Painful Labor: My Anti-Drug.

There comes a point in every pregnancy where you cross the thin line between being Cute Pregnant and Pregnant Pregnant. It's right around the time where you officially outgrow all of your pre-preggo clothes... even the baggy sweats. It's the same week where strangers start asking you about your pregnancy, whereas before, you just got lingering, curious looks from people who had visible thought bubbles above their heads that read, "Is she pregnant, or did she just put on few pounds?"

All of that came to a head for me last week- Tuesday, to be exact. My hormones weren't peremptory enough to handle the caving of my self-esteem, so my night landslided from mild bummer to hysterical sobbing.

I had a doctor's appointment the very next morning, and as I sat in the waiting room, my face actually ached from all the crying I had done the night before. "Ah, buck up, Nicole," I told myself. "You're not fat, you're pregnant. This is perfectly normal. You're carrying all the weight right up front in your belly, and you're very active. You're actually very healthy! You have nothing to be bummed out about. You're doing a great job."

The nurse called my name and I pushed myself out of my chair and waddled over to the scale outside of the examination room. I hopped on the platform, not entirely too concerned about what the numbers were.

Until the nurse shrieked, "YOU GAINED TEN POUNDS?"

"Um... here, let me take off my shoes!" Silly me, wearing my platform wedges to the doctor! They had to be a few pounds each, right? I mean, they were pretty high. And I remember that last month, I was weighed barefoot. So ha ha, this is some kind of human error. Maybe my wedges were lined with concrete! I mean, they did feel really, um, sturdy.

Back on to the scale I went, trying to clear my mind of any negative thoughts, because those probably weighed a few pounds as well. The nurse tapped at the sliding thingy, but the scale didn't move. I tried using the Jedi Mind Trick, and slowly, ever so slowly, the scale tipped a bit. And by a bit, I mean, like, half a pound.

Gaining ten pounds in one month doesn't keep you in good graces with your doctor. I am 26 weeks into my pregnancy (out of an estimated 40) and have already accumulated about 20 pounds of extraness. In a perfect world, I should only gain 25-35 pounds throughout the entire gestation, but obviously I do not live in a perfect world. If I did, Sanjaya would have gone home weeks ago, and I could continue to binge on Ben and Jerry's. In my defense: really, it's all in my belly. It's really all mostly in my belly. Kinda.

And, it didn't stop there. Apparently (and I say "apparently" because I now believe that my doctor just really likes to freak me out) my sugar levels are really high. Because of my rapid weight gain, the fact that my baby appears to be big for her age (which they determine with a freaking tape measure across your belly, by the way), my sugar levels, and the fact that my son was over 9 pounds, apparently I am a prime candidate for gestational diabetes. I got a long lecture from my doctor about my diet and an order to go back to the blood lab for a glucose tolerance test.

Ah, the glucose tolerance test. You show up to the blood lab of your choice after 12 hours of fasting. They hand you a bottle of what looks like orange soda, and what tastes like Orange Soda Ass. Picture this- you and a convertable full of friends are going on a cross-country road trip. As you're driving through the desert, you happen upon a dusty gas station. You go inside for refreshments and select a bottle of orange soda. You open it, take a sip, screw the cap back on, and forget about it. For the rest of your road trip, your soda is on the floor of the car, rolling around, getting hot, losing carbonation. When you get back home, you pop it into the refridgerator just long enough to bring it down from throat-scalding hot. It's basically orange-flavored syrup with some fizz in it, to make a long story short. You're then given five minutes to drink the entire bottle, and forced to sit in the waiting room for a full hour before the real testing- the blood withdrawal- can begin.

If you're lucky in the same way that I'm lucky, you'll get the rookie lab tech who tells you that you have Resistent Veins. But it's more like, "This is my very first day on the job ever ever! You have Resistent Veins! How dare you come to get your blood drawn wearing your resistent veins, didn't you know better when you were getting dressed this morning? Couldn't you have just as easily put on your Cooperative Veins, you impossible bitch? Maybe if I tweak the needle 90 degrees up, that'll show those veins who's boss! Grr! Lemme just wiggle this needle around a little, ah ah ah there we go..."

So now, I wait for my lab results. Being on such a restrictive diet is... what's the word? A BITCH. No sugar for me, not even natural sugars like fruit. No carbs. Low fat. Lean proteins. No fun. This is not ideal for a girl like me, who believes any problem can be cured with a cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake. Or a big bowl of pasta. Or ice cream. I literally felt like a drug addict going through withdrawls. It had a tremendous effect on my disposition. I just had to repeat to myself over and over again, "Would you rather have (insert forbidden foodstuff here) or a slightly easier labor?" Sigh. I'll pick a healthy baby over something I can dip in ranch dressing any day... but that doesn't mean I won't complain about it in the meantime.