Baby’s Got Sauce

First, a happy recommendation that I would like to share, thanks to my Flickr pal, the similarly knocked-up MeganJane: FiberOne Raisin Bran is your friend. My world is now a better place, thanks to this miraculous, fibrous cereal.

And now, for a small diatribe that can only be called “Miscarriage, Birth Defects and Other Harrowing Topics: It’s Not Your Fault (Except When It Is, You Selfish Ignorant Pregnant Dumbass)”

I really dislike how pregnant women are treated, and I don’t mean that in an every day “People are so mean to me!” way, but in the sense that we can’t be trusted to make informed decisions about what to eat, where to go and how to take care of ourselves, as though common sense has no place in pregnancy. I realize this is not new territory, and I might as well write a paragraph about Mommy Wars: Stay at Home or Go to Work?, but MY GOD. The insanity.

I’m all for women doing — and avoiding — whatever makes them comfortable, and certainly following their own doctors’ orders, but it’s when they go and PROSELYTIZE to other women about miscarriage, damage and birth defects that may or may not be caused by normally benign things that I feel like taking giant stabby things and applying them to the back of my hand for fun and profit.

(Despite a few potential flaws pointed out kindly by readers, one of the best pregnancy-eating posts I’ve ever read is from about a year ago from MegNut, which I’ve sort of followed, not that you asked. Although not that I’ve eaten any uh, meat or fish, since this whole thing began, because GROSS PUKE EW. But I have eaten eggs benedict. Flog me.)

The truth is, and I realize I’m speaking with a grand total of two months’ active pregnant time, thanks to the one-month gimme before the peestick turns pink, but if these few months are any indication, hot damn, pregnancy is going to be LONG. It’s a long time to not eat and avoid medication and give things up, and most stressfully, WORRY about what you’re giving up and is it right or wrong and oh my God, I ate bacon that wasn’t TOTALLY CRISP and, am I going to die now? How about now? IS MAH BABY OKAY?

And I really don’t think that admitting that it sort of sucks makes you a bad mother. Neither do hot showers, although would you believe there are women screeching all over the Internet that pregnant women should only take LUKEWARM showers, to as to avoid cooking their baby to death? Seriously. I’ve seen it. Some poor woman will ask about a hot bath (a surprisingly controversial issue) and a crazy lady will jump in with “NO! NOT EVEN A HOT SHOWER! I was told to take cold showers during my whole pregnancy! You could kill your baby!”

Fine, you don’t want to take hot showers, FINE. But please don’t tell someone she’s going to kill her baby. And I don’t know about you, but I’m sure as hell not taking a cold or even LUKEWARM shower in December. I think hypothermia may be a greater risk than elevated body temperature after a 15-minute session under the spray.

(This is a mutation of the no-jacuzzi rule, which many doctors are wishy-washy about, because in order to do any real damage, many believe that you’d have to be lying in a hot sauna/jacuzzi for 10 hours or more, when most women become sweaty and faint like, uh, WAY BEFORE THAT. And would likely GET OUT. Also, I came to this conclusion after much Googling and doctor-like discussion and maybe a frantic post-hottish-bath e-mail to Sundry, but whatever. AM ZEN-LIKE NOW, BITCHES.)

(Not that I’m getting in a sauna anytime soon. Or like, ever. Please don’t e-mail me.)

Please note that I haven’t even touched the soft cheese issue, wherein women across America are not cream cheesing their bagels because someone decided they don’t know what “raw milk” or “mold-ripened or “not fresh” means, so they just throw “soft cheese” at them and run away. Because of course, pregnant ladies are ILLITERATE and cannot understand such terms.

It’s also not just on the Internet that such insanity exists. Don’t even get me STARTED on the spa lady who lectured me that my baby was “barely in there” at 11 weeks and if I wasn’t careful, the baby could fall out and I could miscarry. Like on a DIME.

The major thing that grates my (hard, pasteurized milk, non-blue-veined) cheese about this is that it sends the message that if you have you have a miscarriage or, God forbid, have any problems with your infant whatsoever, it’s your fault. When of course, barring extreme, generally obvious circumstances, this just isn’t true, and I hate hate HATE that anyone, for one second, would beat themselves up any more than is necessary for something that was, in all extreme likelihood, entirely unavoidable. There is plenty of tragedy and woe without adding self-hatred and flagellation to the mix.

Blah, blah, blah, I’m not a doctor, do what your doctor says, etc., but for the love of God, try to stop making yourself (and the rest of us) crazy.

(Also, realize by getting knocked up, I signed on for a LIFETIME of worried craziness, but allow me to bitch about one worry at a time, yes?)

Anyway! Let us talk about fast food! Despite the fact that it’s vastly popular to eschew and despise fast food (and with good reason), I must say, it has its moments of beauty, and I felt this way before I was pregnant. Though my general preference is for brined vegetables, I do not deny that there were many moments where nothing in the world would do other than a bean burrito with extra hot sauce from Taco Bell, and good LORD am I pissed that I live in a land without Chipotle. And look, no road trip is complete without mournfully gazing at the street signs wondering if any exit will include an Arby’s for her, Taco Bell for him.

And then there are Chicken McNuggets. The (well, this, anyway) pregnant lady’s ambrosia. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that one of the few establishments that always goes down without issue is McDonald’s. And though I’ve never really enjoyed — or even TRIED — Chicken McNuggets in about ten years, it seems I cannot get enough. The only request I have is that will someone please come and feed Adam? I’m afraid he’s going to die before this baby is born from some sort of Morgan Spurlock-like system shutdown, and it will be all my fault.

I think we’ve reached the end of the pregnancy ranty-type line, at least for a little while. I’m sorry to have tortured you so, and I’m sorry if I sounded like a condescending know-it-all ass. I realize that I really know nothing and am mere student in the game of gestation.

Happy Thursday!

*G-Love. And for the love of God, make sure it doesn’t contain cream cheese.

60 comments August 20th, 2008