Forward for the Book

I don’t know why they call it the “glow” of pregnancy unless “they” are your friends who are trying to explain away the acne that has returned from your adolescence and attacked your face just because you are having hormonal changes, knowing that you can’t use ProActiv while you are pregnant. “They” could be your husband trying to make himself feel better after you have gotten so angry about the smell of the trash that he hasn’t emptied in the last hour that your face has turned red and is about to split open. (Then he proceeds to blame all smells on your pregnancy “super sniffer”…) Perhaps “they” is your mother-in-law who has forgotten her glasses and prefers to assume that your rotund figure and pudgy appendages are due to her fuzzy eyesight and not that you are retaining water and you are only in the 22nd week.

It is equally as astounding to me that “they” have dubbed childbirth a miracle. As a devout Christian, I have studied this miracle and its origins and I’m pretty sure it was a curse bestowed on Eve (for which every woman in the world will “get” her in Heaven) after she ate of the forbidden fruit and led her husband to do the same. The miracle is that we, the women of this day and age, after knowing all the ins an outs (unless you are a crazy person who thought you were invincible and had sex without a condom) of this so called miracle, choose to do it once and then, if we are really crazy, over and over (Hello! 19 Kids and Counting, you are nuts!) What I do hear over and over is, “No one told me that was going to happen!” That being a variety of different curse like things that occur. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not writing all of this to scare away those who want to get pregnant and have their kids the old fashioned way, or any other way. I just want to share with those who are going through pregnancy, or have gone through it, or are considering going through it. We are a sisterhood that loves to gab about our experiences and I know that there are many women out there who are all holding back a Jerry Springer moment when someone comments to them (after only 9 weeks of pregnancy), “How are your ankles holding up?”