33: Very Very

My brain feels soft and smooth and I am getting sporadically yoinked in the lungs by the small humanoid that lives inside my body, a dynamic that may persist for the next 12 hours or the next 6 weeks. My dog died the day after I last wrote. It is fall in Atlanta and actually almost feels like fall. I am happy and sad and tired and coiled like a spring about to fly. It is a very very strange time. 

Not many people read this newsletter, but I have reason to believe at least 3 of those who do are currently pregnant, and perhaps there are others. I have learned some things about some things over the last few months and I am going to share them with you now. They’re mostly things you can buy to make yourself feel more or less like yourself, and also some things to read. Perhaps they’ll be of use in a very very strange time of your own.

༻༺

First trimester heroes:

• SeaBands, aka Pla-ce-Bands. Well, they didn’t not help.

• Outshine frozen fruit popsicles. Saved my life in many dark hours, which unfortunately means I now find them inedible. More for you!

• Glow Up: Britain’s Next Makeup Star. Ding DONG, darling.

Things:

• OFFLINE By Aerie Real Me High Waisted Foldover Leggings. I would join a deeply dysfunctional MLM for these.

• True & Co True Body V Neck Bra. These are all I wear anyway and I didn’t need to buy a single new bra! Partly because their sizing and fabric stretchiness is incredibly inconsistent so my regular size is actually several sizes. So, get a few.

• Old Navy Maternity Full-Panel Rib-Knit Biker Shorts. Only downside is the lack of pockets.

• These do have pockets but bear the regrettable brand name POSHDIVAH. 

• My #1 most comfortable hand-me-down was a dress from Motherhood Maternity, another name that gives me chills.

• My #2 most comfortable hand-me-down was a pair of pajama pants from an apparently-no-longer-extant maternity sleepwear line called Bump In The Night. RIP.

• There are many shapes and sizes of pregnancy pillows, all with ghastly names. (Are we sensing a theme? Why am I like this?) I opted for freshman dorm vibes.

• I once scoffed at the concept of an “emotional support water bottle,” but no longer. Mine is one of several Tervii. 

Advice:

• Don’t Google it unless you really REALLY need to Google it. 

• Join a pregnancy subreddit. I don’t understand how these groups come to be, they seem to just ploop out of the ether, but whenever you happen to be due, there are somehow already hundreds of other people due the same month posting about the weird stuff happening to their bodies and lives, and everyone is named, like, “jingleberrygal” and “Abject_Pontoon_86,” and it’s refreshingly sane to a degree I forgot the internet could be. 

• Babylist has been handy for doing a registry, and I found their week-by-week updates unexpectedly charming. (“Week 35: Baby is the size of a George Foreman grill.” Precise! Evocative!)

• Facebook Marketplace. Ughhh. But when people want baby shit out of their house THEY WANT IT OUT OF THEIR HOUSE and you can find many good deals on gently-used or never-used stuff for your own baby to gently or never use. And some extremely upsetting vintage cribs. 

• When someone offers you hand-me-downs, just say yes. Let your future self sort it out. (I decided on this approach early on and stand by it, even though I’ve since become the future self to which the sorting-out was delegated.) 

Books:

• Emily Oster, Expecting Better. Clarified so much bullshit advice. She seems to have become someone about whom people have Weird Feelings but I will be forever grateful for all the guilt-free Jimmy Johns and sushi she has empowered me to consume.

• Rivka Galchen, Little Labors and Meghan O’Connell, And Now We Have Everything and Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts all gave me hope for what I might still be able to do with my baby-broken brain.

• Angela Garbes, Like a Mother. You’ll never forget your first (exposure to the concept of pregnancy microchimerism). Up next is her Essential Labor.

• Chelsea Conaboy, Mother Brain. What timing — I listened to the audiobook the week it came out and honestly can’t imagine going into the next few weeks/months of my life without it.