Things The Books Tell You - (And Don't)

I know I have already waxed furious on the many symptoms of pregnancy that no one ever mentions until you're pregnant - and I wasn't nearly as in depth as I could have been on some of the stranger symptoms, (like all the weird things your digestion does, or the gas!! Ye gods, the gas!!!)

But there are other aspects of being pregnant that are just as obnoxious as the physical symptoms. For example, food restrictions:

Pregnant women should avoid the following -

uncooked eggs or egg products...

Sounds like a no brainer, but you might not realize that some dishes, (like house-made caesar salad in restaurants), contain raw eggs.

uncooked meats and fish...

again a no brainer, but that includes things like salamis, deli meats, sushi, smoked salmon...sure, you can eat any of the above, provided you heat them all to 145 degrees first. I don't know about you, but that just sounds disgusting.

certain kinds of fish - high in mercury...

the older and larger a fish, the more time it has had to build up unpleasantly high levels of toxic mercury in its body. These are to be avoided. Fish like shark, swordfish, and tile fish. And even though other species of fish are GOOD for baby, because of the omega 3 fatty acids they contain, you're still supposed to limit your fish intake to 12 ounces a week.

unpasteurized products, including milks and other dairy products, and farm-stand ciders...

who knew, right? Most dairy products in the US of A are pasteurized, but you can't take that for granted. And sometimes, having to ask if a cheese is pasteurized in a restaurant can lead to a wonderful "my waiter and I went back and forth for 10 minutes because I kept asking if the cheese that came with the salad was pasteurized, and he kept telling me, "it's fried!"" story to tell later. Same with ciders, but take care when buying from a small-production farm stand.

unwashed fruits and veggies...

I'll bet we all remember the big outbreak of e.coli poisoning off spinach a few years back, yeah? It's best to wash and rewash every fresh fruit and veggie you intend to eat, even if it says it's already been washed on the package. Can't hurt, might help.

All of that advice is designed primarily to help pregnant women avoid infections of listeria, e.coli and salmonella - which can cross the placental barrier and lead to miscarriage, birth defects, or stillbirth. When you're pregnant, you'll hear lots of people tell you, "I never did that when I was pregnant, and all my kids turned out fine!" And chances are you won't get food poisoning if you ignore all the advice and nutritional rules and spend all day guzzling unwashed lettuce and anonymous soft cheeses.

But having experienced one miscarriage, and a fairly early one at that, I'm not certain ANYTHING is worth that risk - especially in mid to late pregnancy, when you've invested so much blood, sweat and tears into the thing.

Let's forget about the serious stuff for a second though, and talk about some of the other things that folks don't mention until you're pregnant, and it's TOO LATE.

like sleeping arrangements:

The latest studies show that sleeping on your left side is the most optimal position for your growing fetus, and your own system - it allows your liver to operate at top capacity, (because sleeping on your left ensures that your uterus isn't squishing the liver over on the right-hand side of your body), while sleeping on either side prevents the uterus from squishing a major vein (the inferior vena cava) running down your back - which supplies blood to both you and the fetus. Sleeping on the left improves circulation and allows for the best blood flow to the uterus, fetus and kidneys.

Sleeping on your stomach becomes uncomfortable early on in pregnancy, especially if you bloat up like a blowfish in your first trimester the way I did, and later on in your pregnancy it becomes impossible because then you're basically sleeping while balancing on top of a beach ball.

So. The left side is best, the right side is ok but only if you're cool with having your fetus use your liver for a mattress all night long. And frankly, since I'm not drinking alcohol or even much caffeine, and I'm avoiding dangerous foods etc, what ELSE does my liver have to do but hang out and cushion things? It's like a 9 month long vacation for your liver. It can bloody well make itself useful in SOME way.*

All of that you can get out of a pregnancy book. But here's something they DON'T tell you.

It's freaking uncomfortable to sleep on only one side of your body. Even on a ridiculously fabulous and very plush pillow top mattress, or the even MORE ridiculous and plush tempurpedic mattress that I have. Your left arm and shoulder go numb, you get a crick in your neck no matter how many times you pound your pillow into the correct shape, and the point of your hip starts to ache like you wouldn't believe. It becomes necessary to roll to a different position. I always start the night on the left, and flop between the left and the right side as necessary.

But there's a small problem with flopping onto my right side that has nothing to do with my liver and/or its new role as Bob pillow...the fact of the matter is, I'm not alone in my bed. That guy I married is sleeping in it too. And a significant portion of the time, when I flop onto my right side, he is either ALREADY sleeping on his left, or my flopping wakes him up and he then ROLLS onto his left.

And when he is lying there, facing me, he breathes directly into my airspace. And then I might as well be in a tiny cave deep underground behind a rock slide, aware that I am slowly running out of oxygen. I literally cannot breathe. I feel like he is sucking all that is good and noble out of the air around me, and replacing it with deadly and noxious gases. There have been nights where I have sincerely considered disposing of Sandy, and replacing him in bed with a lovely, large-leaved house plant - which would sit there patiently night after night sucking in my carbon dioxide and breathing out delicious pure oxygen at me. Mmmmm...

Anyway, when confronted with an oxygen-thieving husband in the middle of the night, your options as a pregnant woman are few. They are as follows:

1. Roll back onto your left side and lie there, cursing furiously under your breath, until you hear him roll over onto his other side. Then roll back to your right and hope this time he stays where he belongs, with his back to you. Dammit.

2. Squinch down in bed until you're level with his chest and too far below his deadly carbon dioxide breath to be bothered by it.

3. Smack him and yell "QUIT STEALING MY AIR, YOU BASTARD! ROLL OVER!"

Would anyone care to guess which of the three options above I usually plump for?

I'll bet you guessed three, didn't you? Well, I HAVE, but only on a few occasions and only after I had tried the first option first. It usually goes like this...

I wake up, and roll onto my right side. Sandy is facing me, exhaling his noxious vapors. I groan and roll back onto my left. I fall back asleep. Half an hour later, I wake again. This time my arm and shoulder are completely numb, and my hip is killing me. I roll onto my right side. Hurrah! Sandy has his back to me! But then, you guys...then...just as I arrange my pillow fort into a comfortable configuration and start to doze, he suddenly smacks his lips and rolls back onto his left side, so that he can inundate me with a fresh flood of horrible carbon dioxide.

Under such circumstances, I maintain that even the most patient of pregnant women would snap like a twig.

After the third or fourth time of me poking him viciously and forcing him into a different sleeping position, he erected what he terms "The Barrier."

It is a standard-sized pillow, erected standing up on one of its long sides, so that it rises above both of our heads. With The Barrier in place, he can sleep in any position he wants, since his terrible gases are bounced back into his own face and not mine.

The Barrier is the latest addition to what Sandy calls my "Fortress of Solitude" - when pregnant the most comfortable position on your side includes a pillow which you can wrap your arms around, shove under your burgeoning belly, and stuff between your knees to take some of the stress off your (now wider) hips. And if you're sleeping on your left AND right sides, you need a pillow on each side, or you need to drag one pillow with you when you roll over. That can be a bit complicated, since it tends to get tangled up in the sheets and blanket when you roll, and then you have to straighten everything out again before you can fall back asleep. So I've got the pillow I sleep on, and a King-sized pillow running lengthwise down the bed on either side of me. AND then The Barrier. So our bed, despite being a King-sized bed, is rather overrun by pillows.

It looks, in point of fact, like this. (Are you guys ready for my totally awesome Paint abilities?)

Personally, I don't see why Sandy complains about not having much room in the bed. I'm a tiny person and I don't take up THAT much space...

Well. Even if you do flop from the left to the right side all night long, you're still going to wake up feeling a big sore every morning. You may never have realized, pre-pregnancy, how many different positions you sleep in, in the course of an evening - but you sure as heck miss them when you are consciously and unconsciously avoiding them during pregnancy.

So, you wake up sore and miserable, and the NEXT night when it is bedtime, maybe you think to ask your husband if he'd give you a quick massage before you both fall asleep. You're hoping maybe that increasing blood flow to all your limbs through massage will prevent the painful pins and needles, numbness, and pressure pains that you feel during the night.

And your husband, all obliging, agrees. You turn off the lights, you move one or two of the pillows so he can actually reach you, and he starts rubbing your back, one handed. It goes a little something like this:

Husband: *rub. rub. rub*

You: Hurrah!

Husband: *rub. rrru....b. rrrrr...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

You: Dammit!

And within five seconds he is dead to the world, and his hand, which is still squarely in the middle of your back, suddenly weighs SIX MILLION POUNDS. It is boring a hole by sheer mass straight through your body, and in your head all of a sudden your husband is Shirley Manson from The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and his hand is a fluid metal spear to your spine.

There is only one thing you can do here. And that's flop around like a stranded fish, jerking your back about beneath his hand to startle him awake. That restarts his massaging mechanism. Briefly.

Husband: *Jerk awake!* *rub rub rub*

You: *resentful grumble*

Husband: *rub rrrrrrr....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

You: *Oh COME ON!*

Rinse and repeat.

*I realize that is probably not even a little bit true, and that pregnancy places crazy amounts of stress on every freaking organ in my body, my liver not least. But it makes me feel better about squishing it multiple times a night. So shhhhhhh...