Giving Things Up

Even though I should be a pro at guesstimating my due date by now, my jaw dropped when I found out that my assumptions on my current pregnancy were wrong. It's likely that yours were too. Don't worry, this is normal and not the beginnings of bad parenting.

We (moms) swear to know the moment of conception. We begin to count out the seconds, days (or nights), and weeks to predict our own due date. So, it's no surprise that when the doc pulls out the plastic, color-coded calender wheel from their official doctor jacket, we are baffled to learn that we are more than a few weeks off.

Have you ever truly read the statistics on pregnancy? Wait! Don't! In fact, don't read anything about pregnancy when you're pregnant - the contradictions from one doctor's book/article to the next will make you hysterical. Pregnancy is so complicated that even the pros can't agree on the subject. But, that's a topic for some other time.

In a traditional reproductive method, more than 100-million sperm are released and only 1 of those will make its way through several layers of a woman's egg, and that's only if the woman is ovulating, which means there is an egg available for the sperm to fertilize. (I wonder if this is where the term "one-in-a-million" came from?) If the egg is not there, the little guys will hang out for about 5 days waiting on the female egg, which is typical of a male:female relationship. With such a complicated and time sensitive occurrence, how can pregnant women expect to ever figure out when the fertilization process began? So, give up trying.

Another jaw dropper for us moms is when we find out that we're actually preggo for 10 months and not the suggested 9 months we've heard ever since sex-ed class in junior high. From the time of conception to the average time a baby is born at 42 weeks is really 10 & 1/2 months. WTF? Trust me, I'm feelin' your pain! 

The first time I became pregnant it was "we're pregnant" as in me and my husband. I didn't think twice about giving up certain things deemed bad for my health and the health of the baby for 42 weeks. With this pregnancy, there's a stronger emphasis on the "I" and what I'm giving up. It includes everything that I can't, or that I am not suppose to do. When I found out this time, after I had my "Oh shit" moment, I thought about another long, hot summer with morning sickness, no more caffeinated beverages, another 10 months of dark roots, and another beerless football season.

Then I did something a woman never has to give up when they're preggo - I went shopping.

Until next time, it's all fun and games until someone gets pregnant...