Pregnancy - Nature's Hostile Body Takeover

Warning: This blog contains mature content that is not suitable for children. Or men. Sorry, guys... This one is for the ladies only. Don't say you haven't been warned!


I am now just over three years out from my last pregnancy. It is a bit off putting to be in public, surrounded by pregnant women and nursing moms, and to realize that I have aged out (or, as I prefer to think of it, 'experienced out') of that club. I really thought that babies and bellies would be my reality for eternity. After all, I have spent 2 1/2 years pregnant, 5 years breastfeeding, 3 days in labor, and exactly 38,465,342.8 hours worrying about parenting decisions I've either made, am making, or have yet to make. Being a mom isn't for the fainthearted.

No one tells you what it's going to be like, do they? I mean, I know part of that is our fault, as new mothers, because we are so convinced we know what we're doing that when a well-meaning friend tries to give us advice, we roll our eyes and snicker behind our hands at them. "Well, sure you had to use a pacifier with YOUR baby, but MINE won't have any anxiety issues, and therefore won't need external comforting." Spoken like a true preggo or newbie. Just wait until the middle the night about 3 days in - you know, right after you've gone home from the hospital and it's just you and Angel Baby staring at each other by the glow of the nightlight. You'll be desperately digging in the bottom of the diaper bag to find that pacifier too, momma. Trust me on this one.

No, new moms aren't known for their willingness to take advice, but maybe that's because they feel ever so slightly lied to. Let me give you an example. When a pregnant mom asks me what pregnancy was like, I tell the truth - it was wonderful. I loved every minute of it. Couldn't believe what a magical experience it was. Would do it again in a heartbeat. Etc... This, of course, is the perspective I have about it now. You know, now that I'm on the other side of it. Now that it is becoming a memory. Now that I've reaped the rewards. I'm not lying when I say that pregnancy is awesome, but perhaps I'm also not telling the truth, the WHOLE truth, and nothing but the truth as I might have been experiencing it at the time.

The whole truth, of course, involves a bit of unpleasantness. It involves aches in body parts I didn't even know I had. Before I got pregnant I was only vaguely aware of being in possession of a cervix.  I had never seen said cervix. I didn't have an owner's manual on it, had never changed its oil or had it tuned, and I certainly didn't know it could hurt. Further, I never guessed that it would become fair game for discussions with colleagues after visits to the doctor. Let's face it - it's fair game for discussion with everyone near the end, when even great-aunt Lucy will ask how far dilated you are. (This is the same woman, by the way, who always chastised you for not acting like more of a lady when you were young, and now she's hollering into the phone to see how stretched and skewed your most private of parts has become.) By the end of it all, 3 doctors, 10 medical students, 18 nurses, and a cleaning lady who doesn't know how to knock before entering will all have seen the very same cervix you've still not been properly introduced to.

The whole truth also involves, shall we say... anatomical reorganization. These are similar to the theories discussed in college geology classes - poles shifting and causing wobbles and a loss of balance, new hilly eruptions and subsequent foliage cover, bulges in the equator, and the heartbreaking, gradual sinking of northern mountain ranges. Stuff just doesn't stay put when you're pregnant. Your belly button thrusts forward, as if trying to escape the disruptions to its previously-peaceful domain. Your feet widen. Your organs squish and slosh (sometimes even leaking). Fact of the matter is, you even get new body parts. It's true. Look it up. (Or, if you're pregnant, just look down.) Let me explain...


The human body is full of strange sounding parts. You have to wonder if the only reason some people go into medicine is because no other area of science or technology would hire them because of their funny names. They only backed into stellar careers in gastroenterology or otoloaryngology because their initial interviews at, say, NASA or the National Parks Service went something like this: 


"I'm terribly sorry, Mr... uh....Kiesselbach, is it? Though your credentials are excellent, we can't run the risk of you discovering something truly remarkable and then wanting to name it after yourself. It's just a PR nightmare. Have you ever considered medicine, though?" 

So, that's why we now have parts inside each and every one of us that sound like they're more likely to be out of a Star Wars movie than a medical text. I kid you not - if you looked hard enough (and knew where to look) you could find your very own Hydatid of Morgangi (didn't he rule the Mongols in the mid 1500's?), Islets of Langerhans (makes you want to vacation there some time, doesn't it?), Space of Moll (right next to the Black Hole of Moll), and White Line of Tolt (every bit as spectacular as the White Cliffs of Dover, but not nearly as crowded). 

Anyway, these funny little innards are silently working away inside you all the time. But, when you're pregnant and breastfeeding is the only time that your Montgomery's Tubercles kick into gear. They're actually little bumps around your nipples that secrete a special oil to keep things properly lubed for breastfeeding. Montgomery originally described these glands as "a constellation of miniature nipples scattered over a milky way." Very poetic. Most women, however, describe them as just another part of the hostile body takeover that is pregnancy. Oily bumps. On your breasts, no less. Great. Unfortunately, they go perfectly with those dark hairs you sprout on your upper lip and the unexpected gift that is urinary incontinence. You see why pregnant women don't exactly fall for my 'everything is beautiful' explanation of motherhood?

No, one cannot deny that there are some parts of pregnancy that aren't all glowing beauty. Here's the thing, though - that doesn't all magically go away when you give birth. That first post-baby look in the mirror is quite a shock. Your breasts sag. Your belly is floppy. Your stretch marks shine. Your leg hair is thicker. You see things you haven't seen in 9 months, and they're not pretty. Worst of all, you're convinced you're never going to be the same again. And, I've got to level with you here - you won't. Sure, things will get better. Heck, you might even get back into your old clothes and look just as smokin' as you did before, but you will still be forever changed. You will regard your body with new respect. You will cherish the memories, and honor the sacrifices it has made. Those aren't stretch marks - they're battle scars, and you've earned 'em, momma -  just like you've earned a special membership into the exclusive Mommy club, and the right to tell expectant mothers the same truth about pregnancy you heard all along- it's absolutely wonderful!