eyes away from my bulging midsection, obsessing over how many people keep telling me, "Wow, you're carrying really low."

I used to take pride in multitasking, which generally is thinking about three different things while doing three other things at the same time. I know damn well I used to be able to properly dress myself while musing about the day ahead, or pray in the shower while washing my hair. Now I just stand there, getting wet, doing neither. It's a wonder I haven't left the house naked yet. ("Yet" is the operative term as I have a few weeks left to go.)

A nurse recently told me the term bandied about by his medical buddies was "placental shunting." Being pregnant makes every useful thought stream right out of a woman's head.

It's not a myth. These days, if I don't write it down, I don't remember it. Even when reviewing my notes, I'm not confident I recorded the information correctly, which is quite troublesome to a journalist's pride.

Of course, the thoughts you wish would float away so easily dig into your brain like hook worms. Worries about labor, delivery and recovery come unbidden to even the most experienced parent. I might be preparing dinner and suddenly freak out that the nursery isn't ready yet. I can't tell you how many hours of sleep I've lost over wondering whether I will return to full-time employment after my maternity leave, or whether my wacky waves of irritability have damaged my marriage for good, or whether my teenage son is getting enough attention.

None of those thoughts are productive, and most of those things are out of my control anyway, at least for the moment. My brain power would be better spent elsewhere, like remembering to pay the cable bill.

This isn't likely to get better any time soon, either. I'll be a sleepless zombie with a squalling bag of baby fat hanging off of my boob. I doubt I'll remember to shower.

I Brake for Baby Shower Themes

Trick of the trade: Throw a party in a church that is
already decorated for a special season. Flowers abound.

This could be an obligatory post about my baby shower, but secretly I love this shit.

OK, it's not a secret. Those who know me know how much I love to throw themed parties. And since I love babies so much, throwing themed baby showers is the ultimate gift that keeps on giving. The honored guest gets a great party and I get to throw said great party.

My cousin Amanda and good friend Jan ostensibly hosted my baby shower, held at my church. They did so because they are the people who love me enough to let me pretty much throw it for myself.

Now, I like help as much as the next person. That slideshow didn't put itself together, those game prizes didn't materialize out of thin air, and those tables and chairs didn't magically appear in the right places. Any hugely pregnant woman who really does everything herself is a sad creature with a heap of disappointment in store. And likely a hernia.

But I admit to designing and printing the invitations myself. My cousin dutifully took the RSVPs but forwarded them to me so that I could happily fill in my spreadsheet. I planned the menu, ordered the cookies, arranged the flower centerpieces. I raided my home for nautical decorations and searched every store until I found just the right compass favor.

However did I throw parties before Pinterest showed
me how to make sailboat tea sandwiches?

I think I found the confidence (hubris?) to do this because I know my family and friends were with me every step of the way. Niece Maddie was with me on my trip to pick out napkins and plates and the like. All I had to do was email friend Jan the pictures and video links I wanted projected, and she figured out how to make it happen. Amanda got the game supplies and wrapped the prizes, and she made a darling diaper cake. Son Gabe and two buddies from church transformed the space into party central by lugging around the tables and chairs. My mother-in-law, who flew across the country as a surprise, helped pre-assemble food. Sister Kendra kept the list as I opened gifts and wisely asked someone to bring me a tray. ("Well, she has no lap!") Friend Joy handled all the wrapping, tissue paper and gift bags as I tore into the presents, and friend Marlena was the official photographer. I couldn't have had a better host at the church than its pastor -- my own mother -- who makes guests feel welcome there every week and knows how to work the coffee maker.

Sure there were sailboats and shells and fishing nets artfully placed, but that's not what made it a great party. The beloved family and friends who were there, in the room and in well-wished spirit, created the joy and merriment. The baby was blessed by their presence, not their presents.

May this carry on throughout the years, with every themed birthday party I will happily throw for as many years as my son will let me.

A Baby by Any Other Diaper ...

Every pregnancy is different, they say.

They say a lot of things, really. Since my last pregnancy was a decade and a half ago, I have trouble remembering what, if anything, is different.

When I lost all reasonable control of my emotions during this second trimester, I told an old college roommate, "Geez, I don't remember being like this before."

"Dude, you were pretty emotional," Megan replied, remembering what it was like to live with me then. (Yes, "dude." It was the '90s, whaddya want?)

I know for certain that I had managed to skip morning sickness before. When I made it through the first three months this time around with little more than queasiness, I thought my innards had special fortitude. Come month four, I was barfing in my office bathroom well past morning.

I do remember liking pregnancy before. I had wanted to be a mommy since, oh, about 6 years old, carting around dolls and becoming fascinated with real babies when my cousin Amanda was born. I'm told I was fascinated with my baby brother, but I don't really remember his infancy three years after my own.

I had really good parents and really good grandparents, and raising a family was as inheritable as the farm. I knew I was going to be a mother some day.

I didn't know that I would become one while I was still trying to finish up my $100,000 education, or that it would throw me and my fiance into veritable poverty, or that it would make starting my journalism career that much more challenging.

As hard as that was, I was still happy about being pregnant and even happier once my angel Gabriel was born. I was a confident, attentive baby mama, and he thrived. He was a good eater, a good sleeper, a good pooper, pretty much good all the way around.

Yes, I called my mother once, tearfully confessing that I wanted to throw him out the window. I happen to think that is normal, and quite healthy to tell someone about it. Frankly, if you don't want to throw your kids out of a window at some point in their lives, I doubt you're putting all of your heart into parenting.

That may be the only thing I'm sure will be the same this time around, those desperate moments a mom can feel when a baby won't stop crying or her body won't resemble anything besides a beached whale or her partner won't live up to whatever crazy expectations she is having at any given moment. Dude, we get pretty emotional.

As for everything else, who knows? I was 22 then, I'm now 37. My body constantly reminds me of that too, with my uterus falling forward within weeks and my hips complaining all night long. I may have given up alcohol like before, but this time I've clung to one cherished can of diet Coke each morning. (I get up at stupid o'clock for my commute to my newspaper, and caffeine-free was a lot easier at 22.)

This pregnancy seems far more temperamental. I am thrilled to have conceived within three months of trying, especially at my age, but it has come with discomforts I hadn't experienced before. I didn't even know you could get varicose veins in certain places.

Before, I craved fish sandwiches. Specifically, with cheese, which I happen to think is revolting. I haven't eaten a fish sandwich topped with cheese since Gabe was born, but I couldn't get enough of them while he was in utero. This baby boy yanks his umbilical cord with constant requests for potatoes. Specifically, home fries. I will be eating those until I die.

I don't know if it's the potatoes or what, but this fetus is in constant motion and seems far more forceful in his movements. I was having a conversation with my supervisor the other day and let out in involuntary yelp after a swift kick in whatever now remains of my left ovary. I don't remember that part, but it's certainly possible baby boy No.1 was the Karate Kid.

Gabe's birth took three damn days. Medical paperwork records that, even if the experience hadn't burned indelibly into my psyche. I sure hope that part is different this time around. I sometimes wonder how much being an unmarried Medicaid recipient at a teaching hospital played into the decision to not give me a C-section, but it may just have been the natural length of time to squeeze out a 9-pounder.

There are no ways to control some of these pregnancy differences, but I've got that one covered in my birthing plan:

"Do not let me go that long in labor. You will regret doing so, I promise."

No Booze for You!

Non-alcoholic wine (aka grape juice) is made more
tolerable in a high-heeled shoe bottle holder,
both a gift from girlfriend Beth.

I have an experiment in mind. I'd like to walk up to a bartender, literally bellying up to the bar as my pregnancy arrives anywhere well before I do, and order an alcoholic beverage.

I hope I would get a response akin to the Soup Nazi on "Seinfeld": "No booze for you!"

Like most reasonable people, I don't think a small glass of wine every once in a great while during pregnancy is the end of the world. Regularly having a glass of wine -- or four -- is a problem.

And forget dirty martinis, my favorite cocktail. Whether hard liquor is that much more damaging to a fetus isn't my issue. It just seems tacky.

Lots of moms recount tales of finding out they were pregnant after they had imbibed at some fabulous party, the details of which they can remember only because someone posted the pictorial evidence on Facebook. Many an obstetrician has soothed a panicky (and possibly hungover) mother-to-be with assurances that as long as she didn't continue such behavior, everything was going to turn out fine.

I was slightly surprised that giving up alcohol seemed relatively easy this time around. I am the parent of a teenager, after all, which can drive anyone to drink. (Prohibition was more difficult with my first pregnancy, as it pretty much crimped celebrations during my senior year of college.) I even cut back while I was trying to conceive.

Unfortunately, I recently became a member of Chaine des Rotisseurs, a supper club of sorts that pretty much revolves around wine. Events can be rather steeply priced, to cover the cost of said elixir, which seems wasted on a woman who can't even enjoy it. Luckily, my local chapter's bailli is willing to give me a price break.

For most of my pregnancy, I haven't really craved any alcohol. Well, except for one colossally stressful night when my husband found me sobbing in the sunroom, a full wine glass in one hand and an unlit cigarette in another. He pried both away and wisely left me there to bawl it out.

But as my due date approaches and the weather gets more beautiful, I'm beginning to feel twinges. My fingers involuntarily curl as if around a glass stem. My ears hear imaginary ice cubes tinkling together. My lips pucker for a big swig of olive juice swirling in a vat of vodka.

Those twinges had better go away. I'm planning on breast feeding, and I've yet to find a sippy cup that doubles as a cocktail shaker.

Perhaps we'll have some success with pumping and bottle feeding, which could mean that mommy gets her own big girl bottle of booze for an evening. But I think that would just be a first step in me wanting it all the more and bringing an untimely end to breast feeding.

I'll have to let you know how the bartender experiment goes.

You Are What You Wear

Preggo, for posterity. (Photo by Amy E. Voigt)

Dear clothing manufacturers:

You do know that most pregnant women get bigger in other parts besides their bellies, right?

Respectfully, 

Short Fat Me

Shopping has been my drug of choice for quite some time now, primarily shoes. Smartly designed clothes that are easy to launder and flatter my full figure are a close second. They also are easier to pass off as a necessity. Shoes (and purses and jewelry, oh my) are busting my closet open like an episode of "Hoarders."

Certainly getting new maternity clothes could pass as healthy behavior. I might even get a codependent spending spree out of my mother.

However, shopping for maternity clothes has been nothing but a buzz kill.

Some women buy new clothes in the hopes of masking their pregnancy as long as possible. Maybe their relationships or career objectives otherwise would be thrown into chaos, or maybe they want to hold onto their privacy as long as possible.

Some women refuse to accept that their body parts are going to puff up into wonky, ill-balanced shapes. These women buy Spanx garments well into their second trimester and beyond.

To each her own, but the last thing I wanted to feel like as a pregnant woman was a sausage stuffed into polyester casing. And I was anxious for the beach ball belly to become evident. I'd rather have someone look at me and think, "Oh, she's pregnant" instead of, "Oh, does she really think she can pull off that look with that muffin top?"

In the beginning, I traipsed off to a department store that had faithfully outfitted several family members for years. To my horror, half of the maternity collection was essentially yoga garb, and anything else that might have been suitable for the office was sized in either Small or Medium. Mostly Small.

I haven't been "Small" since grade school. My breasts alone weren't ever going to fit into those tops, never mind a burgeoning tummy. To make matters worse, I already was a "plus-size" gal, dealing with the guilt of not seriously slimming down before conceiving. Pregnancy books had promised me that maternity wear had come a long way in recent years, but the message in the actual stores was clear: Only women who started as a size 2 deserved to have clothes that celebrated motherhood.

I had hoped to find a voluptuous, understanding friend in maternity wear. I instead found a skinny bitch who took advantage of my raging hormones and turned me into a sobbing freak who ran out to her car and promptly ordered a pizza.

Food carried me through my shopping withdrawal for a while. I managed to dress myself in selections from specialty stores that understood short, fat women existed in the world, but let's do the math: Coping with pizza and advancing in pregnancy eventually exacerbated the need to get actual maternity clothes.

I generally do not patronize giant discount stores, but I decided to try the least offensive of them. The maternity section there was the saddest little corner of the world I had ever seen. Four racks of completely unwearable fashions made out of ridiculously uncomfortable fabrics. There were a few pairs of pants that had larger waistbands, but they also had legs long enough for an 8-foot-tall Amazon woman. Another strikeout.

A consignment shop had decent enough clothes, since they once had been worn and then sold by actual women with actual bodies, but again not much in the plus sizes. I did pick up a cute purse, though.

Then I broke down and tried the maternity store in the mall. Big mistake. Their bras were made for the chest of a 10-year-old and the cutely patterned fashions graced sizes reserved for personal trainers. Far in the back was a meager selection of plus-sized garments made from unnatural materials that made me sweaty just looking at them. A few solid-colored basic T-shirts were possibilities, until I looked at the outrageous price tag. There ought to be a special hell for exploiting the budget of a pregnant woman.

I turned to online shopping in desperation, never having had much success with clothes I hadn't been able to try on first. But there were pleasant surprises, even a few tops cute enough to garner compliments. The leggings were a bit on the jodhpurs side, but the outfits got me through the winter.

When spring sprang early in my neck of the woods, I needed to find some dresses. No more pants, please. No more anything that had a waistband. I was pretty big by then and uncomfortable in all sorts of ways, and I was staring to hallucinate that wearing my mu-mu nightgowns to work would be perfectly acceptable.

My salvation was discovered in a national chain that builds its collections for all ages around easy-to-wear, jersey-knit separates. I found trendy, well-shaped, plus-sized dresses in which both my skin and my lungs could breathe. The local store in our area doesn't have a maternity section, but there is one online. A few coupons and an extra-lucky holiday sale later, I looked like a professional, presentable pregnant woman, while I felt like a relaxed, comfortable kid at a slumber party wearing a giant T-shirt as pajamas.

I was finally high again.