Nancy Drew and the case of the missing....

Warning. Stuff gets real in this post. If you are easily embarrassed, or talking about my lady parts makes you uncomfortable, you should probably stop reading.

Oh, that doesn’t freak you out? God bless you, and read on.

There are a lot of things that happen throughout the first 30 weeks of a pregnancy that serve to challenge your view of yourself as a woman. Before being “with child”, I would wake up in the morning and look in the mirror. I’d make a pee pee, then stand in front of the mirror again, turn to the side, and usually suck in my tummy.  Sometimes I’d weigh myself before AND after the peeing, just cuz it gave me an early morning sense of accomplishment. I’d usually then resolve to try and eat a smaller lunch that day. Overall though, I was pretty happy with what I saw.

These days that morning glance in the mirror reveals that nearly everything that used to curve IN curves OUT. Ironically, while I’m doing what could be argued as the most feminine thing possible, never have I felt so unattractive and manly.

Since not everyone who reads this blog has experienced the beauty and wonder of the life giving miracle, and since frankly, I would have enjoyed a better heads up on some of the joys that it entails, I’d like to chronicle some of my bodily changes to give you a better understanding of my current self image problem.

The cast in order of appearance:

Pancakes belong at the IHOP, not on my chest

As a young lady, one of the most exciting prospects of growing up was someday having a sizable chest like my step-sister. She was 4 years older than me, pretty, and always got a lot of attention from the boys. I would pray almost daily for my chest to grow. Unfortunately for me, when God heard “chest” he mistook that for “mustache” and for years I was left wanting.

(As a side note to any adolescents reading this post:  don’t go for the facial hair bleach in the green box.  Just pluck it, wax it or shave it, and save yourself the horror of looking like Colonel Sanders at the 7^th grade dance.)

I digress. The point I’m trying to make here is that God clearly saved all my pre-teen prayers for the miraculous day when the little spermy fought it’s way into my egg and life was created in my lady womb. Almost immediately my chest started to grow.  I mean GROW. To give you some perspective, I went from buying the “miraculous push-up” in a 34B to a hideous flesh colored 38DD full coverage unpadded bra at Target within a matter of weeks. You might be thinking “oh yeh Beth, cuz big boobs AREN’T sexy, pooooorrrr you”.

No, not these.

Unfortunately, my lady hormones forgot to pass the memo to my nipples that they shouldn’t grow as well. What were once happy little perky gals who pointed straight forward to greet me in the mirror when I removed the miracle bra, embarrassed of their massive growth, now hang their faces in shame.  

These Flintstone Feet can make your bed rock

I’m not a foot person. I’ve never really understood those guys you hear about that like to lick feet or whatever, but I DO enjoy looking down at mine when there’s a fresh coat of pink paint on them. Sometimes a French pedi. Sometimes bright red if I’m feeling SAUCY. I also always enjoyed going out wearing open toed shoes or, in my current profession, switching to a pair of flip flops once I get safely inside the building every day.

These days, my feet are so fat that red polish makes them look more like cocktail weenies dipped in sauce than sexy lady toes. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t bend forward far enough to reach them, and they’re in such disrepair that I’m pretty much  mortified to expose them to my little guy at the nail place down the street. Sadly, my feet spend most of their waking hours hanging out inside of huge reaking Ugg boots. It’s no way to live, really.

From the rear I look like a thanksgiving feast

Complete with mashed potato booty, and a back full of rolls. What used to be tight like the top of the turkey looks more like the gravy. I’d like to thank the friggin 3 way mirrors and fantastic lighting in the Target dressing room for that realization.

Target dressing room: 1

My self esteem: 0

The KO punch

Today ladies and gentleman was the surprise that topped all of the previous gifts the prego fairy had blessed me with. Just as I thought I couldn’t feel any LESS like a woman it happened. As I looked down through the murky water of my bubble bath I realized something of great importance:

I can no longer see my vagina. 

I’ll give you a second to process that. 

No, it's ok really, just take your time.

Due to my engorged midsection, I am no longer able to SEE MY LADY PARTS WITHOUT AID OF A MIRROR. Not that I have any question as the whether they’re there. My bladder is doing a piss-poor job of holding urine these days (pardon the pun) which means I get up and go at least 10 times I day. Judging from what I can feel on the other side of the paper everything is still in place, but there’s just something comfortable about being able to look down and SEE it. 

If you’re a guy reading this you’re probably thinking “if I were your husband I’d make sure it was there… harrf harrf harrf (insert stupid thoughtless man joke here)”.

Yeh, ha. You’ve clearly never been pregnant or married to a pregnant woman. That’s how I got in this mess and I have roughly ZERO desire to re-live it. In the meantime,  I’ll be keeping the mirror close at hand and praying for brighter days.

Dear Vag,

Miss you! See you next summer,

Love,
Manatee

You are what you eat.

Ever heard that phrase?  

In that case I must have eaten a pile of crazy hormone laced lard sandwiches.

For two.

There is a fierce, rabid hunger lion in my stomach just waiting to attack anything that smells remotely like bread, potatoes or cheese. He hangs out with his friend the “crazy pregnant rage tiger” inside me just waiting on somebody to open the cage.

There are lots of girls out there who will tell you that there was no perceptible difference in their appetite once getting knocked up. They are probably the same girls on “I didn’t know I was pregnant”.  I’d like to punch those girls in the face.

My weight gain started immediately. A trip to the doctor around 12 weeks revealed that I’d gained 17 lbs instead of the suggested 3-5 for the first trimester.  Oops. At this point I clearly wasn’t fitting in my skinny jeans and went to my favorite store to buy a new pair.

Having never explored sizes beyond the single digits, I made the mistake of asking the 90 pounder behind the counter what the biggest possible size was:

“um, I think like a 12” (accompanied by a look of judgement).

I immediately felt the need to tell her it’s because I’m pregnant, and I wasn’t sure how big I would get, and I really like the jeans, so I just wanted to know what the biggest size was… just in case.

To which she replied, “eww, do you really think you’ll get THAT big?”

Me: “um, I don’t know I mean…I guess it could depend on the baby and…”

Her: “because you could like try the elliptical or something.”

And…. she unlocked the tiger cage.

You know in the hulk how he turns all green and is like “hulk smash ahhh” and just destroys stuff? In that moment I wanted to rip the cash register out of the counter, smash it through a display case, take her by the hair, throw her into a wall, rip something with my teeth and SCREAM: “ahhhhahahahahaa who’s laughing now, ahhhhahahahaahahahahahaahoih;oewiulsjdhlhghuohg!!”

Here’s the funny thing about the pregnant rage tiger: it’s like a camelion.  As quickly as the rage was there, it was gone, and the rage tiger turned into a fluffy little kitten. (meow). One single tear dripped silently from my eye and I RAN out of the store sobbing.

Luckily (maybe not so much for him, ha) my husband was waiting outside the store for me.

Me: “I wanted pants… (sob sob…) but I’m fat… and… (sob sob …) I’ll never be pretty again… and (sob sob…) what if.. what if I have to throw all my clothes away because I’m huge forever… (and sob sob…) what if the baby doesn’t think I’m pretty (sob sob…) and that girl... she said I should work out… but I feel so tired… I’m so tired… soooo tired (sob sob sob).”

My husband (calmly, one hand on each of my cheeks staring me straight in the eyes): “Sweetie. You’re not fat. You’re pregnant, and you’re beautiful. You will bring a little person into this world who will love you as much as I do - no matter what.  Wanna go get a smoothie?”

Did I mention how crazy in love I am with the zoo keeper?

and they lived happily ever after...

As a little girl I loved several things:  Bologne and Cheese, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, rainbow colored plastic accessories, my teddy bear named “Loopy”, and like most other little girls, the occasional Disney movie style fairytale.

Since most fairy tales don’t come with sequels to explain what “happily ever after” means, I was mostly left to my own imagination. This led to a highly romanticized version of events that should probably be avoided for future generations, including my daughter.

Now that my Prince has found me via Match.com, swept me away in his black Nissan Altima, and made me his princess, I think I might have a little insight into the elusive fairy tale epilogue.

Well little girls, please grab your favorite carpet square and sit quietly in a circle, because this princess would love to give you a taste of what “happily ever after” really means:

 :)

When a prince and princess love each other very much, they get married and live together in a beautiful castle. Life in the castle is wonderful. Each morning the princess wakes to the glorious rays of the sun to be surrounded by her animal friends who whisk her out of bed (with their shrill “feed me”, “water me”, and “let me out to pee” meows and barks). To her delight, throughout the day she finds her prince, thinking only of her, has left her several lovely gifts:

Gift #1: little yellow droplets all over the throne.

There is nothing more exciting as you rush to the bathroom after hours of holding your sleep pee (especially when there’s a little princess in your belly) than finding the end result of your prince’s shaky shake drying method all over the seat. If your prince is like mine, he will try to convince you that he did NOT pee on the seat, and rather the “water pressure” in the toilet must have kicked up the little droplets as it swirled toward the hole. Do NOT believe this. After several months of Magnum PI style investigation, I have witnessed firsthand my husband stumbling to the bathroom half awake, to lean one arm against the wall, finish his business, and let the dragon flail. I’m fairly sure the dragon’s poor aim, and not the innocent toilet water is to blame.

Gift #2: an empty toilet paper roll, where a full one once lived.

Oh, what a treat. Clearly the prince’s 45 minute session locked in the bathroom last night did not leave him time to make the 20 second jaunt down the hall to grab a full roll. Apparently THAT time was better spent perusing the “hometown hotties” article in his new Maxim. That’s fine, I mean I personally feel there’s no better way to start your day than a seated shaky shake dance followed by the thighs together shuffle to the toilet paper closet. It really sets the tone for the day.

Gift #3: the remnants of his shaving stubble upon the vanity!

Glorious! Such a thoughtful gift! Luckily in our castle, the prince and princess have separate vanities so that the princess doesn’t gag every time she needs to wash her hands, or put on makeup in the morning. This princess also doesn’t clean her prince’s shower for fear of finding the remnants of his “manscaping”. That *might* set me over the edge.

Gift #4: Empty cans or glasses of ale, left throughout the castle.

This precious gift can be found after the prince has some of his friends over. Any princess who’s been to a bachelor pad or fraternity house is well aware that princes lack the awareness that empty beer cans belong in the trash can, not on the floor/tv stand/coffee table/back of the toilet/etc. Unfortunately, they also apparently lack the ability to throw them away. After the prince and his brother had a fun night of video game playing and beer drinking, I opened the door to the man cave and swore by the scent that I’d opened a friggin’ time portal to a frat party afterhours.

Gift #5: Magazines that do not belong in a princess’s castle

We have a guest bathroom. In that guest bathroom there is a magazine rack that typically holds our “classier” subscriptions like “Wine Spectator”,“Town and Country”, “Business Week”, etc. (I don’t know why they’re in there. It’s not like I think someone is going to come over to my house and make the kind of transaction in my guest bathroom that would necessitate a magazine to read. Nonetheless, I like to keep them in there.) What I don’t love is finding my husband’s wrinkled/crinkled/waterlogged Maxim hiding among its more educated friends. Believe me, I love that girl from “how I met your mother”, but the last thing the manatee needs right now is to stumble upon a magazine with the girl scantily clad on the cover alongside a headline that reads “no fail - no strings sex with your ex”. Eww. I’m pretty sure “happily ever after” means no more curiously flipping through the pages of THAT mag. That activity was reserved for your time as a maiden, waiting on your friends to finish their business with their boyfriends at the fraternity house, while avoiding the stare of a creepy love starved drunk dude.

Gift #6: The scent of a prince

Ahhh, my favorite gift. This is the gift that first gave this princess the assurance I lived with a prince. It was a Tuesday morning shortly after we moved in together. My prince had made a delicious pot of chili the night before. We enjoyed the chili, then giggling, snuggled into bed together. OUR bed, yaaay! I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning in the 1x1 foot square of bed space that was left over after the prince made himself comfortable. When the alarm went off I decided that I should go pee pee and take a nice relaxing bath to relieve the muscle pain of being curled up fetal style all night. Roughly 20 minutes later I heard my husband rise from the dead and hop in the shower. “Hurray!” I thought. “I can get out of the tub and stretch out in the bed all by myself!”. So I got out of the tub, dried off quickly, ran and jumped face first horizontally into our comfy queen sized bed. My face landed on his side.

There are a couple facts I’d like you to take note of here:

1.       My husband had eaten chili the night before

2.       He’d been left alone in the bed for several minutes before I arrived

3.       I flopped onto the bed FACE DOWN landing roughly where he had been laying

Now, for those of you princesses who have lived a “happily ever after”, you might be aware of what came next. I, being new to the fairytale had no warning of what I was about to experience:

A scent so powerful, I was fairly certain Satan himself had hosted a rotten onion eating contest and emerged from the pits of hell to release his toxic fumes into our sheets. It was so potent I immediately teared up and started gagging. Really GAGGING. The worst part was that the scent also rendered me momentarily paralyzed, so I was left to lay there motionless, praying for God to let me survive.

Nothing I have EVER produced (even with the help of my little princess) could hold a candle… err a match… to that abomination.

 So, to the other princesses of the land, I would recommend having Clorox wipes/trash bags ready, extra rolls hidden behind the bathroom curtains, and a VERY carefully restricted diet for your prince. Also be weary of his dragon. It has the magic power to turn you from fair maiden into bitter manatee.

congrats!!! you're having a...

hemorrhoid.

There are some things I know for certain: The sky is blue, the grass is green, and young hip sexy people don't bust out the make-up mirror in the bathtub to reveal that the little sore spot on their bum they've been trying to avoid is a hemorrhoid. How can I confirm that's what I have? Well a fantastic 5 minutes on google image search with the filter off did the trick. A 5 minutes of my life I will never get back (and some images I will never get out of my head no matter how many gruesome horror flicks I watch) confirmed the sad sad truth.

Apparently these are pretty common, particularly in the throws of pregnancy when an already craptastic large intestine refuses to do it's job and eliminate your poo poo properly. This leads to a bathroom experience that must be meant to prepare you for the great birthing event, because it leaves you red faced in a puddle of your own tears in horror on the bathroom floor. The biggest "f*** you" insult sphincter and friends throw at you is that when you glance into the bowl expecting to see a poo the size of texas, you're let down by the little rock hard egg sized turd smiling back at you.

Great. And I have to push out an 8 pounder.

To get through this horror I've named the hemorrhoid. I lovingly call him "hemi". From what I've learned "hemi" will be with me for quite some time. He'll be a lonely little guy until after my daughter joins the world, at which point he'll be surrounded by several friends. I'm warm and fuzzy in anticipation.

The happy smiley rainbow side of this story is that as I flash back to the days as a child spent with my grandparents, I remember my grandmother yelling "Wendell bring me my Metamucil and Preparation H" from her corner bedroom. I know this is significant because my grandparents were certainly adults. I've had several "coming of age" events in my life - getting a driver's license, surviving my 21st birthday party, buying a house, getting married, etc. etc., but surely THIS event is the one that seals the deal. I'm a real grown up.

Maybe in like 5 years when I can drink again and the bartender cards me, rather than flashing him my license as proof of age, I'll just bend over and let him meet "hemi".

Mom Undies.

I'm pregnant. Duh.

I'm also a girl. Duh.

As a female I tend to try from time to time to be reasonably desirable to the opposite sex. That's how I got all knocked and shiz. Duh.

Let's talk about last Saturday. The day I stopped climbing sexy mountain and fell over the cliff into the abyss of mom-like asexual nerdom.

I'm at target checking out the after Christmas deals on wrapping paper (it's 75% off, ok, and it's wrapping paper?!).

Always the thrifty clearance shopper, I decide to check out the deals in other departments. This leads me to the p.j. section. Being that the Manatee must either wear her husbands shirts to bed or sleep in her natural state, I thought it might be nice to find a comfy" XXL matching set to snuggle into.

Just then, like a bear to raw picnic meat, I was drawn to a wall I had never seen. It was a wall...
of underpants.

Cotton underpants.

In multi-packs.

At first I laughed at the happy models on the bags in their high waisted mom undies. "Silly models, don't you realize those undies go up past your belly button? Haha... ha... ha." Then I picked up a pack. "These patterns are kinda cute" I thought. Next it was "7 pairs for $6?, I mean its NOT like I'm ever gonna want these after I have this baby and shed the Manatee pounds. I can just burn them all in a huge voodoo fire or Tyler can use them to dry the car.... or cover it". Then I .... tossed them quickly in the cart.

If you are a girl reading this entry, you understand why this is a turning point.
As a young, reasonably attractive woman you do not buy cotton underpants in the MULTI-PACK. You might occasionally go for the 5 for $25 deals, but that's different.
You typically shop for small, sexy underpants in synthetic fabrics or silk, most with little to no coverage. Most of the time, there is no real point in wearing these underwear, and in fact you don't plan to wear them long anyway, should they serve their intended purpose.

Not these. I could have wrapped myself in the luxurious cotton cocoon of these giant underpants and stayed there forever. And. I. Couldn't. Have. Cared. Less.

Until I was forced the flop them onto the conveyor at the register... or the BELT OF SHAME as I like to think of it.

Any girl who's bought pads, tampons, condoms, pregnancy tests, etc. can relate. There's a feeling of shame that comes along with this, especially if the person checking you out at the register happens to be an 18 boy who looks at your mom undies and smirks as he places them in the sack.

That's right "Brandon", momma's wearing GIANT cotton underpants. Put that in your bank for later.

XOXO,

Manatee

Let's get started.

I tend to overshare.

Anyone who knows me knows this.

To some, it's an endearing part of what makes Beth (Kidder) Payne a fun person to be around, and for others it's the first time they've heard a girl talk about the size, color and consistency of her poop. Either way the avalanche of overshare is difficult to escape if you're anywhere near me. 

Last week I laughed off a suggestion from my boss that since it seems "I have a lot to share" maybe I should start a blog. I'm not much of a writer, or speller, so the idea of that was about as appealing as "writing" one of those 6 page lab reports I was tasked with in college... (except that I never really wrote one of those on my own, I mean what are lab partners and TA's for? Team work is a very valuable life skill.). Once I thought more about it, and caught myself in roughly my 5th breast milk joke of the day, I decided that this might be a lovely outlet to vent, especially as I cope with the incredible life changes that go along with being a new wife and (soon to be) mother. Eeps.

So while I can't promise you correct grammar, spelling, punctuation or fancy schmancy vocab, I CAN promise you to keep it as real as it gets. Lucky for you in the blog world, (unlike the real world) if it gets TOO real, you can just stop reading. Winner winner chicken dinner.

<3

BKP