Dear Smug Mom-to-Be
Watch those nipples, ladies
I joined a sorority in high school. Part of the hazing was the older girls had to scream at the pledges for like an hour in someone’s basement while her parents watched Matlock in the family room upstairs. The following year it was my friends and I screaming at the pledges in someone’s basement. It was great fun!
There are times in my motherhood tenure where I have felt like an older sorority girl and naive, delicate moms-to-be were my pledges.
I had a pregnant friend once.
I ran into her at Trader Joe’s around her fourteenth week of gestation and she hugged me so tight, I dropped my bag of spicy plant-based BBQ rinds right there in the snack aisle. I hugged her back of course and told her how great it was of course and expressed my excitement of course and then I yelled something like:
WELCOME TO THE CLUB, SUCKER!
“Umm, sucker?” she asked all wide-eyed and innocent. “Is this like a breastfeeding joke?”
Instead of clarifying, I started chuckling and could feel my pupils spinning in my eye sockets. A little bit of spittle was making its way to the corners of my mouth and I started rocking side to side as a guttural moan was making its way up my esophagus. I tried so hard to just smile, say godspeed, and be on my way, but like a werewolf under the light of a full moon, the transmogrification can’t be stopped. I became:
The Smug Mommy Mummy Hunter!
“Oops,” she said, positioning her cart full of organic low sodium pasta sauce and organic hummus between us. “I think I left my wallet in the car. Byeeeeee!”
Okay, was it nice to frighten a newly pregnant woman?
No! I know that, jeez.
That’s what the prep classes and late-night Google searches were for. (Just wait until she starts getting those weekly emails comparing her fetus to a piece of fruit and starts imagining a coconut exiting her body.)
But I think we can all agree that some moms-to-be can be a little…smug? They’re out there strolling around in their empire waist tops, slip on shoes, and belly bands with their big, luscious hair and dewy skin, just waiting for someone to congratulate them. Do they think they’re the first people to have gotten knocked up? Please! I could read them quicker than a People magazine. Their faux-pitying smiles and commiserative eye rolls as us veterans wax on about crumbling pelvic floors and taint tears1. They’re like, Man, that’s bonkers! Slow-clap for your postpartum BM without stool softeners! I hope to one day have your courage and grace! But I know what they’re really thinking: it was hard for us because we’re weak and lack fortitude. They’re from a different generation. Built different. They know the secret handshake and it involves pelvic tilts and nineteen sets of Kegels.
THEM: Why don’t you just go pee your pants or ice your backs, you Negative Nancys!
US: If we were Negative Nancys we wouldn’t have gotten into this mess! We’re Positive Pollys! Well, positive like the + sign— not in our attitude because clearly—
THEM: OMG, your dumb roast last longer than a full-term pregnancy. Get over it!
US: You listen here, Missy! Until you’ve had your internal organs placed on the outside of your body while a human being was excavated from your uterus, you don’t get to tell us what to do!
THEM:
US: Don’t you walk away when I’m talking to you, young lady!
Oh yes, everyone loves to tell a war story and there is no greater battle than BIRTH. The stories get five times more harrowing for each baby shower they’re told at.
My baby wouldn’t let anyone else hold them but me!
My baby and I were literally attached— in a Moby!
My baby and I got trapped in the Moby for three days!
My baby and I got trapped in the Moby for three days IN A TREE!
One time when my baby and I got trapped in the Moby IN A TREE, my baby was so hungry they sucked the nipples right off my body.
THAT IS A TRUE STORY!
Okay, maybe not the Moby in a tree part, but I actually knew a woman who said her little chupacabra was so aggressive with nursing, she developed nipple fissures and— well, honestly, I don’t know because I passed-the-hell out before she finished the story, but I’m pretty sure it ended with “and that’s how I lost my nipples.”
Why is anyone a repeat customer in the procreating business???
Here’s why: Your memory is an asshole. It’s playing ruthless, nasty tricks, making you constantly relive the newborn horror whenever someone within fifty-miles ovulates. You can’t keep those stories inside. It is your calling. You are a postpartum preacher and baby showers, doctor’s offices, and unconventional neighborhood grocery stores are your soapbox. GET OUT THERE AND SPILL THE GRAVIDA GOSPEL!
But soon those war stories start to lose their luster from having been performed so many times. You sensationalize yet still become desensitized.
Then one day out of nowhere you’re like, “Oh I miss the smell of baby heads! Knock me up, Scotty!” or “Now that I totally understand babies, it would be a shame to waste this knowledge! Another round, good fellow!”
If you’re lucky you’ll come to your senses, throw a glass of cold water in your face, smack yourself on the back of your head, and reprimand the loose wire in your brain. Stop talking nonsense! What if someone hears you??? Go back to huffing Dreft detergent while looking at your kid’s ultrasound video like a normal person!
Me? I’m like the dude from Momento who wrote himself daily notes because he had no short-term memory. Except all my markers are the washable kind so like my memories, they’re gone in a few hours.
NEVER FORGET!
YOU WERE SO MISERABLE!
Here’s a tip: Post-It notes work too!
Or hey, treat yourself to nice journal and set of pens from Marshall’s and really go to town!
You never slept!
You were anxious and agitated and possessed gloomier thoughts than a Juice WRLD song!
You never left your house!
You sucked at breastfeeding!
You missed alcohol!
You cried over spilt milk!
Infant car seats are so heavy!
Maternity jeans were so comfortable!
Wait.
What?
NO!
STOP IT!
NEVER FORGET!
But gosh, that giant elastic waistband was so cozy.
NO! MATERNITY PANTS WERE NOT AS FLATTERING AS YOU THOUGHT!
Here’s the thing: moms-to-be should be a little smug and roll their eyes and patronize the war veterans with phony smiles and strategically inserted head nods. The truth is our war stories mean nothing. They’re out of context grim fairy tales. Nothing can prepare them because they don’t know what they’re preparing for.
That cold, dark, deep down fear that follows you like a lazy, but determined stalker. You made a very big mistake. You won’t like being a parent. You don’t like your baby or what your life has become. Your marriage is tanked. You might accidentally kill your baby. You might purposely kill your partner. The fear that you will forget how bad those early months or years were until the next time you conjure two pink lines out of your own urine.
Oh shit, you’ll think. That’s right…
NEVER FORGET!
I saw my pregnant friend again months later and although she was indeed dewy and rocking those comfy pants, I could see the cracks in her armor. The war stories were getting through and it was becoming harder to be polite. She was starting to wonder what she had done. Should they have gotten another dog? Should they have taken a trip to Bali instead? In just a few months she’ll be where the rest of us were: awake and topless at four AM while a stranger paws at her boobs. (Wait, maybe that is like a trip to Bali?) She’ll question why no one told her it was going to be this hard. She’ll burst into tears every time she sees a bag of plant-based BBQ snack rinds, but can’t figure out why. And in a year she’ll take delight in scaring the mucus plugs out of her own smug pregnant friends.
What I should have told her (and all the pregnant ladies I scare at grocery stores) is that the clichés are true. It’s the hardest job you’ll ever have. You don’t get paid and you can’t quit.
But it’s also the most magical, astonishing, and joyful experience you may ever have and maybe we don’t talk about that part enough2. Those stories are true too. There will come a point where you miss your child when they’re sleeping thirteen feet away. When you’ll want to hang out with them instead of bingeing a true-crime docuseries on Netflix or wander around Nordstrom Rack for three hours looking for pregnancy pants or non-pregnant people. Scoring thirty-seven Thomas and Friends trains for $200 from some rando on Craig’s List will become your greatest accomplishment even though you grossly overpaid and meeting randos from Craig’s List in the sketchy Walgreens parking lot of is not a great idea.
So when the panic attacks come on more frequently than Law and Order reruns and you want to sue the hospital for not showing the infant CPR video until after you were pregnant, do this: Get a big stack of Post-Its and write yourself notes. Be honest! The future you won’t have your resolve.
And when you need someone to hold your baby, hand ‘em over. Because baby heads really do smell good and I totally understand babies now. It would be a shame to waste this knowledge.
XO,
Shelly3
Not me, thank you C-Section, but wow! These stories are wild! At least what I heard before passing out.
We don’t. Or rather I don’t because it’s not as funny and this is supposed to be a humor rag!
is it weird that in the audio version, I actually read my name? “Love you! Shelly” like you didn’t know who I was? I’m very literal I guess.
AHAHAHAHA 🤣 I needed this so much!!!! This is absolutely, exactly how I have felt during my conversations with my 8 million pregnant friends (we are all in our late 30s rushing against the deadline because someone told us high-achievers we were supposed to prioritize our careers and completely ignored how much HARDER pelvic floor recovery is post 35).
Thank you for putting words to this weird desire to terrify my glowing pregnant friends with my horror stories.
So funny ! Can’t get enough of it.