I'll be the first one to admit that I am the worst kind of pregnant woman there is. For starters, I get sick to the point of wishing I was dead and find myself spewing complaints about the entire magical process at every opportunity. At the same time, I'm completely awestruck by pregnancy and birth and can't seem to stop talking about placentas and colostrum and the awesomeness that is the female body. My husband is a lucky man, I know.
Thankfully for everyone else, I also become an anti-social sloth who would prefer to binge-watch medical dramas for the better part of a year to offset the acute anxiety of baby-making than all of the above. While some women may glow and ooze prenatal perkiness, I sweat. I wretch. I complain and meticulously count down the days until my belly returns to being a flabby sack of flesh. And then, I forget to buy groceries or make dinner and I'm all "Teehee, oops! Honey, can you pick something up?"
It wouldn't take much to be a more graceful pregnant person than myself. I'm sure most of you are. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that when it comes to winning points for being fun and entertaining, we leave something to be desired.
Here're a few reasons why pregnant women make terrible party guests (or at least I do):
1. Everything makes us gag. So you've just spent the last 12 hours in the kitchen preparing the worlds greatest chili when in walks your pregnant guest. She covers her mouth and asks you, "What is that smell?" before running straight back out the door to boot all over your patio. She doesn't offer to hose it off because it will only make her do it again, so the next guest to arrive does it and spends the rest of the day trying to get the puke smell out of his nose.
2. We're terrible conversationalists. Unless we're talking about our birth plans or whether or not we hired a doula, we seem to completely lose our train of thought and blame it on "baby brain!" Excuse me but, it's real. Also, don't ask us about baby names or epidurals or we'll seriously bite your head off because that is over the line.
3. We can't stay too long because we didn't sleep well (and haven't for the last three months). We are ill-rested and we don't want to hear about how you are, too, because you're hungover. We've been waking up "hungover" for months and it's out of our control. You are talking and you think we're listening, but our eyes our glazed over and we're thinking about being snuggled with our body pillow and nothing more.
4. We get the comfy chair. "Hey, mind if I sit there? My a** feels like it's falling out. K. Thanks."
5. We aren't drinking, therefore we're really just a little bit bored. Aside from a few sips of red wine, we don't get to drink and we're really pissed off about it. We could handle the exhaustion and the crappy tunes way better with a little tequila in our blood. Even if we act like it's totally cool, we are staring at your delicious, perfectly-salted margarita with pure jealousy and rage while we grit our teeth, pat our bellies and tell you we don't mind because "it's so worth it."
6. Everyone wants a piece of us. "Oh, this party was for your birthday? Who cares? Sheila is due in three weeks! Let's gush about that instead." It doesn't matter what the occasion, people want to find out what's going on with the pregnant lady in the room, regardless of her glazed-over eyes, the fart stench following her around the room and her overall disdain for being there.
7. We have to pee. Again. And even though we've spent half the party in the bathroom, we somehow still managed to pee our pants just a little and tell everyone about it.
On behalf of all pregnant women, or at least the ones who are remotely similar, I'd just like to apologize. I promise we'll make it up to you with our birth stories, talking nonstop about our babies and begging you to babysit. For free, of course. That sh*t ain't cheap!