Biting my ninja tongue

I’m still waiting to glow.

Not grow – I’m doing plenty of that. Today when I looked in the mirror I looked like I was smuggling a beach ball. Sigh.

I’ve gotten two good reports in a row from the doctors and you’d think that I’d be dancing in the streets. But somehow I can’t stop walking on eggshells. Every twinge and movement is analyzed, every feeling examined and categorized I feel like some sort of alien scientist – I half expect the little grey men from Area 51 to show up and assist.

I’m reading “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” like it’s the key to the universe. This weeks’ message is to expect increased scatterbrained activities. And to prove it – I’ve managed to misplace my ankles – right on cue.

My feet are so swollen that I have one pair of shoes I can wear and my toes look like mini Vienna Sausages.

Remind me again who said pregnant women are beautiful?

Because I feel like a hippo, look like a manatee and waddle like a duck. Proof that God has a sick sense of humour.

Maybe it’s a “nature” thing. Make the increasingly pregnant woman so repulsive that no other mammal will come near thing. The natural defences of a pregnant human female, on display for everyone to see. Only it doesn’t quite work that way does it?

Apparently the physical appearance of a woman in the advanced stages of pregnancy is an open invitation for anyone over the age of 50 to walk up and start talking, and/or touching the increasing baby bump.

I’ve gotten advice, unsolicited advice, from complete strangers on how to avoid tearing in labour and delivery. Apparently the sight of a woman in her eighth month is license to throw out all social rules and jump right to talking about the female genitalia.

And then there’s the twenty-year-old that has the same appointment schedule with the OB who tells me all about childbirth and newborns every time we’re sitting in the waiting room. I’m almost thirty-six years old – I’ve brought one or both my kids to more appointments than I can count and she thinks this is my first dog and pony show…maybe there’s something to that scatterbrained thing after all.

Only a few more weeks – I can do a few more weeks – right? I just have to keep biting my tongue, reminding myself not to go ninja on the old touchy feely folks and to nod and smile at the chick in the OB’s office all the while swelling and aching and waddling my way to the dignity-devoid space of the delivery room.

I can do that…I just need a lobotomy and a couple of good stiff drinks to get me there.