This is where I draw the line. I am proud of my belly stretchies. I can deal with the ones on my knees & calves. BUT I DRAW THE LINE AT FEET.

fwiw, my foot looks AWESOME in this picture after hoisting it above my heart for 3 hours while we watched Goonies. It’s amazing how my perspective of what constitutes “awesome” has changed in the past few weeks.

These are her disciples.

I wanted a baked potato & salad for lunch, but realized I couldn’t hold the fork. So I got a sandwich.

I want to cry.

Any ideas on relieving the pain?

I should take a picture. I have pitting edema in my index finger & my wrist bones have taken a vacation…I think they’re in St. Lucia, sipping martinis at the Sandals Halcyon.

Right? I believe that’s the protocol, correct? Oh, and the ever-fantastic “Save up on sleep now, BECAUSE THE ONLY REM YOU WILL VISIT IN THE NEXT 50 YEARS IS MUDDLING THROUGH LOSING MY RELIGION ON YOUR WAY TO DAYCARE DROP-OFF.”

With the typical cliches out of the way, I would like to inform you that I have officially entered the first stage of being really effing uncomfortable. Yes, it required the F-dash-dash-dash word to really convey my misery. My back aches. My feet are swollen to the point that they might self-combust at any given moment. I haven’t seen my ankles in over 2 months. I have baby feet in my far right ribs, my uterus pushes on my lungs like Heidi Klum’s wonder bra to where I am gasping for breath by the 3rd stair, & I am pretty sure that a wee leprechaun with a tiny hammer is slowly chipping away at my hip bones. Did I mention the dragon eroding my esophagus? Because Zantac 75 is a joke. My heartburn MOCKS YOU, Zantac. Mocks you, with two middle fingers up in the air, telling you to sit & twist on your “new & improved” formula.

Oh, & I won’t even effing mention Rosie & her new lesbian lover:

(notice how Tuck decided to stick her slim foot in there? Bitch always has to show me up)

But my hips. Oh, sweet baby Jesus in a manger of hay, MY HIPS. I blame my OB for throwing it out to the universe, for I had been relatively pain free until she said, “Oh, by the way, you’ll probably start noticing hip pain as your ligaments loosen in preparation for delivery.” & I swear, it was not mind games, but my hips started aching the moment I leaped off the exam table. OBSTETRICIAN VOODOO. & in the past few weeks, it’s become excruciating. Two hours on my feet for an appointment? I’m in full waddle, just trying to make it without my hips literally buckling under me in refusal to work. I’m going to begin calling them Boxer, thanks to my man George Orwell. Overworked, under-appreciated, & being sent to slaughter by my own little oinker, aka Harrison. Walking aches. Bending aches. Existing aches. & to get out of bed, I beg Nate to pull me since my hips have no ability to function properly on their own.

In short? I’m miserable.

& at the same time, so weirdly happy that I can hardly stand myself. I feel like I could bottle these hormones & sell them on the Black Market with profit to the point that Nate & I could buy Johnny Depp’s island & live there with servants & a few chickens. Or I wish I could make my physical self feel as awesome as my emotional self. I love being pregnant. Which is a weird thing to say, considering the 5-minute diatribe that compares my body to the book Animal Farm, but I truly, truly adore being pregnant. I am in no rush for this to be over. You know how some pregnant women say that they “can’t wait” to meet their daughter or son? I don’t feel that way. Don’t get me wrong — I’m pumped to have an outside baby at some point. But I’m treasuring nights like tonight, where I can practically hear the pages turn in Nate’s book as he reads 2 rooms away. I feel like I’m starting to know Harrison’s personality & it feels like our sweet little secret, instead of something the entire world can see.

& for now, despite the necessary need for hip replacements in the coming years, I love this stage of life we’re in together.

Only a true friend could say this to me, make me laugh so hard I almost peed myself for 5 minutes, then live to tell the tale. With a heat index of 101 degrees, it was most DEFINITELY sweat, not a beautiful motherly glow.

& the dress I was wearing? Consistent with cheap maternity clothing that is all the rage, it was double-thick 100% polyester, cloying to my back fat by 10am. But apparently I rock cheap fabric amazingly well, because I received about 20 different compliments on it.

She has arrived just in time to celebrate the final two months until Harrison’s arrival!

Regardless, Nate & I are off to Charleston for four days to celebrate a) three years of wedded bliss b) the kid I’m currently incubating and c) my swollen left ankle.

Because that shiz is IMPRESSIVE. That’s 9:30am, folks. I seriously might cry because you could GO SWIMMING IN MY ANKLE there is so much fluid. Compression hosiery, here I come…because nothing says “sexy” like dressing like your Grandma Doris.

& I need a good nickname for my ankle. Start brainstorming, although “THE BEAST” is the front-runner in my mind.

Random side note: Really, the Gestational Diabetes test with the 100% KoolAid proof syrup really isn’t that terrible. I chugged far worse things in college, including the contents of a cooler that had fruit at the bottom. Thankfully, I don’t remember much of the experience except sitting in a chair singing “Magic Carpet Ride” while the Lambda Chi’s hoisted me over their heads in a circle.

Right. ::side-eye::

Sadly, the after-shock of the GD test wasn’t quite as memorable, minus general queasiness & the shakes that come with a lethal injection of sugar into your blood stream. So far, no news is good news & I assume I passed the test.

Y’all have a WONDERFUL weekend…I shall return with lovely pictures of my left ankle touring the Battery & Fort Sumpter (woot, history buffs unite!) on Sunday. smoochies.

Right on my ass. Vertical. On each cheek, to balance out the universe.

I shall call the ones on the left side The Jonas Brothers & the ones on the right…The Backstreet Boys.

oh, yes.

Yes, that is my right hip in all of it’s blubbery, pasty Irish glory. & the guests of honor, of course — my stretch marks!

I chuckle when pregnant women run screaming to their local Target, ravishing the cream isles at the first sign of a pink line on their hips or belly. Ladies, please. I was BORN with stretch marks. You do not get to Cindy Crawford’s height without battle wounds! Truly, I think it was 5th grade when I noticed my first stretchie in ballet class. Thankfully, I was too young for it to register horror, so I used to poke at it & scratch it while we stretched on the floor (toes pointed, of course), wondering “WHAT IS THIS ODD PINK LIGHTENING BOLT?” I was also wearing a bra by the fourth grade, so it is no shock that God marked me by my 11th birthday.

By my 16th birthday, my thighs, breasts, ass, & hips were marked with white ragged lines. & I still rocked a bikini on the beach as a teenager. So please…forgive my eye roll at any woman who panics at her first stretch when she’s 30 due to carrying another human being. Sympathy can be found in the dictionary between shit & syphilis.

Oddly enough, Harrison has yet to give me any new stretch marks…he’s just expanding the old-school members of The League of Blair’s Fat Butt. It’s kind of odd to watch a white stretch get a pink tip on it as it expands…interesting. I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen constellation patterns forming, which is mildly exciting & may deem the need for an evening with a Sharpie marker.

I see stretchies as a simple rite of passage — into adolescence, into motherhood, into being a female. Embrace them. & put down the effing cream, okay? Don’t you think that Bill Gates would have competition if someone really found a $10 cream that cured stretch marks?

• pulling & cramping a muscle while trying to poop
• torrents of rain falling as I dash between daycare centers sans umbrella
• Realizing that childcare + our mortgage will potentially eat up 65% of our combined income
• The bossman currently ditching my proposal to drop to four days
• watching my well-laid plans spin around a metaphorical toilet bowl at the word “unlikely”
• panic attacks revolving around the inability to afford my spawn

Things that do not suck quite so bad:

• lemonade from Chick Fil A
• a daycare director telling me that I am too slim to possibly be knocked up, even though I know that’s an effing lie