First Trimester Survival Guide & Tips: Crazy Style

A few tips on your first pregnancy  semester  trimester, from a  terrified, uncertain, sickly  seasoned  pregnant  crazy  lady:

[NOTE: First photo is slightly NSFW]

• Get used to resting. That full flight of stairs? HAHAHAHA. That apple you were going to slice? Think again. All your human power will be sent to fuel your fetus.
• Brace yourself for insomnia. Especially if you go through withdrawal from your medications. You will enjoy tons of extra quiet, thinking   lonely, terrifying, endless   "me" time as you lie awake and consequently shop for boots online at 4am for weeks. 
• Hunker down for the strangest breast changes humanly possible. Those cute things that sometimes worked in a v-neck shirt? Yeah, they will now look and feel like superhumanly sensitive sideways footballs with pancakes for nipples. That hurt. BADLY. And your partner may want to play with them, so be prepared to bitch slap at a moment's notice, too.

Touchdown? What? Touch mah boobies and I'll kill you. Sponsored by the NFL and Aunt Jemima's pancake syrup.

• Prepare yourself for fetus-indicated prohibition. Do not drink alcohol, at least in your first trimester. This one is nearly killing me. Don't smoke either, that shit is awful for a growing kid. Also a good idea to check immediately if any medications you are on are unsafe in pregnancy. You may need to stop them ASAP.
• Expect to do a shitload of laundry. Your hair will be greasy as hell, your pajamas will be saturated in sweat in the night and need changing, and your body will be producing the most acrid sweat you've ever leaked. Punch anyone in the face who jokes "you are getting trained for when the baby comes, haha".
• Cry. At Anything. And Everything. You will recognize this hormonal surge for what it is, approximately 15 minutes after you have cried/made an ass of yourself over something silly. I may have cried more than once because of the damn apple in the first bullet point, among other ridiculous things. More ridiculous than even MY ridiculous. 

I cried when my watch slipped onto the ceramic tile and broke. My husband thought I was injured getting out of the shower. Nothing like SOBBING HYSTERICALLY crying wolf over something stupid.

• Do NOT read tips on the web, or you will be afraid for anything and everything. Pushing, pulling, moving, sporting, sleeping, waking, bathing, cleaning, breathing. And that is NOT an exaggeration (though   most of the rest of    all of   some of this is). No website or advice column will commit to anything, likely due to liability, so you'd best get comfortable with the phrase "but check with your doctor to be sure!"
• Have a liner-free, easily rinseable can/container specifically for puking. You will thank me for this one. You can wash it down your utility sink without having to fish out tissues and clothing tags. Also, if you take a morning vitamin, try to take it early and sleep through when it starts to digest in your stomach. Again, trust me on this.
• Accept that food cravings will be insane, intense, and un-ignorable. Also realize that most food will be utterly revolting, and the same food you craved yesterday can induce horrific queasiness and send you puking today. There's a ton of food, drink and herbal stuff you're supposed to avoid, too.

Ugh. Blech. Utterly revolting in the first trimester, until you crave it*. Then it's deliiiicious!   *Excluding eggs, those f_ckers are still revolting.

• Be prepared for hot flashes. Overwhelming, sickening, pants-wetting hotness and sweating that will force you to remove clothing in restaurant bathrooms to save yourself. Always wear a tank top, just in case.
• Your pee will be cloudy, your body will feel like a foreign entity, and the concept of sexy time may, in fact, cause you to cut a bitch.
• Prepare for the baby by acting like a whiny one yourself. Okay, not really. But I hope you have a good/decent partner who will help you function for the first few months when you are too sick to drive, too nauseated to shop, and too tired to clean. And too sexy for your shirt.
• Don't get dehydrated. I did many times. Water was revolting, as was ginger ale, juice, milk, and all things liquid. My saving grace was fruit juice cut with soda water, rocket popsicles, and chocolate soy milk (which makes me just queasy now, thinking about it). Nausea gets worse and worse the more dehydrated you get. TRUST ME. Though I *DO* look sexy hooked up to IV with vomit dribbling down my chin. Right honey? HONEY?

May the force be with you.

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F-cked Up Letters: Walmart Edition

If you'd like to, check out EDITION 2 HERE, and wayback to EDITION numero 1 HERE.

Dear Walmart Bananas,

Why do you tease me so? You never, ever, ever ripen. You appear to be on the cusp of maturity, with your green tips and banana bum, convincing me that this time will be different. THIS TIME, I promise, I will ripen to yellowness and prevent the gut pain and unpleasantness that come with eating still-partly-green bananas. I won't just pretend to ripen like last time.

And the time before that.

I won't somehow still turn brown without ripening like all of the other times before.

Oh Walmart bananas, you suck. You are consistently terrible. You know what else that indicates? That *I* suck, because I fall for you every time and end up with this:

Ever-green Walmart ninja bananas turn brown without ever ripening. Well played, ninja bananas. Well played.

Screw you, evergeen bananas.

Signed,
Me



Dear Walmart Employees on Smoke Break BESIDE THE EFFING PROPANE DISPENSER,

I understand winter sucks. I feel for you (sort of... I mean, I hate being cold). I understand you have a nicotine addiction that must be fed. I understand you are cold outside.

However, it has come to my attention that your preferred smoking corner at the local Walmart is beside the wind protection of the mother-effing propane fueling station.

Hey! Walmart smokers! This is not what Aerosmith meant when they were singing "Livin' on the edge"!!

Last time I checked, propane was flammable, people. FLAMMABLE. I've heard it's even been used in crazy scenarios where it IGNITES and cooks mother-effing FOOD. The key word here people is "ignites". You use open flames beside this machine FILLED WITH IGNITABLE GAS. The goddamn DOOR is even open, further tempting fate with escaping fumes.

Every time I walk by I feel terror in my gut that you are going to blow not only yourselves up, but the mother-effing store and all the mother-effing shoppers (and that poor mother-effing Greeter).

Please stop terrifying me.

Signed,
Me


Dear Walmart Greeter,

Are you happy with your job? And that one female Greeter with the really wide eyes - are you sane? Do you truly enjoy saying hello to people and dispensing shopping carts in the cold doorway during the day to (mostly) thankless shoppers? I want to think you enjoy the social part of the job, but I would have to guess most customers are assholes.

Or, if not assholes, they are like me. Feeling weird saying hello, feeling weird being offered a cart, feeling like I am not sure if you like your job or absolutely hate it and need the money because retirement didn't work out as planned.

Do enough people smile back? If they don't, I apologize. This letter isn't meant to be funny Walmart Greeter. But I hope you really do enjoy what you do. Otherwise I feel like and even BIGGER asshole than I already am for shopping at Walmart and exploiting workers in China who ultimately give us these "rollbacks" and low prices.

Signed,
Me


Dear Walmart Snowbank I Threw Up In Last Week,

Sorry about that. I couldn't resist the urge of half-priced danishes at the grocery store and ate two faster than a slimy dude can pick off a vulnerable single woman in a dance class.

Me + wheaty, fatty, sugary danishes ≠ Proper Digestion

Me + wheaty, fatty, sugary danishes ≠ Just a hop off the bandwagon, then back to regularly scheduled programming

Me + wheaty, fatty, sugary danishes = Quick, violent upheaval of danishes onto the nearest/closest surface outside of my car.

Sorry 'bout that.

Signed,
Me

p.s. Follow up apology to snowbank beside my garage door for the same reason.


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