So, I was trying to think of the best way to tell The Internet that I seemed to have succeeded in getting pregnant again. I took about 4,000 tests this week and all of them were slightly positive (this was after making sure that the last miscarriage/chemical pregnancy had successfully cleared the pipes), and I wanted to wait to make sure that I was able to tell my real life readers before I informed The Internet.

I know a lot of people stay mum about pregnancy in it’s earliest form, so as not to have to retract the statement later on, should something go wrong. I don’t generally subscribe to this philosophy as the people that I would typically inform would be the very same people I would lean on should something go wrong.

And by the fact that this is the first that many of my real friends are reading this should tell you that I no longer have good news to tell you any longer.

It looks like the critter formerly occupying my uterus is flying the coop. The spotting began shortly after returning home with the elder sausages from a matinee (it was Iron Man, and it was phenomenal) and although it was the very palest of pink, it was there when I wiped.

I suppose that the dream was fun while it lasted.

You’ll have to excuse my absence from your blogs; I don’t seem to have a whole lot good to say right now.

I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

-Leonard Cohen, “Hallelujah”

Welcome to the world, Alexander.

Born 5:18 pm 3/30/07
7lbs 10 oz
20 inches long

Dad and Baby are wonderful.

Mom is still an asshole.

Full Moon Tonight: Check (unproven scientifically, but as nurse and former waitress must agree with it, as have experienced it)

Cervix Softening: Check

Baby Full Term: Check

Number of (documented by hospital records) Times Baby Has Tried To Kill Me: Twice

Dreams of Gigantic 18 lb Babies Being Ejected by Crotch: One (which beats the 60 lb baby dreams I had with Ben. Wait, that was a fantasy)

Hospital Bags Packed: One (last time, simply threw pile of cheeseburgers haphazardly into plastic sack and hoped for the best)

Baby Settling into Pelvis (thereby making me have to pee 1 tbsp every 4 seconds): Check

Increased Need for Semen in Vagina Because Someone, Somewhere Promised that Semen Brings on Labor: Check (poor husband is home from work for exact purpose. Was considering donor sperm if husband not available until it was made clear that you HAVE TO PAY FOR DONOR SPERM. Totally unaware that people could CHARGE for SPOOGE)

Mucus Plug/Bloody Show: Likely intact, although may be coming out of nose

Emotions Range from Stark Raving Mad to Weeping Uncontrollably: Check

Number of Times Husband Has Threatened Divorce: Miraculously, none, although am sure will be summarily paid back when shoulder surgery occurs.

Laundry Piled Up, Needing To Be Put Away: Currently two baskets. Hoping that if labor occurs, husband will have to do it himself for the first time in three years. Scratch that, as I will end up with 5 year old son’s clothes in my closet. Mental note: must put away laundry today.

Desire For Whole Bottle of Beer: Growing by the minute. Know it is bad as Icehouse is sounding tastee.

Jealousy of People Who Have Scheduled C-Sections Before Actual Due Date: Growing by the second.

Disgust with Pants with Elastic Waistbands: Almost epic proportions. Cannot wait to leave them behind. Cannot believe that once thought that they were ‘œcomfortable’ and ‘œkinda cute.’ Annoyed with previous naivety.

Plans For Evicting Baby, Beginning Today:

Sex, or alternately, turkey baster insemination.

Getting involved in huge, massive, messy project, knowing that this is likely the time water could break (would normally have lit cigarette, but have quit smoking)

Locating trampoline and jumping (likely injuring self)

And my favorite:

The Branch Davidians Method: Planning to loudly play Alice Cooper, Corrosion of Conformity, Peter Fucking Frampton, Rush, Any Smoove Jazz I Can Find, Phil Collins, etc to belly. Hoping he will take the hint and decide to come out and turn that motherfucking shit DOWN, motherfucker.

Anything else?

Dear The Old Lady Who Works At The Starbucks In My Target,

When I am greeted by my harried looking husband upon leaving the bathroom with my 5 year old (who loudly chronicled every step of the descent of his poop from his colon to the toilet) with my large green tea latte, and the curt instructions to ‘Taste this. NOW’ it is a very.bad.sign.

How you ruined something that is made entirely from a mix, I am not sure, but how you ruined it 3 times baffles me. Finally, I just asked “make me a large steamed skim with almond syrup,” which is surely a sign that you are not in the right line of work. Because I *still* walked away with a small skim with whole milk.

By this time, I had surmised that you were probably not worth  my time and if I tried a fourth time, I’d probably end up with a cheeseburger. Although it is still painful for me to admit, I walked away from the entire situation without getting a refund for my $1.80.

Still Wantin’ My Latte,

The Largely Pregnant Woman Flanked By Eye-Rolling Men

P.S. My husband is still not sure what you did to his drink.

‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”

Dear Outlet Mall Lotion Kiosk Guy,

Do I look like I am desperately in need of your product? Is my skin falling off my body in large discernible chunks, littering the mall floor with its’ fleshy badness? If the answer is no (and last I checked, it was), then when I say ‘No‘ to your inquiry if I have a minute to hear about your product while I walk briskly away from your stand, let.it.the.fuck.go.

Don’t follow me well past your stand, eagerly proffering your lotion bottle as it were a hard penis in dire need of a hand-i-job while repeating yourself over and over, pleading with me to try your product. I promise, even *I* know that your six dollar product is not worth it.

And if you choose to do these things to me, as your type inevitably does (am I a product of racial SES profiling?) DO NOT do these things around my usually-even-tempered-husband. Because he scream loudly at you while threatening you with bodily harm. Which he will then be forced to listen to his wife imitate for weeks (ahem, YEARS) to come, while wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.

Incorrectly Profiled,

Back The Fuck Off, Motherfucker’s Wife

P.S. Your product sucks and you work in a mall kiosk. An OUTLET mall kiosk. I personally, am just glad that I am not you.

‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”‘”

Dear Rapidly Growing Belly,

About 4 months ago, we had a great agreement. You wouldn’t impede my movements too much, and I would feed you McDonald’s Carmel Sundaes when you asked. Life (aside from the hyperemesis, of course) was good. I looked cute, felt cute, and got to rub my cute little belly.

All bets are off now, motherfucker.

I’m lucky if my biggest shirts fit over you now. Shopping for more shirts has proven time and again to be a losing battle, not to mention depressing as f.c.u.k. Yesterday, I burned you on the freezing car. Today I burned you on the hot stove. My mind cannot compute your ample dimensions any longer. While attempting to hug my first son, I steamrolled him to the ground AND IT TOOK ME A MINUTE TO REALIZE WHY HE HAD FALLEN.

On the bright side, I am glad that it wasn’t a seizure like I had initially thought.

Sleeping has turned into a horrible battle of me vs. my burgeoning belly. I grunt when I roll over or move from sitting to standing or pretty much whenever.

Sex has gone from a pleasurable (and how!!!) pastime to an act of mercy on the part of my husband. Mounting and dismounting leave me feeling about as sexual as a goat in tap shoes and the walk of shame to the bathroom has turned into a slow waddle.

Since I no longer feel as though you have upheld your end of the bargain here, I am forced to renig on my own. No more Carmel Sundaes for you until you can show me what I’m getting out of this.

Hungrily yours,

The Only One Of Us Who Has Access To Both A Car And A Wallet

P.S. If you see Cletus the Fetus, please inform him that my bladder is NOT a toy!

A staple around our house since I’ve been pregnant (which seems like an eternity, yo) happens to be donuts. Most frequently it’s Krispy Kreme, but making the occasional debut are the Enteman’s Chocolate (ahem, PLASTIC) Covered and the sometimes seen Dunkin’ Donuts. We go through about a dozen or so a week nowadays, which seems like a lot, especially considering they’re only passing down one gullet. And, surprise, surprise it’s not mine!

Have I mentioned that The Daver is pregnant, too?

Well, he is. Come on, you know you saw that one coming, especially if you’d heard of Couvade Syndrome before. And shit, he’d probably be carrying this baby to term if he could. He’s just that kind of good guy.

Although some women might be slightly irritated by this phenomenon, I find it somewhat sweet. I mean, if he’s ingesting 12 donuts a week, he can’t exactly raise TOO much of a stink about the McDonald’s caramel sundaes that seem to call my name at odd hours of the day.

He now also shares my irrationally premature nesting instincts.

Over Christmas, he took an unheard of 5 days of vacation time. For Dave (and any of you workaholics out there) this is a huge, huge thing. I had grown extremely accustomed (if not a little bitter) to not seeing my husband during the week, and only seeing him on certain weekends when the moon is full and blue and round. Maybe not precisely how I envisioned my marriage, but then again, I had always envisioned having a wall covered entirely in Velcro, making Velcro suits, and throwing myself against said wall occasionally. What can I say? Fantasy does not always = reality.

And over those 5 days, I got a real glimpse of what having him around all the time would be like. In a word: exhausting. He undertook more house projects in a short amount of time than I have ever seen anyone do, ever, which is a welcome change for us, albeit a bit exhausting.

When we moved here last February, having just been bent over and ass-fucked by the condo fiasco, we didn’t have a whole ton of extra money to throw around to improve this house. We made do with what we had, and in doing so, we completely turned 3 areas in the house into the ‘we just throw crap here’ rooms and shut the door to them.

The Baby’s Room. Painted a sickly shade of pink, we contemplated for 3.5 seconds about making it into a guest room. Which made so little sense as to be absurd: we wanted a baby not house guests. The room then became the ‘cat room.’

Before you start assuming that we have indeed turned into ‘those crazy cat people,’ let me remind you that we foster cats for a local adoption organization. They are not our cats. They will NOT be our cats (no matter WHAT Ben thinks). But for them, it beats the fcuk out of living in a cage.

Once we discovered that I was, indeed, sperminated, the room was painted and the cats were (mostly) evacuated to another part of the house. Then the room became mecca for all of the baby crap that we began to accumulate. Boxes of Ben’s old clothes, a Moses basket, some hand-me-downs from Vacation Wife, and the new baby furniture was all unceremoniously tossed into the room and the door closed.

Although I may be premature in some cases, I do happen to know that sometimes pregnancies have a way of not working out, and wasn”t really willing to start to create a real nursery until the age of viability was reached (i.e. 24 weeks).

Operation Sort-Through-Crap is now partially completed. Goodwill should be having a field day with all of the stuff I’m giving up. Now things just need to be put together so it can actually be an operational room.

The Basement. Going from being squashed into a small condo on the third floor with minimal (I’m being generous here) storage into having a house with three floors can make a person a bit lazy. The laundry room in our basement was quickly turned into crap depository #2. Anything that didn’t go directly into another area was dumped here, never to be seen again.

Over the break, Dave bought, assembled and organized shelves and effectively moved about 90% of the crap off of the floor and into some semblance of organization. Now I just have to go through and throw shit away. I’d have a garage sale if I wasn’t so fucking afraid of them.

Ben’s Playroom, i.e. The Room Off The Kitchen. An initially great idea (‘Hey, let’s put all of Ben’s stuff into this one area, so he can play there!’) turned into ‘Wow! No one ever goes into that room. What a waste of space!’

Dave and Ben dutifully lugged toy after toy into Ben’s room until we were left with a vacant-except-for-the-white-aluminum-Christmas-tree room. I had been contemplating making this an all-seasons tree (change the lights for each holiday!!) or some shit just to leave the room with SOMETHING in it, when the idea of making this a den was raised.

On Monday, off to Addison we trekked to get another insanely large television because The Daver MUST have large televisions and back to Naperville we trudged to pick out another set of couches. Today the couches were delivered, and the room.looks.so.weird.all.furnished.and.shit. All that’s left to do in there is some painting and to mount the TV on the wall. Yes, the TV is a flat panel one. No, I don’t know why.

(I cannot believe I’m going to say this here, now)

I should be pregnant more often, dammit! Eventually the whole house would be decorated, organized and furnished.

I don’t know if I told you guys this, but in about 2 months, I am having a second baby.

Holy pajamas, batman.

I mean, if anyone was planned, it was this baby, let’s be honest here, but for some reason it has only recently begun to sink in that I will shortly be pushing crotch parasite #2 out of my cooter. And I couldn’t be more thrilled about it.

Aside from one niggling detail. At age 26, I will have 2 children. ChildREN. Like the transition from preschooler to kindergartner, for some reason this change feels huger than huge. Massive. Suddenly, in my mind’s eye I go from looking chic and trendy (let me dream, people) to wearing mom jeans with white keds. And have a muffin top. I DON’T WANT TO WEAR SENSIBLE SHOES AND SHOP AT KOHLS!!

So, immediately I decide that I must change something. But what?

The first thing that pops into my addled (but very typical female) mind is to dye my hair, which is my natural color for the first time in I don’t know how long. I envisioned a kind of punk rock hairdo in a funky style. Scratch that, dude. When I am NOT pregnant and/or nursing a boobfruit, I suck at dying my hair. I don’t imagine I’ll be ‘doing’ my hair daily for the next several months. When I do, I will reward myself with a rockin’ dye job, done by someone other than my husband. Oh yes, ladies, he does hair too.

The second thing that pops into my head is to get another tattoo. Now, before I got pregnant with this one, my late birthday present for myself was going to be a new tattoo. As it turned out, turning 26 made for a sweet-assed union between the sperm and egg. If I can’t eat hot dogs, I certainly cannot get ink. Especially since I have a horrible reaction to the red dye and would be unable to medicate myself properly.

So I resolved to get the tattoo. But of what? And where? This is where my inability to be creative is highlighted: I have two tattoos. One on either foot. Both mean something extremely personal, and the last one came from an exact QUOTE from a conversation that I had with a friend. It’s not rocket science, my brain.

And this is where I turn to you, dear Internet. You see, I need your help. What else can I possibly do to stave off the inevitable mom-ness that will come with this baby?

P.S. I was completely unable to find a diaper bag with a skull and crossbones on it. I settled for having to make my own. It’s sassy as fcuk.

Hi Internet, how are you?

It’s been awhile since we’ve last spoken, I know, I know. I’m sorry I didn’t call. See, the thing is, I’ve been a real raging bitch for the past 6 months or so, and have been terrified to let you see my wrath. I seem to piss people off without meaning to, and if I’m meaning to, I guess that I’m afraid that I’ll ruin any chance of Ben and Baby G-Unit having a normal life. You know, because the Internet can tell him how horrid I really am.

Either way, Internet, I have something to tell you: I’m pregnant! And it’s not yours, it’s The Daver’s. It also appears to have a comically large weenis and enjoys tap dancing on my bladder. Just like his daddy.

This pregnancy has not been without peril, Internet. I had a tear in my placenta causing some frightening first trimester bleeding then I was stricken by a mild case of hyperemesis graviorum. It was fun. It still IS fun.

But last night, something NEW happened.

See, Internet, I feel I need to be honest here. One 1.5 pound baby tap dancing on your bladder often = a little bit of pee in your undies. It’s not hot, no, but it is normal.

Now last night, there was a significantly greater amount of pee in my knickers and I began to get worried. The baby had been mercifully (probably due largely to the fact that I promised him a ‘beat down like no other’ if he didn’t give my bladder a bit of rest) kicking my colon and/or trying to escape through my belly button and avoiding my bladder.

Of course, Internet, this had to happen on a Saturday night when my doctors were out of the office.

So, off we trundled to the ER to make sure I did not have a small tear in my amniotic sac. After having my cervix and/or vagina examined for about 2 hours I was released to get my McDonald’s Carmel sundae and Diet Coke.

Diagnosis: Female Urinary Stress Incontinence (thankgod) r/t pregnancy.

That’s right, Internet, I peed my pants and then made the hospital tell me so.

Guess the giant box of ‘Oops I Crapped My Pants’ I bought for The Daver is going to be used by me.

Now you may have NOTICED it before, but I promise that NOTHING humbles you like maternity shopping once did. Thankfully for us now, being pregnant is so ‘Hollywood’ that it’s almost fun to buy the clothes. Gone are the tent-like mumus and the belly panels. Gone are the denim-free faux-jeans that I wore while last gestating

(whimpers: HOW can jeans be DENIM FREE and still called JEANS? I give up).

Hell, if you wanted to, you could easily shop in the maternity stores without being pregnant. Aside from the ‘Baby on Board’ shirts you’d be good to go. A little roomy (perfect for the bar) but damn comfy.

This afternoon, I dragged my loving husband out to get new pants for me. Sounds cruel, I know, but I promise that he had the checkbook in mind when he took me today. I grabbed the pair of pants in my size, he picked me out a shirt, and away we went.

I got home and gleefully pulled my pants on in the privacy of my own bathroom, of course because I happen to look quite like a hippo these days, and was immediately vexed. WHY was I having a hard time pulling my pants on?

The waist fit.

The hips fit.

The calves fit.

Holy shit, these pants are caught up on my ANKLES?

Yes, faithful readers, I had inadvertently bought Skinny Legged maternity jeans.

What nimrod decided that what pregnant women REALLY NEEDED is to wear pants that make them look fatter and more oddly shaped? Sure, they can look good on SOME people, but really? Most pregnant women would look gawky and uncomfortable (not to mention shaped like a hippo in toe shoes) in these.

So now I have to go back to the trendy maternity store and carefully inspect the leg of each and every pair of jeans I can find. Hopefully, they’ve left some jeans with some flair in them.

Otherwise, it’s off to the tailor I go. Grumbling and grousing the whole way.

When I was pregnant with my first, on a random doctor’s appointment, my OB (who had said, um, *maybe* 15 words to me during the whole pregnancy, but I didn’t care because Dr. Google kept me company, and who cares if your doctor holds your hand and tells you everything is okay? Not me.) heard something he didn’t like on my fetal doppler.

Apparently the fetal heart tones were not acceptable. Having not been able to pinpoint exactly WHAT was wrong with the heartbeat myself due to my non-trained ears, I just accepted it as well as my referral for an ultrasound the following day.

Which is how I planned to learn what flavor baby I was carrying. While it wasn’t something I had to wait for, it was something I had been waiting for.

A couple of weeks ago, at my last OB appointment, we planned our Anatomy Scan, which sounds scary as fuck which will tell me if my baby is indeed fucked up and shit. Since I tend not to worry until I have to (yes, I can get colon cancer, get hit by a car, or win the lottery. Why worry about it until I need to?), I am masking my concern with the very real excitement of learning exactly what flavor I’m cooking.

Sadly, just the same as the last time I was pregnant, I have not been able to make this pregnancy real and I’m hoping that hot dog or lackthereof will.

November 16 at 10 am.

To make this interesting, as all good parents (should) do, we have made a bet.

Winner gets the satisfaction of knowing that they are far superior and the ability to rub it in the others face.

Loser gets the punishment ascribed by the winner. Punishments have been picked.

Dave: *Girl*. If he should lose, he will wear a Britney Spears t-shirt for one whole week during such time when it cannot be masked by a winter coat.

Becky: *Boy* (only to make this interesting. I still have no fucking clue). I will have to wear a ‘Chicks Dig Unix’ t-shirt for one week without being masked by a winter coat. (as a total aside, this shirt will have to be in a comically large size, as I’m certain Mimi or Pea In A Pod won’t carry it)

Representin’ colors must be worn to the anatomy scan.

Aww yeah, Daver’s bustin’ out the pink.