The Brutal Truth Of Your Last Month Of Pregnancy

Three weeks before my due date with my last child, I was lying on the padded table, complete with the super comfy paper banner beneath my giant body as my midwife checked me.

“Put me out of my misery please,” I moaned. “What is this on my crotch? Stir something around in there, would ya? I’m dyin’ over here.”

She informed me there was nothing happening, I wasn’t dilated at all, and it was still going to be a while.

“No, I feel his skull pressing down, and out of my vagina. I can fit a bagel up there I am sure. You are wrong,” I said, fighting the urge to kick her in the face.

“The pressure you are feeling is this large varicosity you have running down your vulva that has sprouted since the last time I saw you. We can get you a support for it to make you more comfortable.”

Let’s just say the picture she pulled up on her computer of the torture chamber she was suggesting I wear to make me more “comfortable” looked like something I’d seen in a bad porno movie once. And her suggestion made me want to flip the table which held all her vagina tools and tell all the other pregnant women to run out of there.

Thing is, I couldn’t so much as sit up without her help, so I had to kindly refuse the contraption that would press that vagina vein closer to my soul and then tell her I needed help getting up.

The last month of pregnancy is absolute bullshit and no one is enjoying themselves for the following reasons:

1. So much pee.

You have to cough? Get ready for a squirt of urine to shoot out. Sneeze? That calls for holding your crotch or pressing your legs together. The slightest giggle? You’ll need to change your clothes.

If you are lucky enough to make it to the pot to pee, as soon as you wipe and stand up to attempt to pull up your massive panties, guess what? More pee will trickle down your leg from the pressure of the body inside you and make you feel like giving up and just buying a diaper.

Bumps in the car are dangerous, bending over is ill-advised, and it’s a good thing you are pretty miserable those last few weeks because laughter can bring on a good golden stream like nothing else.

2. Comfort has left the building.

You are so exhausted, all you can think about is sleep, but there’s no way to get comfortable enough to get a good sleep. Lying down is only semi-doable if you have a dozen pillows surrounding your body. Sitting makes your legs go numb, your back hurts, your hips are out of whack, and anything you eat gives you a screeching case of heart burn.

You are so swollen, nothing fits including bras and shoes, and you wish you could spend your days weightless and naked floating around in a saltwater tub.

If you’ve had the pleasure of pregnancy rhinitis, breathing put of your nose isn’t an option so you can either mouth-breathe which makes eating fun, constantly wear those nasal strips, or live under a steam machine.

3. You hate everyone.

Oh, everyone wants to make you feel better with their stupid-ass suggestions about how to stay comfortable, how to get your labor started, or blabbing about how they had it worse than you have it right now.

They fondle your stomach and tell you to get your rest now because you can forget about that when the baby comes, which is so helpful it makes you want to break something in two with your bare hands.

You can’t sleep and your partner’s night-breathing makes you want to take a pillow to their face because how dare they sleep at a time like this?

Oh, and if you have other children running around or crawling all over you, you want to go live in a cave for the next month.

4. Strange things come out of your body.

Mucus, blood, urine, and milk all flow like the Mississippi and you are just supposed to deal.

Veins and hemorrhoids rear their ugly heads. And they refuse to leave. You hair and nails grow at an alarming rate, but since you can’t bend over to shave your legs, your lower half ends up looking like a jungle.

5. You think labor will start any second. You will be wrong.

You wake up each morning and know today will be the day. There is no way you keep up this charade of walking around with a bowling ball between your legs with people asking you if you are expecting twins for another damn second.

Your belly tightens when you get up, when you walk, when you pick up a gallon of milk and you swear that’s the beginning stages of getting the human out of you. But you are mistaken.

The last month of pregnancy is when you truly see what you are made of. It takes grit, endurance, and a whole lot of willpower to not smack people.

If you see a pregnant person trying to get through their last few weeks, don’t give unsolicited advice, don’t tell them they smell like urine, and don’t, whatever you do, say,”I can’t believe you haven’t had that baby yet,” unless you are wearing some type of protective head gear, mmkay?